_Intrigues of the Jacobites._--For several years after the treaty of Ryswick the intrigues of ambitious and discontented statesmen, and of a misled faction in favour of the exiled family, grew much colder; the old age of James and the infancy of his son being alike incompatible with their success. The jacobites yielded a sort of provisional allegiance to the daughter of their king, deeming her, as it were, a regent in the heir's minority, and willing to defer the consideration of his claim till he should be competent to make it, or to acquiesce in her continuance upon the throne, if she could be induced to secure his reversion.[318] Meanwhile, under the name of tories and high-church men, they carried on a more dangerous war by sapping the bulwarks of the revolution settlement. The disaffected clergy poured forth sermons and libels, to impugn the principles of the whigs or traduce their characters. Twice a year especially, on the 30th of January and 29th of May, they took care that every stroke upon rebellion and usurpation should tell against the expulsion of the Stuarts and the Hanover succession. They inveighed against the dissenters and the toleration. They set up pretences of loyalty towards the queen, descanting sometimes on her hereditary right, in order to throw a slur on the settlement. They drew a transparent veil over their designs, which might screen them from prosecution, but could not impose, nor was meant to impose, on the reader. Among these the most distinguished was Leslie, author of a periodical sheet called the _Rehearsal_, printed weekly from 1704 to 1708; and as he, though a non-juror, and unquestionable jacobite, held only the same language as Sacheverell, and others who affected obedience to the government, we cannot much be deceived in assuming that their views were entirely the same.[319]