more probable, that, considering the chance of invasions from France, or insurrections in England, he was unwilling to act too vigorously against the Chevalier, and to cut off all hopes of future power if that party should prevail. Certain it is, at least, that such was the opinion entertained of his motives by the government at London; insomuch, that, in a very short time, he was deprived of his command, and recalled to England. It is certain, also, that there was a period in Queen Anne's reign when he was thought by no means disinclined to espouse the Pretender's interests, and that in 1717 and 1718 there was on foot another project for gaining him over to that cause, a project which, according to the judgment of the leading Jacobites, failed chiefly on account of Lord Mar's jealousy and James's consequent refusal to give the positive assurances required. With all his valour, skill, and eloquence, there was never, I believe, a more fickle and selfish politician than Argyle.

The insurgent army from Dundee continued its march to Montrose, where the Chevalier was pressed by his secret advisers to reembark. For some time he turned a deaf ear to their remonstrances, and earnestly pleaded to share the fate of his friends. Every hardship, he said, every danger he was most ready to endure with the men who had sacrificed their all for his service; and it appears that the only argument to which he finally yielded was, that it would be much more easy for these unfortunate men to obtain terms from the government in his absence than whilst he remained with them. His departure, however, was carried into effect in a manner that gave it every appearance of desertion and deceit. All reports of any such intention were utterly denied; his guards were ordered to parade as usual before his lodgings, and his baggage was sent forward with the main body of the army, as a pledge of his intention to follow. Having thus lulled the vigilance of his partisans, James, on the evening of the 4th of February, slipped out of a back-door, and proceeded on foot to Lord Mar's quarters, and from thence to the water-side, attended by that nobleman and by several others. They pushed from shore in a private boat, and embarked in a small French vessel, which was waiting for them in the roads, and which immediately stood out to sea. Such is the fate of those whose characters are less daring than their enterprises!

The Chevalier left behind him a commission appointing General Gordon commander-in-chief, and giving him full powers to treat with the enemy; and he also left a letter to the Duke of Argyle, with a sum of money, the remnant of his slender resources, desiring that it might be applied for the relief of the poor people whose villages he had given orders to burn; "so that," he adds, "I may at least have the satisfaction of having been the destruction of none, at a time I came to free all."†

See the details of this transaction in the Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. 13.

†The original letter is printed in Mr. Chambers' History, p. 312. Its existence was for some time denied by the Whig writers, who assailed the Pretender's personal character with very unjust though perhaps natural severity.

It is needless to dwell upon the grief and disappointment of the insurgent army after the loss of their leader. They marched towards Aberdeen, hourly growing fewer and fewer, as individuals escaped or concealed themselves in different directions; and from Aberdeen they retired up Strathspey to the wilds of Badenoch and Lochaber. Very few fell into the hands of the enemy, partly from the remissness of Argyle's pursuit to Aberdeen, and partly from the difficulty of sending regular troops into the rugged and desolate tracts beyond it. On the latter point Sinclair has recorded a very remarkable opinion: "I remember that I once heard his Grace of Marlborough say in Flanders, that if ever he commanded against the Highlanders, he would never be at the trouble of following them into their hills, to run the risk of ruining an army by fatigue, and giving them any occasion of advantages, when he could post himself so as to starve them if they pretended to keep together, or till, by their natural inconstancy, they separated; after which every one would do his best to get terms."* In the Highlands the insurgent body finally dispersed: the common men, safe in their obscurity, retiring to their private homes, whilst the gentlemen for the most part took boats in Caithness, escaped to the Orkneys, and afterwards made their way to the Continent.

He

James himself, after a voyage of seven days, landed safely at Gravelines, and proceeded from thence to St. Germains. On the morning after his arrival he was visited by Lord Bolingbroke, whom he received with much show of kindness. It was strongly urged upon him by that able minister, that he should hasten to Bar, and take possession of his former quarters before the Duke of Lorraine had time to desire him to look out for a residence elsewhere. might otherwise be reduced, from the want of any other asylum, to take shelter in the Papal state of Avignon, which would not only remove him to a greater distance from England, but produce a most unfavourable effect upon the Protestants of that country. James, after some days' delay, and several attempts to obtain an interview with the Regent, seemed to acquiesce in this advice; promised Bolingbroke to set out at five the next morning; asked him to follow as soon as possible, and pressed him in his arms at parting with every appearance of confidence and cordiality. Yet at that very moment he had already decided on the dismissal of the Minister whom he so tenderly embraced. Whether it be that he gave ear to the charge of treachery which others hurled against Bolingbroke to cover their own incapacity and want of conduct; or whether he had been moved by some disrespectful expressions which Bolingbroke had uttered in a drunken sally,† he took a resolution which, beyond all others,

Sinclair's Memoirs, MS. p. 343.

For the charge of treachery by Mr. James Murray, and the answers by Lord Boling. broke and his secretary Brinsdon, see Tindal's Hist. (vol. vi. p. 516). The story of Bolingbroke's drunken expressions does not, I think, rest on very certain authority; it is related more at length in Coxe's Walpole (vol. i. p. 200. See also vol. ii. p. 307). The charge of treachery is most certainly false.

perhaps, set the seal to the ruin of his cause. Instead of posting to Lorraine, he went to a little house in the Bois de Boulogne, the residence of several intriguing female politicians, and there he had private interviews with the Spanish and Swedish Ministers, pleasing himself with an air of mystery and business (one of the surest symptoms of a little mind), and neglecting the only real business which he should have had at that time. Three days afterwards, Bolingbroke unexpectedly received a visit from the Duke of Ormond, who put into his hands two orders in a very laconic style, written by the Chevalier; the one dismissing him from his post as Secretary of State, and the other requiring him to deliver to the Duke the papers in his office "all which," adds Bolingbroke, "might have been contained in a letter-case of a moderate size. I gave the Duke the seal, and some papers 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."

Yet, however any feeling of anger might be disavowed, the reader may easily guess that the fiery spirit of St. John glowed with the strongest resentment. He immediately renounced all connexion with the Jacobite party; he even made overtures to Lord Stair for his own pardon in England; and to the Queen Mother, who sent to assure him that his dismissal had taken place without her knowledge, and that she hoped to adjust matters, he indignantly replied that he was now a free man, and that he wished his arm might rot off if he ever again drew his sword or his pen for her son's cause! It is scarcely possible to condemn too much the absurd infatuation which urged the Pretender thus wantonly to cast away the ablest, perhaps the only able man in his service. On this transaction we may suspect the remarks of Bolingbroke. But we should trust the testimony of Marshal Berwick, a man of accurate information and scrupulous veracity, whose attachment to his brother was not in this case warped by any peculiar friendship for the fallen minister. "One must have lost one's reason," he observes, "if one did not see the enormous blunder made by King James in dismissing the only Englishman he had able to manage his affairs; for, whatever may be said by some persons of more passion than judgment, it is admitted by all England, that there have been few greater ministers than Bolingbroke. He was born with splendid talents, which had raised him at a very

This assertion is confirmed by the letters themselves, now preserved in the Stuart Papers. Thus, on Nov. 15, 1715, James writes, " Our good hearty Duke (Ormond) wants a good head with him. I would have sent Booth, but I could not persuade him." The orders conveyed by Ormond to Bolingbroke are still amongst the Stuart Papers, and are exactly as the latter describes them.

early age to the highest employments; he exerted great influence over the Tory party, and was in fact its soul. Could there then be a more lamentable weakness than to rid one's self of such a man at the very time when he was most wanted, and when it was most desirable to make no new enemies? If even he had been to blame, it would have been prudent to have effected his exclusion by some milder means, and these would not have been hard to find; it need only have been insinuated to him that the coldness which prevailed between him and Ormond would not admit of their acting any longer together.. . But to cast a public stigma upon him, and seek to blacken his character with the world, is an inconceivable proceeding, and it has lost King James many more friends than people think. I was in part a witness how Bolingbroke acted for King James whilst he managed his affairs, and I owe him the justice to say, that he left nothing undone of what he could do; he moved heaven and earth to obtain supplies, but was always put off by the Court of France; and though he saw through their pretexts and complained of them, yet there was no other power to which he could apply."

The last and most painful, but unavoidable result, of this rebellion still remains to tell-the conviction and punishment of its leaders. In Scotland few or none of note had been taken, while the surrender of Preston, on the contrary, had given into the hands of Government a great number of considerable persons, both Scotch and English. Of these, some half-pay officers, being treated as deserters, underwent a summary trial before a court-martial, and were forthwith shot, according to its sentence. About five hundred of the inferior prisoners were sent to Chester Castle, and many others to Liverpool; but those of gentle birth were escorted to London, where they arrived on the 9th of December. From Highgate each of them had his arms tied with a cord across his back (Mr. Forster, though a member of Parliament, not excepted), their horses being led by footsoldiers, and the drums of their escort beating a triumphal march; an insult to prisoners before their trial, which the notoriety of their guilt may explain rather than excuse. Having thus made a public entry (for so their enemies termed it in derision), they were divided amongst the four principal prisons, the noblemen being secured in the Tower.

The trial of these last before the House of Lords was the first object of Parliament, when it reassembled on the 9th of January. On that very day Mr. Lechmere, in a long speech, which is still preserved,* descanted upon the guilt of the rebels, and the "many miraculous providences" which had baffled their designs; and ended by impeaching James, Earl of Derwentwater, of high treason. Other members followed, and impeached Lord Widdrington, the Earls of Nithisdale, Wintown, and Carnwath, Viscount Kenmure, and Lord

See Parl. Hist., vol. vii. pp. 227–238. Lechmere had been made Solicitor-General in October, 1714, but (I know not for what offence either given or received) had ceased to be so in December, 1715. Beatson's Political Index.

Nairn. No opposition was offered, and the impeachments were carried up to the Lords on the same day. The accused noblemen were brought before the House on the 19th, and knelt at the bar until the Lord Chancellor desired them to rise, when they pleaded guilty, acknowledging their crime, and throwing themselves upon the King's mercy-all except Lord Wintoun. Sentence of death was accordingly pronounced upon the former, and preparation made for the trial of the latter.

Of the six peers thus condemned, one, Lord Nairn, is said to have been saved solely by the interposition of Stanhope. They had been at Eton together, and, though they had scarcely met since that time, yet the minister still retained so much friendship for his former school-fellow, as earnestly to plead for his life, and finding his request refused by the other members of the Cabinet, he made his own resignation the alternative, and thus prevailed.* Great interest was also made in behalf of the rest. The Duchesses of Cleveland and Bolton, and other ladies of the first rank, accompanied the young Countess of Derwentwater to an audience of the King, and joined her in imploring his Majesty's clemency. On another occasion Ladies Nithisdale and Nairn (this was before Stanhope's interposition had succeeded), concealing themselves behind a window-curtain in an anteroom, and waiting till the King passed through, suddenly rushed forth and threw themselves at his feet. Attempts were also made elsewhere upon feelings more ignoble than those of compassion; and the first Lord of the Treasury declared in the House of Commons, that 60,0007. had been offered to him if he would obtain the pardon of only one, Lord Derwentwater. Several of the staunchest Whigs in the House of Commons, amongst others Sir Richard Steele, with his characteristic good nature-were inclined to mercy. But Walpole took the lead in urging measures of severity, and declared that he was "moved with indignation to see that there should be such unworthy members of this great body, who can, without blushing, open their mouths in favour of rebels and parricides." When we consider how very greatly and undoubtedly Walpole was distinguished by personal lenity and forbearance, during his long administration, his vehemence on this occasion may surely be alleged as no small proof of the real necessity for making some rigorous examples. He moved the adjournment of the House till the 1st of March, it being understood that the condemned peers would be executed in the interval; but he prevailed only by a majority of seven, the numbers being 162 and 155.

In the House of Lords the friends of the unfortunate noblemen made a still more effectual stand. A debate having arisen on the presentation of their petition, one member of the Cabinet, the Earl of Nottingham, mindful of his former Tory principles and friendships, suddenly declared in their favour. His unexpected defection

* See some remarks on this occurrence in Seward's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 252, ed. 1804. I must observe, however, that it rests chiefly on the evidence of tradition.