Coningsby, Member of Parliament for Leominster, a busy and unscrupulous Whig, accompanied the King, and acted as Paymaster General. It deserves to be mentioned that William, at this time, authorised the Collector of Customs at Belfast to pay every year twelve hundred pounds into the hands of some of the principal dissenting ministers of Down and Antrim, who were to be trustees for their brethren. The King declared that he bestowed this sum on the nonconformist divines, partly as a reward for their eminent loyalty to him, and partly as a compensation for their recent losses. Such was the origin of that donation which is still annually bestowed by the government on the Presbyterian clergy of Ulster.[1]
William was all himself again. His spirits, depressed by eighteen months passed in dull state, amidst factions and intrigues which he but half understood, rose high as soon as he was surrounded by tents and standards.[2] It was strange to see how rapidly this man, so unpopular at Westminster, obtained a complete mastery over the hearts of his brethren in arms. They observed with delight that, infirm as he was, he took his share of every hardship which they underwent; that he thought more of their comfort than of his own, that he sharply reprimanded some officers, who were so anxious to procure luxuries for his table as to forget the wants of the common soldiers; that he never once, from the day on which he took the field, lodged in a house, but, even in the neighbourhood of cities and palaces, slept in his small moveable hut of wood; that no solicitations could induce him, on a hot day and in a high wind, to move out of the choking cloud of dust, which overhung the line of march, and which severely tried lungs less delicate than his. Every man under his command became familiar with his looks and with his voice; for there was not a regiment which he did not inspect with minute attention. His pleasant looks and sayings were long remembered. One brave soldier has recorded in his journal the kind and courteous manner in which a basket of the first
