It is of course not impossible, as has been already admitted, that the recent revulsion of goodwill towards the King may have contributed to the completeness of this victory, but it seems scarcely necessary to ascribe much to the operation of any such sentiment. It is pretty clear that the Bill for the Regulation of Elections was very doubtfully regarded in many quarters of the House; and it is indeed rather surprising that in a Parliament such as that returned in 1695, with Whig influence in a distinct ascendency, it should have been possible to carry the Bill at all. It must, moreover, be remembered that even if there had been a more pronounced liking for it in Parliament itself, the measure was essentially one of that character for which a shrewd member will not venture to vote except with one eye on his constituents. Natural as it was for a country gentleman of that day to object to a Londoner coming down with a valise full of guineas to contest with him his native county or his ancestral borough, it is not to be supposed that his objection would be shared by the free and independent electors of either constituency. To them it might appear by no means undesirable that "local interest" should be stimulated to judicious liberality by the competition of the open-handed outsider. On the 27th of April the first session of the new Parliament came to an end, and a fortnight after the prorogation William landed in Holland, whence he immediately set out to resume the command of the allied forces in Flanders. His presence, however, was needed rather for purposes of counsel than command; for, in truth, the long and desperate struggle with Louis had now reached a stage when even the most enterprising of captains might well be of opinion that Q. Fabius was the only general whose tactics were worth studying. At one time it had almost become a question which of the combatants would be the first to swoon from exhaustion; but before William's arrival the skilful surprise and destruction by Athlone and Cohorn of a vast magazine of ammunition and stores, collected by the French at Groet, had virtually decided that question against France. England, then in the throes of a monetary crisis, was sufficiently hard put to it to support the continued strain of the campaign; but upon France, with three armies afoot in three hostile countries at once, the demand was far more terrible. She was virtually too weak to attack in the Netherlands, and William probably saw no advantage to himself in forcing an engagement. The summer passed away in marches and counter-marches, and not a blow was exchanged between Villeroy and the strategist who had plucked Namur out of his grasp the year before. On the Rhine operations were equally bloodless and indecisive. In Catalonia there had been some hard fighting, and Vendome, who had succeeded Noailles, won a dearly-bought victory over the Spaniards. Throughout the year, indeed, the pen was more busy than