Tredenham, who returned himself for Saint Mawes; Hammond, who had
been sent to Parliament by the high churchmen of the University
of Cambridge; and Davenant, who had recently, at Poussin's
suggestion, been rewarded by Lewis for some savage invectives
against the Whigs with a diamond ring worth three thousand
pistoles. This supper party was, during some weeks, the chief
topic of conversation. The exultation of the Whigs was boundless.
These then were the true English patriots, the men who could not
endure a foreigner, the men who would not suffer His Majesty to
bestow a moderate reward on the foreigners who had stormed
Athlone, and turned the flank of the Celtic army at Aghrim. It
now appeared they could be on excellent terms with a foreigner,
provided only that he was the emissary of a tyrant hostile to the
liberty, the independence, and the religion of their country. The
Tories, vexed and abashed, heartily wished that, on that unlucky
day, their friends had been supping somewhere else. Even the
bronze of Davenant's forehead was not proof to the general
reproach. He defended himself by pretending that Poussin, with
whom he had passed whole days, who had corrected his scurrilous
pamphlets, and who had paid him his shameful wages, was a
stranger to him, and that the meeting at the Blue Posts was
purely accidental. If his word was doubted, he was willing to
repeat his assertion on oath. The public, however, which had
formed a very correct notion of his character, thought that his
word was worth as much as his oath, and that his oath was worth
nothing.

Meanwhile the arrival of William was impatiently expected. From
Loo he had gone to Breda, where he had passed some time in
reviewing his troops, and in conferring with Marlborough and