him again. The pope had given his blessing to the expedition, and had sent a number of pious inscriptions to be fixed upon the banners.
Before the expedition, however, could sail, the queen dispatched troops to the north, and a fleet under admiral Baker to bring over ten battalions from the Netherlands. A powerful fleet, under the command of admiral Sir George Byng, with squadrons under Sir John Leake and lord Dursley, was sent to blockade the port of Dunkirk and prevent the sailing of the French expedition. The French were astonished at the appearance of so large a fleet, imagining that Leake had gone to Lisbon with his squadron; and count de Forbin represented to the French court the improbability of their being able to sail. A storm, however, drove the English ships from their station. The French fleet then ventured out on the 17th of March, but was soon driven back by the same tempest. On the 19th, however, it again put out, and made for the coast of Scotland. But Sir George Byng had stretched his ships along the whole coast to the very Frith of Forth, and on the French squadron approaching the Forth it perceived the English ships there before it, and stood off again. Byng gave chase and took the Salisbury, a ship of the line, having on board old lord Griffin, two sons of lord Middleton, a French lieutenant-general, various other French and Irish officers, and five companies of French soldiers.
In the night Forbin altered his course, and thus in the morning was out of the reach of the English. The chevalier was impatient that Forbin should proceed to Inverness, and there land him and the troops; but the wind was so violent and dead against them that Forbin contended that they would all be lost if they continued the attempt, and the chevalier reluctantly gave consent for them to tack about and return to Dunkirk. They had been out a month, and had endured the fate of nearly all the invading squadrons—the most inimical and miserable weather. The deliverance was nothing short of providential, for, had they landed, although they could have no chance of succeeding against England, in Scotland they would have occasioned much mischief and loss of life. The country was in a state of great disaffection; besides the lords and gentlemen arrested, there were still numbers ready to rush into the conspiracy. The earl of Leven had only about two thousand five hundred troops, and the fidelity of many of them was very questionable. The castle of Edinburgh was destitute of ammunition, and must soon have surrendered with all the equivalent money. A Dutch squadron, loaded with arms and ammunition, and having on board a large sum of money, was driven on shore in Angus, and would have been seized had the French succeeded in landing.
Such was the alarm in London owing to these circumstances, that there was a heavy run on the bank, increased to the utmost by all those who were disaffected to the government. The lord treasurer announced to the directors of the bank that the government would for six months allow an interest of six per cent. on their bills, being double the usual rate; and Marlborough, Newcastle, Somerset, as well as the lord treasurer, offered them large sums of money. They were also well supported by the foreign and Jewish merchants, who had an interest in maintaining the credit of the bank, and the directors also made a call of twenty per cent, on the holders of stock, and were thus enabled to weather the storm.
To abate the panic, the queen, immediately on the news of the sailing of the French fleet, went to the house of lords, and informed the two houses that Sir George Byng was in pursuit of the enemy, that troops were on their way from Ostend, and that there was no real cause of alarm. Both houses replied by the most patriotic addresses, vowing to stand by her majesty with all their power, praying her not to permit these circumstances to divert her from a vigorous prosecution of the war on the continent, intimating that the insignificance of the invading armament argued that the enemy calculated on the assistance of traitors at home, and entreating her to take care that no such person should in future have access to her counsels. This was aimed at Harley and his colleagues.
Louis, on his part, did his best to excite suspicion and uneasiness in the English court. He sent word to his ambassadors at Rome, Venice, and in Switzerland that the subjects of James III. in England had invited him, especially those of Scotland, to come and take possession of the throne of his ancestors; that he (Louis) had sent over with him a strong fleet and army, and that the young king was resolved to pardon all who came in to him. This news was diffused by the ambassadors as far and wide as they could send it. All this, however, did not excite the English court to any severe or sanguinary measures. The old lord Griffin, who was taken in the Salisbury, and who was quite superannuated, was sent to the Tower; and as he was already an outlaw, sentence of death as a traitor was pronounced against him. But the queen continued to reprieve him from time to time, so that he at length died of old age in his prison, where the kind-hearted Anne took care that so long as he lived he should be made comfortable. The two sons of lord Middleton, to every one's astonishment, were set at liberty by the queen's own order—a circumstance attributed to their father being in the secret of all the treasonable correspondence of Marlborough, Godolphin, and others, the revelation of which might have sown strange confusions in and around the court. There were many rumours afloat in consequence, and the most groundless one of all—that the pretender himself had been taken in the Salisbury and quietly liberated. What was remarkable, however, was the extreme lenity with which all the suspected persons in custody were treated. Not a single drop of blood was shed, and the whigs did not fail to glorify themselves on that score. But there were other motives than mercy which undoubtedly operated to produce this leniency. In the first place, Anne was naturally lenient and strongly averse to harsh measures, and, above all, to bloodshed. In the second place, notwithstanding she had been one of the very first to repudiate her brother the pretender as being the child of the king at all, it was well known that she still was quite satisfied in her own mind that he was her own brother—a fact which not long after received a very strong confirmation. And beyond this, many of the leading men about the court, as well as amongst the tories, still regarded it as by no means impossible that at the death of the queen the house of Stuart might yet succeed. These were reasons
