Monmouth and Grey were now to be conveyed to London, for which purpose they set out on the 11th, and arrived in the vicinity of the metropolis on the 13th of July. In the meanwhile, the queen dowager, who seems to have behaved with a uniformity of kindness towards her husband's son that does her great honour, urgently pressed the king to admit his nephew to an audience. Importuned, therefore, by entreaties, and instigated by the curiosity which Monmouth's mysterious expressions, and Sheldon's story, had excited, he consented, though with a fixed determination to show no mercy. James was not of the number of those, in whom the want of an extensive understanding is compensated by a delicacy of sentiment, or by those right feelings, which are often found to be better guides for the conduct than the most accurate reasoning. His nature did not revolt, his blood did not run cold, at the thoughts of beholding the son of a brother whom he had loved embracing his knees, petitioning, and petitioning in vain, for life; of interchanging words and looks with a nephew, on whom he was inexorably determined, within forty-eight short hours, to inflict an ignominious death. In Macpherson's extract from King James's "Memoirs," it is confessed that the king ought not to have seen, if he was not disposed to pardon the culprit; but whether the observation is made by the exiled prince himself, or by him who gives the extract, is in this, as in many other passages of those "Memoirs," difficult to determine. Surely if the king had made this reflection before Monmouth's execution, it must have occurred to that monarch, that if he had inadvertently done that which he ought not to have done, without an intention to pardon, the only remedy was to correct that part of his conduct which was still in his power, and since he could not recall the interview, to grant the pardon. Pursuant to this hard-hearted arrangement, Monmouth and Grey, on the very day of their arrival, were brought to Whitehall, where they had severally interviews with his majesty. James, in a letter to the Prince of Orange, dated the following day, gives a short account of both these interviews. Monmouth, he says, betrayed a weakness which did not become one who had claimed the title of king; but made no discovery of consequence.