Yours till death, DUNDEE.
God was not pleased to reënforce the king's advisers, and his cause fell rapidly to pieces. Claverhouse withdrew the Scots Cavalry to the neighborhood of London, and wore out his heart in the effort to put manhood into his party, which was now occupied in looking after their own interests in the inevitable revolution. And again Claverhouse, or, as we should call him, Dundee, wrote to Jean:
DEAREST AND BRAVEST OF WOMEN: Were ye not that, as I know well, I had no heart in me to write this letter, for I have no good thing to tell thee about the cause of the King and it seems to me certain that, for the time at least, England is lost. I am now in London, and the days are far harder for me than when I campaigned with the Usurper, and fought joyfully at Seneffe and Grave. It is ill to contain oneself when a man has to go from one to another of his comrades and ask him for God's sake and the King's sake to play the man. Then to get nothing but fair and false words, and to see the very officers that hold the King's commission shuffling and lying, with one eye on King James and the other on the Prince of Orange. Had I my way of it I would shoot a dozen of the traitors to encourage the others. But the King is all for peace--peace, forsooth! when his enemies are at the door of the palace. What can one man do against so many, and a King too tolerant and good-natured--God forgive me, I had almost written too weak? It is not for me to sit in judgment on my Sovereign, but some days ago I gave my mind to Hamilton in his own lodgings, where Balcarres and certain of us met to take council. There were hot words, and no good came of it. Balcarres alone is staunch, and yesterday he went with me to Whitehall and we had our last word for the present with the King. He was gracious unto us, as he has ever been to me when his mind was not poisoned by Queensberry or Perth, and ye might care to know, Jean, what your man, much daring, said to His Majesty: "We have come, Sir, to ask a favor of your Majesty, and that ye will let us do a deed which will waken the land and turn the tide of affairs. Have we your permission to cause the drums to be beat of every regiment in London and the neighbourhood, for if ye so consent there will be twenty thousand men ready to start to-morrow morning. Before to-morrow night the road to London will be barred, and, please God, before a week is over your throne will be placed beyond danger." For a space I think he was moved and then the life went out of him, and he sadly shook his head. "It is too late," he said, "too late, and the shedding of blood would be vain." But I saw he was not displeased with us, and he signified his pleasure that we should walk with him in the Mall. Again I dared to entreat him not to leave his capital without a stroke, and in my soul I wondered that he could be so enduring. Had it been your man, Jean, he had been at the Prince's throat before the Dutchman had been twenty-four hours in England.