things, he thought, tended to a republic. Sir William Temple’s council seemed to him to make the king little better than a Doge of Venice, and to leave him so little support that the Exclusion bill could hardly be resisted, a calamity by which the house of Stuart would be “absolutely ruined and given up.” A short time after he expressed the opinion that if Charles would not submit to be less than a Doge of Venice a rebellion would be the necessary result. By June 1679 he was writing; “Things have been let go to that pass that the best I can expect is very great disorders, and unless something very vigorous is done within a very few days, the monarchy is gone.”[392] Five months, six months, a year later the same counsel was being reiterated.[393] While Charles remained cool and undismayed in the midst of pressing danger, every fresh event abashed the mind of James.[394] He could not appraise facts at their true worth, since he was without insight; devoid of imagination, he was unable to attribute to others powers he lacked himself. His very friends spoke against his unenlightened zeal, and the pope favoured him and his wife each with a brief on the subject.[395] It was the beginning of that stream of protest which afterwards marked with increasing volume the course of his downfall. Advice to others to act boldly is not uncommon. But James was ready on occasion to act on his own behalf. In May 1679 there appeared at Brussels one Colonel Fitzpatrick, a man of brave counsel and of great repute among his countrymen the Irish. He had come to arrange a rising in Ireland. The Catholics were groaning under an intolerable yoke and would follow him. By a small amount of assistance from foreign powers the coasts could be seized, arms and munitions landed, and success assured. Fitzpatrick was said to have for his project the consent of the Irish Catholic clergy and to have carried letters of recommendation into France before coming to Flanders. But French policy was opposed to assisting James in the formation of a strong party and the money was not to be obtained. Rather than run the risk of increasing hostility in England by the Colonel’s presence near him, James dismissed him. With much murmuring Fitzpatrick left Brussels.[396] Though this proposal had to be refused, James kept the idea constantly before his mind. The more certain that the king’s refusal to accept his violent advice became, the more his thoughts turned to the possibility of violence without the king’s participation. With the approach of Parliament in the winter of 1680 the notion became further developed. James believed that open force alone could re-establish the royal authority, on the security of which he felt his own safety to rest. If he could compel his brother to act, a final rupture might be precipitated. His enemies would be forestalled, and out of the civil war that would ensue the power of the throne might issue triumphant. It was his policy to push