Defoe reasoned hard and joyfully to prove that the penalty was everything that could be wished, and exactly what he had all along advised and contemplated, but he did not succeed in persuading the masses that the Government had not suffered a defeat.
The impeachment of Sacheverell turned popular feeling violently against the Whigs.

The break up of the Gertruydenberg Conference without peace gave a strong push in the same direction.

It was all due, the Tories shouted, and the people were now willing to believe, to the folly of our Government in insisting upon impossible conditions from the French King, and their shameless want of patriotism in consulting the interests of the Allies rather than of England.

The Queen, who for some time had been longing to get rid of her Whig Ministers, did not at once set sail with this breeze.

She dismissed the Earl of Sunderland in June, and sent word to her allies that she meant to make no further changes.