coast, but without being able to effect a landing. In 1716-17 he made an unsuccessful attempt to induce the king of Sweden-who had affected great consideration for the pretender-to invade England with an army of Swedes. In 1718-19 the Spanish government determined on making an attempt to place James Frederick on the British throne. An armament, consisting of ten sail of the line, and numerous transports, with six thousand regular troops, and twelve thousand stand of arms for the pretender's English and Scotch adherents, was accordingly fitted out at Cadiz. and placed under the duke of Ormond's command. Rumours of the intended invasion having reached this country, the house of commons addressed the king to offer a reward of £5000 for the duke's apprehension. The Jacobites eagerly prepared for his landing; and great alarm appears to have prevailed among the more loyal classes of his majesty's subjects. But the expedition was unsuccessful. Many of the transports drifted ashore and went to pieces,-most of the troops were rendered unserviceable,—and the duke, after having narrowly escaped shipwreck, was compelled to return to Cadiz without having seen an enemy, but utterly discomfited by the elements.

His death

In 1722 a Jacobite, named Layer, was executed for having partly, it is said, at the instigation of Ormond, attempted to enlist a body of recruits for the service of the pretender in Essex. In 1726 the duke appears to have made some fruitless efforts to engage the Spanish government in a new project for the invasion of this country. From this period he gradually dwindled in importance. He spent the remainder of his life chiefly at Avignon, in melancholy indolence, wholly subsisting on a pension from Spain of 2000 pistoles per annum. took place on the 16th of November, in the memorable year 1745. The duke married at rather an early period of his public career; but he left no children by his wife, for whom, although they lived upon tolerable terms, he appears to have entertained but very little affection. He was principally indebted for that importance which he so long enjoyed to his rank and connexions. His abilities' were good, but not splendid;-his morals in private life, and his principles as a public character, were equally lax,-his judgment was evidently weak, and his vanity contemptible. He has been praised for his fidelity to the pretender; but it does not appear that he ever received any temptation to be treacherous to James Frederick, or that he could have bettered himself by abandoning the Jacobite cause.

John, Earl of Stair.

BORN A. D. 1673.-died a. D. 1747.

THIS celebrated general and accomplished statesman was the eldest son of John Dalrymple, created, for his services at the Revolution, first viscount, and afterwards earl of Stair. His mother was Lady Elizabeth Dundas, daughter of Sir John Dundas of Newliston. He was early sent to the college of Edinburgh under a guardian, and had run through the whole course of his studies at the fourteenth year of his age. He was designed by his father for the law; but his passion for the military life was unconquerable. He left Edinburgh in 1687, and went over to

Holland, where he passed through the first military gradations under the eye of the prince of Orange. About this time he learned the French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Dutch languages, all of which he spoke with great purity.

At the Revolution he came over to Scotland, where he performed the most substantial services for the prince of Orange. He was amongst the first to declare for King William; and went up with his father to London to pay his homage to the deliverer, by whom he was most graciously received. He attended the king to Ireland, and also accompanied him to Holland, in the beginning of the year 1691. Upon this occasion his majesty conferred a colonel's commission upon Mr Dalrymple. In this capacity he served under his great commander at the battle of Steenkirk, fought on the 3d of August, 1692. No British officer signalized himself more in this engagement than Colonel Dalrymple. He several times rallied his regiment when the ranks were broken by the cannon, and brought them back to the charge, and was instrumental in saving many of the troops from being cut in pieces, as he stopped the pursuit till they could rally and renew the attack.

From this time to the year 1702, we have no accounts of Colonel Dalrymple; but, in the campaign of that year, we find him taking a vigorous part in the expulsion of the French from Spanish Guelderland. Marlborough honoured Colonel Dalrymple with his particular notice, though, by national prejudice, not very fond of encouraging Scotsmen. The duke promoted our hero to be colonel of the Royal North British dragoons. At the assault on the citadel of Venloo, when the fort of Chartreuse was taken by the allies, Colonel Dalrymple had the happiness to save the life of the prince of Hesse-Cassel, afterwards king of Sweden, who, in wresting the colours from a French officer, was upon the point of being cut down by a grenadier, when Dalrymple shot the assailant dead upon the spot with his pistol. He subsequently became aid-de-camp to Marlborough; and, after the battle of Hockstet, was appointed colonel of the Scotch Greys.

When the success of the British arms in Flanders obliged Louis XIV. to sue for peace, and the duke of Marlborough had returned home in March, 1709, he took occasion to introduce Colonel Dalrymple to her majesty, as an officer who had performed the most signal services in the campaign in the Low Countries. Soon after this he succeeded to the title of Earl of Stair by the death of his father; and the queen, as a reward for his military conduct, and as a first essay of his political abilities, was pleased to appoint him her ambassador-extraordinary to Augustus II., king of Poland. The success of this negotiation was owing, in a great measure, to the amiable qualities of the earl of Stair, by which he gained the entire confidence and esteem of the king of Poland, who entered heartily into all the measures of the allies. His lordship remained four years at the Polish court; in which time he formed an intimate acquaintance with most of the foreign ambassadors, and framed to himself a clear idea of the interests of the several courts in the north. He is thought by some to have been the first, who, by means of the duke of Marlborough, projected the renunciation of Bremen and Verden, on the part of the king of Denmark, in favour of George I.

He was called home in 1713, when he was stripped off all his en

ployments. Having lived very splendidly at Warsaw, he had contracted debts, which at that time lay heavy upon him. His plate and equipage would have been arrested, if one Mr Lawson, who had been a lieutenant in a Cameronian regiment, had not generously lent him the sum of £1800. It is hard to say whether Mr Lawson's friendship, or the earl of Stair's gratitude ever after, was most to be admired. He did not remain long in retirement, for, upon the accession of George I., he was received into favour; and, on the 28th of October, 1714, was appointed one of the lords of the bed-chamber; the next day he was sworn one of the privy-council, and, in November, was made commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in Scotland.

The scene now changed in favour of the duke of Marlborough, whose friends were, for the most part, chosen to represent the counties and boroughs in the parliament that was summoned to meet on the 17th of March, 1715. In Scotland the opposers of the former ministry prevailed, and the earl of Stair was elected one of the sixteen peers to sit in the first septennial parliament. Ambassadors were now sent to the several courts in Europe to notify the king's accession; and, as the French court was both the most splendid and most intriguing, it was requisite to fix upon an ambassador of address and deep penetration The person thought of by the duke of Marlborough and by the king himself, was Lord Stair, who was intrusted with discretionary powers.

He set out for Paris in January, 1715, and, in a few days after, entered that capital in so splendid a manner, that the proud old monarch considered it as an insult offered to him in his own capital, that a petty prince, whom, only a few months before, he had entertained hopes of depriving of even his electoral title and dominions in Germany, should, upon his ascending a throne so unexpectedly, authorise his ambassador to make a more splendid appearance than the minister of any potentate had ever done before at Paris. Stair was not many days in Paris, however, before an opportunity offered of confirming his royal master in the good opinion he had formed of him.

By the ninth article of the treaty of Utrecht, it was expressly stipu lated that the harbour of Dunkirk should be filled up, and that the dykes which form the canal and moles should be destroyed. There had been a pretended execution of this article, but nothing like fulfilling of the treaty, and the king had ordered a haven and canal to be made at Mardyke, of much greater extent than those of Dunkirk itself. Mr Prior, the former ambassador, had complained of this, and insisted that the treaty should be fulfilled; but an answer full of the most evasive arguments had been given. As the matter still continued open, the earl of Stair laid a clear representation of the case before the French ministry, and with uncommon address and vigilance got to the bottom of the secret machinations of the French court, and transmitted home such early and exact intelligence concerning the intended invasion, that the pretender's enterprise failed, and a great number of his abettors in England were taken into custody. Various stories are told concerning the methods made use of by the earl of Stair to procure such important secret intelligence, most of them calculated to amuse the reader by agreeable fictions at the expense of historical truth. The real fact, as it stands authenticated on record, is, that the earl of Stair was master of the most insinuating address, and knew how to apply a

bribe properly. By the influence of both, he gained over an English Roman Catholic priest, named Strickland, who was one of the pretender's chaplains, and his chief confidant. By means of this spy, Lord Stair knew every project formed in the pretender's council; and from the same quarter he obtained a list of the French officers who had engaged to accompany him to Scotland, with an exact account of the quantity of arms, ammunition, and provisions, to be furnished by the French ministry. Stair at the same time made such strong representations to the regent, that his royal highness saw that to remove all suspicions, and preserve the friendship of Great Britain, to which he was strongly inclined, he must be obliged to alter his policy: he therefore answered, "That he would forbid the exportation of any arms or ammunition out of the kingdom, and that he should send such orders to all the ports in France, as his Britannic majesty desired; together with proper instructions to the captains of such vessels as were bound for any part of Scotland." The success of this negotiation contributed greatly to the suppression of the rebellion; for, when the insurgents found themselves deprived of the powerful succours they had been promised from France, their courage failed them, and they began to disperse. No sooner did the news of this reach the earl of Stair, than he repaired to the regent, and completely put an end to the pretender's hopes by reducing the regent to the necessity of declaring himself once for all. There was no medium; he must either satisfy Great Britain by refusing the pretender a retreat in France, or absolutely break with a prince whose friendship might be of service to him, for the sake of a guest who was both useless to him and his friends, and troublesome to those who protected him. By the advice of the Abbé du Bois, he therefore gave the earl of Stair a most explicit and satisfactory answer, after having acquainted the pretender with his resolution, who immediately retired to Avignon. A good understanding was now established between the courts of Versailles and London, highly agreeable to the latter, as it gave the new sovereign an opportunity of inspecting and regulating the domestic administration of government. The earl of Stair's conduct upon this occasion gained him the esteem of the duke of Orleans, now declared regent during the minority of Louis XV. But neither adulations nor civilities could put him off his guard, or relax his attention to the interests of his royal master, as the following anecdote testifies.

One day, the regent, attended by a splendid retinue, went in his coach to pay the earl a visit. The coach halted at the gate of the ambassador's hotel, but when the earl of Stair descended from his apartment, the regent only partly alighted from his coach, setting one foot on the ground and keeping the other fixed on the step. The earl, in the meantime, was advancing towards the gate; but observing the posture the regent was in, he stopped short, turned about, walked three or four times backward and forward, and at last asked one of the attendants, "Whether his royal highness was come to visit him as his Britannic majesty's ambassador, or as earl of Stair?" To which receiving no answer, he added, "If he comes to see Lord Stair, I shall reckon it my greatest honour to receive any one officer of the crown, much more the duke-regent, at the door of his coach; but if he comes to visit the ambassador of my august and royal master, I think I should be unworthy the trust reposed in me, if I went farther than I have done."

This being told the regent, he re-entered his coach, and afterwards caused it to be notified to his excellency, that he was not desirous of seeing him at court; and, for some months, Stair actually withdrew; till, hearing of the regent's fitting out a strong squadron at Toulon, which the court of Britain could not look on with indifference, he went to court, and brought about an interview with the regent in the following manner. The guards knowing him, declared they had orders to refuse him admittance. "Oh!" says he, "though the British ambassador be debarred access, yet Lord Stair is not." On this he was allowed to

enter, and having passed the first guard he hastened through the others, and entered the presence-chamber, where the king and regent were, surrounded by a vast number of nobility, gentry, foreign ambassadors, and gencral officers. No sooner did the regent observe the earl than he withdrew to an inner chamber, whither, however, he was followed by his lordship, who, as he entered the room, told him, that if at present he denied him audience, perhaps in time he might be glad to have one in his turn. On this the regent and he entered into conversation for two hours. His royal highness perceiving, that nothing, though ever so secretly transacted, could be kept from so prying an ambassador, and that one-half of the French nation were, through poverty, become spies upon the other, he made a merit of discovering the whole plan of the Spanish minister to Lord Stair. It was deeply laid, and we shall endeavour to give a concise account of it, that the reader may be made acquainted with the political history of the first years of the reign of George I., in which the earl of Stair was the principal agent.

Though Philip V., the grandson of the late king of France, was, by the treaty of Utrecht, allowed to reign peaceably over the ruins of the Spanish monarchy, yet neither he nor his ministers were content with the terms obtained. Cardinal Alberoni, the then Spanish minister, knew very well, that though the emperor, by the late treaty, was put in possession of Sicily and Flanders, and secured in his other vast dominions, he was yet so far drained of his treasure by the last war as to have no great inclination to a rupture; he judged the same of the other powers engaged; and thinking that Great Britain had obtained too advantageous terms at the last general pacification, his aim was to give her a king who would be apt to relinquish every advantage in gratitude for the favours done him. But as Spain was unable alone to accomplish so great a project, the cardinal thought of gaining over Charles XII. of Sweden, with the czar of Muscovy, to his views. The former was easily brought into the scheme, from a prospect of regaining Bremen and Verden, the investment of which had been given to George I. by the emperor. In connexion with this scheme, Baron Goertz, the Swedish minister to the states-general, and one of the ablest statesmen in Europe, had twice an interview with the czar at the Hague, and having informed him that he had got considerable sums from the disaffected in England to buy ships and ammunition for invading Scotland, the Russian monarch went in person to Paris in May, 1717, and, under the pretext of visiting the academy, the arsenals, the chambers of rarities, and every thing that might excite the attention of the curious, conferred with the regent upon the intended scheme. The conference with the czar, was, by the regent's secretary, communicated to the British ambassador, who directly acquainted his court, and such active