some time ago. I cannot miss to observe the friendship and care with which you are so good as notice every thing that concerns me. It gives me great pleasure in the mean time, and will grow in proportion as you afford me opportu nities of making grateful returns. As for the hopes you would gladly entertain of seeing a more happy prospect of affairs, I wrote in conjunction with Mr Lumley* and my cousin + very fully to his Majesty on that important subject, and by a view of the state of things both here and at home, am persuaded we have solid grounds to hope for a speedy completion of all we wish, since we have been assured by the gentleman that is lately arrived from you of his Majesty's firm state of health, and of his entering into his affairs with his usual application and truly royall wisdom. This comfortable account has raised our spirits as much as contrary surmises had before depressed them, and determined us to exert ourselves with new vigour, being fully convinced, as indeed all faithful subjects on this side of the sea must be, that if we were so unhappy as to be deprived of his Majesty before our Princes acquire more knowledge and experience, all our endeavours to serve the royall family would be fruitless and vain. I thank God we have now the comfort to be assured that our fears in that respect are without foundation. My brother, who is come here some time ago, is very acknowledging for the attention with which you mention him, and will endeavour to deserve the good opinion you express of him. He was perfectly sensible of all the inconveniences that would have attended the message imposed upon him, and so is overjoyed that I prevailed with Trebby to get it recalled. I am always with sin cere friendship, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, PARIS, June 1st, 1747. No. XCIII. Extract of a letter,- The Chevalier de St George to Prince Charles. 6th June, 1747. I HOPE in God you will not think of getting Lord George secured after all I have writ to you about him, and that you will receive him at least civilly; for whatever you may think, or whatever he may be, your being unkind to him would certainly do you more hurt than any he ever could, tho' he intended it. His coming to Rome, his now going to you to Paris, and his resolution of living a retired life in Flanders, are, I think, proofs without reply that he is not the ill man you suspect him to be, and as he neither pretends to stay in France, or to meddle in business, I think it should cost you little to be civil to him for the very short time he will be in that country. • Sempil. + Drummond of Bochaly : Kelly. No. XCIV. The Chevalier de St George to the King of France. MONSIEUR MON FRERE ET COUSIN, à ALBANO, ce 9th Juin, 1717. C'ETOIT une sensible satisfaction pour moy d'apprendre que V. M avoit approuvée la voyage que mon second Fils à fait en ce pais cy et quelle l'avoit en même tems bien voulu assurer de la continuation de ses bontés. II v a long tems il est vray que J'ai souhaité de le revoir, mais je ne prevoyois point que J'aurois eu sitôt cette consolation et J'ai bientôt appris de lui même que sa tendresse pour moy n'étoit pas l'unique objet de ce voyage, mais qu'il l'avoit entrepris principalement pour me consulter et m'œuvrir son cœur sur sa vocation a l'état ecclesiastique. Il a toujours été porté à la Piété dès son enfance, et la conduite qu'il a tenu dans la monde jusqu à l'age de 22 ans, me sont des preuves non equivoques de la pureté de ses intentions et de la verité de sa vocation. De sorte que J'aurois cru resister à la volonté de Dieu si je me fut opposer à ses pieux desirs. Cependant nous n'avons pas voulus ni lui ni moy prendre notre derniere resolution sans consulter premierement le St Père lequel pour nous faire mieux sentir qu'il apprenoit son desseign m'offert de lui donner le chapeau du Cardinal, et il le lui donnera en effet après la St Père à son retour à Rome, Comme V. M. l'apprendra aussi de sa Ste Nonce. De mon coté Je n'ai pas voulu tarder à en instruire V. M. me flattant qu'elle voudra bien y donner son agrément et son approbation, et qu'elle voudra bien aussi continuer sa protection et ses bontés a mon Fils, surtout dans un tems ou il embrace un état qui facilitera à V. M. les moyens de lui en donner des marques et à lui cause des les meriter plain de confiance dans ses genereuses dispositions envers nous. Je la prie très instamment d'être fortement persuadé, que mon respecteux attachement et amitié, avec les sentiments de la plus vive reconnoissance ne fineront qu'avec ma vie. SIR, * No. XCV. Mr Theodore Hay to Mr Edgar. BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, 10th June, 1747. I HAD the honor of writing you the 26th April last in answer to your regarded favor of 14th April, that, according to your desire, I would order the £60 sterling to be paid to my Lady Balmerino. By yesterday's post our correspondent sends me her Ladyship's receipt, dated 18th May last, O. S., for above sum, and here I send it you inclosed: he writes me this came in very good season, and that she set out for Scotland next day. I am, &c. THEODORE HAY. No. XCVI. Receipt. LONDON, 18th May, 1747-Received from Messrs. Charles and Hugh Smith of Boulogne, by the hands of John Ker, Sixty pounds sterling, for which given two receipts of this date by £60. M. BALMERINO No. XCVII. The Chevalier de St George to Prince Charles. ALBANO, June 13th, 1747. I KNOW not whether you will be surprized, my dearest Carluccio, when I tell you that your brother will be made a Cardinal the first days of next month. Naturally speaking, you should have been consulted about a resolution of that kind before it had been executed; but as the Duke and I were unalterably determined on the matter, and that we foresaw you might probably not approve of it, we thought it would be showing you more regard, and that it would be even more agreeable to you, that the thing should be done before your answer could come here, and to have it in your power to say it was done without your knowledge or approbation. It is very true I did not expect to have seen the Duke here so soon, and that his tenderness and affection for me prompted him to undertake that journey; but after I had seen him, I soon found that his chief motive for it was to discourse with me fully and freely on the vocation he had long had to embrace an ecclesiastical state, and which he had so long concealed from me and kept to himself, with a view, no doubt, of having it in his power of being of some use to you in the late conjunctures. But the case is now altered, and, as I am fully convinced of the sincerity and solidity of his vocation, 1 should think it a resisting the will of God, and acting directly against my conscience, if I should pretend to constrain him in a matter which so nearly concerns him. The maxims I have bred you up in and have always followed, of not constraining others in matters of religion, did not a little help to determine me on the present occasion, since it would be a monstrous proposition that a King should be a father of his people and a tyrant to his children. After this I will not conceal from you, my dearest Carluccio, that motives of conscience and equity have not alone determined me in this particular; and that, when I seriously considered all that has past in relation to the Duke for some years bygone, had he not had the vocation he has, I should have used my best endeavours, and all arguments, to have induced him to embrace that state. If Providence has made you the elder brother he is as much my son as you, and my paternal care and affection are equally to be extended to you and him; so that I should have thought I had greatly failled in both towards him had I not endeavoured by all means to secure him, as much as in me lay, that tranquillity and happiness which I was sensible it was impossible for him to enjoy in any other state. You will understand all I mean without my enlarging farther on this last so disagreeable article, and you cannot, I am sure, complain that I deprive you of any service the Duke might have been to you, since you must be sensible that, all things considered, he would have been useless to you remaining in the world. But let us look forward and not backward. The resolution is taken and will be executed before your answer to this can come here. If you think proper to say you were ignorant of it, and do not approve it, I shall not take it amiss of you ; but, for (God's sake, let not a step which, naturally speaking, should secure peace and union amongst us for the rest of our days, become a subject of scandal and eclat which would fall heavyer upon you than upon us in our present situation, and which a filial and brotherly conduct in you will easily prevent. Your silence towards your brother, and what you writ to me about him since he left Paris, would do you little honor if they were known, and are mortifications your brother did not deserve, but which cannot alter his sentiments towards you. He now writes to you a few lines himself, but I forbid him entering into any particulars, since it would be giving himself and you an useless trouble after all I have said about him here. . I must now acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22d May, with Sir John's of the same date to me, and to the Duke. Sir John, speaking of money matters, says you are in a labyrinth. Give me leave to say you have brought yourself into it, and it is not in my power to bring you out of it. If you don't take proper ways and means of having the French Court pressed and sollicited about the payment of the gratifications to the Scots gentlemen, you will expose yourself to great embarras, aud them to be in distress, all which might have been prevented, and you at least not have been in want had you accepted of the French pension and allowed such matters to be quietly and decently managed in the method I had put them. For my part I can neither send you money nor credit from hence; but as I ordered O'Bryen formerly to receive the pension you refused, and applying a third part to the Duke's use, to lay out the other two at my disposal till one should see what you would do in that affair, I can out of that money give you 40,000 livres, and I now order O'Bryen to put that sum into O'Sullivan's hands for you, so that you may call for it when you please, and this is all I can do or say on these matters. I see you don't approve of the idea I had of a marriage for you. I heartily wish you may find a better match, and shall pray God to direct you in that and every thing else. When I have given you my advice, and told you my thoughts, I have done my part and discharged, my own conscience, and I shall not now importune you with repetitions, which would, I am affrayed, be of no use, considering the maxims and systems I see you are imbued with and attached to, and which altho', if not drawn too far, may be right and good in themselves, as I am persuaded they are in your intention; yet, in the manner you now apply them, I but too plainly see they will be your ruin, first abroad and at last even at home, whatever may be your ideas of popularity in respect of the last. I have determined to send for the two Mr Fotheringhams you name to Edgar and Mr Dormer, by which you may see my desire of doing what may be agreeable to you, but when I have once them it will be as much as I shall want, and so pray recommend no more to me to be sent for here. I understand the Duke's maitre d'Hotel, Francisco and Ludovico, the valetde-chambre and the footman, are now with you. If you have a mind to keep the two last, and that they are willing to stay with you, you are master; but as for the maitre d'Hotel, I find he is so clever and intelligent a man that I should be glad to have him here, where it is hard to get such sort of servants, whereas in France you can find them much more easily, so I wish you would allow him to come into this country, if he is willing to do so. Here is, I think, enough for one letter, and perhaps more than you would nave wished to have found in it, but at least I hope for the future all will go with peace and harmony amongst us, and for your own sake carry at least with a proper decency and exterior behaviour towards your brother and me. You must be sensible that, on many occasions, I have had reason to complain of you, and that I have acted for this long while towards you more like a son than a father. But I can assure you, my dear child, nothing of all that sticks with me, and I forgive you the more sincerely and cordially all the trouble you have given me, that I am persuaded it was not your intention to faill towards me, and that I shall have reason to be pleased with you for the time to come, since all I request of you hereafter is your personal love and affection for me and your brother. Those who may have had their own views in endeavouring to remove us from your affairs have compassed their end. We are satisfyed and you remain master; so that I see no bone of contention remaining, nor any possible obstacle to a perfect peace and union amongst us for the future. God bless my dearest Carluccio, whom I tenderly embrace. I am all yours. JAMES R. DEAR BROTHER, No. XCVIII. Prince Henry to Prince Charles. You will see by the King's letter that I am not at liberty to enter with you into particulars, so all I shall say is, that no change of state can ever alter the sentiments of my heart towards a brother I have alwaise loved and respected, may be more than he imagines, which is saying a great deal ;* for I am sure you know me too well not to do me justice, at least in some measure, in those respects, whatever you may think of the step I now take, not to be persuaded that am unalterable towards you; and therefore I should think that I wronged you if I should fear you would ever alter towards me, at least I can assure you, you will never have reason to do so, but that in my new state it shall be, as it hath always been, my constant study to deserve your love and affection, and to convince you of mine. No. XCIX. The Chevalier de St George to Prince Charles. 20th June, 1747. I HAVE received my dearest Carluccio's of the 29th May, and remark what you say in it about Lord George Murray, and on the supposition of a new negociation in your favour. By your conduct for some years past it would appear you don't think you stand much in need of my advice or assistance; but in the case of another expedition there will be no time to consult me, for the French will probably not put even yourself in the secret till the time of execution, and then you must of necessity act according to the best of your judgment, • What follows is in the Chevaller's hand-writing in the original draught from which this is taken. |