Soon afterwards events transpired which occasioned SIR HENRY BELLASIS to be removed from his regiment, which was commanded, _ad interim_, by the Lieut.-Colonel, WILLIAM BABINGTON. Although this officer was not appointed to the colonelcy, it was usually styled BABINGTON'S regiment. The prevalence of French councils at the British court, and the advances made by the king towards the establishment of papacy and arbitrary government, occasioned the nation to look to the Prince of Orange as the only source from whence deliverance could be expected, and on the 27th of May, 1687, Sir Henry Bellasis wrote to the Prince as follows: "I have presumed by this worthy bearer to give your Highness the assurance of my devotion to your service in particular. The testimony I have given to the world of my loyalty and sufferings for the crown, obliges me in duty to pay the same to those who are so nearly related to it as the Princess Royal and your Highness. Though my hand be weak to express it, or enlarge myself upon the subject, my heart shall supply that defect, in the profession I make[17]." [Sidenote: 1688] The King felt some distrust at so efficient a body of British troops being in the service of a protestant republic at the time when he was meditating the subversion of the protestant religion and established laws of the kingdom: he was desirous of recalling them from Holland, and of transferring so many of them as would return, particularly the officers and men who were of the Roman Catholic religion, to the service of France. Louis XIV. had experienced the inconvenience of having the regiments in his service suddenly recalled, as the English and Scots corps were in 1678, and he declined the offer; but as the re-uniting of England in the communion of the church of Rome would further his projects of personal aggrandisement, he proposed to maintain a body of two thousand men in England, to be principally of the Roman Catholic church. This subject being arranged, King James wrote to the Prince of Orange on the 17th of January, 1688, as follows: "I have charged my envoy, Mons. d'Abbeville, who will give you this letter, to give you an account that I think it for my service to call home the six regiments of my subjects that are under your command in the States' service; and have written to the States to the same purpose, and hope you will do your part to further their being embarked as soon as may be. What else I have to say on this subject I refer to my envoy; which is all I shall say now, but that you shall find me as kind to you as you can desire[18]."