Nothing gave me from the beginning fo much uneafinefs as the confideration of this part of his character, and of the little care which had been taken to correct it. A true turn had not been given to the first steps which were made with him. The tories, who engaged afterwards, threw themselves, as it were, at his head. He had been fuffered to think that the party in England wanted him as much as he wanted them. There was no room to hope for much compliance on the head of religion, when he was in thefe fentiments, and when he thought the tories too far advanced to have it in their power to retreat: and little dependence was at any time to be placed on the promifes of a man capable of thinking his damnation attached to the obfervance, and his falvation to the breach, of thefe very promifes. Something, however, was to be done: and I thought that the least which could be done was, to deal plainly with him, and to fhew him the impoflibility of governing our nation by any other expedient, than by complying with that which would be expected from him as to his religion. This was thought too much by the Duke of Ormond and Mr. Lefley; although the duke could be no more ignorant than the minifter, how ill the latter had been ufed, how far the Chevalier had been from keeping the word which he had given, and on the faith of which Mr. Lesley had come over to him. They both knew, that he not only refused to hear himfelf, but that he fheltered the ignorance of his priests, or the badnefs of his caufe, or both, behind his authority, and abfolutely forbid all difcourfe concerning religion. The duke feemed convinced that it would be time enough to talk of religion to him when he fhould be reftored, or, at fooneít, when he fhould be landed in England; that the influence under which he had lived being at a distance, the reafonableness of what he might propofe, joined to the apparent neceffity which would then ftare

him in the face, could not fail to produce all the effects which we could defire.

To me this whole reafoning appeared fallacious. Our business was not to make him change appearances on this fide of the water, but to prepare him to give those which would be neceffary on the other: and there was no room to hope that if we could gain nothing on his prejudices here, we should be able to overcome them in Britain. I would have argued just as the Duke of Ormond and Lesley, if I had been a Papift; and I faw well enough that fome people about him, (for in a great dearth of ability there was cunning to be met with,) affected nothing more than to keep off all difcourfe of religion. To my apprehenfion it was exceeding plain that we should find, if we were once in England, the neceflity of going forward at any rate with him, much greater than he would find that of complying with us. I thought it an unpardonable fault to have taken a formal engagement with him, when no previous fatisfaction had been obtained on a point, at least as effential to our civil as to our religious rights; to the peace of the ftate, as to the profperity of the church: and I looked on this fault to be aggravated by every day's delay. Our filence was unfair, both to the Chevalier and to our friends in England. He was induced by it to believe, that they would exact far lefs from him, than we knew they expected: and they were confirmed in an opinion of his docility, which we knew to be void. of all foundation. The pretence of removing that influence, under which he had lived, was frivolous, and should never have been urged to me, who faw plainly, that according to the measures pursued by the very persons who urged it, he must be environed in England by the fame people that surrounded him here; and that the court of St. James's would be constituted, if ever he was restored, in the fame manner as that of St. Germain's was.

VOL. I.

G

When

When the draught of a declaration, and other papers which were to be difperfed in Great Britain, came to be fettled, it appeared that my apprehenfion and diftruft were but too well founded. The pretender took exception against feveral paffages, and particularly against thofe, wherein a direct promife of fecuring the churches of England and Ireland was made. He was told, he faid, that he could not in confcience make fuch a promife: and, the debate being kept up a little while, he asked me with fome warmth, why the tories were fo defirous to have him, if they expected thofe things from him which his religion did not allow? I left thefe draughts by his order with him, that he might confider and amend them. I cannot fay that he fent them to the queen to be corrected by her confeffor and the reft of her council; but I firmly believe it. Sure I am, that he took time fufficient to do this, before he fent them from Bar where he then was, to Paris whither I was returned. When they were digefted in fuch a manner as fatisfied his cafuifts, he made them be printed: and my name was put to the declaration, as if the original had been figned by me. I had hitherto submitted my opinion to the judgment of others; but on this occafion I took advice from myself. I declared to him, that I would not fuffer my name to be at the bottom of this paper. All the copies which came to my hands I burnt, and another was printed off, without any counterfigning.

The whole tenor of the amendments was one continued inftance of the groffeft bigotry; and the moft material paffages were turned with all the jefuitical prevarication imaginable. As much as it was his intereft, at that time, to cultivate the refpect which many of the tories really had for the memory of the late queen, and which many others affected as a farther mark of their oppofition to the court, and to the whig party; as much as it was his intereft to

weave

weave the honor of her name into his caufe, and to render her, even after her death, a party to the dif pute; he could not be prevailed upon to give her that character which her enemies allowed her, nor to make use of thofe expreffions in fpeaking of her, which by the general manner of their application, are come to be little more than terms of refpect and words of form, proper in the ftile of public acts. For inftance:

She was called in the original draught "his fifter "of glorious and bleffed memory." In that which he published, the epithet of "bleffed" was left out. Her eminent justice and her exemplary piety were occafionally mentioned. In lieu of which, he fubstituted a fat, and in this cafe an invidious, expreffion, "her inclinations to juftice."

Not content with declaring her neither just nor pious in this world, he did little less than declare her damned in the other, according to the charitable principles of the church of Rome.

"When it pleased Almighty God to take her to "himself," was the expreffion ufed in fpeaking of the death of the queen. This he erased, and instead thereof inferted thefe words: "when it pleased Al"mighty God to put a period to her life."

He graciously allowed the universities to be nurferies of loyalty, but did not think that it became him to ftile them "nurferies of religion."

Since his father paffes already for a faint, and fince reports are encouraged of miracles, which they fuppofe to be wrought at his tomb, he might have allowed his grandfather to pafs for a martyr: but he ftruck out of the draught these words, "that blef"fed martyr who died for his people," which were applied to King Charles the First, and would fay nothing more of him than that "he fell a facrifice "to rebellion."

In the claufe which related to the churches of England and Ireland, there was a plain and direct

G 2

promise

promise inferted of "effectual provifion for their "fecurity; and for their re-establishment in all those "rights which belong to them." This claufe was not fuffered to ftand, but another was formed, wherein all mention of the church of Ireland was omitted, and nothing was promifed to the church of England but the fecurity," and re-establishment of all "thofe rights, privileges, immunities, and poffef"fions which belong to her," and wherein he had already promised by his declaration of the twentieth of July, to fecure and "protect all her members."

I need make no comment on a proceeding fo easy to be understood. The drift of these evafions, and of this affected obfcurity, is obvious enough, at least it will appear fo by the obfervations which remain to be made.

He was fo afraid of admitting any words which might be conftrued into a promise of his confenting to thofe things, which fhould be found neceffary for the prefent or future fecurity of our conftitution, that in a paragraph where he was made to fay, that he thought himfelf obliged to be folicitous for the prosperity of the church of England, the word prof perity was expunged; and we were left by this mental refervation to guess what he was folicitous for? It could not be for her profperity: that he had expunged. It must therefore be for her deftruction, which in his language would have been ftiled, her converfion.

Another remarkable proof of the fame kind is to be found towards the conclufion of the declaration. After having fpoke of the peace and flourishing estate of the kingdom, he was made to exprefs his readinefs to concert with the two houfes fuch further measures, as fhould be thought neceffary for fecuring the fame to future generations. The defign of this paragraph you fee. He and his council faw it too, and therefore the word "fecuring" was laid