THREE:The Young Pretender, during this time, had been making a hard run for his life, beset and hunted on all sides for the thirty thousand pounds set upon his head. During the whole five months of his adventurous wanderings and hidings, nothing could induce a single Highlander to betray him, notwithstanding the temptation of the thirty thousand pounds. The most familiar story is his escape from South Uist, where he had been tracked and surrounded. At this moment Miss Flora Macdonald, a near relative of Macdonald of Clanranald, with whom she was on a visit, stepped forward to rescue him. She procured a pass from Hugh Macdonald, her stepfather, who commanded part of the troops now searching the island, for herself, her maid, Betty Burke, and her servant, Neil Mac Eachan. She, moreover, induced Captain Macdonald to recommend the maid, Betty Burkewhich Betty Burke was to be Charles in disguiseto his wife in Skye as very clever at spinning. At the moment that all was ready, General Campbell, as if suspecting something, came with a company of soldiers, and examined Clanranald's house. The prince, in his female attire, however, was concealed in a farm-house, and the next morning he and his deliverer embarked in a boat with six rowers and the servant Neil. In passing the point of Vaternish, in Skye, they ran a near chance of being all killed, for the militia rushed out and fired upon them. Luckily the tide was out, so that they were at a tolerable distance, were neither hurt, nor could be very quickly pursued. The boatmen pulled stoutly, and landed them safely at Mougstot, the seat of Sir Alexander Macdonald. Sir Alexander was on the mainland in Cumberland's army; but the young heroine had the address to induce his wife, Lady Margaret Macdonald, to receive him; and as the house was full of soldiers, she sent him to her factor and kinsman, Macdonald of Kingsburgh, in the interior of the island, who brought him to a place of safety. At last, on the 20th of September, he got on board the French vessel. Lochiel and Cluny, and about a hundred other refugees, sailed with him, and they landed at the little port of Roscoff, near Morlaix, in Finistre, on the 29th of September, whence Charles hastened to Paris, was received in a very friendly manner by Louis XV., and by the Parisians, when he appeared at the opera, with rapturous acclamations.
THREE:[See larger version]The funeral was but poorly attended. Few members of either House were there, except those of the Opposition. Gibbon says that "the Government ingeniously contrived to secure the double odium of suffering the thing to be done, and of doing it with an ill grace." Burke and Savile, Thomas Townshend, and Dunning, were pall-bearers; Colonel Barr carried the banner of the barony of Chatham, supported by the Marquis of Rockingham and the Dukes of Richmond, Northumberland, and Manchester; William Pitt, in the place of his elder brother, who was gone to Gibraltar, was the chief mourner, followed by eight Peers, as assistant mourners, amongst whom were Lord Shelburne and Lord Camden. The tomb of Chatham is in the north transept of the Abbey, distinguished by the monument soon afterwards erected to his honour.
THREE:"It was always," said Mr. Brougham, "the queen's sad fate to lose her best stay, her strongest and surest protection, when danger threatened her; and by a coincidence most miraculous in her eventful history, not one of her intrepid defenders was ever withdrawn from her without that loss being the immediate signal for the renewal of momentous attacks upon her honour and her life. Mr. Pitt, who had been her constant friend and protector, died in 1806. A few weeks after that event took place, the first attack was levelled at her. Mr. Pitt left her as a legacy to Mr. Perceval, who became her best, her most undaunted, her firmest protector. But no sooner had the hand of an assassin laid prostrate that Minister, than her Royal Highness felt the force of the blow by the commencement of a renewed attack, though she had but just been borne through the last by Mr. Perceval's skilful and powerful defence of her character. Mr. Whitbread then undertook her protection; but soon that melancholy catastrophe happened which all good men of every political party in the State, he believed, sincerely and universally lamented. Then came with Mr. Whitbread's dreadful loss the murmuring of that storm which was so soon to burst with all its tempestuous fury upon her hapless and devoted head. Her child still lived, and was her friend; her enemies were afraid to strike, for they, in the wisdom of the world, worshipped the rising sun. But when she lost that amiable and beloved daughter, she had no protector; her enemies had nothing to dread; innocent or guilty, there was no hope, and she yielded to the entreaty of those who advised her residence out of this country. Who, indeed, could love persecution so steadfastly as to stay and brave its renewal and continuance, and harass the feelings of the only one she loved so dearly by combating such repeated attacks, which were still reiterated after the echo of the fullest acquittal? It was, however, reserved for the Milan Commission to concentrate and condense all the threatening clouds which were prepared to burst over her ill-fated head; and as if it were utterly impossible that the queen could lose a single protector without the loss being instantaneously followed by the commencement of some important step against her, the same day which saw the remains of her venerable Sovereign entombedof that beloved Sovereign who was, from the outset, her constant father and friendthat same sun which shone upon the monarch's tomb ushered into the palace of his illustrious son and successor one of the perjured witnesses who were brought over to depose against her Majesty's life.
THREE:The King of Prussia was anxious to unite with Russia, and to furnish forty thousand men for the common defence. But all his strongest garrisons were in the hands of France, and Alexander did not advise him to subject his territories to the certain misery of being overrun by the French till the contest in Russia was decided; for Alexander meant to fall back during the early part of the campaign, and could, therefore, lend no aid to Prussia. It was agreed, therefore, that Prussia should afford the demanded twenty thousand men and sixty pieces of artillery to the army of Napoleon, and act according to circumstances. Prussia was also to furnish the French army with all that it required during its march across it, the charge to be deducted from the debt of Prussia to France.
THREE: