Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 | Page 4

the claims of her son, as might have
become the chivalric Surrey. Whatever were the fact, during the
existence of Anne, the payment of a dowry to Mary of Modena, the
favourable understanding between her son, as he grew up to man's
estate, and the English Court, the small reward offered for his
apprehension, the conniving at the daily enlistment of men in his
service, and the indulgence shown to those who openly spoke and
preached against the Revolution, were certain indications and ample
proofs that had the Queen's life been prolonged, some effectual steps
would have been taken to efface from her memory the recollection of
her early failure of duty to King James, and to satisfy the reproaches of
her narrow, though conscientious mind. That such was the fact, the
declaration or manifesto of the Chevalier, dated from Plombières,
August 2, 1714, and printed in French, English, and Latin, attests; and
the assertion was confirmed by a letter from the Duke of Lorrain to the
English Government. This favourable disposition on the part of Anne
proves that she gave no credence to the report of the supposititious
birth of the Prince; although, in her youthful days, and when irritated
against her step-mother, she had entered into the Court gossip on that
subject, with all the eagerness of a weak and credulous mind.

Nourished in secret by these hopes, the Jacobites in England
constituted a far more important party than our historians are generally
willing to allow. The famous work entitled, "English Advice to the
Freeholders of Great Britain," supposed to be written by Bishop
Atterbury, was extensively circulated throughout the country: it tended
to promote an opposition cry of "the Church in danger!" by insinuating
that the Whigs projected the abolition of Episcopacy. It was received
with great enthusiasm; and was responded to with fervour by the
University of Oxford, which was inflamed with a zeal for the
restoration of the Stuarts; and which displayed much of the same
ardour, and held forth the same arguments that had stimulated that seat
of learning in the days of Charles the First. To these sentiments, the
foreign birth, the foreign language, and, above all, the foreign
principles of the King added considerable disgust: nor can it be a matter
of surprise that such should be the case. It appears, nevertheless,
extraordinary that the opposition to so strange an engrafting of a
foreign ruler should not have been received with greater public
manifestations of dislike than the unorganized turbulence of Oxford
under-graduates, or the ephemeral fury of a London populace.
In Scotland a very different state of public feeling prevailed. In
England men of commerce were swayed in their political opinions by
the good of trade, which nothing was so likely to injure as a disputed
succession. The country gentlemen were, more or less, under the
influence of party pamphlets, and were liable to have their political
prejudices smoothed down by collision with their neighbours.
Excepting in the northern counties, the dread of Popery prevailed also
universally. The remembrance of the bigotry and tyranny of James the
Second had not faded away from the remembrance of those whose
fathers or grandfathers could remember its details. In the Highlands of
Scotland the memory of that Monarch was, on the other hand,
worshipped as a friend of that noble country, as the Stuart peculiarly
their own, as the royal exile, whose health and return, under various
disguises, they had pledged annually at their hunting-matches, and to
whose youthful son they transferred an allegiance which they held
sacred as their religion.

Nor had James the Second earned the devotion of the Highland
chieftains without some degree of merit on his own part. The most
incapable and unworthy of rulers, he had yet some fine and popular
qualities as a man; he was not devoid of a considerable share of ability
although it was misapplied. His letters to his son, his account of his
own life, show that one who could act most erroneously and criminally,
did, nevertheless, often think and feel rightly. His obstinate adherence
to his own faith may be lamented by politicians; it may be sneered at by
the worldly; but it must be approved by all who are themselves staunch
supporters of that mode of faith which they conscientiously adopt. In
private society James had the power of attaching his dependents; and
perhaps from a deeper source than that which gave attraction to the
conversation of his good-natured, dissolute brother. His melancholy
and touching reply to Sir Charles Littleton, who expressed to him his
shame that his son was with the Prince of Orange:--"Alas! Sir Charles!
why ashamed? Are not my daughters with him?" was an instance of
that readiness and delicacy which are qualities peculiarly appropriate to
royalty. His exclamation at the