hand.  I would willingly flatter myself that this impression disposed me to incline to Jacobitism rather than allow that the inclination to Jacobitism disposed me easily to believe what, upon that principle, I had so much reason to wish might be true.  Which was the cause, and which the effect, I cannot well determine:  perhaps they did mutually occasion each other.  Thus much is certain—­that I was far from weighing this matter as I ought to have done when the solicitation of my friends and the persecution of my enemies precipitated me into engagements with the Pretender.

I was willing to take it for granted that since you were as ready to declare as I believed you at that time, you must have had entire satisfaction on the article of religion.  I was soon undeceived; this string had never been touched.  My own observation, and the unanimous report of all those who from his infancy have approached the Pretender’s person, soon taught me how difficult it is to come to terms with him on this head, and how unsafe to embark without them.

His religion is not founded on the love of virtue and the detestation of vice; on a sense of that obedience which is due to the will of the Supreme Being, and a sense of those obligations which creatures formed to live in a mutual dependence on one another lie under.  The spring of his whole conduct is fear.  Fear of the horns of the devil and of the flames of hell.  He has been taught to believe that nothing but a blind submission to the Church of Rome and a strict adherence to all the terms of that communion can save him from these dangers.  He has all the superstition of a Capuchin, but I found on him no tincture of the religion of a prince.  Do not imagine that I loose the reins to my imagination, or that I write what my resentments dictate:  I tell you simply my opinion.  I have heard the same description of his character made by those who know him best, and I conversed with very few among the Roman Catholics themselves who did not think him too much a Papist.

Nothing gave me from the beginning so much uneasiness as the consideration of this part of his character, and of the little care which had been taken to correct it.  A true turn had not been given to the first steps which were made with him.  The Tories who engaged afterwards, threw themselves, as it were, at his head.  He had been suffered to think that the party in England wanted him as much as he wanted them.  There was no room to hope for much compliance on the head of religion when he was in these sentiments, and when he thought the Tories too far advanced to have it in their power to retreat; and little dependence was at any time to be placed on the promises of a man capable of thinking his damnation attached to the observance, and his salvation to the breach, of these very promises.  Something, however, was to be done, and I thought that the least which could be done was to deal plainly with him, and to show him