the former had positively declared
that he thought the bill unseasonable. The commons having perused a copy
of the treaty with Portugal, voted forty thousand men, including five
thousand marines, for the sea service of the ensuing year; and a like
number of land forces, to act in conjunction with the allies, besides
the additional ten thousand: they likewise resolved, that the proportion
to be employed in Portugal should amount to eight thousand. Sums were
granted for the maintenance of these great armaments, as well as for the
subsidies payable to her majesty's allies; and funds appointed equal
to the occasion. Then they assured the queen, in an address, that they
would provide for the support of such alliances as she had made, or
should make with the duke of Savoy.

CONSPIRACY OF SIMON FRASER, LORD LOVAT.

At this period the nation was alarmed by the detection of a conspiracy
said to be hatched by the Jacobites of Scotland. Simon Fraser, lord
Lovat, a man of desperate enterprise, profound dissimulation, abandoned
morals, and ruined fortune, who had been outlawed for having ravished a
sister of the marquis of Athol, was the person to whom the plot seems to
have owed its origin. He repaired to the court of St. Germain's, where
he undertook to assemble a body of twelve thousand highlanders to act in
favour of the pretender, if the court of France would assist them with a
small reinforcement of troops, together with officers, arms, ammunition,
and money. The French king seemed to listen to the proposal; but
as Fraser's character was infamous, he doubted his veracity. He was
therefore sent back to Scotland with two other persons, who were
instructed to learn the strength and sentiments of the clans,
and endeavour to engage some of the nobility in the design of an
insurrection. Fraser had no sooner returned, than he privately
discovered the whole transaction to the duke of Queensberry, and
undertook to make him acquainted with the whole correspondence between
the pretender and the Jacobites. In consequence of this service he was
provided with a pass, to secure him from all prosecution; and made
a progress through the highlands, to sound the inclination of the
chieftains. Before he set out on this circuit, he delivered to the
duke a letter from the queen dowager at St. Germain's, directed to the
marquis of Athol: it was couched in general terms, and superscribed in a
different character; so that, in all probability,