Fenwick never having had any direct communication with those he accused, it caused Godolphin and Marlborough to break off their dangerous course of perfidy.[197] _Ill success of the war._--Amidst these scenes of dissension and disaffection, and amidst the public losses and decline which aggravated them, we have scarce any object to contemplate with pleasure, but the magnanimous and unconquerable soul of William. Mistaken in some parts of his domestic policy, unsuited by some failings of his character for the English nation, it is still to his superiority in virtue and energy over all her own natives in that age that England is indebted for the preservation of her honour and liberty; not at the crisis only of the revolution, but through the difficult period that elapsed until the peace of Ryswick. A war of nine years, generally unfortunate, unsatisfactory in its result, carried on at a cost unknown to former times, amidst the decay of trade, the exhaustion of resources, the decline, as there seems good reason to believe, of population itself, was the festering wound that turned a people's gratitude into factiousness and treachery. It was easy to excite the national prejudices against campaigns in Flanders, especially when so unsuccessful, and to inveigh against the neglect of our maritime power. Yet, unless we could have been secure against invasion, which Louis would infallibly have attempted, had not his whole force been occupied by the grand alliance, and which, in the feeble condition of our navy and commerce, at one time could not have been impracticable, the defeats of Steenkirk and Landen might probably have been sustained at home. The war of 1689, and the great confederacy of Europe, which William alone could animate with any steadiness and energy, were most evidently and undeniably the means of preserving the independence of England. That danger, which has sometimes been in our countrymen's mouths with little meaning, of becoming a province to France, was then close and actual; for I hold the restoration of the house of Stuart to be but another expression for that ignominy and servitude.