"You are to consider," says Lord Stair, writing to the Secretary of State at home concerning this proposal, "whether it will be worth the while to receive him. In my humble opinion the taking him on will be the greatest blow that can be given to the Pretender's interest, and the greatest discredit to it. And it may be made of use to show to the world that nobody but a Papist can hope to continue in favour with the Pretender. I wish," adds the Ambassador, "you may think as I do. I own all his faults and misfortunes cannot make me forget the long and intimate friendship and familiarity that has been between him and me." It is consoling to find any politician acting upon such good old-fashioned maxims, the result of honest feeling.
Lady Mar having now joined her husband, Lord Mar resolved to make his escape from Geneva. Lord Stair advised him against it; but adds, in his letters to his friends at home, "I could hardly imagine that a man of his temper, and in his circumstances, will refuse his liberty when he sees he has nothing but ill usage and neglect to expect from us."[159]
Thus ended this negotiation, the main conditions of which were, provided Lord Mar kept himself free from any plots against the Government, an offer of the family estate to his son; and, in the interim, till an act of Parliament could be obtained to that effect, a pension of two thousand pounds sterling, over and above one thousand five hundred pounds paid of jointure to his wife and daughter.[160]
It was the fortune of Lord Mar on this, as on many other occasions, to reap the ignominy of having accepted this pension, without ever receiving the profits of his debasement.
During the absence of Lord Mar at Geneva, his Countess, who remained in Rome, received the following letters from the Chevalier and his Princess, Maria Clementina: these epistles show how desirous the Chevalier still was to retain Lord Mar in his interests.[161]
"Montefiascony, Sept. 9, 1719.
"The Duke of Mar's late misfortunes and my own situation for some months past, hath occasioned my being much in the dark as to his present circumstances, which touche me too nearly not to desire you will inform me particularly of them. The last letter I had from him was in the begining of May, from Genua, in which he mentioned to me his ill state of health, and something of your comeing to meet him at Bourbon waters; but the season for them now advanceing, or rather passeing, I reckon that whether he had gone thither or not, he will soon be here on ye receipt of the note I sent you t'other day for him, and by consequence that what measures he may have taken with you about your meeting him will be altered on sight of that. I thought it necessary to inform you of these particulars to prevent any thoughts you might have of a journey so expensive and now useless: for as to his liberty, I make no doubt but that it will immediately follow the certainty of my return to this country. I should think it not prudent to write any politicks to him now, not knowing what fate my letters might meet with; but there is no secret in your sayeing all that is kind from me to him. If you cannot exagerate as to my impatience to see him, after all our mutual misfortunes and adventures, and I am sure he will be glad to know and see me more happy in a wife than I can be otherwayes, in most respects.
"I hope soon to have the satisfaction of seeing you at Rome, when I believe I shall soon convince you that if you and your lord have in the world many false friends, I am and ever shall be a true one to you both.
James R."