MY INTERVIEW WITH PITT
Of our voyage across the Channel there need be no more said than that it
was dull to the very verge of monotony, for the wind, though favourable,
was often in a faint where our poor sail shook idly at the mast. Two
days later we were in London, and stopped at the Queen's Head above
Craig's Court in Charing Cross.
And now I had to make the speediest possible arrangement for a meeting
with those who could make the most immediate and profitable use of the
tidings I was in a position to lay before them, by no means an easy
matter to decide upon for a person who had as little knowledge of London
as he had of the Cities of the Plain.
MacKellar--ever the impetuous Gael--was for nothing less than a personal
approach to his Majesty.
“The man that is on the top of the hill will always be seeing furthest,”
he said. “I have come in contact with the best in Europe on that under
standing, but it calls for a kind of Hielan' tact that--that--”
“That you cannot credit to a poor Lowlander like myself,” said I, amused
at his vanity.
“Oh, I'm meaning no offence, just no offence at all,” he responded
quickly, and flushing at his _faux pas_. “You have as much talent of
the kind as the best of us I'm not denying, and I have just the one
advantage, that I was brought up in a language that has delicacies of
address beyond the expression of the English, or the French that is, in
some measure, like it.”
“Well,” said I, “the spirit of it is obviously not to be translated into
English, judging from the way you go on crying up your countrymen at the
expense of my own.”
“That is true enough,” he conceded, “and a very just observe; but no
matter, what I would be at is that your news is worth too much to be
wasted on any poor lackey hanging about his Majesty's back door, who
might either sell it or you on his own behoof, or otherwise make a mull
of the matter with the very best intentions. If you would take my way of
it, there would be but Geordie himself for you.”
“What have you to say to that?” I asked the priest, whose knowledge of
the world struck me as in most respects more trustworthy than that of
this impetuous Highland chirurgeon.
“A plague of your kings! say I; sure I know nothing about them, for
my luck has rubbed me against the gabardine and none of your ermined
cloaks. There must be others who know his Majesty's affairs better than
his Majesty himself, otherwise what advantage were there in being a
king?”
In fine his decision was for one of the Ministers, and at last the
Secretary of State was decided on.
How I came to meet with Mr. Pitt need not here be recorded; 'twas indeed
more a matter of good luck than of good guidance, and had there been no
Scots House of Argyll perhaps I had never got rid of my weighty secret
after all. I had expected to meet a person magnificent in robes of
state; instead of which 'twas a man in a blue coat with yellow metal
buttons, full round bob wig, a large hat, and no sword-bag nor ruffles
that met me--more like a country coachman or a waggoner than a personage
of importance.
He scanned over again the letter that had introduced me and received me
cordially enough. In a few words I indicated that I was newly come from
France, whence I had escaped in a smuggler's boat, and that I had news
of the first importance which I counted it my duty to my country to
convey to him with all possible expedition.
At that his face changed and he showed singularly little eagerness to
hear any more.
“There will be--there will be the--the usual bargain, I presume, Mr.
Greig?” he said, half-smiling. “What are the conditions on which I am to
have this vastly important intelligence?”
“I never dreamt of making any, sir,” I answered, promptly, with some
natural chagrin, and yet mixed with a little confusion that I should in
truth be expecting something in the long run for my story.
“Pardon my stupid pleasantry, Mr. Greig,” he said, reddening slightly.
“I have been so long one of his Majesty's Ministers, and of late have
seen so many urgent couriers from France with prime news to be bargained
for, that I have grown something of a cynic. You are the first that has
come with a secret not for sale. Believe me, your story will have all
the more attention because it is offered disinterestedly.”
In twenty minutes I had put him into possession of all I knew of the
plans for invasion. He walked up and down the room, with his hands
behind his back, intently listening, now and then uttering an
exclamation incredulous or astonished.
“You are sure of all this?” he asked at last sharply, looking in my face
with embarrassing scrutiny.
“As sure as any mortal man may be with the gift of all his senses,” I
replied firmly. “At this moment Thurot's vessel is, I doubt not, taking
in her stores; the embarkation of troops is being practised daily,
troops are assembled all along the coast from Brest to Vannes, and--”
“Oh! on these points we are, naturally, not wholly dark,” said the
Minister. “We have known for a year of this somewhat theatrical display
on the part of the French, but the lines of the threatened invasion
are not such as your remarkable narrative suggests. You have been good
enough to honour me with your confidence, Mr. Greig; let me reciprocate
by telling you that we have our--our good friends in France, and that
for six months back I have been in possession of the Chevalier D'Arcy's
instructions to Dumont to reconnoitre the English coast, and of Dumont's
report, with the chart of the harbours and towns where he proposed that
the descent should be made.” He smiled somewhat grimly. “The gentleman
who gave us the information,” he went on, “stipulated for twenty
thousand pounds and a pension of two thousand a year as the just reward
for his loving service to his country in her hour of peril. He was
not to get his twenty thousand, I need scarcely say, but he was to get
something in the event of his intelligence proving to be accurate, and
if it were for no more than to get the better of such a dubious patriot
I should wish his tale wholly disproved, though we have hitherto
acted on the assumption that it might be trustworthy. There cannot be
alternative plans of invasion; our informant--another Scotsman, I may
say--is either lying or has merely the plan of a feint.”
“You are most kind, sir,” said I.
“Oh,” he said, “I take your story first, and as probably the most
correct, simply because it comes from one that loves his country
and makes no bagman's bargains for the sale of secrets vital to her
existence.”
“I am much honoured, sir,” said I, with a bow.
And then he stopped his walk abruptly and faced me again.
“You have told me, Mr. Greig,” he went on, “that Conflans is to descend
in a week or two on the coast of Scotland, and that Thurot is to create
a diversion elsewhere with the aid of the Swedes, I have, from the most
delicate considerations, refrained from asking you how you know all
this?”
“I heard it from the lips of Thurot himself.”
“Thurot! impossible!” he murmured.
“Of Thurot himself, sir.”
“You must be much in that pirate's confidence,” said Mr. Pitt, for the
first time with suspicion.
“Not to that extent that he would tell me of his plans for invading
my country,” I answered, “and I learned these things by the merest
accident. I overheard him speak last Sunday in Dunkerque with the Young
Pretender--”
“The Pretender!” cried the Minister, shrugging his shoulders, and
looking at me with more suspicion than ever. “You apparently move in the
most select and interesting society, Mr. Greig?”
“In this case, sir, it was none of my choosing,” I replied, and went on
briefly to explain how I had got into Thurot's chamber unknown to him,
and unwittingly overhead the Prince and him discuss the plan.
“Very good, very good, and still--you will pardon me--I cannot see how
so devout a patriot as Mr. Greig should be in the intimacy of men like
Thurot?”
“A most natural remark under the circumstances,” I replied. “Thurot
saved my life from a sinking British vessel, and it is no more than his
due to say he proved a very good friend to me many a time since. But I
was to know nothing of his plans of invasion, for he knew very well I
had no sympathy with them nor with Charles Edward, and, as I have told
you, he made me his prisoner on his ship so that I might not betray what
I had overheard.”
The Minister made hurried notes of what I had told him, and concluded
the interview by asking where I could be communicated with during the
next few days.
I gave him my direction at the Queen's Head, but added that I had it in
my mind to go shortly to Edinburgh, where my address would be best known
to the Lord Advocate.
“The Lord Advocate!” said Mr. Pitt, raising his eyebrows.
“I may as well make a clean breast of it, sir,” I proceeded hurriedly,
“and say that I left Scotland under circumstances peculiarly
distressing. Thurot saved me from a ship called the _Seven Sisters_,
that had been scuttled and abandoned with only myself and a seaman on
board of her in mid-channel, by a man named Daniel Risk.”
“Bless me!” cried Mr. Pitt, “the scoundrel Risk was tried in Edinburgh a
month or two ago on several charges, including the one you mention, and
he has either been hanged, or is waiting to be hanged at this moment, in
the jail at Edinburgh.”
“I was nominally purser on the _Seven Sisters_, but in actual fact I was
fleeing from justice.”
The Minister hemmed, and fumbled with his papers.
“It was owing to a duelling affair, in which I had the misfortune
to--to--kill my opponent. I desire, sir, above all, to be thoroughly
honest, and I am bound to tell you it was my first intention to make the
conveyance of this plan of Thurot's a lever to secure my pardon for the
crime of manslaughter which lies at my charge. I would wish now that my
loyalty to my country was really disinterested, and I have, in the last
half-hour, made up my mind to surrender myself to the law of Scotland.”
“That is for yourself to decide on,” said the Minister more gravely,
“but I should advise the postponement of your departure to Edinburgh
until you hear further from me. I shall expect to find you at the inn at
Charing Cross during the next week; thereafter----”
He paused for a moment. “Well--thereafter we shall see,” he added.
After a few more words of the kindest nature the Minister shook
hands with the confessed manslayer (it flashed on me as a curious
circumstance), and I went back to join the priest and my fellow
countryman.
They were waiting full of impatience.
“Hast the King's pardon in thy pocket, friend Scotland?” cried Father
Hamilton; then his face sank in sympathy with the sobriety of my own
that was due to my determination on a surrender to justice once my
business with the Government was over.
“I have no more in my pocket than I went out with in the morning,” said
I. “But my object, so far, has been served. Mr. Pitt knows my story and
is like to take such steps as maybe needful. As for my own affair I have
mentioned it, but it has gone no further than that.”
“You're not telling me you did not make a bargain of it before saying
a word about the bit plan?” cried MacKellar in surprise, and could
scarcely find words strong enough to condemn me for what he described as
my stupidity.
“Many a man will sow the seed that will never eat the syboe,” was his
comment; “and was I not right yonder when I said yon about the tact? If
it had been me now I would have gone very canny to the King himself and
said: 'Your Majesty, I'm a man that has made a slip in a little affair
as between gentlemen, and had to put off abroad until the thing blew
by. I can save the lives of many thousand Englishmen, and perhaps the
country itself, by intelligence that came to my knowledge when I was
abroad; if I prove it, will your Majesty pardon the thing that lies at
my charge?'”
“And would have his Majesty's signature to the promise as 'twere a deed
of sale!” laughed the priest convulsively. “La! la! la! Paul, here's our
Celtic Solon with tact--the tact of the foot-pad. Stand and deliver!
My pardon, sire, or your life! _Mon Dieu!_ there runs much of the old
original cateran in thy methods of diplomacy, good Master MacKellar. Too
much for royal courts, I reckon.” MacKellar pshawed impatiently. “I'm
asking you what is the Secretary's name, Mr. Greig?” said he. “Fox or
Pitt it is all the same--the one is sly and the other is deep, and it is
the natures of their names. I'll warrant Mr. Pitt has forgotten already
the name of the man who gave him the secret, and the wisest thing Paul
Greig could do now would be to go into hiding as fast as he can.”
But I expressed my determination to wait in the Queen's Head a week
longer, as I had promised, and thereafter (if nothing happened to
prevent it) to submit myself at Edinburgh. Though I tried to make as
little of that as possible to myself, and indeed would make myself
believe I was going to act with a rare bravery, I must confess now that
my determination was strengthened greatly by the reflection that
my service to the country would perhaps annul or greatly modify my
sentence.