The private memoirs of James II. as well as the papers published by Macpherson show us how little treason, and especially a double treason, is thanked or trusted by those whom it pretends to serve. We see that neither Churchill nor Russell obtained any confidence from the banished king. Their motives were always suspected; and something more solid than professions of loyalty was demanded, though at the expense of their own credit. James could not forgive Russell for saying that, if the French fleet came out, he must fight. Macpherson, i. 242. If Providence in its wrath had visited this island once more with a Stuart restoration, we may be sure that these perfidious apostates would have been no gainers by the change.
[182] During William's absence in Ireland in 1690, some of the whigs conducted themselves in a manner to raise suspicions of their fidelity; as appears by those most interesting letters of Mary published by Dalrymple, which display her entire and devoted affection to a husband of cold and sometimes harsh manners, but capable of deep and powerful attachment, of which she was the chief object. I have heard that the late proprietor of these royal letters was offended, but not judiciously, with their publication; and that the black box of King William that contained them has disappeared from Kensington. The names of the Duke of Bolton, his son the Marquis of Winchester, the Earl of Monmouth, Lord Montagu, and Major Wildman, occur as objects of the queen's or her minister's suspicion. Dalrymple, Appendix, 107, etc. But Carmarthen was desirous to throw odium on the whigs; and none of these, except on one occasion Lord Winchester, appear to be mentioned in the Stuart Papers. Even Monmouth, whose want both of principle and sound sense might cause reasonable distrust, and who lay at different times of his life under this suspicion of a Jacobite intrigue, is never mentioned in Macpherson, or any other book of authority, within my recollection. Yet it is evident generally that there was a disaffected party among the whigs, or, as in the Stuart Papers they were called, republicans, who entertained the baseless project of restoring James upon terms. These were chiefly what were called compounders, to distinguish them from the thorough-paced royalists, or old tories. One person whom we should least suspect is occasionally spoken of as inclined to a king whom he had been ever conspicuous in opposing—the Earl of Devonshire; but the Stuart agents often wrote according to their wishes rather than their knowledge; and it seems hard to believe what is not rendered probable by any part of his public conduct.
[183] This fact apparently rests on good authority; it is repeatedly mentioned in the Stuart Papers, and in the Life of James. Yet Shrewsbury's letter to William, after Fenwick's accusation of him, seems hardly consistent with the king's knowledge of the truth of that charge in its full extent. I think that he served his master faithfully as secretary, at least after some time, though his warm recommendation of Marlborough "who has been with me since this news [the failure of the attack on Brest] to offer his services with all the expressions of duty and fidelity imaginable" (Shrewsbury Correspondence, 47), is somewhat suspicious, aware as he was of that traitor's connections.
[184] Commons' Journals, Nov. 28 et post; Dalrymple, iii. 11; Ralph, 346.
[185] Id. Jan. 11, 1692-3.
[186] Burnet says, "the elections of parliament (1690) went generally for men who would probably have declared for King James, if they could have known how to manage matters for him."—P. 41. This is quite an exaggeration; though the tories, some of whom were at this time in place, did certainly succeed in several divisions. But parties had now begun to be split; the Jacobite tories voting with the malcontent whigs. Upon the whole, this House of Commons, like the next which followed it, was well affected to the revolution settlement and to public liberty. Whig and tory were becoming little more than nicknames.
[187] Macpherson's State Papers, i. 459. These were all tories, except three or four. The great end James and his adherents had in view, was to persuade Louis into an invasion of England; their representations therefore are to be taken with much allowance, and in some cases we know them to be false; as when James assures his brother of Versailles that three parts at least in four of the English clergy had not taken the oaths to William. Id. 409.
[188] Macpherson, 433. Somers Tracts, xi. 94. This is a pamphlet of the time, exposing the St. Germain faction, and James's unwillingness to make concessions. It is confirmed by the most authentic documents.
[189] Ralph, 350; Somers Tracts, x. 211.
[190] Many of these Jacobite tracts are printed in the Somers Collection, vol. x. The more we read of them, the more cause appears for thankfulness that the nation escaped from such a furious party. They confess, in general, very little error or misgovernment in James, but abound with malignant calumnies on his successor. The name of Tullia is repeatedly given to the mild and pious Mary. The best of these libels is styled "Great Britain's just complaint" (p. 429), by Sir James Montgomery, the false and fickle proto-apostate of whiggism. It is written with singular vigour, and even elegance; and rather extenuates than denies the faults of the late reign.