the sole use of them. The same quality fitted them for every expedition that required secrecy and despatch. They served for all purposes of hussars or light horse, in a country where mountains and bogs render cavalry useless; and if properly disposed over the Highlands, nothing that was commonly reported and believed by the Highlanders could be a secret to their commanders, because of their intimacy with the people, and the sameness of the language.

"Now let me suppose that France was to attempt an insurrection in the Highlands, which must be prepared by emissarys sent to cajole, and to cabale, to promise, to pay, to concert, &c. and by arms and ammunition imported and dispersed; and let me suppose this Highland regiment properly disposed and properly commanded, is it not obvious that the operations of such emissarys must be discovered, if not transacted with the utmost secrecy; that the Highlanders who suffered themselves to be tampered with by them, must do so under the strongest apprehensions of being taken by the neck by detachments of that regiment, if their treason were heard of; and that, of course, they must be shy of meeting or transacting with the agent of the pretender, or of caballing, mustering their followers, or receiving or distributeing arms.

"Now, on the other hand, lett me suppose the same attempt to be made, and the Highland regiment in Flanders; let me beg to know, what chance could you have of discovering or preventing the effect of any tampering in the Highlands. Could any officer, or other person trusted by the government go through the mountains with ane intention to discover such intrigues with safety? Would the pretender's emissarys, or the Highlanders who might favour them, be in any apprehension from the regular troops? Could you propose, with any probability of success, to seize arms or attainted persons? Nay, suppose the government had direct intelligence of the projects carried on, where, and by whom, could they hope to surprise or lay hold of any one person? These questions I dare say you can easily answer, and with me can see, that if France should stumble upon such a design as I have been supposing-remove but that regiment, and there is nothing to hinder the agents of that crown to have their full swing, and to tamper with the poor

unthinking people of the Highlands with as great safety as if there were no government at all in the island. I will say more, I doubt not but in many places of that country, if the people could be prevailed with to rebel, they might receive arms, and be in some sort disciplined for many weeks before the government could bave certain notice of it."

Such was the sound wisdom, and the full information, in the face of which the government acted in this whole affair, and this sagacious and prudent counsellor was not aware how remarkably his suspicions, even to a very iota, were to be verified. Nay, they were already verified to an extent, which though it had been told him, he probably would not have believed. Encouraged by the Spanish war, which they were shrewd enough to see would soon bring on a war with France, and delivered from that surveillance to which by the vigilance of these independent companies they had been for a number of years subjected, the Jacobite chieftains, in the beginning of the year 1740, framed an association, which they signed, sealed, and delivered to Drummond of Bochaldy, to be carried to the Chevalier de St. George, and presented to him at Rome, where he was still resident. This document contained an engagement on the part of the subscribers to take arms, and to venture their lives and fortunes to restore the Stuart family to the throne of Britain, provided the king of France would send over a body of troops to their assistance, and it was signed by lord Lovat, Drummond of Perth, lord Traquair, Campbell of Auchinbreck, Cameron of Locheil, &c. &c. Besides this bond of association, Bochaldy carried with him a list of names comprising the greater part of the chieftains of the Highlands, all of whom the conspirators calculated upon as ready to assist them in case of any favourable demonstration being made from abroad. These papers were immediately forwarded by the chevalier, with his full approbation of all they contained, to the French minister, cardinal Fleury, with a request that his eminence would grant the assistance required. Fleury, however, was not a man to be led rashly into any such undertaking, and gave, in return for this confidence, nothing farther than fair promises, till in 1742, the

* Culloden Papers, p. 362.

powerful aid of Great Britain, given to the house of Austria, was likely to thwart those measures, which, to gratify her ambition, the government of France had resolved to pursue, when it occurred to that sagacious old veteran, as it had often done to his predecessors, that he might be relieved from a principal portion of the pressure, by reviving the pretensions of the Stuart family to the throne of Britain.

In pursuance of this plan, Fleury, in the month of February, 1742, despatched Drummond of Bochaldy back to Edinburgh, where he found most of the conspirators who had signed the association, which had by him been carried to the pretender at Rome, and who, with the addition of some others, "had formed themselves into a society, which they called the concert of gentlemen for managing the king's affairs in Scotland." To these gentlemen Drummond communicated the friendly intentions of the cardinal, who was so well pleased with the intelligence from Scotland, and had the interests of the pretender so much at heart, that, provided he had the same assurances from the friends of the Stuart family in England, he would instantly send over thirteen thousand men, three thousand of which he would land upon the east and west coasts of Scotland, and ten thousand as near London as possible. After having thus made the conspirators fully acquainted with the cardinal's plan of invasion, Drummond returned to Paris, and had an audience of the French minister, who, as he wrote back to his employers, was exceedingly pleased with the account given him of the state of affairs in Scotland, and designed to put his scheme of inva sion to the proof without a moment's delay. Nothing, however, was either done or attempted during all that year, and the Scotish conspirators began to be apprehensive that the cardinal had no intention to assist them by an invasion, but that Drummond, to keep up the spirit of the party in Scotland, and to make himself considerable as the agent of the cardinal, had exceeded his instructions, and laid before them a plan such as he thought would please. To ascertain the real state of the case, Murray of Broughton, who had now joined himself to the party, was prevailed on to go upon a mission to Paris, in the month of January, 1743, where, when he arrived, he found that cardinal Fleury was dead, and was succeeded in his office of

premier by the cardinal de Tencin, to whom he had recommended the execution of his design to restore the family of Stuart.

Nothing could be more cheering to the party than this intelligence. Tencin had been elevated to the purple through the interest of the Chevalier de St. George, and was strongly attached to the Stuart family. His temper was violent and enterprising, and his ambition was flattered with the prospect of giving a king to Great Britain, while his better feelings must have been gratified with the prospect of performing such an important service to his benefactor. Long had the Stuart family, with all their adherents, been dependant on the French court, often had their highest hopes been excited by fair promises, or by partial movements, on the part of that court, and as often had they been miserably disappointed. Now, however, the star of their good fortune seemed to shine in earnest, and all their friends to be seriously disposed to assist them. Fifteen thousand men were assembled on the coast of Picardy, and transports were provided at Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, for their embarkation. The celebrated marshal Saxe was appointed their commander, and it was determined that they should be landed on the coast of Kent, under convoy of a strong squadron equipped at Brest, and placed under the orders of Monsieur Roquefeuille, an officer of great capacity and experience. The chevalier de St. George was himself too old, and had too little reputation to add any thing by his personal presence to such an expedition, but it was stipulated that he should delegate his authority to his son Charles, of whom many wonderful tales had been industriously propagated, and in whose future life the most illustrious deeds were confidently anticipated. The duke of Ormond was also particularly requested by the chevalier to assist on this important occasion, but he excused himself on account of his great age.

On the ninth of January, 1744, Charles Edward, eldest son of the chevalier de St. George, set out from Rome in the disguise of a Spanish courier, and accompanied only by one servant. Furnished with passports by the Spanish minister, cardinal Aquaviva, he travelled through Tuscany to Genoa, whence he proceeded to Savena, where he embarked for Antibes, and pro

secuting his journey to Paris, was indulged with a private audience of the French king, after which he set out to join the army that was assembling in Picardy.

The British ministry had not been inattentive to this armament, and once apprized of the presence of the pretender's son along with it, were at no loss to comprehend its destination. Mr. Thompson, the English resident at Paris, was ordered to remonstrate with the French government on the violation of those treaties by which the pretender to the crown of Great Britain was excluded from the territories of France, but was only answered by complaints of manifold infractions by his Britannic majesty of these very treaties. The British government lost no time in making preparations to meet the threatened danger, and the states-general were instantly applied to for the six thousand men stipulated by former treaties in case of an invasion on the part of the pretender. This application their high mightinesses complied with in the most cordial manner, and sent instantly to their admiralties to accelerate the manning of such ships as were in a condition for being the soonest put to sea, "adding the strongest and most cordial professions of their high mightinesses' unalterable attachment to his majesty's person and government." Several regiments were at the same time marched to the coast, and all commanders were ordered to their respective posts. The forts at the mouths of the Thames and Medway were put in a posture of defence, orders were issued to assemble the Kentish militia, and Sir John Norris was forthwith ordered to take the command of the fleet at Spithead, with which he sailed round to the Downs, where he was joined by seven ships of the line from Chatham, when he found himself at the head of a squadron considerably stronger than that of the enemy.

On the fifteenth day of February the king sent a message to both houses of parliament, intimating the arrival of the pretender's son in France, the preparations at Dunkirk, and the appearance of a French fleet in the English Channel. Both houses joined in an address, declaring their abhorrence of such a design, and assuring his majesty that "they would with the

* History of England. Scots Magazine for February, 1744.