SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.
Biociasrer, Memoirs of Prince Charles Stuart, (Count of Albany,) commonly called the Young Pretender ; with Notices of the Rebellion in 1745. By Charles Louis Klose,, Esq.
In two volumes cothurn. Maoists, The Sportsman in Canada. By Frederic Tolfrey, Author- of "The Sportsman in France." In two volumes Newby. norms, The Fortunes of Roger de Flor ; or the Almugavars. In three volumes Bentley. The Smuggler ; a Tale. By G. P. R. James, Esq., Author of "Darnley," "Do " Richelieu," &c. In three volumes Smith and Bider.
MEMOIRS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER.
THE daring enterprise and romantic interest of the Rebellion of 1745, by making the subject a favourite theme for novelists, have rendered the Pretender more familiar to readers, and presented him in a more favour- able light, than his attempt or his character altogether deserves. If we take the enterprise in its first and obvious aspect, it looks heroic to undertake the conquest of a kingdom by a bold reliance on the fidelity of the Highland clans and the more uncertain partisanship of the Lowland Jacobites. The risk, however, was not the Pretender's. He put nothing to hazard but his life ; against which was set the mightiest kingdom in the world. His followers not only ran the same risk without any simi- lar stake, but exposed their families to ruin and their country to devasta- tion; and they did this hopelessly, yielding against their better judgments to the selfish solicitations of their Prince. The unexpected success which followed the outset of his attempt, in a great measure through Cope's incapacity, has rendered it apparently more justifiable than it really was ; for neither in the estimation of his own followers nor in a critical examination of each stage of the campaign was there the slight- est probability of success without the assistance of a foreign force. This his most devoted adherents made a sine qua non condition in all their correspondence with the Stuart family abroad : this, he himself states in a memorial to Louis the Fifteenth after his return, was the cause of his not being able to take advantage of the victory of Prestonpans and march at once to England—" avec trois mifie hommes de troupes regulieres, j'aurais penetrd en Angleterre immoidiatement awes avoir &flit le Sieur Cope." But this was the very thing that could not be. No naval efforts can at all times stop single vessels, because they can be pre- pared and sail secretly ; but an army cannot be occultly collected and trans- ported. A few years earlier, France had prepared a force for an invasion; which, sailing after a long blockade, was tempest-tost and driven back, and would have been met by an ample force had it even landed. Dunng the insurrection of 1745, France did what she could; sending ships with money, arms, and officers ; the majority of which were intercepted by the British cruisers. But forces she could not send, from the circumstances we have already stated. Writers who have held that if' the Prince had advanced from Derby upon London he mighthave succeeded, as he did at Edinburgh, seem to overlook the essential difference in the two cases. The Scotch expedition was a daring surprise • and rashness or impudence which passes all calculation is sure to succeed in the first stage, because no foresight can guard against it. Yet with more activity on the part of the authorities, and greater skill on the part of Cope, Charles might have been checked if not defeated at the outset : and, after all, the armies at Preston-pans were nearly equal in point of numbers, from the fact of the extreme rashness of the attempt. But at Derby the Free tender's forces were what M. Thiers calls enveloped : Wade behind them, Cumberland in advance upon their right, and another army in position between them and London, which the King was going to command in person—in short, five thousand men against thirty thousand. Nor were these troops like Napier's army against the Belooches, in search of a battle. Their proposition was not to fight ; they had even no hope ot victory. They slipped by Wade ; they intended to slip by Cumberland.; they proposed to themselves (or rather, the Pretender proposed, for his officers refused the adventure) no other chance than to break through the army at Fiuchley. Surely no military critic will hold that five thousand men surrounded by three armies amounting to thirty thousand, not one of which they expect to defeat, could permanently hold a position, mach less conquer a kingdom and change a dynasty. The personal character of the Pretender seems not to have been much better than his public. Little is known of him in his youth; his middle age was passed in an obscure kind of mystery, and his decline of life ii the practice of gross drunkenness. His person was attractive ; his =ul- nas winning and gracious,—though perhaps the loyalty of the Highland Jacobites indisposed to criticism; his personal courage was considerable, but, it would seem, uncertain; his power of physical endurance vast and wonderful. Few have ever gone through such hardships as he en- dured in his wanderings after the battle of Cullode*---no one, probably, with so much anxiety upon the mind. Selfishness, not in a gross or common form, but in a thorough indifference to consequences, was, how- ever, a strong feature in his character : and this quality, which ruined his adherents and devastated a country to which he professed a strong attachment, was probably one sustaining cause of his philosophy, if the selfishness arose from a blind indifference to the future. Coupled with this Stuart selfishness was the Stuart obstinacy, that induced him years after to offend his British adherents by refusing to part with rim Walkenshaw, whom he did not care about but they suspected of treason. The same failing made him oppose the wishes of-Louis the Fifteenth, who had stipulated at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle that he should leave France: for successful resistance was out of the question; the idea of" exposing" the French Court absurd; and he provoked those to whom he had chiefly to look for future success, and indeed for future subsistence. It is also to be noted, that in spite of the enthusiasm with which he was at first received, he contrived to outlive it all. Age, no doubt, removed followers; . failure on his part and ruin on theirs might be a fertile source of discontent.: but one, stall events, who thought iU. of him,, was
a man of honour, who retained his principles though he despised the in- dividual. This distinction between person and cause Mr. RIose does not see.
The great act in the Pretender's life was the 1745: for the incident of his arrest in Paris and forcible expulsion from France was a transient effect. All beyond is flat, trivial, or saddening—if we could believe that his later habits were only the effect of his misfortunes. A few pages would contain the whole of his private career ; and his public life has been presented to the English reader in every form and every variety of extent; so that nothing more remains to be told. A work like that of Mr. Klose was not wanted in England. In Germany, where it was originally published, in the German language, it is probably useful : for an introductory view of the family story of the Stuarts, the histozy of the Rebellion of 1745, and the subsequent escape of the Prince, may be little known to Continental readers ; and it is of these things that the two volumes chiefly consist. The execution is respectable, though not very striking; clear, fluent, and readable, but not very forcible in style, and still less so in seizing the characteristic traits of persons and events. France Scotland, England, and a century ago, are all passed through Mr. 'dose's mind to come out representing his characteristics rather than their own. His judgment is in the main fair, but favourable to the Pretender, and much too favourable to the expedition.
• The narrative of 1745 can be read in English publications better 'than in Mr. Klose's work. The arrest of the Pretender in Paris may have more novelty, and is one of the best-told things in the book ; the Writer's style being more suited to diplomacy than to war or politics.
"The English Government began to complain loudly of the non-execution of the treaty; and the Marquis de Puisieux had some trouble to excuse his Government. Be promised, however, that immediately on the return of a courier who had been sent to Rome, the French Cabinet would come to a determination that should fully satisfy the King of England. Nor was this promise given in vain. Another at- tempt had been vainly made by the Due de Gesvres, in the King's name to pre- vail on Charles to remove to Freiburg; where the Canton, he was assured, was ready to receive him in a manner suitable to his rank and merit. James had also been induced to address another letter to his son entreating him to yield to the force of circumstances, and not to incense the King of France by further re- sistance. This letter was transmitted from Rome open to King Louis; who sent it with an autograph letter of his own, offering the Prince a pension to be spent out of France, and leaving a blank for the amountto be filled up by Charles him- self These letters, delivered by the Due de Gesvres, failed to produce the in- tended effect; and a similar message from the King, conveyed subsequently by the Comte de Maurepas, was equally ineffectual. A regular Council of War was there- upon called, on the 21st of December 1748, at which it was resolved that the more serious measures with which he had been repeatedly threatened should be put into execution. • "On the afternoon of the same day, as Charles was walking in the garden of the Tuileries an anonymous letter was handed to him, in which he was informed of every particular that had occurred in the Council: but the intelligence thus conveyed was incapable of altering his determination to yield only to open force. At the usual hour, he drove to the Opera. On his way through the Rue St. Ho- nerd, some unknown person warned him, in a loud voice, that he was about to be Stiftestedi but this did not prevent him from proceeding as he had intended. In the vicinity of the theatre, all the requisite measures had been taken to secure the Prince's person without danger. The Operahouse was surrounded by twelve hun- dred men, under the command of the Due de Biron. The guards at all the ave- nues had been doubled, and the sentinels at the doors received orders to let no one pass out of the theatre. In case Charles should take refuge in an adjoining house, sealing-ladders had been provided, and battering-rains to force in doors and windows. Three surgeons even, and a physician, had been ordered to be in at- tendance in case of accident.
"All these preparations having been made, Major de Vaudreuil, of the French Guard, attended by a number of non-commissioned officers in.plain clothes, placed himself at the entrance of the theatre; and, as soon as the Prince had stepped out of his carriage, two sergeants, at a preconcerted signal, seized his arms from be- hind, two caught hold of his hands, his thighs were grasped by the arms of a fifth, and his feet secured by a sixth. In this manner he was carried through a long passage into an ally, or cul-de-sac, near the theatre, where De Vaudreuil declared him a prisoner in the King's name. The attendants of Charles had in the mean time delivered up their swords, and, with one exception, been conveyed to the Bastille; orders having been sent to the Governor to treat them with respect. The livery-servants were sent to a prison; and all the Prince's effects were placed under seal. In the cul-de-sac after the Prince had delivered up his sword, his pistols, and a double-bladed knife, arms which since his return from Scotland he had been constantly in the habit of carrying about him, he was bound hand and foot by Vaudreuil, on a signal given by the Due de Biron. When this indignity was offered him, Charles had already pledged his word that he would attempt no violence either on his own person or against others. By an absurd affectation of respect for the prisoner's rank, ten ells of crimson silk riband had been provided for the purpose of binding him. Charles expressed his surprise at seeing an officer of the Royal Guard undertaking such a task; but to this reproach no an- swer was returned. Swathed like an infant, as Power expresses himself, the Prince was then lifted by four soldiers into a tiacre; where Vaudreuil placed him- self by his side. Two other officers took the opposite seats; two others rode one at each window of the carriage. Six grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, mounted be- hind, and a detachment of cavalry followed. In the Faubourg St. Antoine the horses were -changed; when Charles could not refrain from asking, whether they were taking him for sale to Hanover?. [He was carried to the Castle of Vincennes, and confined there.] * "On the 28th ofDecember, he was taken under a military escort to Beauvoisin, a small French town on the borders of Savoy. The carriage in which he had travelled drove over the bridge that served to mark the limits of the two states; and then, unaccompanied even by a servant, Charles was set down upon the high- road, to find his way on foot to Chambery in the best manner he could."
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