XV. 1730. it is, next to religion, to be found in employment CHAP. either of business or study, and to these Atterbury had recourse. The favour of Inverness was now upon the wane, and the Pretender beginning to repent his folly in alienating by far the ablest man of his party. He seems about this time to have solicited Atterbury to return to Paris and resume the chief management of his affairs; the Bishop complied, but from the state of European politics could render no signal service. He held several conferences at Paris with the Duchess of Buckingham, an illegitimate daughter of James the Second by Mrs. Sedley, and now upon her way to Italy on a visit to her brother. This Dowager was one of the heads of the Jacobites in England a sort of Tory Duchess of Marlborough, and a counterpoise to that illustrious relict-like her, full of pride and passion-but like her also, with enormous wealth to make herself respected. Atterbury used his influence over her to prevent the Duke of Berwick from giving a Roman Catholic preceptor to her son, the young Duke of Buckingham, and even quar relled with Berwick when he found the latter insist on his design. He also induced the Duchess to exert herself in Italy, and complete the dismissal of the Invernesses from her brother's service. But Inverness, still hoping to recover his lost ground, had recourse to an expedient that strongly marks his base and unscrupulous character: he abjured the Protestant for the Roman Catholic religion. The very last letter which Atterbury ever wrote XV. CHAP. was to upbraid him with his apostasy-for so we may surely call a conversion in which conscience has no part.* 1730. The studies of Atterbury, at this period, were, in some measure, forced upon him. Oldmixon, a virulent party writer of small reputation or merit, had made an attack upon him, Bishop Smalridge, and Dean Aldrich, as joint editors of Clarendon's History, accusing them of having altered and interpolated that noble work. Atterbury, as the only survivor of the threet, thought it incumbent upon him to write in their vindication and his own. Accordingly, in 1731, he published a temperate and satisfactory answer. The last sentence contains a prophecy on Oldmixon, which has been verified by time: "His attack on me, "and on the dead, who he thought might be "insulted with equal safety, is no proof of a gene"rous and worthy mind; nor has he done any "honour to his own history by the fruitless pains * Atterbury to Lord Inverness, February, 1732. See Appendix. Inverness, it appears, had the effrontery to ob"Since I see nothing is likely to be done for the King "at present, I think it high time to take care of my soul!" serve: + Bishop Smalridge had died in 1719, and Dean Aldrich in 1710. The latter was a man not only of great learning, but of wit and jovial temper. His five reasons for drinking are well known: or being dry, "Or lest we should be by and by, "Or any other good reason why!" His Compendium of Logic is less agreeably remembered by XV. 1730. he has taken to discredit that of my Lord Cla- CHAP. 66 rendon, which, like the character of its author, "will gain strength by time, and be in the hands "and esteem of all men, when Mr. Oldmixon's unjust censure of it will not be remembered, or "not be regarded ! " 66 A copy of this vindication was sent by Atterbury to the Prince whom he had so zealously and so unhappily served, and his letter, on that occasion, reverts almost involuntarily to his own desolate feelings: "Whilst I was justifying the Earl of "Clarendon's History, I own myself to have been tempted to say somewhat likewise in defence of "his character and conduct, particularly as to the aspersion with which he has been loaded, of advising King Charles the Second to gain his "enemies and neglect his friends. A fatal advice! "which he certainly never gave, though he smarted "under the effects of it, and was sacrificed by his "master to please those who were not afterwards "found to be any great importance to his service. ".... You may, perhaps, not have heard, Sir, that "what happened to my Lord Clarendon was the "first instance in the English story of banishing any person by an Act of Parliament, wherein a "clause was expressly inserted to make all cor"respondence with him penal, even to death. "Permit me to add, that I am the second instance "of a subject so treated, and may, perhaps, be the "last, since even the inflictors of such cruelties "seem now to be aweary and ashamed of them. XV. 1730. 66 66 66 66 CHAP. "Having the honour to be like him in my sufferings, I wish I could have been like him too "in my services; but that has not been in my power. I can, indeed, die in exile, asserting the Royal cause as he did; but I see not what other way is now left me of contributing to the support "of it!"* Such are almost the last expressions of this most eloquent man; his infirmities were daily growing upon him, and he died a few weeks afterwards, on the 15th of February, 1732, in the 70th year of his age. How grievous is the fate of exiles! How still more grievous the party division which turns their talents against their country! Even in his shroud Atterbury was not allowed to rest. His body being brought to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey, the government gave orders to seize and search his coffin. There was a great public outcry against the Ministers on this occasion, as though their animosity sought to pursue him beyond the grave; and undoubtedly none but the strongest reasons could excuse it. They had received intelligence of some private papers of the Jacobites to be sent over by what seemed so safe and unsuspected a method of conveyance. This mystery they determined to un * Bishop Atterbury to James, November 12. 1731. Appendix. + Coxe, in his Narrative, speaks of smuggled brocades, not of papers. But the letter from the Under Secretary of State, which he produces as his authority, speaks only of papers, and says nothing of brocades. Mem. of Walpole, vol. i. p. 175., vol. ii. p. 237. Boyer glides over this unpopular transaction (vol. xlii. p. 499.). ravel; and with the same view was Mr. Morice ar- CHAP. rested and examined before the Privy Council. Atterbury's own papers had been disposed of by his own care before his death. The most secret he had destroyed; for the others he had claimed protection as an Englishman from the English ambassador, Lord Waldegrave; that a seal might be placed upon them, and that they might be safely delivered to his executors. Lord Waldegrave declined this delicate commission, alleging that Atterbury was no longer entitled to any rights as a British subject.* The Bishop next applied to the French government, but his death intervening, the papers were sent to the Scots College at Paris, and the seal of office affixed to them, Mr. Morice obtaining only such as related to family affairs. It may be observed, that the Government of George seems always to have possessed great facilities in either openly seizing or privately perusing the Jacobite correspondence. We have already seen how large a web of machinations was laid bare at Atterbury's trial. In 1728, Mr. Lockhart found that some articles of his most private letters to the Pretender were well known at the British Court, where, fortunately for himself, he had a steady friend; and on his expressing his astonishment, he * Mr. Delafaye, Under Secretary of State, writes to Lord Waldegrave :-"As to your Excellency's getting the scellé put "to his effects. if your own seal would have done, and "that you could by that means have had the fingering of his 66 papers, one would have done him that favour." (May 11. 1732.) A most delicate sense of honour! XV. 1730. |