[669] Secret History of Colonel Hooke’s Negotiation in Scotland in 1707.—Edin. 1760. Pp. 69–75.
[670] M. D’Andrezel’s Account in Hooke, p. 139.
[671] Alluding to the appearance of the French fleet in the Frith, Lockhart says, “It is impossible to describe the different appearance of people’s sentiments; all this day (23d March) generally speaking, in every person’s face was to be observed an air of jollity and satisfaction, excepting the general (Leven), those concerned in the government, and such as were deeply dipt in the revolution. These indeed were in the greatest terror and confusion. And it was no great wonder that the Earl of Leven did afterwards, in one of his letters to the secretaries of state, complain that the Jacobites were so uppish he durst hardly look them in the face as they walked in the streets of Edinburgh; for uppish they were indeed, expecting soon to have an occasion of repaying him and his fellow-rebels in the same coin he and they had treated them for these twenty years past. But next day advice was sent from Sir George Byng, that he had come up with and was then in pursuit of the French fleet, and then it was that every body was in the greatest pain and anxiety imaginable; some fearing it would, and others that it would not, determine as it did. In this perplexity were people when, on the next day, being Sunday, a great number of tall ships were seen sailing up the Frith. This put our general in such a terror and confusion as can scarcely be well expressed: he drew up his army in battle array on the sands of Leith, as if he’d oppose a landing, and in this posture did he remain for several hours, when at last his fears, which truly had almost distracted him, vanished by the landing of a boat, which acquainted him that it was the English fleet returning from chasing the French. For Sir George Byng, after a day’s pursuit, finding the French out-sailed him, tackt about for the Frith, which was the place he designed chiefly to guard; besides, he had sailed so unprovided that most of his ships wanted water and provisions. Here he lay several weeks, and for the most part the wind was easterly, so that he could not well have sailed down the Frith, and the French might, and every body believed would, have landed in the north, or sailed round and landed in the west; but instead of that they went sneakingly home, without doing any good, but on the contrary much harm, to the king, his country, and themselves.”—Vol. i. pp. 243, 244.
[672] Lockhart.
[673] Stuart Papers, July, 1712. vol. ii. p. 327.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
A.D. 1714–1715.
BRITISH SOVEREIGN:—George I., 1714–1727.
Proceedings of the Whigs—Declaration of the Chevalier de St. George—Arrival of George I. in England—Conduct of the Earl of Mar—Government measures—Intrigues of the Jacobites—The Earl of Mar—Leaves England for Scotland—The “Hunting match”—The Chevalier de St. George proclaimed by Mar, who raises the standard of revolt in Braemar—Death of Louis XIV.—Manifesto issued by the Jacobites.