"I have seen the paper," he said; "and I grieve to say that there is nothing in it which will give your Lordships any satisfaction." In truth it contained no expression of regret for pass errors; it held out no hope that those errors would for the future be avoided; and it threw the blame of all that had happened on the malice of William and on the blindness of a nation deluded by the specious names of religion and property.

None ventured to propose that a negotiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigid discipline of adversity seemed only to have made more obstinate in wrong.

Something was said about inquiring into the birth of the Prince of Wales: but the Whig peers treated the suggestion with disdain.

"I did not expect, my Lords," exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead, who had commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edgehill, "I did not expect to hear anybody at this time of day mention the child who was called Prince of Wales; and I hope that we have now heard the last of him." After long discussion it was resolved that two addresses should be presented to William.

One address requested him to take on himself provisionally the administration of the government; the other recommended that he should, by circular letters subscribed with his own hand, invite all the constituent bodies of the kingdom to send up representatives to Westminster.