reflection upon what I have been last saying to you. When I met with the
Duke of Ormond at his return from the coast, he thought himself obliged
to say something to excuse his keeping me out of a secret which during
his absence I had been let into. His excuse was that the Regent had
exacted from him that I should know nothing of the matter. You will
observe that the account which I have given you seems to contradict this
assertion of his Grace, since it is hard to suppose that if the Regent
had exacted that I should be kept out of the secret, these women would
have dared to have let me into it, and since it is still harder to
suppose that the Regent would make this express condition with the Duke
of Ormond, and the moment the duke’s back was turned would suffer these
women to tease him from me and to bring me answers from him. I am,
however, far from taxing the duke with affirming an untruth. I believe
the Regent did make such a condition with him; and I will tell you how I
understand all this little management, which will explain a great deal to
you. This Prince, with wit and valour, has joined all the irresolution
of temper possible, and is, perhaps, the man in the world the least
capable of saying “no” to your face. From hence it happened that these
women, like multitudes of other people, forced him to say and do enough
to give them the air of having credit with him and of being trusted by
him. This drew in the Duke of Ormond, who is not, I daresay, as yet
undeceived. The Regent never intended from the first to do anything,
even indirectly, in favour of the Jacobite cause. His interest was
plainly on the other side, and he saw it. But then the same weakness in
his character carried him, as it would have done his great-uncle Gaston
in the same case, to keep measures with the Chevalier. His
double-trimming character prevailed on him to talk with the Duke of
Ormond, but it carried him no farther. I question not but he did, on
this occasion, what you must have observed many men to do: we not only
endeavour to impose on the world, but even on ourselves; we disguise our
weakness, and work up in our minds an opinion that the measure which we
fall into by the natural or habitual imperfection of our character is the
effect of a principle of prudence or of some other virtue. Thus the
Regent, who saw the Duke of Ormond because he could not resist the
importunity of Olive Trant, and who gave hopes to the duke because he can
refuse nobody, made himself believe that it was a great strain of policy
to blow up the fire and to keep Britain embroiled. I am persuaded that I
do not err in judging that he thought in this manner, and here I fix the
reason of his excluding me out of the commerce which he had with the Duke
of Ormond, of his affecting a personal dislike of me, and of his avoiding
any correspondence with me upon these matters, till I forced myself in a
manner upon him, and he could not keep me any longer at a distance
without departing from his first principle—that of keeping measures with
everybody. He then threw me, or let me slide if you will, into the hands
of these women; and when he found that I pressed him hard that way, too,
he took me out of their hands and put me back again into the proper
channel of business, where I had not been long, as you will see
by-and-by, before the scene of amusement was finished.
Sir John Areskine told me when he came from the first audience that he
had of his Royal Highness, that he put him in mind of the encouragement
which he had given the Earl of Mar to take arms. I never heard anything
of this kind but what Sir John let drop to me. If the fact be true, you
see that the Scotch general had been amused by him with a witness. The
English general was so in his turn; and while this was doing, the Regent
might think it best to have him to himself. Four eyes comprehend more
objects than two, and I was a little better acquainted with the
characters of people, and the mass of the country, than the duke, though
this Court had been at first a strange country to me in comparison of the
former.
An infinity of little circumstances concurred to make me form this
opinion, some of which are better felt than explained, and many of which
are not present to my memory. That which had the greatest weight with
me, and which is, I think, decisive, I will mention. At the very time
when it is pretended that the Regent treated with the Duke of Ormond on
the express condition that I should know nothing of the matter, two
persons of the first rank and greatest credit in this Court, when I made
the most pressing instances to them in favour of the Chevalier, threw out
in conversation to me that I should attach myself to the Duke of Orleans,
that in my circumstances I might want him, and that he might have
occasion for me. Something was intimated of pensions and establishment,
and of making my peace at home. I would not understand this language,
because I would not break with the people who held it: and when they saw
that I would not take the hints, they ceased to give them.
I fancy that you see by this time the motives of the Regent’s conduct. I
am not, I confess, able to explain to you those of the Duke of Ormond’s;
I cannot so much as guess at them. When he came into France, I was
careful to show him all the friendship and all the respect possible. My
friends were his, my purse was his, and even my bed was his. I went
further; I did all those things which touch most sensibly people who have
been used to pomp. I made my court to him, and haunted his levee with
assiduity. In return to this behaviour—which was the pure effect of my
goodwill, and which no duty that I owed his Grace, no obligation that I
had to him, imposed upon me—I have great reason to suspect that he went
at least half way in all which was said or done against me. He threw
himself blindly into the snare which was laid for him; and instead of
hindering, as he and I in concert might have done, those affairs from
languishing in the manner they did several months, he furnished this
Court with an excuse for not treating with me, till it was too late to
play even a saving game; and he neither drove the Regent to assist the
Chevalier, nor to declare that he would not assist him; though it was
fatal to the cause in general, and to the Scotch in particular, not to
bring one of the two about.
It was Christmas 1715 before the Chevalier sailed for Scotland. The
battle of Dunblain had been fought, the business of Preston was over:
there remained not the least room to expect any commotion in his favour
among the English; and many of the Scotch who had declared for him began
to grow cool in the cause. No prospect of success could engage him in
this expedition: but it was become necessary for his reputation. The
Scotch on one side spared not to reproach him, I think unjustly, for his
delay; and the French on the other were extremely eager to have him gone.
Some of those who knew little of British affairs imagined that his
presence would produce miraculous effects. You must not be surprised at
this. As near neighbours as we are, ninety-nine in an hundred among the
French are as little acquainted with the inside of our island as with
that of Japan. Others of them were uneasy to see him skulking about in
France, and to be told of it every hour by the Earl of Stair. Others,
again, imagined that he might do their business by going into Scotland,
though he should not do his own: this is, they flattered themselves that
he might keep a war for some time alive, which would employ the whole
attention of our Government; and for the event of which they had very
little concern. Unable from their natural temper, as well as their
habits, to be true to any principle, they thought and acted in this
manner, whilst they affected the greatest friendship to the King, and
whilst they really did desire to enter into new and more intimate
engagements with him. Whilst the Pretender continued in France they
could neither avow him, nor favour his cause: if he once set his foot on
Scotch ground, they gave hopes of indirect assistance; and if he could
maintain himself in any corner of the island, they could look upon him,
it was said, as a king. This was their language to us. To the British
Minister they denied, they forswore, they renounced; and yet the man of
the best head in all their councils, being asked by Lord Stair what they
intended to do, answered, before he was aware, that they pretended to be
neuters. I leave you to judge how this slip was taken up.
As soon as I received advice that the Chevalier was sailed from Dunkirk,
I renewed, I redoubled all my applications. I neglected no means, I
forgot no argument which my understanding could suggest to me. What the
Duke of Ormond rested upon, you have seen already. And I doubt very much
whether Lord Mar, if he had been here in my place, would have been able
to employ measures more effectual than those which I made use of. I may,
without any imputation of arrogance, compare myself on this occasion with
his lordship, since there was nothing in the management of this affair
above my degree of capacity; nothing equal, either in extent or
difficulty, to the business which he was a spectator of, and which I
carried on when we were Secretaries of State together under the late
Queen.
The King of France, who was not able to furnish the Pretender with money
himself, had written some time before his death to his grandson, and had
obtained a promise of four hundred thousand crowns from the King of
Spain. A small part of this sum had been received by the Queen’s
Treasurer at St. Germains, and had been either sent to Scotland or
employed to defray the expenses which were daily making on the coast. I
pressed the Spanish Ambassador at Paris; I solicited, by Lawless,
Alberoni at Madrid, and I found another more private and more promising
way of applying to him. I took care to have a number of officers picked
out of the Irish troops which serve in that country; their routes were
given them, and I sent a ship to receive and transport them. The money
came in so slowly and in such trifling sums that it turned to little
account, and the officers were on their way when the Chevalier returned
from Scotland.
In the summer endeavours had been used to prevail on the King of Sweden
to transport from Gottenburg the troops he had in that neighbourhood into
Scotland or into the North of England. He had excused himself, not
because he disliked the proposition, which, on the contrary, he thought
agreeable to his interest, but for reasons of another kind. First,
because the troops at hand for this service consisted in horse, not in
foot, which had been asked, and which were alone proper for such an
expedition. Secondly, because a declaration of this sort might turn the
Protestant princes of the Empire, from whose offices he had still some
prospect of assistance, against him. And thirdly, because although he
knew that the King of Great Britain was his enemy, yet they were not in
war together, nor had the latter acted yet awhile openly enough against
him to justify such a rupture. At the time I am speaking of, these
reasons were removed by the King of Sweden’s being beat out of the Empire
by the little consequence which his management of the Protestant princes
was to him, and by the declaration of war which the King, as Elector of
Hanover, made. I took up this negotiation therefore again. The Regent
appeared to come into it. He spoke fair to the Baron de Spar, who
pressed him on his side as I pressed him on mine, and promised, besides
the arrears of the subsidy due to the Swedes, an immediate advance of
fifty thousand crowns for the enterprise on Britain. He kept the officer
who was to be despatched I know not how long booted; sometimes on
pretence that in the low state of his credit he could not find bills of
exchange for the sum, and sometimes on other pretences, and by these
delays he evaded his promise. The French were very frank in declaring
that they could give us no money, and that they would give us no troops.
Arms, ammunition, and connivance they made us hope for. The latter, in
some degree, we might have had perhaps; but to what purpose was it to
connive, when by a multitude of little tricks they avoided furnishing us
with arms and ammunition, and when they knew that we were utterly unable
to furnish ourselves with them? I had formed the design of engaging
French privateers in the Pretender’s service. They were to have carried
whatever we should have had to send to any part of Britain in their first
voyage, and after that to have cruised under his commission. I had
actually agreed for some, and it was in my power to have made the same
bargains with others. Sweden on one side and Scotland on the other would
have afforded them retreats. And if the war had been kept up in any part
of the mountains, I conceive the execution of this design would have been
of the greatest advantage to the Pretender. It failed because no other
part of the work went on. He was not above six weeks in his Scotch
expedition, and these were the things I endeavoured to bring to bear in
his absence. I had no great opinion of my success before he went; but
when he had made the last step which it was in his power to make, I
resolved to suffer neither him nor the Scotch to be any longer bubbles of
their own credulity and of the scandalous artifice of this Court. It
would be tedious to enter into a longer narrative of all the useless
pains I took. To conclude, therefore; in a conversation which I had with
the M. d’Huxelles, I took occasion to declare that I would not be the
instrument of amusing the Scotch, and that, since I was able to do them
no other service, I would at least inform them that they must flatter
themselves no longer with hopes of succour from France. I added that I
would send them vessels which, with those already on the coast of
Scotland, might serve to bring off the Pretender, the Earl of Mar, and as
many others as possible. The Marshal approved my resolution, and advised
me to execute it as the only thing which was left to do. On this
occasion he showed no reserve, he was very explicit; and yet in this very
point of time the promise of an order was obtained, or pretended to be
obtained, from the Regent for delivering those stores of arms and
ammunition which belonged to the Chevalier, and which had been put into
the French magazines when Sir George Byng came to Havre. Castel Blanco
is a Spaniard who married a daughter of Lord Melford, and who under that
title set up for a meddler in English business. I cannot justly tell
whether the honour of obtaining this promise was ascribed to him, to the
Junto in the Bois de Boulogne, or to any one else. I suppose they all
assumed a share of the merit. The project was that these stores should
be delivered to Castel Blanco; that he should enter into a recognisance
to carry them to Spain, and from thence to the West Indies; that I should
provide a vessel for this purpose, which he should appear to hire or buy;
and that when she was at sea she should sail directly for Scotland. You
cannot believe that I reckoned much on the effect of this order, but
accustomed to concur in measures the inutility of which I saw evidently
enough, I concurred in this likewise. The necessary care was taken, and
in a fortnight’s time the ship was ready to sail, and no suspicion of her
belonging to the Chevalier or of her destination was gone abroad.
As this event made no alteration in my opinion, it made none in the
despatches which I prepared and sent to Scotland. In them I gave an
account of what was in negotiation. I explained to him what might be
hoped for in time if he was able to maintain himself in the mountains
without the succours he demanded from France. But from France I told him
plainly that it was in vain to expect the least part of them. In short,
I concealed nothing from him. This was all I could do to put the
Chevalier and his council in a condition to judge what measures to take;
but these despatches never came to his hands. He was sailed from
Scotland just before the gentleman whom I sent arrived on the coast. He
landed at Graveline about the 22nd of February, and the first orders he
gave were to stop all the vessels which were going on his account to the
country from whence he came.
I saw him the morning after his arrival at St. Germains, and he received
me with open arms. I had been, as soon as we heard of his return, to
acquaint the French Court with it. They were not a little uneasy; and
the first thing which the M. d’Huxelles said to me upon it was that the
Chevalier ought to proceed to Bar with all the diligence possible, and to
take possession of his former asylum before the Duke of Lorraine had time
to desire him to look out for a residence somewhere else. Nothing more
was meant by this proposal than to get him out of the dominions of France
immediately. I was not in my mind averse to it for other reasons.
Nothing could be more disadvantageous to him than to be obliged to pass
the Alps, or to reside in the Papal territory on this side of them.
Avignon was already named for his retreat in common conversation, and I
know not whether from the time he left Scotland he ever thought of any
other. I imagined that by surprising the Duke of Lorraine we should
furnish that Prince with an excuse to the King and to the Emperor; that
we might draw the matter into length, and gain time to negotiate some
other retreat than that of Avignon for the Chevalier. The duke’s
goodwill there was no room to doubt of, and by what the Prince of
Vaudemont told me at Paris some time afterwards I am apt to think we
should have succeeded. In all events, it could not be wrong to try every
measure, and the Pretender would have gone to Avignon with much better
grace when he had done, in the sight of the world, all he could to avoid
it.
I found him in no disposition to make such haste; he had a mind, on the
contrary, to stay some time at St. Germains, and in the neighbourhood of
Paris, and to have a private meeting with the Regent. He sent me back to
Paris to solicit this meeting. I wrote, I spoke, to the Marshal
d’Huxelles; I did my best to serve him in his own way. The Marshal
answered me by word of mouth and by letter; he refused me by both. I
remember he added this circumstance: that he found the Regent in bed, and
acquainted him with what the Chevalier desired; that the Regent rose up
in a passion, said that the things which were asked were puerilities, and
swore that he would not see him. I returned without having been able to
succeed in my commission; and I confess I thought the want of success on
this occasion no great misfortune.
It was two or three o’clock on the Sunday or Monday morning when I parted
from the Pretender. He acquiesced in the determination of the Regent,
and declared that he would instantly set out for Lorraine; his trunks
were packed, his chaise was ordered to be at the door at five, and I sent
to Paris to acquaint the Minister that he was gone. He asked me how soon
I should be able to follow him, gave me commissions for some things which
he desired I should bring after him, and, in a word, no Italian ever
embraced the man he was going to stab with greater show of affection and
confidence.
Instead of taking post for Lorraine he went to the little house in the
Bois de Boulogne where his female Ministers resided; and there he
continued lurking for several days, and pleasing himself with the air of
mystery and business, whilst the only real business which he should have
had at that time lay neglected. He saw the Spanish and Swedish Ministers
in this place. I cannot tell, for I never thought it worth asking,
whether he saw the Duke of Orleans; possibly he might. To have been
teased into such a step, which signified nothing, and which gave the
cabal an air of credit and importance, is agreeable enough to the levity
of his Royal Highness’s character.
The Thursday following, the Duke of Ormond came to see me, and after the
compliment of telling me that he believed I should be surprised at the
message he brought, he put into my hands a note to himself and a little
scrip of paper directed to me, and drawn in the style of a justice of
peace’s warrant. They were both in the Chevalier’s handwriting, and they
were dated on the Tuesday, in order to make me believe that they had been
written on the road and sent back to the duke; his Grace dropped in our
conversation with great dexterity all the insinuations proper to confirm
me in this opinion. I knew at this time his master was not gone, so that
he gave me two very risible scenes, which are frequently to be met with
when some people meddle in business; I mean that of seeing a man labour
with a great deal of awkward artifice to make a secret of a nothing, and
that of seeing yourself taken for a bubble when you know as much of the
matter as he who thinks that he imposes on you.
I cannot recollect precisely the terms of the two papers. I remember
that the kingly laconic style of one of them, and the expression of
having no further occasion for my service, made me smile. The other was
an order to give up the papers in my office, all which might have been
contained in a letter-case of a moderate size. I gave the duke the Seals
and some papers which I could readily come at. Some others—and, indeed,
all such as I had not destroyed—I sent afterwards to the Chevalier; and I
took care to convey to him by a safe hand several of his letters which it
would have been very improper the duke should have seen. I am surprised
that he did not reflect on the consequence of my obeying his order
literally. It depended on me to have shown his general what an opinion
the Chevalier had of his capacity. I scorned the trick, and would not
appear piqued when I was far from being angry. As I gave up without
scruple all the papers which remained in my hands, because I was
determined never to make use of them, so I confess to you that I took a
sort of pride in never asking for those of mine which were in the
Pretender’s hands; I contented myself with making the duke understand how
little need there was to get rid of a man in this manner who had made the
bargain which I had done at my engagement, and with taking this first
opportunity to declare that I would never more have to do with the
Pretender or his cause.
That I might avoid being questioned and quoted in the most curious and
the most babbling town in the world, I related what had passed to three
or four of my friends, and hardly stirred abroad during a fortnight out
of a little lodging which very few people knew of. At the end of this
term the Marshal of Berwick came to see me, and asked me what I meant to
confine myself to my chamber when my name was trumpeted about in all the
companies of Paris, and the most infamous stories were spread concerning
me. This was the first notice I had, and it was soon followed by others.
I appeared immediately in the world, and found there was hardly a
scurrilous tongue which had not been let loose on my subject; and that
those persons whom the Duke of Ormond and Earl of Mar must influence, or
might silence, were the loudest in defaming me.
Particular instances wherein I had failed were cited; and as it was the
fashion for every Jacobite to affect being in the secret, you might have
found a multitude of vouchers to facts which, if they had been true,
could in the nature of them be known to very few persons.
This method of beating down the reputation of a man by noise and
impudence imposed on the world at first, convinced people who were not
acquainted with me, and staggered even my friends. But it ceased in a
few days to have any effect against me. The malice was too gross to pass
upon reflection. These stories died away almost as fast as they were
published, for this very reason, because they were particular.
They gave out, for instance, that I had taken to my own use a very great
sum of the Chevalier’s money, when it was notorious that I had spent a
great sum of my own in his service, and never would be obliged to him for
a farthing, in which case, I believe, I was single. Upon this head it
was easy to appeal to a very honest gentleman, the Queen’s Treasurer at
St. Germains, through whose hands, and not through mine, went the very
little money which the Chevalier had.
They gave out that whilst he was in Scotland he never heard from me,
though it was notorious that I sent him no less than five expresses
during the six weeks which he consumed in this expedition. It was easy,
on this head, to appeal to the persons to whom my despatches had been
committed.