CHAPTER X. James, after his defeat on the banks of the Boyne, did not relinquish the hope of recovering his crown. In 1692, amidst preparations for a descent on the shores of England, he issued a Declaration, in which he promised to maintain the rights of the Established Church; but as for his past conduct, he had nothing to retract, nothing to deplore; and as to his future course, he held out no hopes that he would rule otherwise than he had been doing. Not only were all who should resist his new attempt to expect his vengeance, but whole classes of persons, amounting to some thousands, who had incurred his displeasure, were threatened with punishment. High in the list of culprits excluded from mercy, stood Tillotson and Burnet. Such a manifesto, of course, did the Exile’s cause more harm than good; and, therefore, in 1693, he reluctantly published another, pitched in a different key, promising an amnesty to those who would submit, and to all his subjects the restoration of Parliaments, the preservation of the Test Act, and a limitation of the dispensing power. These concessions were as tardy and ineffectual as they were insincere. “After all,” said one who was in the confidence of James, “the object of this Declaration is only to get us back to England. We shall fight the battle of the Catholics with much greater advantage at Whitehall than at St. Germains.”[275] [Sidenote: 1693.] Within the gloomy courts and chambers of the old Palace of St. Germains--which in melancholy stateliness furnishes such a contrast to the cheerful prospect from its windows--James, with his Court of blinded partizans and his crowds of Jesuit priests, was aiming to convert certain English Protestants who had followed his unhappy fortunes, and was planning his return to the land of his fathers, with the hope of reconciling an heretical realm to the true Catholic Church. Schemes of insurrection were contrived before the death of Queen Mary; then came schemes for assassination. Previous to that period, the death of William had offered James no augmentation of hopes; afterwards, to clear off the reigning Prince from the stage seemed an advantageous step. That James originated any plot for the murder of his son-in-law cannot be proved, and ought not to be believed; nor can it be shown that he expressly sanctioned anything of the kind; but it can scarcely be questioned that he knew and connived at what was going on. Insurrection and assassination plots together opened up vistas into which the refugees at St. Germains wistfully peered, as they laid their heads together, and talked over the business in retired corners of the shaded alleys, or in secret nooks of the rambling palace galleries. A hundred priests, it is said, were to attend the anointed King in his expedition, carrying precious relics as pledges of victory--including the image of St. Victor, of which the miraculous virtue upon infidels