You were now visibly departed from the very scheme which you had sent us over, and from all the principles which had been ever laid down. I did what I could to keep up my own spirit, as well as the spirits of the Chevalier, and of all those with whom I was in correspondence: I endeavoured even to deceive myself. I could not remedy the mischief, and I was resolved to see the conclusion of the perilous adventure; but I own to you that I thought then, and that I have not changed my opinion since, that such measures as these would not be pursued by any reasonable man in the most common affairs of life. It was with the utmost astonishment that I saw them pursued in the conduct of an enterprise which had for its object nothing less than the disposition of crowns, and for the means of bringing it about nothing less than a civil war. Impatient that we heard nothing from England, when we expected every moment to hear that the war was begun in Scotland, the Duke of Ormond and I resolved to send a person of confidence to London. We instructed him to repeat to you the former accounts which we had sent over, to let you know how destitute the Chevalier was either of actual support or even of reasonable hopes, and to desire that you would determine whether he should go to Scotland or throw himself on some part of the English coast. This person was further instructed to tell you that, the Chevalier being ready to take any resolution at a moment’s warning, you might depend on his setting out the instant he received your answer; and, therefore, that to save time, if your intention was to rise, you would do well to act immediately, on the assurance that the plan you prescribed, be it what it would, should be exactly complied with. We took this resolution the rather because one of the packets, which had been prepared in cypher to give you an account of things, which had been put above three weeks before into Monsieur de Torcy’s hands, and which by consequence we thought to be in yours, was by this time sent back to me by this Minister (I think, open), with an excuse that he durst not take upon him to forward it. The person despatched to London returned very soon to us, and the answer he brought was, that since affairs grew daily worse, and could not mend by delay, our friends in England had resolved to declare immediately, and that they would be ready to join the Chevalier on his landing; that his person would be as safe there as in Scotland, and that in every other respect it was better that he should land in England; that they had used their utmost endeavours, and that they hoped the western counties were in a good posture to receive him. To this was added a general indication of the place he should come to, as near to Plymouth as possible.