V. 1715. scruple to assert that, out of every ten persons, CHAP. nine were against King George; he had, moreover, he said, taken care to distribute money amongst the disbanded officers, to keep alive his influence with the army, and to foment the tumults of the people. But when from statements the Duke came to projects, he declared that he and his friends were unable or unwilling to stir, unless assisted by France with a body of at least three or four thousand troops, a sum of money, and a supply of arms and ammunition. In answer to this application, the ministers of Louis declared, in a frank and friendly spirit, that, for their own national interest, the maintenance of peace with England was indispensable; that, therefore, no body of troops could possibly be sent, nor any ostensible assistance afforded, but that secret supplies of money, arms, and ammunition should not be withheld. Louis even prevailed upon the Court of Madrid to promise a loan of four hundred thousand crowns to the Chevalier, who, on his personal credit, had already been able to raise one hundred thousand, besides ten thousand stand of arms. Ormond and his friends were, therefore, under no false hopes. They were told plainly, and at once, that no foreign troops could be expected. It was for them next to consider whether or not they could act without such aid; and, on either alternative, to state their intention plainly See the Mem. de Berwick, vol. ii. p. 135. V. 1715. CHAP. and distinctly. But Ormond was in war like Oxford in politics. Instead of taking either part, he wavered between both. Sometimes he renewed his request for troops-sometimes he urged the Pretender to embark immediately for England. Guided by resentment rather than by reason, his course shifted from day to day; and he always felt most sure of subverting the Government, whenever he was most angry with it. Such hot and cold fits marred all attempts at regular design. The evident policy of the Chevalier under these circumstances was to restrain the Scotch, and to quicken the English, so that both might ultimately act together, and to entangle the Court of France in hostilities against the Government of George. For all these objects, Paris appeared the best pivot for his negotiations; and Bolingbroke, having accepted the Seals as his Secretary of State, repaired thither towards the end of July. "Here," he says, "I found a multitude of people at work, and "every one doing what seemed good in his own eyes; no subordination, no order, no concert. The Jacobites had wrought one another up to look on the success of the present designs "as infallible. Care and hope sat on every busy Irish face. Those who could write and "read had letters to show, and those who had not "yet arrived to this pitch of erudition had their "secrets to whisper. No sex was excluded from 66 66 .... ... "this ministry.” With such a multitude of CHAP. While Bolingbroke was striving to dispose and regulate this chaos of intrigue, he had the satisfaction to receive at length from England more distinct and positive instructions, in a memorial agreed upon between the Duke of Ormond, Lord Mar, Lord Lansdowne, and the other heads of the Jacobites. This paper again strongly urged the importance of a body of French troops, and the danger of coming without them. But, it added, if the Chevalier were determined to run that risk, he ought to set out so as not to land until the end of September, Old Style, by which time Parliament would in all probability be prorogued, and the influential Jacobite Peers and Members of the House of Commons have returned to their respective counties. In this case, it demanded that the Chevalier should bring with him 20,000 arms, a train of artillery, 500 officers, and a considerable sum of money; and when these should be in readiness, it promised to give him notice of the proper place for landing. This paper Bolingbroke immediately adopted as the compass for his course; and communicated * Letter to Sir William Wyndham. His despatch to the Pretender, of July 23. 1715 (Appendix), is in a similar strain; and, in fact, the greater part of the statements in the Letter to Wyndham are very remarkably confirmed by the correspondence in the Stuart Papers. V. 1715. V. 1715. CHAP. part of it to the Ministers of Louis*, whom he found struggling between the most friendly zeal for the Pretender and the fear of another war. To the request for troops, or for any open engagement, they were still steadily opposed; but they were willing to grant indirect supplies, and had already allowed a small armament to be fitted out at Havre, partly at their expense, and under a fictitious name. Thus they would probably have been drawn from step to step farther than they at first designed; the resentment of the Court of England and of the Whig administration would have blazed high; the Jacobites would then have secretly concurred with the Hanoverians in endeavouring to fix upon the Court of France the aid it had afforded; and, on the whole, Bolingbroke declares himself clearly of opinion, that, had Louis the Fourteenth lived six months longer, the war between France and England would have been renewed. Thus, then, at this juncture the cause of the Stuarts seemed to bear a brighter aspect than it had assumed since the battle of the Boyne. But it was soon again overcast,-first by the flight of Ormond, and secondly by the death of Louis. Ormond had promised, in his letters, to keep his ground to the last; to remain at Richmond, unless threatened with arrest; and in that case to hasten to the western counties, the chief seat of his influ * Bolingbroke to Torcy, August, 1715. Stuart Papers. See Appendix. V. 1715. ence, and there put himself at the head of his CHAP. friends. With this view he had already concerted some measures for seizing the cities of Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth; he had assigned stations to a great number of disbanded officers in his interest, and had even provided relays of horses on the road, to secure his rapid progress.* But though personally a brave man, at the last moment his heart failed him. He slunk away and crossed over to France in a small sloop, without leaving any order whatever for those who had confided in his management, and were awaiting his directions. His arrival at Paris struck a great damp on the Jacobite cause. The French statesmen, who had heard his popularity so often and so loudly bragged of, and who had looked upon him as the main pillar of his party, now began, from the easy subversion of the first, to entertain no very favourable opinion of the latter. The health of Louis the Fourteenth had for some time been declining. That sun, so bright in its meridian, so dim and clouded at its setting, was now soon to disappear. It would be a melancholy task to trace the changes in his fortunes and his character during sixty years from his joyous * Mem. de Berwick, vol. ii. p. 143. + Louis had taken the sun for his device in 1662. Many years afterwards, a Calvinist caricature, in allusion to the power of Madame de Maintenon over him, represented him not unaptly as a sun peeping from behind a woman's hood! See the Mémoires de Maurepas, vol. iii. p. 329. ed. 1792. |