CHAPTER VI.

REVIEW OF THE STATE OF PARTIES IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND, AND OF CHARLES'S PROSPECT OF SUCCESS.

BEFORE, however, we accompany the prince in his preparations for so stupendous an enterprise, we shall do well to consider three questions that naturally present themselves for our consideration, as necessary to enable us to pass a fair judgment on the motives that led to the adventurous undertaking. Firstly: Did the idea originate in Charles's own mind, or was it suggested to him by others?-Secondly: Was the bold step the result of blind temerity, or had its author reasonably weighed the difficulties which he should have to overcome?—And thirdly: Was the French government aware of the design previously to its execution?

Some French writers would have us believe that it was Cardinal de Tencin who first sug

gested to Charles the possibility, even without the assistance of France, of making an attempt on Great Britain, where his name would suffice to collect an army around his banner, after which the active assistance of France would not long be denied him. There is, however, very little ground for believing that such was really the origin of this idea. Bold undertakings are much more likely to be conceived by the ardour of youthful ambition, than to spring from the cautious calculations of an aged minister; but, from what has already been said, it is evident that the question of a landing of James or his son in Great Britain, even without an army, had been discussed in the correspondence between the Chevalier de St. George and his adherents. It is difficult to believe that the English and Scottish Jacobites would have

* Voltaire, Précis du Siècle de Louis XV. (Œuvres complets, t. xxx. A Gotha, 1785. P. 188). M. L. de Sevelinges (Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, t. xliv. Paris. 1826. P. 96). Frederick the Great, speaking of the landing of Charles, says :"On disait à Londres que cette rebellion était la saillie d'un prêtre jacobite (le Cardinal Tencin)." According to others (Ausführliche Staats und Lebensgeschichte Georgs des Andern, Königs von Grossbrittannien) not only was the expedition from Dunkirk the work of Cardinals Tencin, Aquaviva, and Alberoni, but the first went so far as to hold out hopes of the hand of a French princess, in case the enterprise succeeded,

suggested the practicability of such a design, without some previous hint from Rome; and it is therefore all but certain that the feasibility of such a landing, as a last resource, must have been matter of deliberation at James's court as early as 1743, so that Cardinal de Tencin could scarcely have suggested the notion for the first time in autumn, 1744. It is, therefore, quite consistent with the character of Charles to suppose that, having discussed every probable contingency before leaving Rome, and being fully resolved to leave no resource untried which with the aid of courage and perseverance might lead to the wishedfor end, he did cling, as long as he could, to the hope that France would make a powerful demonstration in his behalf; but, when that hope was necessarily abandoned, he had no occasion to borrow, either from the cardinal or from any other individual, the idea of his chivalrous expedition.

In the position in which his affairs then stood, he may, likewise, have felt some compensation for the disappointment to which he had been subjected by the French court, in the hope of achieving the dazzling prize, without subjecting

himself to obligations that, in the sequel, could not but entail upon him a painful dependence, and without the co-operation of an auxiliary, whose interference was certain to place the cause in an unfavourable light in the eyes of a large part of the British nation, and to inspire plausible doubts of his own free agency in the exercise of the power he might acquire. It is not the less probable, however, that Charles communicated his design to the cardinal, and the latter may have done all in his power to encourage it. Willing as the young prince may have been to owe the possession of his crown, as little as possible, to a foreign power, and little as he needed a prompter to induce him to enter on the struggle without the aid of France, still he must have been desirous to maintain his interest at the French court, and with that view he may have opened his plans to the powerful cardinal. The latter, on the other hand, had several motives to induce him to encourage the romantic scheme, which, whether in the end successful or not, relieved the French court for the moment of one whose remonstrances, though just, were inconvenient, and which, at all events, might cause

T

a powerful diversion in England, where the unexpected appearance of a Stuart might make him a doubly formidable enemy. It is, likewise, probable, that the cardinal encouraged Charles in his design, by assuring him that its execution would make it impossible for France to withhold the promised succour. Such an assurance could

but act as an additional stimulus to the prince to embark in an enterprise, which might be profitable, and could not be detrimental, to France.

On the other hand, a vague promise, not conveyed in an official form, would leave the French government at liberty to regulate its subsequent conduct according to the course that events might take. Should the prince succeed, and be likely to stand in no need of foreign assistance, the aid of France might be freely given; but, should it appear, that no advantage was likely to result to France from interfering in his concerns, Charles might quietly be abandoned to his fate. In a letter to his father, he assigns as motives for his departure for Scotland the invitations which he

had been receiving from his British friends for

six months preceding, the coincidence of a variety of favourable circumstances, and his vexation at