He had objects in view which the Whigs would not willingly suffer any Sovereign to attain.

He knew that the Tories were the only tools for his purpose.

He had therefore, from the moment at which he took his seat on the throne, favoured them unduly.

He was now trying to procure an indemnity for those very delinquents whom he had, a few months before, described in his Declaration as deserving of exemplary punishment.

In November he had told the world that the crimes in which these men had borne a part had made it the duty of subjects to violate their oath of allegiance, of soldiers to desert their standards, of children to make war on their parents.