These discoveries inflamed the people, and murmurs that corruption had eaten into the nation became general. Court and camp, city and senate, were alike denounced. The pamphleteers spoke in strong language. “Posterity,” said the author of one, termed The Price of the Abdication, “will set an eternal brand of infamy upon those members, who, to obtain either offices, profitable places, or quarterly stipends, have combined to vote whatever hath been demanded.” It has been the fashion of a certain class to decry William because he founded the national debt. But the war which he waged was almost a war of necessity, and could not be supported without liberal supplies. There was, however, with William a personal pride in the contest. He had been taught, from his boyhood, hatred to France, and almost in boyhood had checked the universal dominion aimed at by Louis. With him, therefore, opposition to France was a passion; and he who, at the age of twenty-three, bade defiance to the combined power of the two greatest nations of the modern world, remembered, as soon as he reached the English throne, that proud, though bitter moment, when, surrounded by French force, his people determined to let loose the waters which their skill had confined, and from the homes and hearths of their fathers bear their goods, their fortunes, and their persons, and to erect in a new land the flag they would not see dishonored in the old. When, therefore, William of Orange became monarch of England, his first thought was the humiliation of France. To this point he bent the vast energies of England and his own unconquerable will; for this only was his crown valuable, and for this purpose was the power of England strained to the utmost tension. The importance of France was then at its height. Louis sought to sway the councils of Europe; and whoever else might have succumbed, the statesmen of England had been in his power, and a monarch of England in his pay. He saw, therefore, with dislike which was not attempted to be concealed, the throne mounted by one who was resolved, not merely to maintain its ancient greatness, but to quell the power of its ancient rival. Louis sheltered the abdicated king, and encouraged his mock court and his mock majesty. This was sufficient proof of his feeling; nor were other indications wanting: and it is a complete fallacy to suppose that the debt was unnecessarily incurred; in it lay the power of William and the safety of the land.