render of Foster and his associates at Preston, the rebels in Scotland received a severe shock from the royal army. The earl of Mar, after having wasted his time in forming his army, with unnecessary parade, at Perth,(1) took a resolution to march into England, and join his southern friends. With this view he marched to Auchterarder, where he reviewed his forces, and halted a day, before he attempted to cross the Forth. The duke of Argyle, who lay on the southern side of that river, instead of waiting to dispute the passage of the rebels, marched over the bridge of Stirling, as soon as he was informed of their design, and encamped within a few miles of the earl of Mar, with his left to the village of Dumblaine, and his right towards SheriffMuir. His army consisted only of two thousand three hundred infantry, and twelve hundred cavalry; that of the rebels, of about nine thousand men, chiefly infantry. They came in sight of each other in the evening, and lay all night on their arms.

At daybreak, Argyle, perceiving the rebels in motion, drew up his troops in order of battle. But, on the nearer approach of the enemy, finding himself out-flanked, and in danger of being surrounded, he was under the necessity of altering his disposition, by seizing on certain heights to the north-east of Dumblaine. In consequence of this movement, which was not made without some degree of confusion, the left wing of the royal army fell in with the centre of the rebels, composed of the clans headed by Glengary, sir Donald Macdonald's brothers, the captain of Clanronald, sir John Maclean, Glenco, Campbell of Glenlyon, Gordon of Glenbucket, and other chieftains. The combat was fierce and bloody, and the Highlanders seemed at one time discouraged, by the loss of one of their leaders; when Glengary, waving his bonnet, and crying aloud, "Revenge! revenge!" they rushed up to the muzzle of the muskets of the king's troops, pushed aside the bayonets with their targets, and made great havoc with their broadswords. The whole left wing of the royal army was instantly broken and routed; general Witham, who commanded it, flying to Stirling, and declaring that all was lost.

Meanwhile, the duke of Argyle, who conducted in person the right wing of the royal army, consisting chiefly of horse, had defeated the left of the rebels, and pursued them with great slaughter, as far as the river Allen, in which many of them were drowned. This pursuit, however, though hot, was by no means rapid. The rebels, notwithstanding their habitual dread of cavalry, the shock of which their manner of fighting rendered them little able to resist, frequently made a stand, and endeavoured to renew the combat. And if Mar, who remained with the victorious part of his army, had possessed any tolerable share of military talents, Argyle would never have dared to revisit the field of battle. He might even have been overpowered by numbers, and cut off by one body of the rebels, when fatigued with combating the other. But no such attempt being made, nor the advantage on the left properly improved, the duke returned triumphant to the scene of action; and Mar, who had taken post on the top of a hill, with about five thousand of the flower of his army, not only forbore to molest the king's troops, but retired during the following night, and made the best of his way to Perth.(2) Next morning the duke of Argyle, who had been joined by the remains of his left wing, perceiving that the rebels had saved him the trouble of dislodging them, drew off his army towards Stirling, carrying along with him the enemy's artillery, bread-wagons, and many prisoners of distinction.(3) The number killed was very considerable, amounting to near a thousand men on each side.

This battle, though by no means decisive, proved fatal, in its consequences, to the affairs of the pretender in Scotland. Lord Lovat, the chief of the Frasers, who seemed disposed to join the rebels, now declared for the established government, and seized upon the important post of Inverness, from

(1) Duke of Berwick's Mem, vol. ii.

(2) London Gazette, Nov. 21, 1715. Duke of Berwick's Mem. vol. if. Account of the Battle of Dumblaine, printed at Edinburgh in 1715, and Tindal's Contin. of Rapin, vol vii. (3) Id. ibid

which he drove sir John Mackenzie; while the earl of Sutherland, who had hitherto been overawed, appeared openly in the same cause. Against these two noblemen, Mar detached the marquis of Huntley and the earl of Seaforth, with their numerous vassals. But the rebel chiefs, instead of coming to immediate action, suffered themselves to be amused with negotiations; and both, after some hesitation, returned to their allegiance under king George. The marquis of Tullibardine also withdrew from the rebel army, in order to defend his own country against the friends of government; and the clans, disgusted at their failure of success, dispersed on the approach of winter, with their usual want of perseverance.

The pretender, who had hitherto resisted every solicitation to come over, took the unaccountable resolution, in this desperate state of his affairs, of landing in the north of Scotland. He accordingly set sail from Dunkirk in a small vessel, and arrived at Peterhead, attended only by six gentlemen. He was met at Fetterosse by the earls of Mar and Mareschal, and conducted to Perth. There a regular council was formed, and a day fixed for his coronation at Scone. But he was diverted from all thoughts of that vain ceremony by the approach of the duke of Argyle; who, having been reinforced with six thousand Dutch auxiliaries, advanced towards Perth, notwithstanding the rigour of the season.

As that town was utterly destitute of fortifications, excepting a simple wall, and otherwise unprovided for a siege, the king's troops took possession of it without resistance. Mar and the pretender had retired to Montrose; and, seeing no prospect of better fortune, they embarked for France, accompanied with several other persons of distinction.(1) General Gordon and earl Mareschal proceeded northward with the main body of the rebels, by a march so rapid as to elude pursuit. All who thought they could not hope for pardon, embarked at Aberdeen for the continent. The common people were conducted to the hills of Badenoch, and there quietly dismissed. The whole country submitted to Argyle.

Such, my dear Philip, was the issue of a rebellion, which had its origin, as we have seen, in the intrigues in favour of the pretender, during the latter years of the reign of queen Anne, not in the measures of the new government, as represented by the jacobite writers. Its declared object was the restoration of the family of Stuart to the throne of Great Britain; and that, many intelligent men have supposed, would have been attended with fewer inconveniences than the accession of the house of Hanover. But they who reflect, that the pretender was a bigoted papist, and not only obstinately refused to change his religion, though sensible it incapacitated him from legally succeeding to the crown, but studiously avoided, in his very manifestoes, giving any open and unequivocal assurance that he would maintain the civil and religious liberties of the nation, as by law established,(2) will find reason to be of another opinion. They will consider the suppression of this rebellion, which defeated the designs of the jacobites, and in a manner extinguished the hopes of the pretender, as an event of the utmost importance to the happiness of Great Britain.-The earl of Derwentwater, lord Kenmure, and a few other rebel prisoners, were publicly executed; but no blood was wantonly spilled. These executions were dictated by prudence, not by vengeance.

We must now turn our eyes towards another quarter of Europe, and take a view of the king of Sweden and his antagonist, Peter the Great. The king of Sweden particularly claims our attention at this period; as, among his other extravagant projects, he had formed a design of restoring the pretender.

(1) Duke of Berwick's Mem. vol. ii. Tindal's Contin. ubi sup.

(2) See Bolingbroke's Letter to Sir William Wyndham, in which many curious proofs of the pretender's duplicity and bigotry are given. When the draught of a declaration, and other papers, to be dispersed in Great Britain, were presented to him by his secretary," he took exception against several passages, and particularly against those wherein a direct promise of securing the churches of England and Ireland was made. He was told, he said, that he could not in conscience make such a promise." The draughts were accordingly altered by his priests; "and the most material passages were turned with all the jesuitical prevarication imaginable." (Ibid.) In consequence of these alterations, Bolingbroke refused to countersign the declaration.

LETTER XXV.

Russia, Turkey, and the Northern Kingdoms, from the Defeat of Charles XII at Pultowa, 1709, to the Death of Peter the Great, in 1725.

THE defeat of the king of Sweden at Pultowa, as I have already had occasion to notice, was followed by the most important consequences. Charles XII., who had so long been the terror of Europe, was obliged to take shelter in the Turkish dominions, where he continued a fugitive, while his former rival, the Russian monarch, victorious on every side, restored Augustus to the throne of Poland; deposed Stanislaus, expelled the Swedes, and made himself master of Livonia, Ingria, and Carelia.(1)

The circumstances attending these conquests are too little interesting to ́merit a particular detail. I shall therefore pass them over, and proceed to the intrigues of Charles and Poniatowski at the Ottoman court, which gave birth to more striking events. I cannot help, however, here observing, that the king of Denmark having declared war against Sweden, soon after the defeat of the Swedish monarch at Pultowa, in hopes of profiting by the misfortunes of that prince, and invaded Scania or Schonen, his army was defeated, with great slaughter, near Elsingburgh, by the Swedish militia, and a few regiments of veterans, under general Steenbock.

Charles XII. was so much delighted with the news of this victory, and enraged at the enemies that had risen up against him in his absence, that he could not forbear exclaiming on this occasion, "my brave Swedes! should it please God that I once more join you, we will beat them all!" He had then, indeed, a near prospect of being able to return to his capital as a conqueror, and to take severe vengeance on his numerous enemies.

It is a maxim of the Turkish government, to consider as sacred the persons of such unfortunate princes as take refuge in the dominions of the grand seignior, and to supply them liberally with the conveniences of life, according to their rank, while within the limits of the Ottoman empire. Agreeable to this generous maxim, the king of Sweden was honourably conducted to Bender; and saluted, on his arrival, with a general discharge of the artillery. As he did not choose to lodge within the town, the seraskier, or governor of the province, caused a magnificent tent to be erected for him on the banks of the Niester. Tents were also erected for his principal attendants; and these tents were afterward transformed into houses: so that the camp of the unfortunate monarch became insensibly a considerable village. Great numbers of strangers resorted to Bender to see him. The Turks and neighbouring Greeks came thither in crowds. All respected and admired him. His inflexible resolution to abstain from wine, and his regularity in assisting publicly twice a day at divine service, made the Mahometans say he was a true Mussulman, and inspired them with an ardent desire of marching under him to the conquest of Russia.(2)

That idea still occupied the mind of Charles. Though a fugitive among infidels, and utterly destitute of resources, he was not without hopes of yet being able to dethrone the czar. With this view, his envoy at the court of Constantinople delivered memorials to the grand vizier; and his friend Poniatowski, who was always dressed in the Turkish habit, and had free access every where, supported these solicitations by his intrigues. Achmet III., the reigning sultan, presented Poniatowski with a purse of a thousand ducats, and the grand vizier said to him, "I will take your king in one hand, and a sword in the other, and conduct him to Moscow at the head of two hundred thousand men."(3) But the czar's money soon changed the sentiments of the Turkish minister. The military chest, which Peter had taken at Pultowa, furnished him with new arms to wound the vanquished Charles, whose

() Voltaire's Hist. of Russia, chap. xix.

Hist. Charles XII. liv. v

Id. ibid.

blood-earned treasures were turned against himself. All thoughts of a war with Russia were laid aside at the porte.

The king of Sweden, however, though thus discomfited in his ne otiations, by means of the czar's gold, as he had been in the field by the army of that prince, was not in the least dejected. Convinced that the sultan was ignorant of the intrigues of the grand vizier, he resolved to acquaint him with the corruption of his minister, and Poniatowski undertook the execution of this

hazardous business.

The grand seignior goes every Friday to the mosque, or Mahometan temple, surrounded by his soleks; a kind of guards, whose turbans are adorned with such high feathers, as to conceal the sultan from the view of the people. When any one has a petition to present, he endeavours to mingle with the guards, and holds the paper aloft. Sometimes the sultan condescends to receive the petition himself, but he more commonly orders an aga to take charge of it, and causes it to be laid before him on his return from the mosque. Poniatowski had no other method of conveying the king of Sweden's complaint to Achmet.

Some days after receiving the petition, which had been translated into the Turkish language, the sultan sent a polite letter to Charles, accompanied with a present of twenty-five Arabian horses; one of which having carried his sublime highness, was covered with a saddle ornamented with precious stones, and furnished with stirrups of massy gold. But he declined taking any step to the disadvantage of his minister, whose conduct he seemed to approve. The ruin of the grand vizier, however, was at hand. Through the intrigues of Poniatowski, he was banished to Kaffa in Crim Tartary, and the bull, or seal of the empire, was given to Numan Kupruli, grandson to the great Kupruli, who took Candia from the Venetians.

This new minister, who was a man of incorruptible integrity, could not bear the thoughts of a war against Russia, which he considered as alike unnecessary and unjust. But the same attachment to justice, which made him averse to making war upon the Russians, contrary to the faith of treaties, induced him to observe the rights of hospitality towards the king of Sweden, and even to enlarge the generosity of the sultan to that unfortunate prince. He sent Charles eight hundred purses, every purse containing five hundred crowns, and advised him to return peaceably to his own dominions; either through the territories of the emperor of Germany, or in some of the French vessels which then lay in the harbour of Constantinople, and on board of which the French ambassador offered to convey him to Marseilles.

But the haughty and inflexible Swede, who still believed he should be able to engage the Turks in his project of dethroning the czar, obstinately rejected this, and every other proposal, for his quiet return to his own dominions. He was constantly employed in magnifying the power of his former rival, whom he had long affected to despise; and his emissaries took care, at the same time, to insinuate that Peter was ambitious to make himself master of the Black Sea, to subdue the Cossacks, and to carry his arms into Crim Tartary.(1) But the force of these insinuations, which sometimes alarmed the porte, were generally broken by the more powerful arguments of the Russian ministers,

While the obstinacy of the king of Sweden, in refusing to return to his own dominions, in any other character than that of a conqueror, made his fate thus depend upon the caprice of viziers; while he was alternately receiving favours and affronts from the great enemy of Christianity, himself a devout Christian; presenting petitions to the grand Turk, and subsisting upon his bounty in a desert, the Russian monarch was exhibiting to his people a spectacle not unworthy of the ancient Romans, when Rome was in her glory. In order to inspire his subjects with a taste for magnificence, and to impress them with an awful respect for his power, he made his public entry into Moscow (after reinstating Augustus in the throne of Poland) under seven tri

(1) Voltaire, ubi sup. These particulars this lively author had partly from Poniatowski himself and partly from M. de Feriol, the French ambassador at the porte.

umphal arches, erected in the streets, and adorned with every thing that the climate could produce, or a thriving commerce furnish. First in procession marched a regiment of guards, followed by the artillery taken from the Swedes; each piece of which was drawn by eight horses, covered with scarlet housings hanging down to the ground. Next came the kettle-drums, colours, and standards won from the same enemy, carried by the officers and soldiers who had captured them. These trophies were followed by the finest troops of the czar; and, after they had filed off, the litter in which Charles XII. was carried at the battle of Pultowa, all shattered with cannon-shot, appeared in a chariot made on purpose to display it. Behind the litter marched all the Swedish prisoners, two and two; among whom was count Piper the king of Sweden's prime minister, the famous mareschal Renchild, the count de Lewenhaupt, the generals Slipenbach, Stackelberg, and Hamil ton, with many inferior officers, who were afterward dispersed through Great Russia. Last in procession came the triumphant conqueror, mounted on the same horse which he rode at the battle of Pultowa, and followed by the generals who had a share in the victory: the whole being closed by a vast number of wagons, loaded with the Swedish military stores, and preceded by a regiment of Russian guards.(1)

This magnificent spectacle, which augmented the veneration of the Muscovites for the person of Peter, and perhaps made him appear greater in their eyes than all his military achievements and civil institutions, furnished Charles with new arguments for awakening the jealousy of the porte. The grand vizier Kupruli, who had zealously opposed all the designs of the king of Sweden, was dismissed from his office, after having filled it only two months, and the seal of the empire was given to Baltagi Mahomet, bashaw of Syria. Baltagí, on his arrival at Constantinople, found the interest of the Swedish monarch prevailing in the seraglio. The sultana Walide, mother of the reigning emperor; Ali Kumurgi, his favourite; the Kislar aga, chief of the black eunuchs; and the aga of the janizaries, were all for a war against Russia. Achmet himself was fixed in the same resolution. And he gave orders to the grand vizier to attack the dominions of the czar with two hundred thousand men. Baltagi was no warrior, but he prepared to obey.(2)

The first violent step of the Ottoman court was the arresting of the Russian ambassador, and committing him to the castle of the seven towers. It is the custom of the Turks to begin hostilities with imprisoning the ministers of those princes against whom they intend to declare war, instead of ordering them to leave the dominions of the porte. This barbarous custom, at which even savages would blush, they pretend to vindicate, on a supposition that they never undertake any but just wars; and that they have a right to punish the ambassadors of the princes with whom they are at enmity, as accom plices in the treachery of their masters.

But the true origin of so detestable a practice seems to be the ancient and hereditary hatred and contempt of the Turks for the Christian powers, which they take every occasion to show ;(3) and the meanness of the latter, who, from motives of interest and jealousy of each other, continually support a number of ambassadors, considered as little better than spies, at the court of Constantinople, while the grand seignior is too proud to send an ambassador to any court in Christendom. It is a disrespect to the Christian name, and the office of resident, that betrays the honest Mussulman into this fla. grant breach of the law of nations; a law which his prejudices induce him to think ought only to be observed towards the faithful, or those eastern nations who, though not Mahometans, equal the Turks in stateliness of manners, and decline sending any ambassadors among them, except on extraordinary occasions. In consequence of these prejudices, or whatever may have given

(2) Id. ibid.

(1) Voltaire's Hist. of Russia, chap. xix. Hist. Charles XII. liv. v. (3) The insults to which Christian traders in Turkey are exposed, even at this day, are too horrid to be mentioned, and such as the inordinate love of gold only could induce any man of spirit to submit to, however smail his veneration for the religion of the Cross. Consuls and ambassadors, though vested with a pub.haracter, and more immediately entitled to protection, are not altogether exempted from such insulta