_Prejudices against the reigning family._--Though the jacobite party had set before its eyes an object most dangerous to the public tranquillity, and which, could it have been attained, would have brought on again the contention of the seventeenth century; though, in taking oaths to a government against which they were in conspiracy, they showed a systematic disregard of obligation, and were as little mindful of allegiance, in the years 1715 and 1745, to the prince they owned in their hearts, as they had been to him whom they had professed to acknowledge, it ought to be admitted that they were rendered more numerous and formidable than was necessary by the faults of the reigning kings or of their ministers. They were not actuated for the most part (perhaps with very few exceptions) by the slavish principles of indefeasible right, much less by those of despotic power. They had been so long in opposition to the court, they had so often spoken the language of liberty, that we may justly believe them to have been its friends. It was the policy of Walpole to keep alive the strongest prejudice in the mind of George II., obstinately retentive of prejudice, as such narrow and passionate minds always are, against the whole body of the tories. They were ill received at court, and generally excluded, not only from those departments of office which the dominant party have a right to keep in their power, but from the commission of the peace, and every other subordinate trust.[365] This illiberal and selfish course retained many, no doubt, in the Pretender's camp, who must have perceived both the improbability of his restoration, and the difficulty of reconciling it with the safety of our constitution. He was indeed, as well as his son, far less worthy of respect than the contemporary Brunswick kings: without absolutely wanting capacity or courage, he gave the most undeniable evidence of his legitimacy by constantly resisting the counsels of wise men, and yielding to those of priests; while his son, the fugitive of Culloden, despised and deserted by his own party, insulted by the court of France, lost with the advance of years even the respect and compassion which wait on unceasing misfortune, the last sad inheritance of the house of Stuart.[366] But they were little known in England, and from unknown princes men are prone to hope much: if some could anticipate a redress of every evil from Frederic Prince of Wales, whom they might discover to be destitute of respectable qualities, it cannot be wondered at that others might draw equally flattering prognostics from the accession of Charles Edward. It is almost certain that, if either the claimant or his son had embraced the protestant religion, and had also manifested any superior strength of mind, the German prejudices of the reigning family would have cost them the throne, as they did the people's affections. Jacobitism, in the great majority, was one modification of the spirit