time after restored to his father's throne. To these addresses, whatever might be her feelings respecting them, her majesty replied with courtesy, though it does not appear that her ministers took any decisive steps in consequence of them.*

On the sixteenth of July the parliament was dissolved, with thanks from the queen for the good service they had done the public. To the commons especially, she acknowledged particular obligations for their affection and duty to her, by which they had shown themselves the true representatives of a loyal people, which was understood as an indirect though earnest recommendation of them, and such as adhered to their principles on the ensuing election. "She doubted not, at the next meeting, the affairs of commerce would be so understood, that the advantageous conditions she had obtained from France, would be made effectual for the benefit of the British trade; and she hoped to meet her parliament next winter, resolved to act on the same principles, and with such vigour, as should enable her to support the liberties of Europe, and reduce the spirit of faction at home."+

In the interval between the dissolution of the old and the meeting of the new parliament, and during the elections, the forward insolence of the Stuart faction demonstrated that they considered the victory won, and every thing nearly ready for their complete triumph; ‡ while the universal dispersion of pamphlets written in defence of the pretender's title and character, with the open appearance of many who had been outlawed, as his friends, gave ample proof of the confidence they had in the present managers as their friends.

The office of secretary of state for Scotland, which had lain vacant since the death of the duke of Queensberry, was now

Supplement to the History of the reign of Queen Anne, p. 234.

+ Ibid. p. 237.

At the election of Lockhart of Carnwath, the populace of the Scotish metropolis assembled round the statue of Charles II. in the Parliament Square, where, with tumultuous joy, they drank to the health of the queen, the dissolution of the Union, and the hereditary descent of the crown. In the same riotous mood they proceeded to the market cross, filling the city with the deafening noise of their treasonable acclamations. Vide Publications of that time.

bestowed upon the earl of Marr, through the joint concurrence of Oxford and Bolingbroke, both of whom confided in him as a very proper person to manage the election of the Scotish peers, in which it was determined, if possible, to prevent the re-election of lord Ilay. In this they succeeded, but by their success, they lost for ever the favour of Argyle, who had been of late very much at their service.

The new parliament, after many prorogations on account of the queen's health, was opened, by commission, on the sixteenth of February, 1714, and though the tory party was not quite so strong in point of numbers as in the last parliament, it consisted, according to Lockhart, "of a set of gentlemen very tight, and more zealous for the king's restoration, there being a great many young members, keen and wanting only to be led on to action, so that, although the tories had not so great a majority as before, they consisted of a much more united hearty set of men than had been assembled together for many years preceding, and were willing and sufficiently able to have acted their parts, had not the court tricked them with dilatures till the golden opportunity was past."* Their hopes were, however, very much damped in the outset, by the nomination of Sir Thomas Hanmer to the speaker's chair. He had acquired great popularity by the bitterness of his opposition to the commercial treaty, and was recommended by some of the leading whigs as a person every way qualified for the situation, and being a pretty high tory, though a Hanoverian one, the party could not object to him, and he was elected without opposition.+ This circumstance excited great jealousy of the ministry, and no small degree of enmity against them, on the part of the Jacobites.

Peace was proclaimed with Spain on the first of March, and, on the day following, the queen went to the house of lords, and addressed the new parliament. She expressed her satisfaction in being able to announce the ratification of the treaties of peace and commerce with Spain, promising that no exertion should be wanting, on her part, to complete the

• Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 439.

+ Supplement to the History of the reign of Queen Anne, p. 256.

settlement of Europe. She congratulated her subjects upon their deliverance from a consuming war, accepted of the general joy expressed for her recovery, as a grateful return for the tenderness and affection she always exercised towards her people, and wished that more effectual care had been taken to suppress seditious writings, and factious rumours, by which public credit had been depressed. She spoke with great warmth on the malicious intentions of those who talked of the protestant succession being in danger under her government, and hoped they would all agree with her, that attempts to render the crown uneasy to her, could scarcely be the means of strengthening that interest. She concluded with asking supplies for the service of the current year, and claiming the parliament's assistance in procuring such fruits from the peace, as might render it a blessing to the present age and to posterity.*

Addresses from both houses were returned every way such as her majesty could have desired. The lords testified the highest indignation against the authors and dispersers of seditious papers, and at all who insinuated that the protestant succession was in danger under her majesty's government, and the commons, while they expressed astonishment at such malicious surmisings, declared their entire satisfaction with the securities by which that succession was established. The value of this unanimity in loyal zeal, however, may be esti mated, from the circumstance of both houses hastening to the discussion of these very topics, upon which they mustered all the strength of their respective parties, and poured out upon each other all the bitterness of the most rancorous hostility.

Among the squadron of pamphleteers, which the administration kept in constant pay, by far the ablest and the most conspicuous was the celebrated Dr. Swift, who had lately published a most acrimonious attack upon the Scotish nation, which he entitled The Public Spirit of the Whigs, and in which he indulged, in a more than ordinary degree, that scurrilous sarcasm, for which he will probably be remembered as long as

Sommerville's History of Great Britain, &c. p. 549. Supplement to the History of the reign of Queen Anne, pp. 256, 257.

English literature. This pamphlet, under the authority of her majesty's reference to libels, the lord Wharton complained of the very day the address referred to was voted by the lords; and, a few passages being read, it was immediately voted to be a false and malicious libel; and Morphew, the printer, and Barber, the publisher, together with their servants, were ordered into custody. After undergoing separate examinations, however, they were discharged without having made any discovery of the author. The author was, indeed, safely concealed under the care of the ministers themselves, some of whom there was good ground for believing had been, if not art and part in the writing his pamphlet, at least privy to its publication, but, by professing great zeal against the author, and showing apparently great alacrity in adopting measures for his discovery, they succeeded in screening him from that vengeance which his enemies had hoped to inflict upon him.*

A more successful attack was, at the same time, made in the house of commons upon Sir Richard Steele, a member of that house, an author of great merit, and a distinguished champion of the whigs, on account of three several pamphlets, The Englishman, The Crisis, and A Letter to the Englishman, each of them subscribed by his name. Of some of these pamphlets Sir Richard was not the author, but instead of revoking or attempting to soften any thing in them, he added to the provocation, by the most pointed declamation against the measures of administration, and declared that he had written and published these pamphlets with the same cheerfulness and satisfaction with which he had abjured the pre

The queen herself went most cordially into the measures adopted for discovering the author of this pamphlet, from a strong prejudice which she entertained against Swift. This prejudice she had imbibed from Dr. Sharp, the late archbishop of York, who, when some one recommended Swift for a bishopric, advised her majesty first to make him a christian, and it was strengthened daily by the dutchess of Somerset, who supposed herself to have been ridiculed by Swift in his Windsor Prophecy. Dr. Sharp was not alone in his view of Swift's character. Dr. Smalridge, when Sacheveral attempted to flatter him, by supposing him the author of The Tale of a Tub, answered with indig. nation, "Not all that you or I have in the world, nor all we ever shall have, should hire me to write The Tale of a Tub."-Sheridan and Johnson's Lives of Swift.

tender. He was supported by all the eloquence of the whigs, particularly by Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Walpole, who denounced, in a strain of the keenest invective, the lord treasurer Oxford, as the patron of all the seditious publications, that, to the endangering the protestant succession, had of late inundated the nation. The tories, confident in their numbers, spared themselves the trouble of elaborate replies, and the motions, finding the pamphlets seditious, and expelling Sir Richard the house, were carried by sweeping majorities.

Though the tories were thus upon the whole still triumphant, from the now but ill dissembled enmity of Oxford and Bolingbroke, the interests of the pretender, it was feared by his friends, and by none more than the Scotish Jacobites, were not attended to with that watchful diligence which was necessary to bring them to a speedy and a favourable conclusion; and when they reflected upon the state of the queen's health, and the little probability of its being restored, they were filled with the most painful misgivings. It was, therefore, determined that lord Bolingbroke, for they began now to despair of Oxford, should be conversed with upon the subject, and urged to more energetic measures, which, if he declined to adopt, he was to receive the support of the party no longer. Mr. Lockhart of Carnwath and Sir John Packington were the deputies employed on this occasion. They were to represent particularly the shameful neglect of the army, that had hitherto been officered only by men of dangerous principles, and to insist upon its being purged with all convenient speed, and placed under the direction of persons known to be well affected to the church and the "all which was done," says Lockhart, " in as plain

and simple a manner as possible."

Bolingbroke confessed "he was sufficiently sensible that a great deal of precious time had been lost, and many good opportunities neglected, and, for his own part, he was innocent thereof, and the whole blame lay upon lord Oxford; what that lord's private views might be, he could not divine; but he believed he had now, in a good measure, convinced the queen, that they were not such as she wisht and approved of, and would terminate in her own and her family's ruin, and