10th of May, and the whole of that day and night the greatest public excitement prevailed. The deadlock between the two Houses had reached such a point that if both refused to give way, and the supplies were consequently lost, a complete dislocation of the national business, accompanied in all probability by dangerous popular disturbance, would have assuredly followed. From this peril the country was saved at the critical moment by the good sense and magnanimity of William. His behaviour was the more creditable to him because not only was he eager, as has been said, for the rejection of the Resumption Bill, but he had taken so active a part in the attempt to bring about that result that surrender must necessarily subject him to additional humiliation. There can be no doubt from the account given by Burnet, whose own painful perplexity between the claims of courtiership and patriotism increases the value of his testimony on the subject, that William had tried hard to procure the defeat of the measure. "The King," says the Bishop, "seemed resolved to venture on all the ill consequences that might follow the losing this Bill, though these would probably have been fatal. As far as we can judge either another session of that Parliament or a new one would have banished the favourites and begun the Bill anew with the addition of obliging the grantees to refund all the mesne profits. Many in the Lords, that in all other things were very firm to the King, were for passing the Bill, notwithstanding the King's earnestness for it, since they apprehended the ill consequences that were like to follow if it was lost." On the 5th of April he told Portland that if the Bill was not stopped in the Upper House he should count all lost; and on the same day he declared that he was resolved not to pass the Bill, and that the only question was whether he should prorogue the Parliament on that day or on the following Monday. On or before the 10th of April he had reflected more maturely on the situation, and with that intuitive recognition of when to give way, which only strong rulers ever seem to exhibit, and which the masterful Elizabeth had displayed before him, he saw that the time had arrived to yield. He took steps to have it conveyed to his adherents in the Upper House that he desired the Bill to pass; and on the sitting of the following day, May 11, the Lords withdrew their amendments and accepted the Bill in its original form. Thus passed away a most perilous crisis, and William, by the fine temper and moral courage with which he thus submitted to perhaps the most galling rebuke ever inflicted upon a monarch by a legislative assembly, must be admitted to have gone far to atone for the serious error of his previous action. He was, however, and not unnaturally, of opinion that he had done enough in the cause of the peace, and the next day, in order to prevent the presentation to him of an address from the Commons, praying that no person not a native, except