Notwithstanding Stair’s efforts, however, the English government were not inclined to adopt his views as to Law’s designs, and indicated that he had simply allowed himself to be carried away by pique and bad temper. Stair could not of course allow an accusation such as this to pass unchallenged and replied, “God knows, that I was only actuated by feelings of zeal and of attachment towards my King and to my country. I have spoken truly, as a clear-headed man, whilst you have treated me as a dreamer; although I can say, without conceit, that you have reason to trust me and to distrust those to whom you have given trust. I do not speak of Lord Stanhope. I know him to be an honest man, and a faithful servant of the King. I respect him and honour him; and although I have had cause to complain of him, I have no resentment against him. He believed he was serving the State in humiliating me. He was deceived. Any man can be deceived. I’ll be bound for it, if you had left it to me, Law would have been lost at the present moment, and the understanding between the King and the Duke of Orleans would have been closer than ever. At the present time it is necessary to think as soon as possible about sending another minister to this court. For God’s sake, send an honest man here before everything; and a clever man if you can find him.” Stair seems to have created an impression in the mind of his government that he wished the King to demand from the Regent a promise that he would depose Law from office at the risk of going to war; and early in March, Mr. Secretary Craggs wrote that the King would not entertain such a proposal. Stair had not, however, reduced the matter to such an issue, and on 12th March stated clearly the position he had taken up. “I must beg pardon,” he wrote, “to say two things, first that I never did put things upon that issue, and in the next place, that there was no need of putting things upon that issue. You will find in my letters that I represented to the Duke of Orleans that Law, by his vanity and presumption, was leading him into great dangers and inconveniences, both at home and abroad; that Law, by going too fast, and by taking arbitrary measures, was in a way to ruin his Royal Highness’s credit with the nation, and to overturn the whole system of the finances; and that, at the same time, Law was, by his discourse and conduct, doing everything that lay in his power to destroy the good understanding between the King and the Regent, and between the Regent and the rest of his allies, and I bade the Regent beware how he trusted the reins of his chariot to that Phæton Law, because he would overturn it. The answer the Regent made me to these representations was, that he knew that vanity and ambition had turned his head; but that he, the Regent, would take care to keep a hand over him, and to contain him within bounds in the management of the finances; that he should have nothing