and who were ready to recall him without the smallest assurance
that the Declaration of Indulgence should not be instantly
republished, that the High Commission should not be instantly
revived, that Petre should not be again seated at the Council
Board, and that the fellows of Magdalene should not again be
ejected. But the number of these men was small. On the other
hand, the number of those Royalists, who, if James would have
acknowledged his mistakes and promised to observe the laws, were
ready to rally round him, was very large. It is a remarkable fact
that two able and experienced statesmen, who had borne a chief
part in the Revolution, frankly acknowledged, a few days after
the Revolution had been accomplished, their apprehension that a
Restoration was close at hand. "If King James were a Protestant,"
said Halifax to Reresby, "we could not keep him out four months."
"If King James," said Danby to the same person about the same
time, "would but give the country some satisfaction about
religion, which he might easily do, it would be very hard to make
head against him."9 Happily for England, James was, as usual, his
own worst enemy. No word indicating that he took blame to himself
on account of the past, or that he intended to govern
constitutionally for the future, could be extracted from him.
Every letter, every rumour, that found its way from Saint
Germains to England made men of sense fear that, if, in his
present temper, he should be restored to power, the second
tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the Tories, as a
body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there was, at
that moment, no choice but between William and public ruin. They
therefore, without altogether relinquishing the hope that he who
was King by right might at some future time be disposed to listen
to reason, and without feeling any thing like loyalty towards him