was over!  What a number of Whigs, now high in place and creatures of the all-powerful Minister, scorned Mr. Walpole then!  If ever a match was gained by the manliness and decision of a few at a moment of danger; if ever one was lost by the treachery and imbecility of those that had the cards in their hands, and might have played them, it was in that momentous game which was enacted in the next three days, and of which the noblest crown in the world was the stake.

From the conduct of my Lord Bolingbroke, those who were interested in the scheme we had in hand, saw pretty well that he was not to be trusted.  Should the Prince prevail, it was his lordship’s gracious intention to declare for him:  should the Hanoverian party bring in their sovereign, who more ready to go on his knee, and cry, “God Save King George?” And he betrayed the one Prince and the other; but exactly at the wrong time.  When he should have struck for King James, he faltered and coquetted with the Whigs; and having committed himself by the most monstrous professions of devotion, which the Elector rightly scorned, he proved the justness of their contempt for him by flying and taking renegade service with St. Germains, just when he should have kept aloof:  and that Court despised him, as the manly and resolute men who established the Elector in England had before done.  He signed his own name to every accusation of insincerity his enemies made against him; and the King and the Pretender alike could show proofs of St. John’s treachery under his own hand and seal.

Our friends kept a pretty close watch upon his motions, as on those of the brave and hearty Whig party, that made little concealment of theirs.  They would have in the Elector, and used every means in their power to effect their end.  My Lord Marlborough was now with them.  His expulsion from power by the Tories had thrown that great captain at once on the Whig side.  We heard he was coming from Antwerp; and, in fact, on the day of the Queen’s death, he once more landed on English shore.  A great part of the army was always with their illustrious leader; even the Tories in it were indignant at the injustice of the persecution which the Whig officers were made to undergo.  The chiefs of these were in London, and at the head of them one of the most intrepid men in the world, the Scots Duke of Argyle, whose conduct on the second day after that to which I have now brought down my history, ended, as such honesty and bravery deserved to end, by establishing the present Royal race on the English throne.

Meanwhile there was no slight difference of opinion amongst the councillors surrounding the Prince, as to the plan his Highness should pursue.  His female Minister at Court, fancying she saw some amelioration in the Queen, was for waiting a few days, or hours it might be, until he could be brought to her bedside, and acknowledged as her heir.  Mr. Esmond was for having him march thither, escorted by a couple