desiring they might know what steps had
been taken for removing the pretender from the dominions of the duke of
Lorraine; that she would impart to them a detail of the negotiations for
peace, a recital of the instances which had been made in favour of the
Catalans, and an account of the monies granted by parliament since the
year one thousand seven hundred and ten, to carry on the war in Spain
and Portugal. They afterwards agreed to other addresses, beseeching
her majesty to lay before them the debts and state of the navy, the
particular writs of Noli Prosequi granted since her accession to the
throne, and a list of such persons as, notwithstanding sentence of
outlawry or attainder, had obtained licenses to return into Great
Britain, or other of her majesty's dominions, since the revolution.
Having voted an application to the queen in behalf of the distressed
Catalans, the house adjourned itself to the last day of March. As the
minds of men had been artfully irritated by false reports of a design
undertaken by France in behalf of the pretender, the ambassador of that
crown at the Hague disowned it in a public paper, by command of his most
christian majesty. The suspicions of many people, however, had been too
deeply planted, by the arts and insinuations of the whig leaders, to be
eradicated by this or any other declaration; and what served to rivet
their apprehensions, was a total removal of the whigs from all the
employments, civil and military, which they had hitherto retained. These
were now bestowed upon professed tories, some of whom were attached at
bottom to the supposed heir of blood. At a time when the queen's views
were maliciously misrepresented; when the wheels of her government were
actually impeded, and her servants threatened with proscription by
a powerful, turbulent, and implacable faction; no wonder that she
discharged the partisans of that faction from her service, and filled
their places with those who were distinguished by a warm affection
to the house of Stuart, and by a submissive respect for the regal
authority. Those were steps which her own sagacity must have suggested;
and which her ministers would naturally advise, as necessary for their
own preservation. The whigs were all in commotion, either apprehending
or affecting to apprehend that a design was formed to secure the
pretender's succession to the throne of Great Britain.

{1714.}

Their chiefs held secret consultations with baron Schutz