not the means of calculating its effects upon Europe. He had
but a meagre knowledge himself of continental politics: he was
assisted by a very inefficient diplomacy. His mind was lost
in a convulsion of which he neither could comprehend the
causes nor calculate the consequences; and forced to act, he
acted not only violently, but in exact opposition to the very
system he was called into political existence to combat; he
appealed to the fears, the prejudices, and the passions of a
privileged class, revived the old policy of the oligarchy he
had extinguished, and plunged into all the ruinous excesses of
French war and Dutch finance.

If it be a salutary principle in the investigation of
historical transactions to be careful in discriminating the
cause from the pretext, there is scarcely any instance in
which the application of this principle is more fertile in
results, than in that of the Dutch invasion of 1688. The real
cause of this invasion was financial. The Prince of Orange
had found that the resources of Holland, however considerable,
were inadequate to sustain him in his internecine rivalry with
the great sovereign of France. In an authentic conversation
which has descended to us, held by William at the Hague with
one of the prime abettors of the invasion, the prince did not
disguise his motives; he said, "nothing but such a
constitution as you have in England can have the credit that
is necessary to raise such sums as a great war requires." The
prince came, and used our constitution for his purpose: he
introduced into England the system of Dutch finance. The
principle of that system was to mortgage industry in order to
protect property: abstractedly, nothing can be conceived more