Affairs in Great Britain stood thus:—the great parties on which James might have reckoned had, one way or other, been everywhere crushed; the Parliamentary grants for the prosecution of the war had been voted, the condition of the existing armies maintained, new and large levies begun. This was the moment when France determined on a serious attempt to restore the fugitive King.

To this determination two reasons led the French. First, they saw that they would never gain their point—namely, such a peace as would secure the reunited districts—by a war confined to the mainland. One of the King's and the ministers' trusted advisers, Chamlay, alluding one day to the old saying, that ‘the Romans can be conquered only at Rome,’ added that the opposite of this was now true of Germany; that Holland and England must first be brought to terms by a resolute attack by sea, and that after that Emperor and empire would also become tractable. With this view the attack must be more especially directed against England, which would have to bear the chief brunt of the war. The French fleet was still regarded as stronger than any other; might not such an undertaking succeed with it as had succeeded a quarter of a century back with the Dutch fleet under Cornelius de Witt? That expedition drove England to peace—so might this also.