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ported me to let slip a warm or unguarded expression, I hope the most favourable interpretation will be put upon it. It is a comfort that will remain with me in all my misfortunes, that I served her Majesty faithfully and dutifully, in that especially which she had most at heart, relieving her people from a bloody and expensive war; and that I have also been too much an Englishman to sacrifice the interest of my country to any foreign ally; and it is for this crime only that I am now driven from thence. You shall hear more largely from me shortly,

"Yours, &c."

This spirited appeal was affected to be regarded by his enemies as a gross insult to the two houses of Parliament, and, moreover, his flight was construed into evidence of, what they were pleased to call, his guilt. The preparations for his impeachment were hurried with increased alacrity; scarcely a voice was raised in his favour in either house of Parliament; those whom he had formerly silenced by his eloquence, or galled by his sarcasms, now furiously pressed on the absent statesman; and it was evident, that though his enemies had been defrauded of the blood of their arch-enemy, they were determined to pursue him to his irremediable ruin.

CHAPTER III.

The Whigs attempt to prejudice the King against the Tories. -Walpole, afterwards Sir Robert, chairman of the secret committee against St. John, presents the report of the committee to the House of Commons.-Nature of the charges against St. John.-Walpole formally impeaches St. John of high treason. His violent speech on the occasion. Its effect on the House of Commons.-Mr. Hungerford and General Ross attempt St. John's defence.-The latter's embarrassment. -Remarks on the charges against St. John.-He is degraded from his nobility, and sentenced to death should he return to England. Strong protest in the Lords against these penalties. Bill passes the Lords and receives the Royal assent.Remarks on the charge against St. John of having made treasonable overtures to the Stuarts.-St. John's forlorn condition in France. He is visited by an emissary of the Pretender, and accepts the Seals under that prince.- His first interview with him.-St. John's promise to Lord Stair, and violation of it.-Rebellion of 1715.-St. John's interview with the Pretender at St. Germains.-Is dismissed from his service. His reply to the charge brought against him, of neglecting to send gunpowder to Scotland.-Letter from Lord Stair to Walpole.-St. John's love intrigues while in France. -French lines on the subject.-Duke of Berwick's testimony to St. John's zeal in the cause of the Pretender.-His second marriage to a niece of Madame de Maintenon.-Curious anecdote of his jealousy of a rival.-Character of his second wife. His purchase of a small estate near Orleans.-Voltaire's visit to him.

ADMITTING that the conduct of Bolingbroke as a minister was not altogether blameless, the fact

is unquestionable, that he was the victim, rather of party hatred and political expediency, than of his own misconduct. The Whigs, in this country, have generally owed their power to agitation, and it was in the spirit of this principle that, on the accession of George the First to the throne, they were willing that the Tories should commit themselves by making some rash attempt in favour of the Pretender, in order that, by the suppression of some popular outbreak, (the importance of which they would probably have greatly exaggerated,) they might win the confidence and ensure the gratitude of the new King. Failing in this object, the next alternative of the Whigs was to prejudice the King by every possible means against the Tory party, and to exhibit their zeal by an open persecution of their enemies.

The chairman of the secret committee, which had been appointed to collect charges against Bolingbroke, was Robert Walpole, afterwards the celebrated Whig minister, who, having formerly been expelled the House of Commons, principally at the instigation of the proscribed statesman, was well qualified, from the personal dislike which he entertained towards his political opponent, to act with all desirable severity and vindictiveness. Accordingly, on the 2nd June, 1715, Walpole presented the report of the committee to the House of Commons. Owing to the zeal of the committee, or rather to their fixed resolution to search out the slightest incident which might reflect on the conduct of

Bolingbroke, the report had consumed months in drawing up, and now occupied as many as six hours in reading. The charges, on which the impeachment was founded, consisted of six articles, and were as follow:-"That whereas the Lord Bolingbroke had assured the Dutch ministers, that the Queen, his mistress, would make no peace but in concert with them, yet he had sent Mr. Prior to France that same year, with proposals for a treaty of peace with that monarch, without the consent of the allies :— That he advised and promoted the making a separate treaty of convention with France, which was signed in September:-that he disclosed to M. Mesnager, the French minister at London, this convention, which was the preliminary instruction to her Majesty's plenipotentiaries at Utrecht:-that her Majesty's final instructions to her plenipotentiaries were disclosed by him to the Abbot Gaultier, who was an emissary from France:-that he disclosed to the French the manner how Tournay, in Flanders, might be gained by them:-and, lastly, that he advised and promoted the yielding up Spain and the West Indies to the Duke of Anjou, then an enemy to her Majesty."

After the report had been read a second time, Walpole stood up in the House of Commons, and formally impeached Henry, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, of high treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours. He then burst out into an overwhelming tirade of eloquence and bit

terness, in which he drew the character of his political opponent as that of a corrupt minister and unprincipled traitor, and magnified his misdemeanour with all the power of genius, and all the acrimony of inveterate hatred. This celebrated speech was succeeded by a silence which lasted several minutes. To the disgrace of human nature, two voices only were raised in behalf of that great genius, whose transcendent eloquence had, but a few weeks before, excited the spontaneous acclamations of that same assembly, consisting of the very same members; -and who had recently driven his present accuser from its walls by a display of oratory more brilliant than his own.

But two persons, it has been remarked, stood up in favour of Bolingbroke, and their defence was as useless to the exile as it was honourable to themselves. The first speaker was a Mr. Hungerford, who, without attempting the advocacy of Bolingbroke's principles or conduct, confined himself to the plain fact, that there was nothing in the charges which had hitherto been adduced, that by any possibility could be construed into the crime of high treason. He was followed by General Ross, a personal friend of Bolingbroke. When he stood up, the eyes of the whole house were fixed upon him, and this circumstance, added to the novelty of the situation in which he was placed, is said to have wholly deprived him of the power of utterance. Remaining in this embarrassed position

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