by which I should have been tied down, not only from ever engaging against him, but also from making my peace at home.  The Chevalier cut this gordian knot asunder at one blow.  He broke the links of that chain which former engagements had fastened on me, and gave me a right to esteem myself as free from all obligations of keeping measures with him as I should have continued if I had never engaged in his interest.  I took therefore, from that moment, the resolution of making my peace at home, and of employing all the unfortunate experience I had acquired abroad to undeceive my friends and to promote the union and the quiet of my country.

The Earl of Stair had received a full power to treat with me whilst I was engaged with the Pretender, as I have been since informed.  He had done me the justice to believe me incapable to hearken, in such circumstances, to any proposals of that kind; and as much friendship as he had for me, as much as I had for him, we entertained not the least even indirect correspondence together during that whole time.  Soon afterwards he employed a person to communicate to me the disposition of his Majesty to grant me my pardon, and his own desire to give me, on this occasion, all the proofs he could of his inclination in my favour.  I embraced the offer, as it became me to do, with all possible sense of the King’s goodness, and of his lordship’s friendship.  We met, we talked together, and he wrote to the Court on the subject.  The turn which the Ministers gave to this matter was, to enter into a treaty to reverse my attainder, and to stipulate the conditions on which this act of grace should be granted me.

The notion of a treaty shocked me.  I resolved never to be restored rather than go that way to work; and I opened myself without any reserve to Lord Stair.  I told him that I looked on myself to be obliged in honour and in conscience to undeceive my friends in England, both as to the state of foreign affairs, as to the management of the Jacobite interest abroad, and as to the characters of persons—­in every one of which points I knew them to be most grossly and most dangerously deluded; that the treatment I had received from the Pretender and his adherents would justify me to the world in doing this; that if I remained in exile all my life, he might be assured that I would never more have to do with the Jacobite cause; and that if I was restored, I should give it an effectual blow, in making that apology which the Pretender has put me under a necessity of making:  that in doing this I flattered myself that I should contribute something to the establishment of the King’s Government, and to the union of his subjects; but that this was all the merit which I could promise to have; that if the Court believed these professions to be sincere, a treaty with me was unnecessary for them; and that if they did not believe them so, a treaty with them was dangerous for me; that I was determined in this whole transaction to make no one step which I would not own in the face of the world; that in other circumstances it might be sufficient to act honestly, but that in a case as extraordinary as mine it was necessary to act clearly, and to leave no room for the least doubtful construction.