Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope

by Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke

That I might avoid being questioned and quoted in the most curious and the most babbling town in the world, I related what had passed to three or four of my friends, and hardly stirred abroad during a fortnight out of a little lodging which very few people knew of. At the end of this term the Marshal of Berwick came to see me, and asked me what I meant to confine myself to my chamber when my name was trumpeted about in all the companies of Paris, and the most infamous stories were spread concerning me. This was the first notice I had, and it was soon followed by others. I appeared immediately in the world, and found there was hardly a scurrilous tongue which had not been let loose on my subject; and that those persons whom the Duke of Ormond and Earl of Mar must influence, or might silence, were the loudest in defaming me.

Particular instances wherein I had failed were cited; and as it was the fashion for every Jacobite to affect being in the secret, you might have found a multitude of vouchers to facts which, if they had been true, could in the nature of them be known to very few persons.

This method of beating down the reputation of a man by noise and impudence imposed on the world at first, convinced people who were not acquainted with me, and staggered even my friends. But it ceased in a few days to have any effect against me. The malice was too gross to pass upon reflection. These stories died away almost as fast as they were published, for this very reason, because they were particular.

They gave out, for instance, that I had taken to my own use a very great sum of the Chevalier’s money, when it was notorious that I had spent a great sum of my own in his service, and never would be obliged to him for a farthing, in which case, I believe, I was single. Upon this head it was easy to appeal to a very honest gentleman, the Queen’s Treasurer at St. Germains, through whose hands, and not through mine, went the very little money which the Chevalier had.

They gave out that whilst he was in Scotland he never heard from me, though it was notorious that I sent him no less than five expresses during the six weeks which he consumed in this expedition. It was easy, on this head, to appeal to the persons to whom my despatches had been committed.

These lies, and many others of the same sort, which were founded on particular facts, were disproved by particular facts, and had not time—at least at Paris—to make any impression. But the principal crime with which they charged me then, and the only one which since that time they have insisted upon, is of another nature. This part of their accusation is general, and it cannot be refuted without doing what I have done above, deducing several facts, comparing these facts together, and reasoning upon them; nay, that which is worse is, that it cannot be fully refuted without the mention of some facts which, in my present circumstances, it would not be very prudent, though I should think it very lawful, for me to divulge. You see that I mean the starving the war in Scotland, which it is pretended might have been supported, and might have succeeded, too, if I had procured the succours which were asked—nay, if I had sent a little powder. This the Jacobites who affect moderation and candour shrug their shoulders at: they are sorry for it, but Lord Bolingbroke can never wash himself clean of this guilt; for these succours might have been obtained, and a proof that they might is that they were so by others. These people leave the cause of this mismanagement doubtful between my treachery and my want of capacity. The Pretender, with all the false charity and real malice of one who sets up for devotion, attributes all his misfortunes to my negligence.

The letters which were written by my secretary, above a year ago, into England; the marginal notes which have been made since to the letter from Avignon; and what is said above, have set this affair in so clear a light, that whoever examines, with a fair intention, must feel the truth, and be convinced by it. I cannot, however, forbear to make some observations on the same subject here. It is even necessary that I should do so, in the design of making this discourse the foundation of my justification to the Tories at present, and to the whole world in time.

There is nothing which my enemies apprehend so much as my justification: and they have reason. But they may comfort themselves with this reflection—that it will be a misfortune which will accompany me to my grave, that I suffered a chain of accidents to draw me into such measures and such company; that I have been obliged to defend myself against such accusations and such accusers; that by associating with so much folly and so much knavery I am become the victim of both; that I was distressed by the former, when the latter would have been less grievous to me, since it is much better in business to be yoked to knaves than fools; and that I put into their hands the means of loading me, like the scape-goat, with all the evil consequences of their folly.

In the first letters which I received from the Earl of Mar he wrote for arms, for ammunition, for money, for officers, and all things frankly, as if these things had been ready, and I had engaged to supply him with them, before he set up the standard at the Brae of Mar; whereas our condition could not be unknown to his lordship; and you have seen that I did all I could to prevent his reckoning on any assistance from hence. As our hopes at this Court decreased, his lordship rose in his demands; and at the time when it was visible that the Regent intended nothing less than even privately and indirectly to support the Scotch, the Pretender and the Earl of Mar wrote for regular forces and a train of artillery, which was in effect to insist that France should enter into a war for them. I might, in answer to the first instances, have asked Lord Mar what he did in Scotland, and what he meant by drawing his countrymen into a war at this time, or at least upon this foot? He who had dictated not long before a memorial wherein it was asserted that to have a prospect of succeeding in this enterprise there must be a universal insurrection, and that such an insurrection was in no sort probable, unless a body of troops was brought to support it? He who thought that the consequence of failing, when the attempt was once made, must be the utter ruin of the cause and the loss of the British liberty? He who concurred in demanding as a pis-aller, and the least which could be insisted on, arms, ammunition, artillery, money, and officers? I say, I might have asked what he meant to begin the dance when he had not the least assurance of any succour, but, on the contrary, the greatest reason imaginable to believe this affair was become as desperate abroad by the death of the most Christian King as it was at home by the discovery of the design and by the measures taken to defeat it?

Instead of acting this part, which would have been wise, I took that which was plausible. I resolved to contribute all I could to support the business, since it was begun. I encouraged his lordship as long as I had the least ground for doing so, and I confirmed the Pretender in his resolution of going to Scotland when he had nothing better left him to do. If I have anything to reproach myself with in the whole progress of the war in Scotland, it is having encouraged Lord Mar too long. But, on the other hand, if I had given up the cause, and had written despondingly to him before this Court had explained itself as fully as the Marshal d’Huxelles did in the conversation which is mentioned above, it is easy to see what turn would have been given to such a conduct.