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trial prevaricated so much, that he was obliged to sell his company in the guards, and, to escape a prosecution for perjury, flee the country. The pretender, was himself so deeply interested in this affair, that he wrote to the dutchess of Hamilton, a most gracious letter of condolence on the melancholy fate of her husband, which, he probably felt the more keenly, as it so seriously affected his own.

The intention of all this bustle and noise about an affair in which the public were not very intimately concerned, was intended to counterbalance the loss sustained by the death of the duke of Hamilton, by rendering the whigs odious; but, unfortunately for the cause, it rendered them at the same time terrible, and, from that day forth, Oxford seems to have resolved to solicit, by all means consistent with holding his place, the countenance of the family of Hanover, nor does the queen herself, though her good wishes were doubtless still with her brother, appear to have thought, after this, of making one consistently formed effort more for him during her life. The certain indications of a civil war being the unavoidable consequence of landing the pretender in any part of Great Britain, we think much more likely to have induced both Oxford and the queen to suspend, for a time, those arrangements by which they intended to serve him, than the difficulty, after losing the duke of Hamilton, of finding a person capable of carrying them forward, as has been broadly affirmed by Lockhart,* and after him, repeated by various other writers. Oxford had long been regarded by the court of St. Germains with suspicion; this suspicion seems now, by rapid gradations, to have increased, till, at the earnestly repeated solicitations of that court, he was dismissed from his station; and though Bolingbroke entered heartily into the schemes of the pretender, the vacillating temper, and the timidity of the queen, together with the secretly, and artfully managed opposition of Oxford, and the determined obstinacy of the whigs, rendered all his efforts, in the end, perfectly nugatory.

The Jacobites, however, still suffered themselves to be so far imposed upon, as to indulge the most extravagant dreams of

• Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 410.

+ Stuart Papers, 1714

immediate success, 66 turning," as one hath well observed, "their hands and eyes to a foolish expectation, in which, had they had the least foresight, they could not but see they were dropped in the beginning, and must effectually be disappointed in the end. The duke of Shrewsbury was appointed ambassador to the court of France, in room of his grace the duke of Hamilton, but was not, as is generally stated, thought worthy of being intrusted with the more delicate and important matters, that were to have formed the most prominent of his predecessor's commission. The duke de Aumont was, at the same time, sent to London by the court of Versailles, and was believed to have secret instructions to negotiate on the part of the pretender; it has even been stated, that the pretender was in his train, and had several interviews with the queen, his sister. Of this last circumstance we have not seen sufficient evidence. From the swarm of papists that attended him, and the ostentatious tenor of his behaviour, de Aumont created a violent prejudice against himself, and, instead of serving the cause of James, injured it most materially. He was at first a favourite with the mob, but latterly, could not appear without being insulted by it, and his house was at last maliciously set on fire and burned to the ground.†

The great object of the present ministers, and in which the Jacobites took such a deep interest, peace, being, after many delays, signed on the thirteenth of March, the parliament, which, in expectation of this event, had been from day to day prorogued, was opened on the ninth of April. The queen, in her speech to the two houses, told them that she had now concluded a peace in which she had obtained a further security for the protestant succession; and that she was in an entire union with the house of Hanover. Of the commons she asked the necessary supplies, and to both houses she recommended the cultivation of the arts of peace. She passed some severe reflections on faction, and complained of the liberty of the press, suggesting the propriety of some new law to check its progress. Trade and manufactures, she also recommended to their par

• Secret History of the White Staff.

Sommerville's History of the reign of Queen Anne, &c. &c.

ticular attention; nor did she forget those brave men who had served the country during the war, and were now likely to have no other resource but its bounty. The lords were, as usual, somewhat refractory, and, though they did not explicitly dissent from her majesty's sentiments, avoided any specific approbation of the peace, except in so far as it secured the protestant succession; but the commons expressed their entire satisfaction with it, and their admiration of her majesty's steadiness, notwithstanding the many difficulties that had been so industriously laid in her way. The example of the commons, with regard to the treaty of peace, was followed by the principal corporations in Britain, though they very soon found themselves under the necessity of petitioning parliament against the commercial part of it, and, in a short time, would gladly have parted with it altogether

There were also addressers, Scotish Jacobites, who, without waiting for the signing of the treaty, but, anticipating its benefits, had sent up to the queen their hearty commendations thereof, gratefully applauding "the set of patriots, who were not only the faithful advisers of this great transaction, but, in spite of an impiously bold opposition, have been its wise and daring administrators; thanking her majesty for recommending the insolence of the press to the consideration of the late parliament, hoping the ensuing will improve upon the progress of the former, and work out a thorough reformation; that they may be no more scandalized, nor the blessed Son of God blasphemed, nor the sacred race of Stuarts inhumanly traduced, with equal malice and impiety." They conclude with declaring, that they will be "happy, if, after her majesty's late demise, to put a period to our intestine divisions, the hereditary right and parliamentary sanction could possibly meet in a lineal sucThis was got up at the instance of the earl of Marr, the commissioners sent up with it, were introduced by lord Bolingbroke to the queen, who received them most graciously, commended the warmth of their loyal attachment, and rewarded the chief of them with pensions.

cessor."*

Rae's History of the Rebellion, p. 52. Supplement to the History of Queen Anne, pp. 225, 226.

This, and other addresses of a similar kind, printed by public authority, excited the utmost astonishment in the more thinking portion of the community, while they emboldened the friends of the pretender, to make, in their usual manner, most foolish displays of their feelings, in almost every part of the kingdom, by which, laying open their secret purposes, they alarmed all the more prudent among themselves, and gave particular uneasiness to the queen, to whom nothing was so terrible as the prospect of internal commotion. By these means also, they gave new life and increased activity to those jealousies that had for some time past been secretly brooding in the minds of the ministers with regard to one another, and which produced those indecisive and sometimes jarring measures, that, in the end, subjected them to disappointment and ruin. The lord chancellor Harcourt, and the lord treasurer Oxford, were particularly piqued at the forwardness of Bolingbroke, who, they were afraid, by countenancing these gross flatteries, was gaining too much of the ear of the queen; and several of the leading members of both houses, whose veneration for the queen had led them hitherto to support the ministry, alarmed at these dangerous proceedings, began to clamour, even more violently than the whigs, for additional securities for the protestant succession.*

In the meantime, the assembly of the church of Scotland met at Edinburgh, on the thirtieth of April, 1713, John, duke of Athol, being appointed commissioner, and Mr. William Wishart, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, chosen moderator. In her letter to this assembly, the queen was profuse in compliments, and expressed particular zeal for the protestant succession: "We take," she says, "this solemn occasion to renew the assurances we have formerly given you of our firm purpose to maintain the church of Scotland as established by law. The address of the late General Assembly did so much manifest their loyalty and good affection to our royal person and government, and their true concern for the succession in the protestant line of the house of Hanover, as established by law, that it could not but be very

* Supplement to the History of the reign of Queen Anne.

acceptable to us: and your moderation and unanimity amongst yourselves, is not more for your own good, than it will be for our satisfaction. And we assure ourselves, that there will be nothing in your procedure but what shall be dutiful to us, and shall manifest the wisdom of your conduct."*

Nothing in the form of an admonition could be more soothingly sweet than this, and the assembly copied after it with admirable felicity. After thanking her majesty for so kindly accepting their expression of loyalty and affection to the protestant succession, as presented by the last assembly, they go on to say: "We beg leave to testify to your majesty, how much it did rejoice us to be acquainted by your commissioner from the throne, with the great care that your majesty has been pleased so conspicuously to show for the protestant religion, and the continuance of it to succeeding generations in your own dominions, and that your majesty has further extended the same pious care to the churches abroad, and that God has blest your endeavours for obtaining the release of those who were in the French galleys for their religion; and also, the consent of France to redress the hardships to which the protestant churches in Germany were liable." This was all well, had it been true, but, unfortunately for the veracity of the commissioner, and the intelligence of the assembly, there was not one word of it but what was utterly false; and a principal ground of dissatisfaction with the peace, among all serious and good men, even of the communion of the church of England, was the shameful manner in which the interests of the suffering protestants, both in France and in Germany, had been neglected by her majesty's ministers.+ Rae, who certainly had no intention of derogating from the honour of the assembly, writing in the year 1718, asserts, that "though the late queen Anne, as the head and guarantee of the protestant interest, had granted commission to the marquis. de Miremont, to act in concert with all the other plenipotentiaries, for the enlargement and re-establishment of these suffering protestants in France, and he accordingly presented to them, at the congress at Utrecht, an excellent memorial,

* Printed Acts of Assembly, 1713.

Thoughts concerning the Peace.

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