We have the report of an agent of James II as to his residence in London; it dates from the last months of 1689, during which the dissensions just mentioned made way and increased in violence. He received the impression that everything was ripe for the overthrow of the new government; ‘the country was ruined, the nobility discontented, the Church of England estranged by the treatment of the bishops, William III suspected of aiming at absolute power, and a combination against his supposed aims was being formed between Scots and Englishmen; if the government was still standing, the reason was, that it was not attacked speedily and energetically.’ So said William Penn, who was still a friend of James II, and travelled about the country at his personal risk, in order to confirm the adherents of that prince in their devotion to him. We are astonished when we become more familiar with the Jacobite movements of which Preston and Dartmouth then formed the centre. Dartmouth offered to carry over a part of the English fleet to the French. He had, he said, already gained over a part of the officers and crews by saying to them that the Dutch were more their enemies than the French; for that Louis XIV acted from generosity, while Holland had only its mercantile interest in view, which it pushed to the injury of the English. Dartmouth sought to arrange good terms beforehand for the officers and crews, as well as for himself.