On the very day on which the two fleets discovered each other, Marshal Saxe, accompanied by Charles Edward, arrived at Dunkirk, and proceeded to get his troops embarked as fast as possible; 7,000 men were actually shipped, and proceeded to sea that day with a fair wind, but in the evening the wind changed to the east, and blew a hurricane. The embarkation ceased, several of the transports which had put to sea were wrecked, many soldiers and seamen perished, and a considerable quantity of warlike stores was lost. The remainder of the transports were damaged to such an extent that they could not be speedily repaired.
Such was the result of an expedition planned with great judgment and conducted with such secrecy as to have escaped the vigilance of the government till on the very eve of its being carried into execution. After the discomfiture it had met with from the elements, and the formidable attitude which England, aroused to a sense of the imminent danger she was in, had now assumed, the French court must have instantly abandoned, as it is believed it did abandon, any idea of renewing the enterprise; but Charles Edward, sanguine of success, and in no shape discouraged by the catastrophe which had happened, daily importuned Marshal Saxe to re-embark his troops and proceed to England; but the marshal excused himself, by urging the necessity of fresh instructions from court and the previous repair of the damaged transports.[800] The French ministry, however, finally resolved to postpone the expedition.
Although war may be said to have virtually commenced between Great Britain and France by the battle of Dettingen, which was fought between the allies and the French in the month of June, 1743, no formal declaration of war was issued by either power till the month of March following, after the expedition against England had been given up.
After the failure and abandonment of the enterprise, Prince Charles retired to Gravelines, where he lived several months in private, under the assumed name of the Chevalier Douglas. Ever since his arrival in France he had been forced by the French court to preserve an incognito, which, though highly approved of by Drummond and Sempil, his father’s agents, was productive of great uneasiness to the Chevalier de St. George, who could not understand the reason for affecting to conceal a fact which was notorious to all the world.[801]
The preparations for invasion had raised, not without foundation, great hopes of a restoration in the minds of the Scottish Jacobites; but when they ascertained that the expedition was relinquished, they felt all that bitterness of disappointment which the miscarriage of any cherished scheme is sure to engender. They did not however despair of effecting their object ultimately, and, in the meantime, the leading members of the Concert despatched a messenger to the prince to assure him of their attachment to his cause, and inform him of the state of the country and the dispositions of the people.[802] About the same time Murray of Broughton went to Paris, by advice of the Earl of Traquair, to ascertain the exact situation of affairs. Here he was introduced to the prince by Drummond and Sempil. At a private interview which he had with Charles the following day, Murray stated, that from the absurd and contradictory nature of the communications made by the prince’s agent at Paris, they had, as it appeared to him, a design to impose upon him with the intention of serving themselves. Charles alluded to the association which had been formed at Edinburgh, said that he did not doubt that the King of France intended to invade Britain in the ensuing spring,—that he was already preparing for it, and intended to execute it as soon as the campaign in Flanders was over; but that whether the King of France undertook the expedition or not, he himself was determined to go to Scotland. Murray, thereupon, endeavoured to show him that such an attempt would be desperate, as he could not at the utmost expect to be joined by more than 4,000 or 5,000 men; but notwithstanding Murray’s representations, Charles repeated his determination of going to Scotland. Murray says that he was so much against the undertaking, that he spoke to Sir Thomas Sheridan—an Irish gentleman who enjoyed the prince’s confidence—to endeavour to persuade him against it, and that Sir Thomas told him, on his arrival in Scotland, that he had done so, but to no purpose. On returning to Scotland Murray reported to the members of the association all that had passed at the conference with the prince; and all of them, except the Duke of Perth, declared themselves opposed to the prince’s resolution of coming to Scotland without troops.[803] Murray then wrote a letter to Charles, stating the opinion of his friends, and representing the ruinous consequences which might ensue from such a rash undertaking. This letter was committed to the care of a gentleman who went to London in the month of January, 1745; but he neglected to forward it, and it was returned to Murray in the month of April. Murray made several attempts afterwards to forward the letter to France, and at last succeeded; but it never came to the hands of the prince, who departed for Scotland before the letter reached its destination.
During the spring of 1745, the agents of the Chevalier de St. George renewed their solicitations at the French court for another expedition; but Louis and his ministers were too much occupied with preparations for the campaign in Flanders to pay much attention to such applications. They however continued to amuse the Jacobite negotiators with assurances of conditional support; but James began to perceive that little or no reliance could be placed upon such promises. To relieve himself from the ennui occasioned by the failure of the expedition, and the state of seclusion in which he was kept by the French government, and to obtain some knowledge of military tactics, Charles applied for permission to make a campaign with the French army in Flanders; but although he was warmly backed in his application by his father, Louis refused to accede to his wish. Though frustrated in his expectations of any immediate aid from France, and denied the trifling gratification of making a campaign, Charles manifested little of the restlessness and hauteur which he afterwards displayed on his return from Scotland. Though he had much reason, as he observed, “to be out of humour,” he resolved, notwithstanding, to bear with patience the disappointments which he had experienced.[804]
To ease his mind from the anxieties which pressed upon it, the Duke of Fitzjames and other friends of his family, invited the prince to pass the spring at their country-seats in the neighbourhood of Paris, where, amid the society of his friends and rural recreations, he seemed, for a time, to forget the object for which he had come to France.
FOOTNOTES:
[781] Letters to the Duke of Ormond and Lord Marischal, 27th January, 1740, among the Stuart Papers. Alluding to his expectations of assistance from France, the Chevalier, in a letter (of which a copy is also in the same collection,) written to Marischal on the 11th January, 1740, while the latter was on his way to Madrid, says, “I am betwixt hopes and fears, though I think there is more room for the first than the last, as you will have perceived by what Lord Sempil (so an active agent of James was called,) has I suppose writ to you. I conclude I shall sometime next month see clearer into these great affairs.”