The evidence of the public credit gave strength to William abroad as at home. In 1694 indeed the army of 90,000 men which he commanded in the Netherlands did no more than hold the French successfully at bay; but the English fleet rode triumphant in the Channel, ravaged and alarmed the coast of France, and foiled by its pressure the attack of a French army on Barcelona. The brighter aspect of affairs abroad coincided with a new unity of action at home. The change which Sunderland counselled was quietly carried out. One by one the Tory Ministers had been replaced by members of the Junto. Russell went to the Admiralty; Somers was named Lord Keeper; Shrewsbury, Secretary of State; Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Even before this change was completed its effect was felt. The House of Commons took a new tone. The Whig majority of its members, united and disciplined, moved quietly under the direction of their natural leaders, the Whig Ministers of the Crown. It was this which enabled William to face the shock which was given to his position by the death of Queen Mary at the end of 1694. It had been provided indeed that on the death of either sovereign the survivor should retain the throne; but the renewed attacks of the Tories under Nottingham and Halifax on the war and the Bank showed what fresh hopes had been raised by William's lonely position. The Parliament however, whom the king had just conciliated by assenting at last to the Triennial Bill, went steadily with the Ministry; and its fidelity was rewarded by triumph abroad. In September 1695 the Alliance succeeded for the first time in winning a great triumph over France in the capture of Namur. The king skilfully took advantage of his victory to call a new Parliament, and its members at once showed their temper by a vigorous support of the measures necessary for the prosecution of the war. The Houses indeed were no mere tools in William's hands. They forced him to resume the prodigal grants of lands which he had made to his Dutch favourites, and to remove his Ministers in Scotland who had aided in a wild project for a Scotch colony on the Isthmus of Darien. They claimed a right to name members of the new Board of Trade which was established in 1696 for the regulation of commercial matters. They rejected a proposal, never henceforth to be revived, for a censorship of the Press. But there was no factious opposition. So strong was the Ministry that Montague was enabled to face the general distress which was caused for the moment by a reform of the currency, which had been reduced by clipping to far less than its nominal value, and although the financial embarrassments created by the currency reform hindered any vigorous measures abroad William was able to hold the French at bay. [Sidenote: The Spanish Succession.]