which the whigs and all the supporters of the principles of the revolution had shown the majority which they were able to return to the new parhament, were all indications that the spirit of the nation waa more firmly than ever rooted in protestantism and the love of constitutional liberty, and that any endeavours to overturn the new dynasty to succeed must be supported by an overwhehning power from without. But where was that power? France, the only country which took an immediate interest in the exiled family, and which sympathised with the hope of its restoration, both on account of natural affinity of religion and congenial principles of government, was exhausted by a long and latterly a disastrous war, and was bound by treaties with England, which she was in no condition to break with impunity. For the pretender to succeed, he must come supported by a great military force, by money and arms, which France could not furnish. It might be said that England was just now destitute of any considerable army, such had been the precipitancy with which the Jacobite ministers had disbanded our veteran troops. There were said to be only about eight thousand soldiers in all England; that the public and the aristocracy were divided on the grand question of the reigning family, and that the highlands of Scotland were decidedly in favour of the Stuart. But the fact was, that the party, after all, of the pretender in any class of society in England was small. The body of the people were undoubtedly devoted to the protestant church and the protestant succession. It was well known, spite of all the endeavours to dress up the pretender in popular colours, that he was as weak in intellect, as bigoted in principle, and as arbitrary in politics as his father, James II., had been. He was by education and religion more a Frenchman than an Englishman. It was clear, therefore, that even the support of a strong force could only insure a hard and bloody struggle, with a very doubtful issue. Without such force the event was certain failure; yet, under such auspices, it was determined to try the venture.
Bolingbroke, on arriving in Paris, professed to be wholly an Englishman, exiled by circumstances, but yet resolved to stand by his country. It was, however, as his life had long been, a mere profession. Whilst exercising the high office of the administration of his country, he had been long zealously at work to betray her to all the old superstitions and despotisms, from which it cost her so much blood, anxiety, and labour to free herself, and his pretences now were only dictated by his own selfish hopes that the exertions of his party might bo able to open the way for his return. He wrote, therefore, to lord Stair, the English ambassador, to assure him that he would on no account enter into any engagements hostile to the reigning family; and he wrote to Stanhope to make the same assurances. Yet all the time he was in active correspondence with the pretender. He saw both him and the duke of Berwick, and gave them the greatest encouragement as to an invasion. He drew a flattering picture of the Jacobite interest in England, and the pretender in return created him an earl, which, as he observed, raised him a degree higher than his sister, queen Anne, had done, and at the same time held out the promise of still greater future rewards for his services. Very soon after arrived the news of the bill of attainder, and Bolingbroke, seeing all hope closed of his return to England, at once threw off the mask, hastened to Commercy, in Lorraine, and publicly joined the pretender.
These proceedings confirm our view of the character of Bolingbroke, that he was a man of brilliant talents, but of no real sagacity. He was sparkling, shining, and imposing by his manners, but had no solidity or depth of judgment. He was at once ambitious and unprincipled, and being destitute of religious sentiment, was ready to adopt any cause which should make him a leader. But in adopting such cause, he betrayed the superficial character of his mind. A man of sound observation and masculine reason would have perceived at a glance that the whole scheme of an invasion of England at such a time and by such a party — opposed to that unequivocal spirit of the nation, which had put down king after king, changed the whole dynasty, faith, and constitution, so far as it regarded hereditary right, and had at this very crisis brought in another dynasty on its own avowed principles — was nothing less than insane. The view which he had now had of the hero whom he waa to introduce to the British, ought to have opened his eyes, however firmly they had been closed before, and would have done so had he been a really great diplomatist. "The very first conversation I had with the chevalier," he says himself, "answered in no degree my expectations. He talked to me like a man who expected every moment to set out for England or Scotland, but did not very well know which." Bolingbroke saw that all was rashness, impatience, and want of preparation in the party on both sides of the channel. The Highlanders were all eagerness for the chevalier's arrival, lest he should land in England, and the English should snatch the glory of the restoration from them. From England came the letters of Ormonde, who was down in the west, and sent most glowing representations of the spirit of the people there; that out of every ten persons nine were against king George. That he had distributed money amongst the disbanded officers, to engage them in the cause of king James. But all these fine words terminated with the damping intelligence that nobody would stir until they saw the chevalier with a good army at his back. Such an army there was not the smallest hope of obtaining from France. All that Louis would or could do, without engaging in a new war with England, was to prevail on his grandson, Philip of Spain, to advance four hundred thousand crowns for the expedition, and besides this, the pretender had been able privately to borrow another hundred thousand, and purchase ten thousand stand of arms.
With such prospects, the commonly-reputed sagacious statesman, Bolingbroke, first engaged himself in the rash enterprise by accepting the office of secretary of state to the so-called James III., and he proceeded to Paris, as the best centre where to operate for its success. The state of things which he found there amongst his new associates ought to have startled him out of his infatuation. "I find," he says, in a letter to Sir William Wyndham of July 23rd, "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 brought one another up to look on the success of the present designs as infallible.
