the Cavaliers; such was the name by which the party continued to be called who still desired the restoration of James the Second, and fervidly believed in the fruition of their hopes. His father had indeed, to use the words of Lockhart of Carnwath, "embarked with the Revolution;" but had given tokens of his deep contrition for that act, so inconsistent with his hereditary allegiance. But the unformed opinions of the young are far more easily swayed by events which are passing before their eyes than by the cool reasonings of the closet; and the inclinations of the Earl of Mar's childhood were likely soon to be effaced by the state of public affairs. The later occurrences of the reign of William the Third were calculated not only to repress the spirit of Jacobitism, but to shame even the most enthusiastic of its partisans out of a scheme which the sagacity of William had defeated, and which his wisdom had taught him to forgive. It was in the year 1696, just as the Earl of Mar succeeded to his title, that the projected invasion of the kingdom, and the scheme of assassinating the King, were defeated:—that William, hastening to the House of Commons, gave to the nation an account of the whole conspiracy. The House of Commons, without rising from their seats, then "declared that William was their rightful king, and that they would defend him with their lives." It was at this important æra that James the Second, after long waiting at Calais, and casting thence many a wishful look towards England, returned to St. Germains, "to thank God that he had lost his country, because it had saved his soul."[12] The hopes of the Cavaliers were thus wholly extinguished: and to these circumstances were the first observations of the youthful Earl of Mar doubtless directed.

His guardians, seemingly desirous of retrieving the affairs of the family, had endeavoured to imbue his mind with Revolution principles;[13] and the famous association which acknowledged the title of William to the throne of England, framed about this time, was signed by many who became in after life the friends of the Earl of Mar. This was precisely the period when that political profligacy, too justly charged upon the leading men in this country, and which induced them, under the impression that the exiled family would be eventually restored, to correspond with the Court of St. Germains, was tranquillized, although not eradicated by the great policy and forbearance of William.[14] That single reply of William's to Charnock, who had trafficked between France and England with these negotiations, and who offered to disclose to the King the names of those who had employed him;—these few words, "I do not wish to hear them,"[15] did more to soothe discontents, and to repress the violence of faction, than the subsequent executions in the reign of George the First.

The Earl of Mar, left as he was at the early age of fourteen to his own guidance, very soon displayed a remarkable prudence in his pecuniary affairs, and a desire to repair by good management the fortunes of his family,—a point which he accomplished, to a certain extent. His dawning character shewed him to be shrewd and wary, but possessing no extended views, and disposed to rest his hopes of elevation and distinction upon petty intrigues, rather than to look upon probity and exertion as the true basis of greatness. His great talent consisted in the management of his designs, "in which," remarks one who knew him well, "it was hard to find him out when he desired to be incognito; and thus he shewed himself to be a man of good sense, but bad morals."[16]

On the 8th of September, 1696, the Earl of Mar took his seat in the Scottish Parliament, protesting, as his forefathers had done, against any Scottish Earl being called before him in the Roll. He became a frequent, but indifferent speaker in Parliament; but his continual activity, and the address which he soon acquired as the fruit of experience, together with the position which he held, as one generally understood to be well affected to the new order of things, yet of sufficient importance to be gained over to the other side, soon made him an object for party spirit to assail.

During the reign of William, the Earl of Mar continued constant to the side to which he had declared himself to belong. His pecuniary embarrassments, acting upon a restless, ambitious temper, rendered it difficult to a man weak in principle to retain independence of character: and it must be avowed, that there are few temptations to depart from the road of integrity more urgent than the desire to raise an ancient name to its original splendour. No encumbrances are so likely to drag their victim away from integrity as those by which rank is clogged with poverty.

In April, 1697, Lord Mar was chosen a privy councillor; and shortly afterwards invested with the Order of the Thistle; and the command of a company of foot bestowed upon him. On the death of William his fortune was rather improved than deteriorated, although he continued to attach himself to the Revolution Party, who, it was generally understood, were very far from being acceptable to the Queen. "At her accession," declares a Jacobite writer, "the Presbyterians looked upon themselves as undone; despair appeared in their countenances, which were more upon the melancholic and dejected than usual." The management of Scottish affairs was, nevertheless, entirely in the hands of the advocates of the Revolution; and one of their greatest supporters, the Duke of Queensbury, was appointed High Commissioner of the Scottish Parliament, notwithstanding the representations of some of the most powerful nobility in Scotland.

To the party of this celebrated politician the Earl of Mar attached himself, with a tenacity for which those who recollected the hereditary politics of the Erskine family, could find no motives but self-interest. James, Duke of Queensbury, was, it is true, the son of one of the most active partisans of the Stuart family, to whom the house of Queensbury owed both its ducal rank and princely fortune. Possessed of good abilities, but devoid of application, and with the disadvantage to a public man of being of an easy, indolent temper, this celebrated promoter of the union between Scotland and England, had acquired, by courtesy, and by a long administration of affairs, a singular influence over his countrymen. His character has been written with a pen that could scarcely find sufficient invectives for those politicians who, in the opinion of the writer, were the ruin of their country. The Duke of Queensbury falls under the heaviest censures. "To outward appearance," says Lockhart, "he was of a gentle and good disposition, but inwardly a very devil, standing at nothing to advance his own interest and designs. Though his hypocrisy and dissimulation served him very much, yet he