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CHAP. he requested his lordship to draw the inference. from these three propositions. But this agent, on 1715. arriving in London and communicating with Erasmus Lewis, the late secretary to Lord Oxford, and now an active member of the Jacobite conspiracy, learned that Mar had already gone to raise the Highlands. It is positively asserted by Berwick, that the Pretender, without any intimation either to himself or Bolingbroke, had sent orders to Mar to begin the insurrection in Scotland without further delay. The veracity and the means of information of Berwick are equally unquestionable; yet it seems difficult to credit such an extremity of falsehood and folly in James. There are several circumstances to disprove, there are none to confirm it; and, on the whole, I suspect that Berwick must have been misled by an excuse which Mar afterwards invented for his own rashness. James himself, writing to Bolingbroke on the 23d of September, expresses an anxious desire that his Scotch friends will at least wait for his answer, if they cannot, as he hopes, stay so long as to expect a concert with England. Is it not beyond belief that he should already, several weeks before, have given positive orders to the opposite effect-that he should have issued such momentous directions at a moment so unfavourable, and concealed them from his best friends and most able advisers?

*Berwick, Mem. vol. ii. p. 158.

James to Lord Bolingbroke, September 23. 1715. See Appendix.

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1715.

The insurrection once raised, however impru- CHAP. dently, there was no other course for the Chevalier than to maintain it vigorously. Both he and Ormond gave abundant proof of personal courage. The latter immediately set off from Paris; and the former was as fully prepared to leave Lorraine and take ship for Great Britain, although Bolingbroke observes, that it was then no longer possible to carry over even such a handful of men as should secure the Prince from being taken by the first constable he might meet on shore.* He had several times fixed a day for his departure from Commercy, but had as often been compelled to postpone it, in compliance with the earnest injunctions which he received from England, and which continued to prescribe delay. It was not till the 28th of October, that, freed from these trammels, he set out in disguise, and travelled westward to St. Malo.

Meanwhile the Duke of Ormond had sailed from the coast of Normandy to that of Devonshire ‡, where, according to his last engagements with his partisans, he expected to find them in arms. But the English Government had now taken vigorous mea

* Letter to Sir William Wyndham.

+ See Lord Mar's account from France. Tindal, vol. vi. p. 506. James's partisans circulated a shameful rumour that Lord Stair had formed a plan for his assassination on the road. See Mem. de St. Simon, vol. xiii. p. 403.

He took with him only about twenty officers and as many troopers from Nugent's regiment. Mem. de Berwick, vol. ii. p. 165.

CHAP. sures to nip the rebellion in its bud. Maclean, an

V.

active agent of Ormond, had betrayed him.* The 1715. principal friends of Ormond were arrested; the others dispersed; and when the Duke came to the appointed place he found no signs of a risingnot a single man to meet him, instead of the thousands he expected; and he was compelled to steer again towards France. On landing in Brittany he found, at St. Malo, the Chevalier just arrived from Lorraine, and actively employed in shipping off supplies for Scotland. After several conferences with him, the Duke again embarked, with the daring and indeed desperate project of throwing himself upon the English coast, and taking the chance of some favourable circumstances; but a violent tempest forced him back a second time. On the other part, the Chevalier seeing the plan of the English insurrection baffled, and having completed his business at St. Malo, resolved to proceed himself to Scotland; but hav ing been obliged to postpone his sailing for a few days, he found it at the end of that time to be no longer practicable, the harbour being closely blockaded by several English men-of-war. In this extremity the young Prince set off by land from St. Malo, where, says Bolingbroke, he had as many ministers as there were people about him. He travelled privately on horseback across the country to Dunkirk, having previously sent directions that a

* Lord Bolingbroke to the Pretender, Nov. 8. 1715. See Appendix.

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1715.

ship should be prepared for him in that port. There CHAP. he arrived in the middle of December, when he immediately embarked on board a small vessel of eight guns, attended only by six gentlemen, who were, like himself, disguised as French naval officers; and with this scanty retinue did the last heir of the Stuarts set sail for their ancient kingdom.

We must now revert to what had been passing on the other side of the channel, and especially to the proceedings of Lord Mar.

John Erskine, eleventh Earl of Mar, was made of the willow and not of the oak. He had early in the late reign entered public life as a Whig; he had afterwards turned Tory; he had again joined the Whigs in promoting the Scotch union: but in 1710, when the Tories came into power, he discovered that his principles were entirely in accordance with theirs, and readily became their Secretary of State, and manager for Scotland. His embarFassed fortune has been urged, but should scarcely be admitted, as an excuse for these changes, which had gained him no very honourable nick-name in his native country.* On the accession of George, he had addressed to that monarch a letter full of loyal congratulations and warm professions of attachment. Finding himself, nevertheless, deprived of office, and with little hope of regaining it under

He was called "Bobbing John." See Chambers's History of Dundee's and Mar's Rebellions, p. 172.-a very compendious and pleasing narrative.

See this letter in Tindal's History, vol. vi. p. 406.

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CHAP. that government, he plunged headlong into all the intrigues of the Jacobites, and became their chief 1715. for Scotch as Ormond for English affairs. He was a man of great activity, judgment, and address, but no knowledge of war; at home in Court cabals, but, as we shall afterwards find, unskilful and helpless in a camp. In person he was deformed, and his enemies were accustomed to say of him that his mind was as crooked as his body.

Till the moment of his leaving London, Mar evinced no common duplicity. On the 1st of August he appeared at the levee of King George; on the 2d he set off to raise the Highlands for King James. He embarked in disguise, with Major-General Hamilton and Colonel Hay, on board a small collier; and it is even said that, the better to conceal his rank, he wrought for his passage.* From Newcastle he proceeded northwards

* Memoirs of the Master of Sinclair, p. 51. MS. I am indebted for the communication of this valuable document to the kindness of my friend Mr. Lockhart. It is copied in about 1400 quarto pages, and enriched with notes by Sir Walter Scott. The Master of Sinclair was eldest son of Henry seventh Lord Sinclair, and had served under Marlborough, but was sentenced to death for having killed two brother officers in duels. He fled into the Prussian dominions with the connivance of Marlborough, and afterwards obtaining the Queen's pardon, went to reside at his paternal seat of Dysart, in Fife. He engaged in the rebellion of 1715, and was attainted; but a pardon for his life being granted him in 1726, he returned to Dysart, where he remained till his death, in 1750. "He seldom," says Sir Walter, "ventured to Edinburgh, and was then always well armed and "attended, holding himself still in danger of the vengeance "of the Schaws, or other enemies. The following memoirs,"