The thunder had long grumbled in the air; and yet when the bolt fell, most of our party appeared as much surprised as if they had had no reason to expect it. There was a perfect calm and universal submission through the whole kingdom. The Chevalier, indeed, set out as if his design had been to gain the coast and to embark for Great Britain; and the Court of France made a merit to themselves of stopping him and obliging him to return. But this, to my certain knowledge, was a farce acted by concert, to keep up an opinion of his character, when all opinion of his cause seemed to be at an end. He owned this concert to me at Bar, on the occasion of my telling him that he would have found no party ready to receive him, and that the enterprise would have been to the last degree extravagant. He was at this time far from having any encouragement: no party numerous enough to make the least disturbance was formed in his favour. On the King’s arrival the storm arose. The menaces of the Whigs, backed by some very rash declarations, by little circumstances of humour which frequently offend more than real injuries, and by the entire change of all the persons in employment, blew up the coals. At first many of the Tories had been made to entertain some faint hopes that they would be permitted to live in quiet. I have been assured that the King left Hanover in that resolution. Happy had it been for him and for us if he had continued in it; if the moderation of his temper had not been overborne by the violence of party, and his and the national interest sacrificed to the passions of a few. Others there were among the Tories who had flattered themselves with much greater expectations than these, and who had depended, not on such imaginary favour and dangerous advancement as was offered them afterwards, but on real credit and substantial power under the new government. Such impressions on the minds of men had rendered the two Houses of Parliament, which were then sitting, as good courtiers to King George as ever they had been to Queen Anne. But all these hopes being at once and with violence extinguished, despair succeeded in their room. Our party began soon to act like men delivered over to their passions, and unguided by any other principle; not like men fired by a just resentment and a reasonable ambition to a bold undertaking. They treated the Government like men who were resolved not to live under it: and yet they took no one measure to support themselves against it. They expressed, without reserve or circumspection, an eagerness to join in any attempt against the Establishment which they had received and confirmed, and which many of them had courted but a few weeks before; and yet in the midst of all this bravery, when the election of the new Parliament came on, some of these very men acted with the coolness of those who are much better disposed to compound than to take arms.