THREE:The war of faction still went on furiously. In the Lords there was a violent debate on an address, recommended by Wharton, Cowper, Halifax, and others, on the old subject of removing the Pretender from Lorraine; and they went so far as to recommend that a reward should be offered to any person who should bring the Pretender, dead or alive, to her Majesty. This was so atrocious, considering the relation of the Pretender to the queen, that it was negatived, and another clause, substituting a reward for bringing him to justice should he attempt to land in Great Britain or Ireland. Though in the Commons, as well as in the Lords, it was decided that the Protestant succession was in no danger, an address insisting on the removal of the Pretender from Lorraine was carried. Anne received these addresses in anything but a gratified humour. She observed, in reply, that "it really would be a strengthening to the succession of the House of Hanover, if an end were put to these groundless fears and jealousies which had been so industriously promoted. I do not," she said, "at this time see any necessity for such a proclamation. Whenever I judge it necessary, I shall give my orders to have it issued."This succession of adverse circumstances induced Bolingbroke to dispatch a messenger to London to inform the Earl of Mar of them, and to state that, as the English Jacobites would not stir without assistance from abroad, and as no such help could be had, he would see that nothing as yet could be attempted. But when the messenger arrived in London, he learnt from Erasmus Lewis, Oxford's late secretary, and a very active partisan of the Jacobites, that Mar was already gone to raise the Highlands, if we are to believe the Duke of Berwick, at the especial suggestion of the Pretender himself, though he had, on the 23rd of September, in writing to Bolingbroke, expressed the necessity of the Scots waiting till they heard further from him. If that was so, it was at once traitorous towards his supporters and very ill-advised, and was another proof to Bolingbroke of the unsafe parties with whom he was embarked in this hopeless enterprise.
