Unable to defend this point, the next resort of the Jacobites is to this impudent and absurd affirmation—­that, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they took arms, they should have succeeded if the indirect assistances which were asked from France had been obtained.  Nay, that they should have been able to defend the Highlands if I had sent them a little powder.  Is it possible that a man should be wounded with such blunt weapons?  Much more than powder was asked for from the first, and I have already said that when the Chevalier came into Scotland, regular troops, artillery, etc., were demanded.  Both he and the Earl of Mar judged it impossible to stand their ground without such assistance as these.  How scandalous, then, must it be deemed that they suffer their dependents to spread in the world that for want of a little powder I forced them to abandon Scotland!  The Earl of Mar knows that all the powder in France would not have enabled him to stay at Perth as long as he did if he had not had another security.  And when that failed him, he must have quitted the party, if the Regent had given us all that he made some of us expect.

But to finish all that I intend to say on a subject which has tired me, and perhaps you; the Jacobites affirm that the indirect assistances which they desired, might have been obtained; and I confess that I am inexcusable if this fact be true.  To prove it, they appeal to the little politicians of whom I have spoken so often.  I affirm, on the contrary, that nothing could be obtained here to support the Scotch or to encourage the English.  To prove the assertion, I appeal to the Ministers with whom I negotiated, and to the Regent himself, who, whatever language he may hold in private with other people, cannot controvert with me the truth of what I advance.  He excluded me formerly, that he might the more easily avoid doing anything; and perhaps he has blamed me since, that he might excuse his doing nothing.  All this may be true, and yet it will remain true that he would never have been prevailed upon to act directly against his interest in the only point of view which he has—­I mean, the crown of France—­and against the unanimous sense of all his Ministers.  Suppose that in the time of the late Queen, when she had the peace in view, a party in France had implored her assistance, and had applied to Margery Fielding, to Israel, to my Lady Oglethorpe, to Dr. Battle, and Lieutenant-General Stewart, what success do you imagine such applications would have had?  The Queen would have spoke them fair—­she would speak otherwise to nobody; but do you imagine she would have made one step in their favour?  Olive Trant, Magny, Mademoiselle Chaussery, a dirty Abbe Brigault, and Mr. Dillon, are characters very apposite to these.  And what I suppose to have passed in England is not a whit more ridiculous than what really passed here.