rated against the government to fuch a degree, that far from wanting to be encouraged, they could not be reftrained from infulting it on every occafion; that the whole tory party was become avowedly Jacobites; that many officers of the army and the majority of the foldiers were well affected to the cause; that the City of London was ready to rife, and that the enterprizes for feizing of feveral places were ripe for execution; in a word that most of the principal tories were in concert with the Duke of Ormond: for I had preffed particularly to be informed whether his Grace acted alone, or, if not, who were his council; and that the others were fo difpofed, that there remained no doubt of their joining as foon as the first blow should be ftruck. He added, that my friends were a little furprised, to obferve that I lay neuter in fuch a conjuncture. He reprefented to me the danger I ran, of being prevented by people of all fides from having the merit of engaging early in this enterprize, and how unaccountable it would be for a man, impeached and attainted under the prefent government, to take no share in bringing about a revolution fo near at hand and fo certain. He intreated that I would defer no longer to join the Chevalier, to advise and affift in carrying on his affairs, and to folicit and negotiate at the Court of France, where my friends imagined that I fhould not fail to meet a favourable reception, and whence they made no doubt of receiving affiftance in a fituation of affairs fo critical, fo unexpected, and fo promifing. He concluded, by giving me a letter from the Pretender, whom he had feen in his way to me, in which I was preffed to repair without lofs of time to Comercy; and this inftance was grounded on the meffage which the bearer of the letter had brought me from England. In the progrefs of the converfation with the meffenger, he related a number of facts, which satisfied me as to the general difpofition of the VOL. IV. people; E a war. people; but he gave me little fatisfaction as to the measures taken to improve this difpofition, for driving the business on with vigour, if it tended to a revolution, or for supporting it to advantage, if it spun into When I queftioned him concerning feveral perfons whofe difinclination to the government admitted no doubt, and whofe names, quality, and experience were very effential to the fuccefs of the undertaking; he owned to me that they kept a great referve, and did at moft but encourage others to act by general and dark expreffions. I received this account and this fummons ill in my bed; yet, important as the matter was, a few minutes ferved to determine me. The circumftances wanting to form a reasonable inducement to engage did not excufe me ; but the fmart of a bill of attainder tingled in every vein, and I looked on my party to be under oppreffion, and to call for my afliftance.. Befides which, I confidered firft that I fhould be certainly informed, when I conferred with the Chevalier, of many particulars unknown to this gentleman; for I did not imagine that the English could be fo near to take up arms as he reprefented them to be, on no other foundation than that which he expofed. In this manner having for fome time debated with himself, and taken his resolution, he loft no time in repairing to the Pretender at Comercy, and took the feals of that nominal King, as he had formerly thofe of his potent miftrefs. But this was a terrible falling off indeed; and the very firft converfation he had with this weak projector gave him the most unfavourable expectations of future fuccefs. He talked to me (fays his Lordship) like a man who expected every moment to fet out for England or Scotland, but who did not very well know for which: and when he entered into the particulars of his affairs, I found, that concerning the former he had nothing more more circumftantial or pofitive to go upon, than what I have already related. But the Duke of Ormond had been for fome time, I cannot fay how long, engaged with the Chevalier : he had taken the direction of this whole affair, as far as it related to England, upon himfelf, and had received a commiffion for this purpofe, which contained the moft ample powers that could be given. But ftill, however, all was unsettled, undetermined, and ill-understood. The Duke had asked from France a fmall body of forces, a fum of money, and a quantity of ammunition; but to the first part of the request he received a flat denial, but was made to hope that fome arms and fome ammunition might be given. This was but a very gloomy prof pect; yet hope fwelled the depreffed party fo high, that they talked of nothing less than an inftant and ready revolution. It was their intereft to be fecret and induftrious; but, rendered fanguine by their paffions, they made no doubt of fubverting a government with which they were angry, and gave as great an alarm, as would have been imprudent at the eve of a general infurrection. Such was the state of things when Bolingbroke arrived to take up his new office at Comercy; and although he faw the deplorable ftate of the party with which he was embarked, yet he refolved to give his affairs the best complexion he was able, and fet out for Paris, in order to procure from that court the neceffary fuccours for his new mafter's invafion of England. But his reception and negotiations at Paris were ftill more unpromifing than thofe at Comercy; and nothing but abfolute infatuation feemed to dictate every measure taken by the party. He there found a multitude of people at work, and every one doing what feemed good in his own eyes; no fubordination, no order, no concert. The Jacobites had wrought one another up to look upon the fuccefs of E 2 the the prefent defigns as infallible: every meeting houfe which the populace demolished, as he himfelf fays, every little drunken riot which happened ferved to confirm them in thefe fanguine expectations; and there was hardly one among them, who would lose the air of contributing by his intrigues to the restoration, which he took for granted would be brought about in a few weeks. Care and hope, fays our author very humouroufly, fate on every bufy Irish face; thofe who could read and write had letters to fhew; and those who had not arrived to this pitch of erudition had their fecrets to whifper. No fex was excluded from this miniftry; Fanny Oglethorpe kept her corner in it; and Olive Trant, a woman of the fame mixed reputation, was the great wheel of this political machine. The ridiculous correspondence was carried on with England by people of like importance, and who were bufy in founding the alarm in the ears of an enemy, whom it was their intereft to furprise. By thefe means, as he himself continues to inform us, the government of England was put on its guard, fo that before he came to Paris, what was doing had been difcovered. The little armament made at Havre de Grace, which furnished the only means to the Pretender of landing on the coafts of Britain, and which had exhausted the treasury of St. Germains, was talked of publicly. The Earl of Stair, the English minifter at that city, very foon difcovered its deftination, and all the particulars of the intended invafion; the names of the perfons from whom fupplies came, and who were particularly active in the defign, were whispered about at tea-tables and coffee-houses. In fhort, what by the indifcretion of the projectors, what by the private interefts and ambitious views of the French, the moft private tranfactions came to light; and fuch of the more prudent plotters, who fuppofed that they had trufted their heads to the keeeping of one or two friends, were in reality at the mercy of numbers. Into fuch company, exclaims our noble writer, was I fallen for my fins. Still, however, he went on, fteering in the wide ocean without a compafs, till the death of Lewis XIV. and the arrival of the Duke of Ormond at Paris rendered all his endeavours abortive: yet, notwithstanding thefe unfavourable circumftances, he ftill continued to difpatch feveral meffages and directions for England, to which he received very evafive and ambiguous anfwers. Among the number of thefe, he drew up a paper at Chaville, in concert with the Duke of Ormond, Marshal Berwick, and De Torcy, which was fent to England juft before the death of the King of France, reprefenting that France could not answer the demands of their memorial, and praying directions what to do. A reply to this came to him through the French Secretary of State, wherein they declared themselves unable to fay any thing, till they faw, what turn affairs would take on the death of the King, which had reached their ears. Upon another occafion a meffage coming from Scotland to prefs the Chevalier to haften their rifing, he difpatched a meffenger to London to the Earl of Mar, to tell him that the concurrence of England in the infurrection, was ardently wifhed and expected: but, inftead of that Nobleman's waiting for inftructions, he had already gone into the highlands, and there actually put himself at the head of his clans. After this, in concert with the Duke of Ormond, he dispatched one Mr. Hamilton, who got all the papers by heart, for fear of a mifcarriage, to their friends in England, to inform them, that though the Chevalier was deftitute of fuccour, and all reafonable hopes of it, yet he would land as they pleased in England or Scotland at a minute's warning; and therefore they might rife immediately after they had |