plot with them against his party and his principles. Happily for his reputation, these cabals were interrupted by his death. Halifax was justly renowned for the literary talents which he possessed himself and patronised in others; for his skill in finance; for his eloquence in debate; for his activity in business. He was, however, better fitted, in his later years, at least, to adorn than to lead a party. Marlborough, in his private letters, has, with his usual admirable discrimination of characters, touched upon the weak point of this: "I agree with you that Lord Halifax has no other principle but his ambition; so that he would put all in distraction rather than not gain his point." And again: "If he had no other fault but his unreasonable vanity, that alone would be capable of making him guilty of any fault."*

On the demise of Wharton and Halifax, the Privy Seal was put into commission; and the Earl of Carlisle, a respectable nobleman, with some taste but no talent for poetry,† was made First Lord of the Treasury. He was soon found, however, wholly unequal to that high office; and it was, in October, 1715, transferred to Walpole as a just reward for the talents he had displayed during the last session, and especially in the impeachments.

*To the Duchess, February 7, 1709, and Nov. 28, 1708.

His Lordship continued rhyming till a few hours before his death, in 1738; and, "it is a pity," says Horace Walpole, "that such wholesome precepts were not couched in more harmonious numbers." Royal and Noble Authors; Works, vol. i. p. 534.

CHAPTER V.

To those who attentively consider the state of parties at the accession of George the First, it will, I think, appear indisputable that the friends of the Pretender would, sooner or later, with more or with less resources, have attempted an insurrection in his cause. On the other hand, however, I am far from denying that this insurrection gathered strength from the vindictive measures of the Whig administration-measures which tended to exalt the hopes, and increase the numbers, of the disaffected.

To their success, however, three things seemed essential: first, that the rising in England should take place conjointly with that in Scotland; secondly, the personal presence of the Pretender whenever his standard was first raised; and, thirdly, some assistance from France. It will be my task to explain how, partly from misfortune, but more from mismanagement, not one of these objects, though reasonably expected, was attained.

Lord Bolingbroke, on arriving at Paris, had by no means openly and at once attached himself to the Jacobite party. Still hoping for a favourable construction from his judges in England, he resolved not to provoke them by any fresh ground of accusation. He went to the Earl of Stair, the new British ambassador, and protested to him that he would enter into no disloyal engagements; and he wrote to Secretary Stanhope with similar assurances.

*

We learn, however, from the best authority, that Bolingbroke, with characteristic duplicity, at the very time that he made those professions to Lord Stair, and wrote thus to Stanhope, had a secret conference with Marshal Berwick, the Pretender's natural brother; gave a flattering report of the Jacobite interest in England; and observed, that the time was not yet come for himself to espouse it publicly. Having thus, as much as possible, made terms with both parties, the noble exile retired into Dauphiné, where he anxiously awaited the course of events. Here he soon received tidings of the bill of attainder passing against him, and felt, as he says, the smart of it tingling in every vein. His own inclination was seconded by letters from his friends; he saw that it was no longer necessary to keep measures with the House of Hanover, and hastening to Commercy in Lorraine, he publicly joined the exiled heir of the Stuarts.†

Mém. de Berwick, vol. ii. p. 137.

+ James, on his part, received Bolingbroke with great distinction, and soon afterwards sent him an Earl's patent: "I cannot, you know," he says, " as yet give you very essen

"The very first conversation I had with the Chevalier," says Bolingbroke himself, "answered in no degree my expectations. He talked to me like a man who expected every moment to set out for England or Scotland, but did not very well know for which."* He was in very active communication with both countries, as also with the Court of France. The letters from the Scotch were warm and eager; they declared themselves impatient to rise; they pressed for the Chevalier's arrival amongst them, (sometimes, according to Bolingbroke, in terms much more zealous than respectful,) and seemed to apprehend no other danger than having the honour of the Restoration taken from them, or shared with others. From England, on the contrary, the advices were as loose and undetermined as might be expected from the character of the Duke of Ormond, who had taken upon himself the whole direction of the business in that country. He had received from James a commission, with the most ample powers that could be given; and he was in close correspondence with Berwick, the intended generalissimo of the Pretender's armament. His reports on the state of public feeling were most favourable; he did not scruple to assert that, out of every ten persons, nine were against King George; he had, moreover, he said, taken care to distribute money amongst the disbanded officers, to keep alive his influence with the army, and to foment the tumults of the people. But when from statements the Duke came to projects, he declared that he and his friends were unable or unwilling to stir, unless assisted by France with a body of at least three or four thousand troops, a sum of money, and a supply of arms and ammunition.

In answer to this application, the ministers of Louis declared, in a frank and friendly spirit, that, for their own national interest, the maintenance of peace with England was indispensable; that, therefore, no body of troops could possibly be sent, nor any ostensible assistance afforded, but that secret supplies of money, arms, and ammunition should not be withheld. Louis even prevailed upon the Court of Madrid to promise a loan of four hundred thousand crowns to the Chevalier, who, on his personal credit, had already been able to raise one hundred thousand, besides ten thousand stand of arms. Ormond and his friends were, therefore, under no false hopes. They were told plainly, and at once, that no foreign troops could be expected. It was for them next to consider whether or not they could act without such aid; and, on either alternative, to state their intention plainly and distinctly. But Ormond was in war like Oxford in politics. Instead of taking either part, he wavered between both. Sometimes he renewed his request for troops; sometimes he urged the Pretender to embark immediately for England.

tial proofs of my kindness, but the least I can do for so good and faithful a servant is in sending you the enclosed warrant, which raises you a degree higher than my sister had done before, and which will fix your rank with me beyond dispute." July 25, 1715. Stuart Papers.

Letter to Sir William Wyndham.

See the Mém de Berwick, vol. ii. p. 135.

course shifted

Guided by resentment rather than by reason, his from day to day; and he always felt most sure of subverting the Government whenever he was most angry with it. Such hot and cold fits marred all attempts at regular design.

The evident policy of the Chevalier under these circumstances was to restrain the Scotch, and to quicken the English, so that both might ultimately act together, and to entangle the Court of France in hostilities against the Government of George. For all these objects, Paris appeared the best pivot for his negotiations; and Bolingbroke, having accepted the Seals as his Secretary of State, repaired thither towards the end of July. "Here," he says, "I found a multitude of people at work, and every one doing what seemed good in his own eyes; no subordination, no order, no concert. . . . . The Jacobites had wrought one another up to look on the success of the present designs as infallible. Care and hope sat on every busy Irish face. Those who could write and read had letters to show, and those who had not yet arrived to this pitch of erudition had their secrets to whisper. No sex was excluded from this ministry.' With such a multitude of counsellors, and liberality of disclosures, it was not difficult for an acute and able minister like Lord Stair to penetrate into all their "secrets"-as they were still by courtesy termed.

While Bolingbroke was striving to dispose and regulate this chaos of intrigue, he had the satisfaction to receive at length from England more distinct and positive instructions, in a memorial agreed upon between the Duke of Ormond, Lord Mar, Lord Lansdowne, and the other heads of the Jacobites. This paper again strongly urged the importance of a body of French troops, and the danger of coming without them. But, it added, if the Chevalier were determined to run that risk, he ought to set out so as not to land until the end of September, Old Style, by which time Parliament would in all probability be prorogued, and the influential Jacobite Peers and Members of the House of Commons have returned to their respective counties. In this case, it demanded that the Chevalier should bring with him 20,000 arms, a train of artillery, 500 officers, and a considerable sum of money; and when these should be in readiness, it promised to give him notice of the proper place for landing. This paper Bolingbroke immediately adopted as the compass for his course; and communicated part of it to the Ministers of Louis,† whom he found struggling between the most friendly zeal for the Pretender and the fear of another war. To the request for troops, or for any open engagement, they were still steadily opposed; but they were willing to grant indirect supplies, and had already allowed a small armament to be fitted out at Havre, partly at their expense,

Letter to Sir William Wyndham. His despatch to the Pretender, of July 23, 1715 (Appendix), is in a similar strain; and, in fact, the greater part of the statements in the Letter to Wyndham are very remarkably confirmed by the correspondence in the Stuart Papers.

Bolingbroke to Torcy, August, 1715. Stuart Papers. See Appendix.

and under a fictitious name. Thus they would probably have been drawn from step to step farther than they at first designed; the resentment of the Court of England and of the Whig administration would have blazed high; the Jacobites would then have secretly concurred with the Hanoverians in endeavouring to fix upon the Court of France the aid it had afforded; and, on the whole, Bolingbroke declares himself clearly of opinion, that, had Louis the Fourteenth lived six months longer, the war between France and England would have been renewed.

Thus, then, at this juncture the cause of the Stuarts seemed to bear a brighter aspect than it had assumed since the battle of the Boyne. But it was soon again overcast, first by the flight of Ormond, and, secondly, by the death of Louis. Ormond had promised, in his letters, to keep his ground to the last; to remain at Richmond, unless threatened with arrest; and in that case to hasten to the western counties, the chief seat of his influence, and there put himself at the head of his friends. With this view he had already concerted some measures for seizing the cities of Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth; he had assigned stations to a great number of disbanded officers in his interest, and had even provided relays of horses on the road, to secure his rapid progress.* But though personally a brave man, at the last moment his heart failed him. He slunk away and crossed over to France in a small sloop, without leaving any order whatever for those who had confided in his management, and were awaiting his directions. His arrival at Paris struck a great damp on the Jacobite cause. The French statesmen, who had heard his popularity so often and so loudly bragged of, and who had looked upon him as the main pillar of his party, now began, from the easy subversion of the first, to entertain no very favourable opinion of the latter.

The health of Louis the Fourteenth had for some time been declining. That sun, so bright in its meridian, so dim and clouded at its setting, was now soon to disappear. It would be a melancholy task to trace the changes in his fortunes and his character during sixty years, from his joyous and triumphant manhood to his cheerless and sullen old age. To be stripped of his hard-won conquests -to see the fabric of power, raised in fifty toilsome and victorious years, at last crumbled into dust-to hear the exulting acclamations which used to greet his presence transformed to indignant murmurs or mournful silence-to be deprived by a sudden and suspicious death of nearly all the princes of his race, and left with no other male descendant for his successor than an infant great grandsonto be a prey to grasping bastards, and to the widow of a deformed buffoon; such was the fate reserved for the vaunted conqueror of

Mém de Berwick, vol. ii. p. 143.

† Louis had taken the sun for his device in 1662. Many years afterwards, a Calvinist caricature, in allusion to the power of Madame de Maintenon over him, represented him not unaptly as a sun peeping from behind a woman's hood! See the Mémoires de Maurepas, vol. iii. p. 329, ed. 1792.