They demanded his dismission, and the king exhorted him to resign his office; but he refusing to take any step that might indicate a fear of his enemies or a consciousness of guilt, the king sent a peremptory order for the seals by the lord Jersey, to whom Somers delivered them without hesitation.

They were successively offered to lord chief justice Holt, and Trevor the attorney-general, who declined accepting such a precarious office.

Meanwhile the king granted a temporary commission to three judges to sit in the court of chancery; and at length bestowed the seals, with the title of lord keeper, on Nathan Wright, one of the sergeants at law, a man but indifferently qualified for the office to which he was now preferred.

Though William seemed altogether attached to the tories and inclined to a new parliament, no person appeared to take the lead in the affairs of government; and, indeed, for some time the administration seemed to be under no particular direction.
SECOND TREATY OF PARTITION.
During the transactions of the last session, the negotiation for a second partition treaty had been carried on in London by the French minister Tallard, in conjunction with the earls of Portland and Jersey, and was soon brought to perfection.

On the twenty-first day of February the treaty was signed in London; and on the twenty-fifth of the next month it was subscribed at the Hague by Briord, the French envoy, and the plenipotentiaries of the states-general.