lonia, and thence to Madrid, where he was cordially received as king of England. Ten ships of war had already been equipped for his service, with transports, having on board six thousand troops, and twelve thousand stand of arms. This armament was confided to the duke of Ormond, as captain general of his most catholic majesty, and he was liberally furnished with declarations in the name of that monarch, justifying the part he had now taken, and, though he was invading the kingdom of Great Britain, assuring the people that it was only as an auxiliary to king James.

Timely notice of all this preparation was communicated to his Britannic majesty, by the regent of France, which he communicated to both houses of parliament, and received in return, the warmest assurances of support against all his enemies. Two thousand men were immediately landed from Holland, six battalions from the Austrian Netherlands, and the duke of Orleans proffered no less than twenty battalions for the defence of Great Britain, against this formidable attack. Proclamations were at the same time issued, offering five thousand pounds of reward for the duke of Ormond, one thousand for every attainted peer, and five hundred for every gentleman who should embark in his train. There was in the issue no need for these precautions. Ormond, having sailed from Cadiz and proceeded as far as Cape Finisterre, was there met by a violent storm, which totally defeated the whole expedition. The earls Marischal and Seaforth, the marquis of Tullibardine, some field officers, and about three hundred Spaniards, with a quantity of arms, ammunition, and money, embarked on board of two Spanish frigates at St. Sebastian, and sailed direct for the Island of Lewis. They were joined by a few Highlanders, landed in Kintail, and possessed themselves of the pass of Glenshiel, where they were met by a body of regular troops from Inverness, under the command of general Wightman. At the approach of the king's troops, they abandoned Glenshiel, and retired to the pass of Strachell, which they resolved to defend. They were attacked on the eighteenth of June, 1719, and driven from one eminence to another till night, when the Highlanders dispersed themselves among the hills, and the Spaniards surrendered themselves prisoners. Seaforth was dangerously

wounded, but was carried off by his followers, and, along with earl Marischal and Tullibardine, escaped to the continent.*

The same good providence on this occasion, as on many others, averted the danger that seemed impending over the best interests of Britain. The English Jacobites, taught prudence from their former experience, determined not to risk themselves till such time as Ormond had landed his forces, and was in a condition to protect them, of course there was not the smallest movement in that part of the kingdom. The Highlanders also, were shy to commit themselves. Marischal and Tullibardine had scarcely set foot on shore, when they quarrelled about the command, which could not fail to make the confidence of the people, which was not great at best, still less. Indeed, it appears that few, if any, except the immediate dependants of Seaforth, were prevailed upon to join them.†

*Smollett's History of England. Douglass' Peerage of Scotland, by Wood, vol. ii. pp. 197, 484. Memoirs of the Chevalier de Johnstone,

xxxii.

This prudence on the part of the Scotish Jacobites, seems to have very narrowly escaped being overset by the machinations of their enemies. "A resolution having been universally taken not to move in Scotland till England was fairly engaged, this measure was very near being broke by a piece of odd conduct, of captain Straiton, at Edinburgh. There came, it seems, an unknown fellow to one Mr. Millns, tutor to Mr. Macdonald, younger of Glengarie, and told him, that being a servant to Cameron of Locheall, he came with him from Spain, and was set on shoar on the coast of Galloway, from the duke of Ormond's fleet as it passed by, with orders to goe and acquaint his master's friends to be ready to take up arms. Mr. Millns carried this fellow to captain Straiton, who with joy heard and gave some credit to what he so earnestly wished, and was soon confirmed in the truth therof, by a letter sent express by the viscount of Stormont, then at his house in Aunandale, giving an account, that five or six days befor the date, a large fleet of tall ships, being no doubt Ormond's fleet, past by that coast, sailing with a fair wind directly for the west of England. Straiton having after this no remaining doubts, sent off an express to acquaint my lord Nairn, in Perthshire, that the duke was on the coast, and certainly landed by that time, and desireing his lordship to forward the good news to Marishall, and other proper persons in the Highlands, that noe time might be lost in drawing to the feilds; and, as he imparted it likewise to some in and about Edinburgh, the earl of Dalhousie, and some other gentlemen of that county, got on horseback, with a resolution to try if they could join Ormond, for they knew there was no possibility of getting up to Marishall; but I persuaded his lordship to stop at Selkirk on pretence of seeing the race, till I enquired further into the story,

We have already seen his majesty's ministers successfully enlarging the term of parliaments, from three to seven years, and now they formed a scheme for circumscribing the peerage, which, had it been carried into effect, would have had a still more serious influence upon the constitution. The dignity of the peerage, and the liberties of the people were, however, the ostensible reasons for making the proposal, and the fact of twelve peers, under the management of Oxford, having been created in one day, for the purpose of carrying a particular point, did not fail to be insisted on as demonstrating its necessity. On the last day of February, 1719, the duke of Somerset moved for leave to bring in a bill to limit the peerage in such a manner, that the number of English peers should not be enlarged beyond six above the present number, which, upon failure of male issue, might be supplied by new creations. That instead of the sixteen elective peers in Scotland, twenty-five be made hereditary on the part of that kingdom, whose number, on the failure of heirs male, should be supplied by some other Scotch peers."

and sent him nottice; and I went instantly to Edinburgh, where, having examined Straiton's intelligence, I soon found he was deceived; for I did not think it probable that Ormond would allow such a fellow to come on shoar, when I knew he aimed at being himself the first messenger of his errand; besides having no credentials from his master, he could doe no service in the matter he pretended; and he gave no tollerable account of himself, not so much as knowing the name of the port in Spain from whence his master and he came with the fleet; from all which I concluded he was a rogue, that proposed by this story to get a little money, or that he was sett out by some of the government, (who, by this time, had certain assurances of the duke of Ormond's misfortune, tho' they did not own it) with a view of persuading some of the king's friends to leap at the bait, and goe to arms, and thereby afford a handle to ruin them. And, as for my lord Stormont's information, I was sure, if the fact had been as he represented, wee must, since the time he mentioned, being eight or nine days, have had the certainty of it, even in the publick letters; and I gave the less credit, when I perceived his lordship's letter was dated at one in the morning, about which time I knew he was apt to credit any news that pleased him. Having joynd all these considerations together, I immediately sent to stop Dalhousie; and I dispatched Mr. George Kinnaird with the utmost expedition to Nairn, to advertise him of the false intelligence which he had got; for which he gave me afterwards many thanks, as it was the means of saving him, and many others that were ready, and resolved to get speedily together and joyn Marishall. Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. pp. 22, 23.

The motion was seconded by the duke of Argyle, who had again been reconciled to the court, but, on the suggestion of the earl of Carlisle, who likewise supported the motion, the debate was adjourned to the second of March, on which day, earl Stanhope delivered a message from his majesty, of the following tenor:-" George R. His majesty being informed that the house of peers have under consideration the state of the peerage of Great Britain, is graciously pleased to acquaint this house, that he has so much at heart the settling of the peerage of the whole kingdom, upon such a foundation as may secure the freedom and constitution of parliament in all future ages, that he is willing that his prerogative stand not in the way of so great and necessary a work."*

His majesty, whose prerogative was so deeply affected by the scheme, having consented to it, it can excite little wonder that resolutions to the above effect were agreed to by the lords, and a bill ordered to be prepared by the judges, founded upon these resolutions. The bill, however, met with a most violent opposition, especially, as might naturally have been expected, among the commons, who could regard it in no other light than an attempt to shut them up in everlasting plebeianism. Sir Robert Walpole was particularly violent in his opposition, and his speech was published in order to heighten the public clamour against the measure. Sir Richard Steele, "whose pen," as Johnson remarks, "readily seconded his political passions," attacked the measure in a pamphlet, entitled the Plebeian, and his friend-Mr. Joseph Addison, being under the influence of his patron, Sunderland, defended it under the title of The Old Whig. His defence, however, had but little effect upon the public, it was found necessary to lay aside the bill for the pre

Campbell's Life of John, Duke of Argyle, pp. 282, 283.

+ Steele replied to Addison by a second Plebeian, in which he confined himself strictly to his subject, without taking any personal notice of his adversary. Addison's pride was hurt, probably because he felt he had the worst of the argument, and, in his reply, spoke contemptuously of "little Dickey, whose trade it was to write pamphlets." Steele, however, preserved his dignity, and contented himself with quoting some lines of Cato, which were at once detection and reproof." Johnson's Life of Addison.

sent, and next session it was rejected by a majority of two hundred and sixty-five, to one hundred and seventy-seven.

Parliament was prorogued on the eighteenth of April, and his majesty, having appointed lords justices to govern the kingdom in his absence, embarked in the month of May for Holland, whence he proceeded directly to Hanover. Here he concluded a treaty of peace with Ulrica, the new queen of Sweden, by which the dutchies of Bremen and Verden, with all their dependancies were ceded for ever to the royal and electoral house of Brunswick, in consideration of which, George obliged himself to pay a million of rix-dollars to the queen of Sweden, and to renew, as king of Great Britain and elector of Hanover, the alliances formerly subsisting between his predecessors and that kingdom. He also mediated a peace between Sweden and his former allies, the Danes, the Prussians, and the Poles. The Czar, however, refusing to give up his schemes of conquest, sent his fleet to the Scheuron, or Batsas of Sweden, where he landed troops to the number of fifteen thousand, who committed the most frightful outrages. They were, however, withdrawn on the approach of Sir John Norris and a British fleet, which had been ordered into the Baltic to support these negotiations.

On the fourteenth of November, the king returned from Hanover, and on the twenty-third, opened the parliament with a speech, in which he told them, "that Europe, as well as Great Britain, was on the point of being delivered from the calamities of war, through the influence of British counsels and British arms." He exhorted the commons to concert proper measures for lessening the national debt, and when he looked to the results of his own government, which, it must be owned, had been conducted both with vigour and deliberation, amidst the many troubles that he had encountered since his accession to the throne, he could not suppress a compliment to his own sagacity. He was, however, re-echoed by both houses as warmly as vanity itself could have desired. He was especially applauded for his interposition in behalf of the oppressed protestants of Hungary, Poland, and Germany, who had presented to him humble memorials, containing long and lamentable details of the grievous oppressions to which they were subjected under