The return of this extraordinary person to England gave rise to much speculation, and many conjectures were hazarded as to the reasons which had induced Walpole to promote the return of a man whose impeachment he had himself moved; but the mystery has been cleared up by papers which have since met the public eye. From these it appears that several years before his appearance in England, Bolingbroke had completely broken with the Stuarts in consequence of his deprivation of the seals. It seems that the Earl of Mar and the duke had a violent difference with regard to the conduct of the expedition in 1715; and Mar, to revenge himself upon his rival, prevailed upon the Duke of Ormond to report in presence of the Chevalier de St. George certain abusive expressions which Bolingbroke, when in a state of intoxication, had uttered in disparagement of his master. The Chevalier, highly exasperated at Bolingbroke, sent for the seals, at which his lordship was so incensed that when the queen mother attempted to reconcile them, Bolingbroke said that he wished his arm might rot off if ever he drew his sword or employed his pen in the service of the Stuarts. He, thereupon, proffered his services to King George, and offered to do any thing but betray the secrets of his friends. This offer was followed by the celebrated letter to Sir William Wyndham, in which he dissuaded the Tories from placing any reliance on the Pretender, and exposed the exiled family to ridicule and contempt; but his overtures were rejected by the government, and when an act of indemnity was hinted at, Walpole expressed in the strongest terms his indignation at the very idea of such a measure. Bolingbroke, however, persevered; and Walpole having been softened by the entreaties of the Duchess of Kendal, one of the mistresses of the king, to whom Bolingbroke made a present of £11,000, he procured a pardon. In April, 1725, a bill was brought into the house of lords for restoring to Bolingbroke his family estate, which, after some opposition, passed both houses.
Upon the passing of the disarming act, some of the Highland chiefs held a meeting at Paris, at which they resolved to apply to the Chevalier de St. George, to know whether, in his opinion, they should submit to the new law. James returned an answer under cover to the restless Atterbury, in which he advised the chiefs rather to submit than run the risk of ruining their followers; but the bishop thought proper to keep up the letter, and having sent off an express to Rome, James was induced to write another letter altogether different from the first, requiring them to resist, by force, the intended attempt of the government to disarm the Highlanders. Meanwhile, the chiefs were apprised of James’s original sentiments by a correspondent at Rome, and of the letter which had been sent to Atterbury’s care. Unaware of this circumstance, the bishop, on receipt of the second letter, convened the chiefs, and communicated to them its contents; but these being so completely at variance with the information of their correspondent, they insisted upon seeing the first letter, but Atterbury refused in the most positive terms to exhibit it, and insisted upon compliance with the injunctions contained in the second letter. They, thereupon, desired to know what support they were to receive in men, money, and arms; but the bishop told them, that unless they resolved to go to Scotland and take up arms, he would give them no further information than this, that they would be assisted by a certain foreign power, whose name he was not at liberty to mention.[767] The chiefs, dissatisfied with the conduct of the bishop, refused to pledge themselves as required, and retired.
The great preparations made to carry the disarming act into effect, indicated a dread, on the part of the government, that the Highlanders would not deliver up their arms without a struggle. The Chevalier de St. George, deceived as it would appear by the representations of Atterbury, resolved to support the Highlanders, to the effect at least of enabling them to obtain favourable terms from the government. “I find,” says James, in a letter[768] to Mr. Lockhart, “they (the Highlanders) are of opinion that nothing less than utter ruin is designed for them, and those on this side are persuaded that the English government will meet with the greatest difficulties in executing their projects, and that the clans will unanimously agree to oppose them to the last, and if thereby circumstances will allow them to do nothing for my service, that they will still, by a capitulation, be able to procure better terms to themselves than they can propose by leaving themselves at the government’s mercy, and delivering up their arms; and, if so, I am resolved, and I think I owe it to them, to do all in my power to support them, and the distance I am at has obliged me to give my orders accordingly; and nothing in my power shall be wanting to enable them to keep their ground against the government, at least till they can procure good terms for themselves, though, at the same time, I must inform you that the opposition they propose to make may prove of the greatest advantage to my interest, considering the hopes I have of foreign assistance, which, perhaps, you may hear of even before you receive this letter. I should not have ventured to call the Highlanders together, without a certainty of their being supported, but the great probability there is of it makes me not at all sorry they should take the resolution of defending themselves, and not delivering up their arms, which would have rendered them, in a great measure, useless to their countrie; and as the designs of the government are represented to me, the laying down of their arms is only to be the forerunner of other methods, that are to be taken to extirpate their race for ever. They are certainly in the right to make the government buy their slavery at as dear a rate as they can. The distance I am at (Rome), and the imperfect accounts I have had of this law, (for disarming the Highlanders,) have been very unlucky; however, the orders I have sent to France I hope will not come too late, and I can answer for the diligence in the execution of them, which is all I can say to you at present from hence.”
A few days after the receipt of this letter, Mr. Lockhart went to Edinburgh, where he found the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Kincardine, two of James’s “trustees,” to whom he showed the letter, and requested their opinion as to the proposed attempt to resist the contemplated measures of the government. These noblemen considered that the attempt would be rash as well as fatal,—that the idea of obtaining better terms by a temporary resistance, was vain, unless the Highlanders succeed in defeating the government; but that if they failed, the utter extirpation of their race would certainly follow;—that the Highlanders being a body of men of such high value, as well in relation to the interests of the exiled family, as to those of the kingdom, it was by no means reasonable to hazard them upon an uncertainty, for though they should give up their arms, it would be easier to provide them afterwards with others, when their services were required, than to repair the loss of their persons;—that with regard to foreign assistance, as such undertakings were liable to many accidents, and as the best formed designs often turned out abortive, it was by no means advisable to hazard the Highlanders, who were hated by the government, upon the expectancy of such aid; and that if such foreign powers as could, and were willing to assist, would inquire into the true state of affairs in Scotland, they would find that wherever a feasible attempt should be made by them to restore the exiled family, the Scots would be ready to declare themselves.
This opinion was communicated by Mr. Lockhart to James,[769] and he informed him at the same time that a person of distinction, who had been sent by the Highland Jacobite chiefs to obtain intelligence and advice, had arrived in Edinburgh incognito, and had informed Kincardine that the Highlanders had resolved to make a show of submission, by giving up part of their arms under the pretence of delivering up the whole, while their intention was to retain and conceal the best and greater part of them. Kincardine, without giving any opinion on the subject, recommended to the gentleman in question, as foreign assistance might be speedily expected, the expediency of putting off the delivery as long as possible, and that as four or five weeks would be consumed before the forms required by the act could be complied with, they should retain their arms till the expiration of that period.
The advice given by Hamilton and Eglinton coincided with the view which James, upon being made acquainted with the resolution of the chief at Paris, had adopted; and in a letter written to Mr. Lockhart by Colonel Hay, whom he had appointed his secretary of state, and raised to the peerage under the title of Earl of Inverness, he signified his approbation of the advice given by his friends, which he said was entirely agreeable to his own sentiments from the beginning. He stated, moreover, that the orders he had given to assist the Highlanders were only conditional, and in the event only that they themselves should have resolved to oppose the government, and that if the Bishop of Rochester had pressed any of the chiefs at Paris to go to arms, it was more with a view to discover a correspondence which he suspected one of them had carried on independent of the others, than with any real design to induce them to order their followers to make opposition, as that was to have depended as much upon the chiefs at home as upon those abroad.[770]
When James ascertained that the Highlanders were resolved to submit, he withdrew the orders he had given for assisting them, and despatched a trusty messenger to the Highlands to acquaint them of his readiness to support them when a proper occasion offered, and to collect information as to the state of the country. Allan Cameron, the messenger in question, arrived in the Highlands in August, and visited the heads of the clans in the interest of James, to whom he delivered the message with which he had been intrusted. It is said that General Wade was aware of his arrival, but it does not appear that any measures were taken to apprehend him. After four months’ residence in the Highlands, Cameron ventured on a journey to Edinburgh, where, in the beginning of the year 1726, he held frequent conferences with the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Kincardine, and Lockhart of Carnwath, on the subject of his mission and the state of affairs, but nothing of importance was resolved upon at these meetings, and Cameron departed for the continent early in February.
About this time an event occurred, which, while it tended to create factions amongst the adherents of James, made many of them keep either altogether aloof from any direct management in his affairs, or abstain from entering into any plan of co-operation for his restoration. This was the dismissal of Mar from his post as minister of James at Paris, on the suspicion that he had betrayed the secrets of his master to the British government. From his situation he was intimately acquainted with all the Chevalier’s affairs, and knew the name of every person of any note in the three kingdoms who had taken an interest in the restoration of the exiled family, with many of whom he himself had corresponded. The removal, therefore, of such a person from the Jacobite councils could not fail to excite uneasy apprehensions in the minds of those who had intrusted him with their confidence, and to make them extremely cautious in again committing themselves by any act, which, if discovered, would place them in jeopardy. To this feeling may be ascribed the great reserve which for several years subsequent to this occurrence the Jacobites observed in their foreign relations, and the want of unity of action which formed so remarkable a characteristic in their subsequent proceedings. As this affair forms an important link in the historical chain which connects the events of the year 1715 with those of 1745, a short account of it is necessary.
During a temporary confinement at Geneva, Mar had obtained a sum of money, whether solicited or not does not appear, from the Earl of Stair, the British ambassador at Paris, without the knowledge of James. In a narrative afterwards drawn up by Mar in his own justification, he states, that being in great straits he received this money as a loan from the earl, who was his old friend; but Colonel Hay, in a letter to Mr. Lockhart of the 8th of September, 1725, states that Mar had no occasion for such a loan, as “the king” remitted him considerable supplies to Geneva, where his expense would be trifling, as he was entertained by the town.[771] This matter might have been overlooked, but he, soon thereafter, accepted a pension of £2,000 from the government, over and above the sum of £1,500 which his countess and daughter actually then received by way of jointure and aliment out of the produce of his estate. Mar states that before he agreed to receive this pension he took the advice of General Dillon, a zealous supporter of the interests of the Stuarts, whom he had been accustomed to consult in all matters of importance, and that the general advised him to accept of the offer, as by refusing it the government might stop his lady’s jointure, and that his estate would be sold and lost for ever to his family; and that as he had been released from his confinement at Geneva on condition that he should not act or take any part against the government of Great Britain during his abode in France, and should return when required to Geneva, that government might insist on his being sent back to Geneva, whence he had been allowed to go to the waters of Bourbon for his health. Mar communicated the proposal also to James, who at once sanctioned his acceptance of the pension, and assured him that his sentiments in regard to him remained unaltered. Notwithstanding this assurance, however, there is every reason to believe that James, not without good grounds, had begun to suspect his fidelity; and as he could clearly perceive that Mar had already taken his resolution to close with the government, he might consider it his wisest policy to conceal his displeasure, and not to break at once with a man who had so much in his power to injure him and his friends.