Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles Part 17

Savage is an Irishman, and was in Scotland some time before I had seen Him: He was informed by Sir Archibald Stewart of Castle-Milk near Greenock, that Sir Archibald had seen Dr. Cameron in Stirlingshire; who told Him, that He hoped the Restoration would happen soon, for that preparations were a making for it, and that He had been sent to Scotland to transact some affairs for that purpose.

Mr. Savage told me, in the year 1745, if the Pretender's son had sent but the least notice to Ireland, that He might have got 10,000 or 12,000 Men, for that they at that time had formed a scheme, for that purpose, expecting to have had a message. . . . Mr. Savage a.s.sured me, that there were two Lords concerned, who put it out of his power to let their Names be known, till I came with a commission from the Young Pretender, and then, that they would frankly see me, and take me to their Houses to make up matters . . . '

The pleased reader will observe that Mr. Macgregor's Irish myth (though here sadly curtailed) has swollen to huge proportions since he communicated his tale of long lost Macgregors to the Old Chevalier in August. Whether the Prince was really turning to Balhaldie and official Jacobitism or not, is matter of doubt. Mr. Macgregor's Information having been swallowed and digested by Lord Holdernesse, Pickle was appealed to for confirmation. We have seem his unfriendly report of Mr. Macgregor's character, as a spy mistrusted by both sides. But among other precautions an English official suggested the following:

'That, if it's thought proper, Mr. --- [Pickle clearly] should be sent to Ireland forthwith, to know the whole of those concerned in the Irish Plot of the People of Fingal, that He could have a TRUSTY in Company, sent from the Secretary, who would undergo any borrowed name, and was to be Companion in the affair to Mr. --- [Pickle].

That particularly those Lords should be known, as also such of the People of Connaght as could be discovered. That Mr. --- [Pickle] is willing to undertake whatever in his power lays, to shew the zeal, wherewith He is inclined to serve the Government, but that He will not chuse to go to Ireland, UNLESS A COURT TRUSTY IS SENT WITH HIM, who will be eye witness to His Transactions with the Irish, as Mr. -- - [Pickle] will tell that he [the English companion] is a Trusty sent by the Pretender's Son.'

I detect Pickle under 'Mr. ---,' because later he was sent in a precisely similar manner into Scotland, accompanied by a 'Court Trusty,' or secret service man, named Bruce, who, under the style of 'Cromwell,' sent in reports along with those despatched by Pickle himself. Whether Pickle really went to Ireland to verify Mr.

Macgregor's legends or not, I am unable to say. The following note of his (December 13, 1753) suggests that he went either on that or a similar errand.

Add. 32,730.

'Grandpapa,--In consequence of what past at our last meeting I have wrot to my Correspondent, fixing the time and place of meeting, and at leatest I ought seet off the 20th. pray then, when and where are we to meet? If not soon, I must undow what I have begun. Excuse my anxiety, and believe me most sincerely with great estime and affection

'Your most oblidged humble Servt.

PICKLE.

'13th December, 1753.

'To the Honble. Quin Vaughan, at his house in Golden Square.'

Here James Mohr Macgregor slips out of our narrative. He was suspected by Balhaldie of having the misfortune to be a double-dyed scoundrel. This impression Mr. Macgregor's letters to 'his dear Chief' were not quite able to destroy. The letters (Dunkirk, April 6, and May 1, 1754) are published in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for December 1817. James tells Balhaldie that he had visited England, and had endeavoured to deliver Alan Breck, 'the murderer of Glenure,'

to the Government, and to make interest for his own brother, Robin Oig. But Robin was hanged for abducting the heiress of Edenbelly, and Alan Breck escaped from James Mohr with the spolia opima, including 'four snuff-boxes,' made, perhaps, by Balhaldie himself.

In England, James Mohr informs Balhaldie, he was offered 'handsome bread in the Government service' as a spy. But he replied, 'I was born in the character of a gentleman,' and he could only serve 'as a gentleman of honour.'

James, in fact, had sold himself too cheap, and had done the Devil's work without the Devil's wages. Probably the falsehood of his Irish myth was discovered by Pickle, and he was dismissed. James's last letter to Balhaldie is of September 25, 1754 (Paris), and he prays for a loan of the pipes, that he may 'play some melancholy tunes.'

And then poor James Mohr Macgregor died, a heart-broken exile. His innocent friend, in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' asks our approbation for James's n.o.ble Highland independence and sense of honour!

There was another spy, name unknown, whose information about the Prince, in 1753, was full and minute, whether accurate or not. It is written in French. {250} About the end of June 1753, Charles, according to this informer, pa.s.sed three months at Luneville; he came from Prussia, and left in September for Paris. Thence Charles went to Poland and Prussia, then to Strasbourg, back to Paris, thence to Liege, and thence to Scotland. Prussia and Denmark were next visited, and Paris again in January 1754. As a rule, Charles was in Scotland, or Liege, collecting an army of deserters. This valuable news reached the Duke of Newcastle on October 30, 1754.

As to the Irish plot reported by James Mohr, I found, among the papers of the late Comte d'Albanie, a letter from an Irish gentleman, containing record of a family tradition. Charles, it was said, had pa.s.sed some time near the Giant's Causeway: the date was uncertain, the authority was vague, and there is no other confirmation of James Mohr's preposterous inventions. {251}

CHAPTER XI--'A MAN UNDONE.' 1754

Jacobite hopes--Blighted by the conduct of Charles--His seclusion-- His health is affected--His fierce impatience--Miss Walkinshaw-- Letter from young Edgar--The Prince easily tracked--Fears of his English correspondents--Remonstrances of Goring--The English demand Miss Walkinshaw's dismissal--Danger of discarding Dumont--Goring fears the Bastille--Cruelty of dismissing Catholic servants-- Charles's lack of generosity--Has relieved no poor adherents--Will offend both Protestants and Catholics--Opinion of a Protestant-- Toleration desired--Goring asks leave to resign--Charles's answer-- Goring's advice--Charles's reply--Needs money--Proceedings of Pickle- -In London--Called to France--To see the Earl Marischal--Charles detected at Liege--Verbally dismisses Goring--Pickle's letter to England--'Best metal b.u.t.tons'--Goring to the Prince--The Prince's reply--Last letter from Goring--His ill-treatment--His danger in Paris--His death in Prussia--The Earl Marischal abandons the Prince-- His distress--'The poison.'

The year 1754 saw the practical ruin of Charles, and the destruction of the Jacobite party in England. The death of Henry Pelham, in March, the General Election which followed, the various discontents of the time, and a recrudescence of Jacobite sentiment, gave them hopes, only to be blighted. Charles no longer, as before, reports, 'My health is perfect.' The Prince's habits had become intolerable to his friends. The 'spleen,' as he calls it, had marked him for its own. His vigorous body needed air and exercise; unable to obtain these, it is probable that he sought the refuge of despair. Years earlier he had told Mademoiselle Luci that the Princesse de Talmond 'would not let him leave the house.' Now he scarcely ventured to take a walk. His mistress was obviously on ill terms with his most faithful adherents; the loyal Goring abandoned his ungrateful service; the Earl Marischal bade him farewell; his English partisans withdrew their support and their supplies. The end had come.

The following chapter is written with regret. Readers of d.i.c.kens remember the prolonged degradation of the young hero of 'Bleak house,' through hope deferred and the delays of a Chancery suit.

Similar causes contributed to the final wreck of Charles. The thought of a Restoration was his Chancery suit. A letter of November 1753, written by the Prince in French, is a mere hysterical outcry of impatience. 'I suffocate!' he exclaims, as if in a fever of unrest.

He had indulged in hopes from France, from Spain, from Prussia, from a Highland rising, from a London conspiracy. Every hope had deceived him, every Prince had betrayed him, and now he proved false to himself, to his original nature, and to his friends. The venerable Lord Pitsligo, writing during the Scotch campaign of 1745, said: 'I had occasion to discover the Prince's humanity, I ought to say tenderness: this is giving myself no great airs, for he shows the same disposition to everybody.' Now all is changed, and a character naturally tender and pitiful has become careless of others, and even cruel.

The connection with Miss Walkinshaw was the chief occasion of many troubles. On January 14, 1754, young Edgar wrote from Aisse to his uncle, in Rome, saying that Clementina Walkinshaw 'has got in with the Prince, borne two children to him [probably only one], and got an extreme ascendant over him. The King's friends in England are firmly persuaded of this being true, and are vastly uneasy at it, especially as his sister is about Frederick's widow (the Dowager Princess of Wales), and has but an indifferent character. This story gives me very great concern, and, if true, must be attended with bad consequences, whether she truly be honest or not.' {254}

The fact was that, being now accompanied by a mistress and a child, Charles was easily traced. His personal freedom, if not his life, was endangered, and if he were taken and his papers searched, his correspondents would be in peril. On January 4, 1754, Dormer wrote, warning the Prince that 'a young gentleman in hiding with a mistress and child' was being sought for at Liege, and expressing alarm for himself and his comrades. Dormer also reproached Charles for impatiently urging his adherents to instant action. Goring, as 'Stouf,' wrote the following explicit letter from Paris on January 13, 1754. As we shall see, he had been forbidden by the French Government to come within fifty leagues of the capital, and the Bastille gaped for him if he was discovered.

Goring, it will be remarked, warns Charles that his party are weary of his demands for money. What did he do with it? His wardrobe, as an inventory shows, was scanty; no longer was he a dandy: seventeen shirts, six collars, three suits of clothes, three pocket- handkerchiefs were the chief of his effects. He did not give much in charity to poor adherents, as Goring bitterly observes. We learn that the English insist on the dismissal of Miss Walkinshaw. To discard Dumont, as Charles proposed, was to provide England with an informer. The heads of English gentlemen would be at the mercy of the executioners of Archy Cameron. To turn adrift Charles's Catholic servants was impolitic, cruel, and deeply ungrateful. This is the burden of Goring's necessary but very uncourtly epistle, probably written from 'La Grandemain's' house:

'You say you are determined to know from your professed friends what you are to depend on. I wish it may answer your desires, you are master, Sir, to take what steps you please, I shall not take upon me to contradict you, I shall only lay before you what I hear and see, if it can be of any service to you, I shall have done my duty in letting you know your true interest, if you think it such. In the first place, I find they [the English adherents] were surprized and mortifyed to see the little man [Beson] arrive with a message from you, only to desire money, so soon after the sum you received from the gentlemen I conducted to you, and some things have been said on the head not much to the advancement of any scheme for your service.

Secondly they sent me a paper by Sir James Harrington of which what follows is a copy word for word:

'"Sir, your friend's Mistress is loudly and publickly talked off and all friends look on it as a very dangerous and imprudent step, and conclude reasonably that no Corespondance is to be had in that quarter, without risk of discovery, for we have no opinion in England of female politicians, or of such women's secrecy in general. You are yourself much blamed for not informing our friends at first, that they might take the alarum, and stop any present, or future transactions, with such a person. What we now expect from you, is to let us know if our persuasion can prevail to get rid of her."

'For G.o.d's sake, Sir, what shall I say, or do, I am at my wits end, the greif I have for it augments my illness, and I can only wish a speedy end to my life. To make it still worse you discard Dumont; he is a man I have little regard for, His conduct has been bad, but he has kept your secret, now, Sir, to be discarded in such a manner he will certainly complain to Murray and others; it will come to your friends' ears, if he does not go to England and tell them himself.

He knows Mac. {256} Mead and D. [Dawkins] what will our friends think of you, Sir, for taking so little care of their lives and fortunes by putting a man in dispair who has it in his power to ruin them, and who is not so ignorant as not to know the Government will well reward him. Nay, he can do more: he can find you out yourself, or put your enemies in a way to do it, which will be a very unfortunate adventure.

'As for me it is in his power to have me put into the Bastille when he pleases. Perhaps he may not do this, but sure it is too dangerous to try whether he will or no; they must be men of very tryed Virtue who will suffer poverty and misery when they have a way to prevent it, so easy too, and when they think they only revenge themselves of ingrat.i.tude; for you will always find that men generally think their services are too little rewarded, and, when discarded, as he will be if you dont recall ye sentence, what rage will make him do I shall not answer for. If, Sir, you continue in mind to have him sent off I must first advise those gentlemen [the English adherents] that they may take propper measures to put themselves in Safety by leaving the Country, or other methods as they shall like best. Now, Sir, whether such a step as this will not tend more to diminish than augment your Credit in England I leave you to determine; I only beg of you, Sir, to give me timely notice that I may get out of the way of that horrid Bastille, and put our friends on their guard, I cannot but lament my poor friend Colonel H. who must be undone by it. Ld M. [Marischal]

thinks it too dangerous a tryall of that man's honour: for my part I shall not presume to give my own opinion, only beg of you once again that we may have time to shift for ourselves. I am obliged to you, Sir, for your most gracious Concern for my health; the doctors have advised me to take the air as much as my weakness will permit, are much against confinement, and would certainly advise me against the Bastille as very contrary to my distemper!

'I have one thing more to lay before you of greatest Consequence: you order all your Catholick Servants to be discarded, consider, Sir, the thing well on both sides; first the good that it will produce on the one side, and the ill it may produce on the other; it may indeed please some few biggotted protestants, for all religions have their biggots, but may it not disgust the great number of ye people, to see you discard faithfull men, for some of them went through all dangers with you in Scotland, upon account of their religion--without the least provision made for them. Your saying, Sir, that necessity obliges you to do it, will look a little strange to those people who send you money, and know how far you can do good with it. I a.s.sure you, Sir, if you did necessary acts of Generosity now and then, that people may see plainly that you have a real tenderness for those that suffer for you, you would be the richer for it, more people would send money than now do, and they that have sent would send more, when they saw so good use made of it.

'I have been hard put to it when I have been praising your good qualities to some of our friends, they have desired me to produce one single instance of any one man you have had the Compa.s.sion to relieve with the tenderness a King owes to a faithfull subject who has served him with the risk of his life and fortune. {259}

'Now Sir, another greater misfortune may happen from sending off these servants in so distinguishing a manner; you will plese to remember that in the Course of your affairs the Protestants employ the Papists; the Papists join with the Protestants in sending you money and in everything that can hasten your restoration, they are a great body of men and if they should once have reason to believe they should be harder used under your government than they are under the Usurper, self preservation would oblige them to maintain the Usurper on the throne, and be a.s.sured if they take this once in their heads, they have it in their power to undoe you.

'A man of sense and great riches as well as birth, a great friend of yours, talking with me some time past of your royal qualities (note this man is a most bigotted Protestant), was observing the happyness all ranks of men would have under your reign; he considered you, Sir, as father to the whole nation, that no one set of men would be oppressed, papists, presbyterians, quakers, anabaptists, ant.i.trinitarians, Zwinglians, and forty more that he named, though they differ, in their Creed, under so great and good a prince as you, would all join to love and respect you; that he was sure you would make no distinction between any of them, but let your Royal bounty diffuse itself equally on all. He said further that for you to disgust any of them, as they all together compose the body, so disgusting any one set of men was as if a man in full vigour of health should cut off one of his leggs or arms. He concluded with saying he was sure you was too prudent to do anything of that kind, to summ up all, he said that he looked on you as a prince divested of pa.s.sions; that the misfortunes and hardships you had undergone had undoubtedly softened your great Mind so far as to be sensible of the misfortunes of others, for which reason he would do all that lay in his power to serve you; these reflections, Sir, really are what creates you the love of your people in general, and gains you more friends than yr Royal Birth.

'Observe, Sir, what will be the event of your discarding these poor men, all of them diserving better treatment from you: they will come to Paris begging all their way, and show the whole town, English, French, and strangers, an example of your Cruelty, their Religion being all their offence; do you think, Sir, your Protestants will believe you the better protestant for it? If you do, I am affraid you will find yourself mistaken; it will be a handle for your enemies to represent you a hippocrite in your religion and Cruel in your nature, and show the world what those who serve you are to expect.

'Now, Sir, do as you think fitt, but let me beg of you to give such Comitions to somebody else; as I never could be the author of any such advice, so I am incapable of acting in an affair that will do you, Sir, infinite prejudice, and cover me with dishonour, and am, besides these Considerations, grown so infirm that I beg your R.H.

will be graciously pleased to give me leave to retire. . . . I may have been mistaken in some things, which I hope you will pardon, I do not write this as my own opinion, but really to get your affairs in a true light. . . I sware to the great G.o.d that what I write is truth, for G.o.d's sake Sir have compa.s.sion on yourself . . . you say you "will take your party," alas, Sir, they will coldly let you take it, don't let your spleen get the better of your prudence and judgement .

'One reflection more on what you mention about ye papist servants, may not the keeping publickly in employment ye two papist gentlemen [Sheridan and Stafford] do more harm than turning away three or four papist footmen, who can, by their low situation, have no manner of influence over your affairs . . . one of the papist footmen is besides a relation {261} of the poor man who was lately hanged . . .

when all this comes to be publick it will much injure your carackter.

To summ up all, these commissions you give me, give me such affliction as will certainly end my life, they are surely calculated by you for that very reason. . . . I once more beg you will graciously please to permit me to retire, I will let my family know that my bad health only is the reason, and I don't doubt they will maintain me.

Charles might have been expected to answer this very frank letter in a fury of anger. He kept his temper, and replied thus:

The Prince to Stouf.

'January 18, 1754.

'Sir,--I received yours of ye 13th. Current, and am resolved not to discard any of my Cervants, that is to say, for ye present . . .

'It is necessary also you should send as soon as possible 300l. to be remitted to Stafford and Sheridan . . . you may give out of that sum Morison's wages for half a year . . . My compliments to Sir J.

Harrington, a.s.suring him of my friendship and when you are able remit to him fifty Louis d'ors. . . . It is true I sent to E. [England] six Months ago for Money, but it was not for ye Money alone, that served only for a pretext, however I was extremely scandalized not to have received any since I thought fit to Call for it, it is strenge such proceeding. People should, I think, well know that If it was only Money that I had at hart I would not act as I have done, and will do untill I Compa.s.s ye prosperity of My Country, which allways shall be My only Studdy: But you know that without Money one can do nothing, and in my situation the more can be had ye better. I have received nothing since ye profet [Daniel] but Mistress P.'s hundred Pounds given to Woulfe. I forgot to mention fifty pounds sterling to be given to Kely. . . . I am glad you have taken my Pelise, for nothing can do you more good than to keep yourself warm.' {263}