n support the cause with the
promised assistance of the court of Versailles: and we have here
intelligence that the parliament are in a state of actual hostility to
the usurper, and that the national ferment is so great as to be almost
on the verge of rebellion. I have also gained from a private
communication from our friend Ramsay, who is now at Amsterdam, and in a
position to be most useful to us, that the usurper has intimated to his
own countrymen, although it is not yet known in England, that he will
return to the Hague in July. Such, gentlemen, is the intelligence I have
to impart as respects our own prospects in our own country--to which I
have to add, that the secret partition treaty, which is inimical to the
interests of the French king, has been signed both in London and the
Hague, as well as by the French envoy there. A more favourable
occurrence for us, perhaps, never occurred, as it will only increase the
already well-known ill-will of his Catholic Majesty against the usurper
of his own father-in-law's crown. I have now, gentlemen, laid before you
our present position and future prospects; and, as we are met to consult
upon the propriety of further measures, I shall be most happy to hear
the suggestions of others."

Sir Robert Barclay then sat down.

Lovell, the Jesuit, first rose. "I have," said he, "no opinion to offer
relative to warlike arrangements, those not being suitable to my
profession. I leave them to men like Sir Robert, whose swords are always
ready, and whose talents are so well able to direct their swords; still,
it is well known, that the sources of war must be obtained, if war is
to be carried on; and I have great pleasure in announcing to those
assembled, that from our friends in England, I have received advice of
the two several sums of ninety-three thousand pounds and twenty-nine
thousand pounds, sterling money, having been actually collected, and now
held in trust for the support of the good cause; and, further, that the
collections are still going on with rapidity and success. From his most
Catholic Majesty we have received an order upon the minister for the sum
of four thousand louis, which has been duly honoured, and from our
blessed father, the Pope, an order for five hundred thousand paolis,
amounting to about thirteen thousand pounds in sterling money, together
with entire absolution for all sins already committed, and about to be
committed, and a secure promise of paradise to th