Towards the end of October William arrived in England, and was received with an amount of popular acclamation to which the crime of Grandval had contributed more than his own military prowess. In a few days Parliament met, and the King addressed the two Houses in a judicious speech, in which he congratulated them on their great naval victory, condoled with them on their military reverses, referred with concern to the distress occasioned by the failure of the last harvest, and informed them in effect that yet more money would be required for the effective prosecution of the war. The address in reply was amiable enough, but the Parliament, as the event soon proved, was in no very manageable mood. The confusion of parties caused by William's perseverance in his well-meant attempt at mixed government was now at its height, and the state of things created was undoubtedly not favourable either to executive or legislative efficiency. An assembly divided as was the then House of Commons by two intersecting lines of cleavage, with its Whig and Tory demarcation, traversed by a cross division into "court party" and "country party," was obviously not a body likely to display much unity and vigour. Jealousy of officialism forbade ministers to reckon on the consentaneous support even of members of their own way of political thinking, while on the other hand party differences prevented the formation of a strong opposition. The session of 1692 was, however, fruitful both in legislative achievement and in successful legislative effort. In this year was made that valuation for the land-tax, which subsisted until the tax itself was made perpetual and redeemable more than a century afterwards in 1798; and the first loan of one million sterling, contracted by the Government in the name of a National Debt, which has now increased to almost a thousand times that amount. But the measures with which the biographer of William is more directly concerned were the Place Bill and the Triennial Bill. Of both of these legislative projects I shall have more to say hereafter. Here let it be enough to note that the former was lost in the House of Lords by a majority of three votes; and that the latter after passing both Houses was held in suspense by William until just the eve of the prorogation, and then vetoed. The occasion is one of special interest to English literature, as it was in reference to this Bill that the King consulted Sir William Temple, whose strong advice to his master to assent to the Bill was conveyed through the medium of his young secretary Jonathan Swift. After making several ministerial changes, including as the most important the elevation of Lord Somers to the Chancellorship, William prorogued Parliament, and once more, in the perpetual succession of the toils of war to the labours of Government, betook himself to the Netherlands. The outlook of the continental struggle had not improved; and the task before him, both diplomatic and