‘Your accounts of what has been said here concerning some imaginary differences abroad have not so much foundation as you may suppose. At least, if they have, I am a stranger to it.... The result of any discourse I shall have with [the Earl of Oxford?] will be sure to reach you by his means. |Stuart Papers, 1717.| You will, I suppose, have a full account of affairs here from his and other hands.’
3. [1717?] The same to the same.
Ibid.
‘Distances and other accidents have, for some years, interrupted my correspondence with [the Earl of Oxford?] but I am willing to renew it, and to enter into it upon a better foot than it has ever yet stood, being convinced that my so doing may be of no small consequence to the service. I have already taken the first step towards it that is proper in our situation, and will pursue that by others as fast as I can have opportunity; hoping that the secret will be as inviolably kept on your side as it shall be on this, so far as the nature of such a transaction between two persons who must see one another sometimes can pass unobserved.’
Edin. Rev., as before.
4. 1721. ‘Among the same papers,’ says the Reviewer quoted on the previous page, ‘there is a letter from Mrs. Oglethorpe to the Pretender (Jan. 17, 1721), containing assurances from Lord Oxford of his eternal respect and good wishes, which from accidental circumstances he had been unable to convey in the usual manner.’
5. 1722. April 14. The Pretender [to Lord Oxford?]
‘If you have not heard sooner or oftener from me, it hath not, I can assure you, been my fault. Neither do I attribute to yours the long silence you have kept on your side, but to a chain of disappointments and difficulties which hath been also the only reason of my not finding all this while a method of conveying my thoughts to you, and receiving your advice, which I shall ever value as I ought, because I look upon you not only as an able lawyer but a sincere friend. |Stuart Papers, 1722.| This will, I hope, come soon to your hands, and the worthy friend by whose canal I send it will accompany it, by my directions, with all the lights and information he or I can give, and which it is therefore useless to repeat here.’
6. 1722. April 16. The Pretender to Atterbury.
‘I am sensible of the importance of secrecy in such an affair, yet I do not see how it will be possible to raise a sufficient sum, or to make a reasonable concert in England, without letting some more persons into the project. |Ibid.| You on the place are best judge how these points are to be compassed, but I cannot but think that [the Earl of Oxford?] might be of great use on this occasion. [Lord Lansdowne?] is to write to him on the subject, and I am confident that if you two were to compare notes together you would be able to contrive and settle matters on a more sure and solid foundation than they have hitherto been.’