a Spaniard who married a daughter of Lord Melford, and who under that title set up for a meddler in English business.  I cannot justly tell whether the honour of obtaining this promise was ascribed to him, to the Junto in the Bois de Boulogne, or to any one else.  I suppose they all assumed a share of the merit.  The project was that these stores should be delivered to Castel Blanco; that he should enter into a recognisance to carry them to Spain, and from thence to the West Indies; that I should provide a vessel for this purpose, which he should appear to hire or buy; and that when she was at sea she should sail directly for Scotland.  You cannot believe that I reckoned much on the effect of this order, but accustomed to concur in measures the inutility of which I saw evidently enough, I concurred in this likewise.  The necessary care was taken, and in a fortnight’s time the ship was ready to sail, and no suspicion of her belonging to the Chevalier or of her destination was gone abroad.

As this event made no alteration in my opinion, it made none in the despatches which I prepared and sent to Scotland.  In them I gave an account of what was in negotiation.  I explained to him what might be hoped for in time if he was able to maintain himself in the mountains without the succours he demanded from France.  But from France I told him plainly that it was in vain to expect the least part of them.  In short, I concealed nothing from him.  This was all I could do to put the Chevalier and his council in a condition to judge what measures to take; but these despatches never came to his hands.  He was sailed from Scotland just before the gentleman whom I sent arrived on the coast.  He landed at Graveline about the 22nd of February, and the first orders he gave were to stop all the vessels which were going on his account to the country from whence he came.

I saw him the morning after his arrival at St. Germains, and he received me with open arms.  I had been, as soon as we heard of his return, to acquaint the French Court with it.  They were not a little uneasy; and the first thing which the M. d’Huxelles said to me upon it was that the Chevalier ought to proceed to Bar with all the diligence possible, and to take possession of his former asylum before the Duke of Lorraine had time to desire him to look out for a residence somewhere else.  Nothing more was meant by this proposal than to get him out of the dominions of France immediately.  I was not in my mind averse to it for other reasons.  Nothing could be more disadvantageous to him than to be obliged to pass the Alps, or to reside in the Papal territory on this side of them.  Avignon was already named for his retreat in common conversation, and I know not whether from the time he left Scotland he ever thought of any other.  I imagined that by surprising the Duke of Lorraine we should furnish that Prince with an excuse to the King and to the Emperor; that we might draw the matter into length, and gain time