PRECAUTIONS TAKEN BY THE QUEEN FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE NATION.

The ministry of England was informed of all these particulars, partly by some agents of James who betrayed his cause, and partly by admiral Carter, who gave the queen to understand he had been tampered with; and was instructed to amuse the Jacobites with a negotiation. King William no sooner arrived in Holland than he hastened the naval preparations of the Dutch, so that their fleet was ready for sea sooner than was expected; and when he received the first intimation of the projected descent, he detached general Ptolemache with three of the English regiments from Holland. These, reinforced with other troops remaining in England, were ordered to encamp in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth. The queen issued a proclamation, commanding all papists to depart from London and Westminster: the members of both houses of parliament were required to meet on the twenty-fourth day of May, that she might avail herself of their advice in such a perilous conjuncture. Warrants were expedited for apprehending divers disaffected persons; and they withdrawing themselves from their respective places of abode, a proclamation was published for discovering and bringing them to justice. The earls of Scarsdale, Litchfield, and Newburgh; the lords Griffin, Forbes, sir John Fenwick, sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, and others, found means to elude the search. The earls of Huntingdon and Marlborough were sent to the Tower; Edward Ridley, Knevitt, Hastings, and Robert Ferguson, were imprisoned in Newgate. The bishop of Rochester was confined to his own house; the lords Brudenal and Fanshaw were secured; the earls of Dunmore, Middleton, and sir Andrew Forrester, were discovered in a quaker’s house, and committed to prison with several other persons of distinction. The trainbands of London and Westminster were armed by the queen’s direction, and she reviewed them in person: admiral Russell was ordered to put to sea with all possible expedition; and Carter, with a squadron of eighteen sail, continued to cruise along the French coast to observe the motions of the enemy.