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СНАР. Having the honour to be like him in my suf ferings, I wish I could have been like him too "in my services; but that has not been in my 66 power. I can, indeed, die in exile, asserting the Royal cause as he did; but I see not what other way is now left me of contributing to the support "of it!" Such are almost the last expressions of this most eloquent man; his infirmities were daily growing upon him, and he died a few weeks afterwards, on the 15th of February, 1732, in the 70th year of his age. How grievous is the fate of exiles! How still more grievous the party division which turns their talents against their country!

Even in his shroud Atterbury was not allowed to rest. His body being brought to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey, the government gave orders to seize and search his coffin. There was a great public outcry against the Ministers on this occasion, as though their animosity sought to pursue him beyond the grave; and undoubtedly none but the strongest reasons could excuse it. They had received intelligence of some private papers of the Jacobites to be sent over by what seemed so safe and unsuspected a method of conveyance. This mystery they determined to un

* Bishop Atterbury to James, November 12. 1731. Appendix. + Coxe, in his Narrative, speaks of smuggled brocades, not of papers. But the letter from the Under Secretary of State, which he produces as his authority, speaks only of papers, and says nothing of brocades. Mem. of Walpole, vol. i. p. 175., vol. ii. p. 237. Boyer glides over this unpopular transaction, (vol. xlii. p. 499.)

ravel; and with the same view was Mr. Morice CHAP. arrested and examined before the Privy Council.

Atterbury's own papers had been disposed of by his own care before his death. The most secret he had destroyed; for the others he had claimed protection as an Englishman from the English ambassador, Lord Waldegrave; that a seal might be placed upon them, and that they might be safely delivered to his executors. Lord Waldegrave declined this delicate commission, alleging that Atterbury was no longer entitled to any rights as a British subject.* The Bishop next applied to the French government, but his death intervening, the papers were sent to the Scots College at Paris, and the seal of office affixed to them, Mr. Morice obtaining only such as related to family affairs.

It may be observed, that the Government of George seems always to have possessed great facilities in either openly seizing or privately perusing the Jacobite correspondence. We have already seen how large a web of machinations was laid bare at Atterbury's trial. In 1728, Mr. Lockhart found that some articles of his most private letters to the Pretender were well known at the British Court, where, fortunately for himself, he had a steady friend; and on his expressing his astonishment, he

* Mr. Delafaye, Under Secretary of State, writes to Lord Waldegrave :-"As to your Excellency's getting the scellé put "to his effects...... if your own seal would have done, and "that you could by that means have had the fingering of his papers, one would have done him that favour." (May 11. 1732.) A most delicate sense of honour!

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CHAP. was answered-"What is proof against the money "of Great Britain ?" * The testimony of Lord Chesterfield, as Secretary of State, is still more positive. "The rebels, who have fled to France "and elsewhere, think only of their public acts of "rebellion, believing that the Government is not "aware of their secret cabals and conspiracies, "whereas, on the contrary, it is fully informed of "them. It sees two thirds of their letters; they

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betray one another; and I have often had the

very same man's letters in my hand at once, some "to try to make his peace at home, and others to "the Pretender, to assure him that it was only "a feigned reconciliation that they might be the "better able to serve him. . . . . . The spirit of "rebellion seems to be rooted in these people; "their faith is a Punic faith; clemency does not "touch them, and the oaths which they take to "Government do not bind them." +

Nothing certainly tended more than these frequent disclosures of letters to cool the ardour of the High Tory gentlemen in England, or, at least, to redouble their caution. They came, at length, to prefer, in nearly all cases, verbal messages to any written communication, and prudently kept themselves in reserve for the landing of a foreign force. Without it, they always told James that

* Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 400.

To Madame de

(Works, vol. iii. p. 207.)

August 16. 1750. Orig. in French.

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they could only ruin themselves without assisting CHAP. him. It was a frequent saying of Sir Robert Walpole-"If you see the Stuarts come again, they will begin by their lowest people; their "chiefs will not appear till the end.”*

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H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, Sept. 27. 1745.

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XVI.

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CHAP. XVI.

CHAP. FROM the resignation of Lord Townshend the A ascendency of Walpole was absolute and uncontrolled, and confirmed by universal by universal peace abroad, by growing prosperity at home. His system of negotiations was completed by the second treaty of Vienna, signed in March, 1731, and stipulating that the Emperor should abolish the Ostend Company, secure the succession of Don Carlos to Parma and Tuscany, and admit the Spanish troops into the Italian fortresses. England, on her part, was to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction, on the understanding that the young heiress should not be given in marriage to a Prince of the House of Bourbon, or of any other so powerful as to endanger the balance of power.* At home, various measures of improvement and

This treaty was greatly promoted by the influence of Prince Eugene. He said to Lord Waldegrave :-"Je n'ai "jamais eu si peu de plaisir de ma vie dans les apparences d'une guerre....... Il n'y a pas assez de sujet pour faire tuer un poulet!" Lord Waldegrave to Lord Townshend, March 18. 1780. Coxe's House of Austria, vol. iii.

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