Having thus succeeded in their advances to Mar, the government, on receiving information of the conspiracy in which Atterbury was concerned, sent a gentleman to Paris in May, 1722, with a letter to Mar from Lord Carteret. This gentleman received instructions to sound Mar as to his knowledge of the intended plot. On arriving at Paris, the messenger, (who, it is understood, was Colonel Churchill,) sent a letter to Mar requesting a private interview. Dillon was present when this letter was delivered, and on reading it, Mar says he showed it to Dillon, upon which it was arranged that Mar should instantly call upon the person who had written the letter, and that Dillon should remain in the house till Mar’s return, when the object and nature of the interview would be communicated to him. On Mar’s return he and Dillon consulted together, and they both thought that the incident was a lucky one, as it afforded Mar an opportunity of doing James’s affairs a good service by leading the government off the true scent, and thereby prevent further inquiries. They thereupon drew up a letter with that view, to be sent by Mar in answer to Carteret’s communication, which being approved of by another person in the confidence of the Chevalier, was sent by Mar to the bearer of Carteret’s letter. Mar immediately sent an account of the affair to James and the Duke of Ormond, and shortly received a letter from the former, dated 8th June, 1722, in which he expressed himself entirely satisfied with the course pursued by Mar on the occasion. To justify himself still farther, Mar states, that among the vouchers of his exculpation, there was the copy of another letter from James, written by him to one of his agents at Paris, wherein he justifies and approves of Mar’s conduct, and expresses his regret for the aspersions which had been cast upon the earl about the plot.
Though James thus continued to profess his usual confidence in Mar’s integrity, he had, ever since he became acquainted with his pecuniary obligations to Stair, resolved to withdraw that confidence from him by degrees, and in such a manner as might not be prejudicial to the adherents of the exiled family in Great Britain. But Mar, who, as James observed,[772] had put himself under such engagements that he could not any longer serve him in a public manner, and who, from the nature of these engagements, should have declined all knowledge of James’s secrets, continued to meddle with his affairs as formerly, by taking the direction and management of those intrusted to Dillon, the confidential agent of James and the English Jacobites. In this way was Mar enabled for several years, when distrusted by James, to compel him in a manner to keep on good terms with him. From the natural timidity of James, and his anxiety to avoid an open breach with Mar, it is difficult to say how long matters might have remained in this awkward state, had not the attention of the Scottish Jacobites been drawn to Mar’s pension by the report of the parliamentary committee concerning the conspiracy; and the representations of the Bishop of Rochester respecting Mar’s conduct, shortly after his arrival in France, brought matters to a crisis. In the letter last referred to, James thus intimates to Mr. Lockhart the final dismissal of Mar. “I have been always unwilling to mention Mar, but I find myself indispensably engaged at present to let my Scots friends know that I have withdrawn my confidence entirely from him, as I shall be obliged to do from all who may be any ways influenced by him. This conduct is founded on the strongest and most urgent necessity in which my regard to my faithful subjects and servants have the greatest share. What is here said of Mar is not with a view of its being made public, there being no occasion for that, since, many years ago, he put himself under such engagements that he could not serve me in a public manner, neither has he been publicly employ’d by me.”
The charges made by Atterbury against Mar were, 1mo, That about the time he, the bishop, was sent prisoner to the Tower, Mar had written him a letter which was the cause of his banishment. 2do, That he had betrayed the secrets of the Chevalier de St. George to the British government, and had entered into a correspondence with them. 3tio, That he had advised the Chevalier to resign his right to the crown for a pension; and lastly, that without consulting James, he drew up and presented a memorial to the Duke of Orleans, containing a plan, which, under the pretence of restoring him, would, if acted upon, have rendered his restoration for ever impracticable.
To understand the nature of the last charge against Mar, that he laid the scheme before the Regent of France with a design to ruin James, Mar refers to the plan itself for his justification. The expulsion of the Stuarts from the British throne had been always looked upon by the French court as an event which, by dividing the nation into rival factions, would enable France to humble and weaken an ancient and formidable rival. To encourage the Jacobites and Tories in their opposition to the new dynasty, and to embroil the nation in a civil war, the French ministry repeatedly promised to aid them in any attempts they might make to overturn the government; but true to the line of policy they had laid down for themselves, of allowing the opposing parties in the state to weaken each other’s strength in their contest for ascendency, they sided with the weaker party only to prolong the struggle, in the hope that, by thus keeping alive the spirit of discontent, France might be enabled to extend her power, and carry into effect her designs of conquest.
JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MARR.
To remove the objections which such a policy opposed to the restoration of James, Mar proposed that, upon such event taking place, Scotland and Ireland should be restored to their ancient state of independence, and protected in their trade, and thereby enabled, as they would be inclined, to support “the king in such a manner as he’d be under no necessity of entering into measures contrary to his inclinations to gratify the caprices, and allay the factions of his English subjects.”[773] He also proposed that a certain number of French forces should remain in Britain after James was restored, till he had modelled and established the government on this footing, and that 5,000 Scots and as many Irish troops should be lent to the French king, to be kept by him in pay for a certain number of years. Mar was fully aware that such a scheme would be highly unpopular in England, on which account he says, that although he had long ago formed it, he took no steps therein during the life of Cardinal Dubois, whom he knew to be particularly attached to the existing government of Britain; but that obstacle being removed, he laid it before the regent of France, who, he says, he had reason to believe, received it with approbation, as he sealed it up, and addressed it to the Duke of Bourbon, and recommended it to his care. To excuse himself for laying the scheme before the Duke of Orleans without the Chevalier’s knowledge, he states that he did so to prevent James, in case of the scheme being discovered, being blamed by those who, for particular reasons, would be displeased at it; but that immediately after the delivery he acquainted James thereof, and sent him a copy of it, and at the same time represented to him the absolute necessity of keeping it secret. Notwithstanding this injunction, Colonel Hay sent a copy of it to the Bishop of Rochester, and Mar attributes the bad feeling which Atterbury afterwards displayed towards him, to the proposal he made for restoring Scotland to her independence.
The memorial was presented by Mar to the Duke of Orleans in September, 1723; but so little secrecy was observed, that, in the month of January following, a statement appeared in the public newspapers, that a certain peer, then in Paris, had laid a plan before the regent for restoring the exiled family. Though the British government must have been aware, or at all events must have suspected, after such a notification, that Mar was the author of the scheme, his pension was still continued, and they even favoured him still more by allowing the family estate, which was exposed to sale, to fall again into the hands of the family on favourable terms.
On reviewing the whole circumstances of Mar’s conduct, evolved by Atterbury’s charges, it must be admitted that his justification is far from being complete. From the position in which he placed himself as a debtor of Stair, and a pensioner of the British government, he could no longer be trusted with safety by his Jacobite colleagues, and as he had come under an obligation, as a condition of his pension, not to act in behalf of the Stuarts, he was bound in honour to have abstained from all farther interference in their affairs; but for reasons only known to himself, he continued to act as if no alteration of his relations with the exiled family had taken place since he was first intrusted by them. Selfish in his disposition, and regardless whether the Chevalier de St. George, or the Elector of Hanover wore the crown, provided his ambition was gratified, it is probable, that, without harbouring any intention to betray, he wished to preserve an appearance of promoting the interests of the Stuarts, in order that the compact which he had entered into with the British government, might, in the event of a restoration of that family, form no bar to his advancement under a new order of things; but whatever were his views or motives, his design, if he entertained any such as has been supposed, was frustrated by his disgrace in 1725.