Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 | Page 8

for signature, praying that their sentence of death or of imprisonment might be exchanged for transportation. But, whether these high-spirited gentlemen expected that another insurrection might act in their favour, or whether they preferred death to a final farewell, under circumstances so dreadful, to their country, does not appear. They mostly refused to sign the petition, which was offered to them singly: and the commandant at Preston, Colonel Rapin, in his correspondence with Lord Townshend, expresses his annoyance at their obstinacy, and expatiates on the inconvenience of the numbers under his charge at Preston. At length, after Captain John Dalzell, brother to the Earl of Carnwath, had signed the petition, a large body of the prisoners were ordered to be transported without their petitioning, and to be put in irons. They were hurried away to Liverpool, to embark thence for the Colonies, gentlemen and private soldiers mingled in one mass; but orders were afterwards sent by Lord Townshend to detain the gentlemen. Three hundred and twenty-seven prisoners had, however, been already shipped off. Those who remained were not permitted to converse, even with each other, without risk,--one Thomas Wells being appointed as a spy to write to the Jacobites, and to discourse with them, under the garb of friendliness, in order to draw out their real sentiments.[21]
From this digression, which may not be deemed irrelevant, since it marks the spirit of the times, we return to the unhappy prisoners in the Tower, which was now thickly tenanted by the fallen Jacobites.
Lord Nithisdale had the sorrow of knowing that many of his friends and kinsmen were in the same gloomy and impenetrable fortress to which he had been conducted. It is possible that the Jacobite noblemen were not hopeless; and that remembering the clemency of William the Third to those who had held a treasonable correspondence with the Court of St. Germains, they might look for a similar line of policy from the reigning monarch.
It must be acknowledged, however, that Government had been greatly exasperated by acts of violence and of wanton destruction on the part of the Jacobites throughout the country; and that the general disaffection throughout the North, and, in particular, the strong Tory predilections at Oxford, must have greatly aggravated the dangers, and consequently, in a political view, have enhanced the crimes of the Chevalier's adherents. "The country," writes Colonel Rapin to Lord Townshend, "is full of them [the Jacobites], and the same spirit reigns in London."
"Oxford," writes an informant, under the name of Philopoliticus, "is debauched by Jacobitism. They call the Parliament the Rump; and riots in the street, with cries of 'Down with the Rump!' occur daily." Even the fellows and heads of the colleges were disposed to Jacobite opinions; and the Jacobites had expected that the city would become the Chevalier's head-quarters as it had been that of Charles the First.[22]
But that which hastened the fate of the Earl of Nithisdale and of his friends, was the landing of James Stuart, at Peterhead, in Scotland, on the twenty-second of December,--an event which took place too late for his friends and partisans, and fatally increased the calamities of those who had suffered in his cause. On Monday, the ninth of January, he made his public entry into Perth, and, on the same day, the reigning monarch addressed his Parliament.[23]
"Among the many unavoidable ill consequences of this Rebellion," said the King, "none affects me more sensibly than that extraordinary burden which it has, and must, create to my faithful subjects. To ease them as far as lies in my power, I take this first opportunity of declaring that I freely give up all the estates that shall become forfeited to the Crown by this Rebellion, to be applied towards defraying the extraordinary expense incurred on this occasion." As soon as a suitable address had been returned by both Houses, a debate concerning the prisoners taken in rebellion ensued, and a conference was determined on with the House of Lords. Mr. Lechmere, who was named to carry up the message to the Lords, returned, and made a long and memorable speech, concerning the rise, depth, and extent of the Rebellion; after which it was resolved, nemine contradicente, to impeach the Earl of Derwentwater, William Lord Widdrington, William Earl of Nithisdale, Robert Earl of Carnwath, George Earl of Wintoun, William Viscount Kenmure, and William Lord Nairn, of high treason.
The same evening, a committee was appointed to draw up articles of impeachment; and so great was the dispatch used, and so zealous were the committee, that in two hours the articles were prepared, agreed to, and ordered to be engrossed with the usual saving clause. During this time, the Lords remained sitting, and before ten o'clock the articles were presented before that assembly.
On the following day, the prisoners were conducted