In the summer endeavours had been used to prevail on the King of Sweden to transport from Gottenburg the troops he had in that neighbourhood into Scotland or into the North of England. He had excused himself, not because he disliked the proposition, which, on the contrary, he thought agreeable to his interest, but for reasons of another kind. First, because the troops at hand for this service consisted in horse, not in foot, which had been asked, and which were alone proper for such an expedition. Secondly, because a declaration of this sort might turn the Protestant princes of the Empire, from whose offices he had still some prospect of assistance, against him. And thirdly, because although he knew that the King of Great Britain was his enemy, yet they were not in war together, nor had the latter acted yet awhile openly enough against him to justify such a rupture. At the time I am speaking of, these reasons were removed by the King of Sweden’s being beat out of the Empire by the little consequence which his management of the Protestant princes was to him, and by the declaration of war which the King, as Elector of Hanover, made. I took up this negotiation therefore again. The Regent appeared to come into it. He spoke fair to the Baron de Spar, who pressed him on his side as I pressed him on mine, and promised, besides the arrears of the subsidy due to the Swedes, an immediate advance of fifty thousand crowns for the enterprise on Britain. He kept the officer who was to be despatched I know not how long booted; sometimes on pretence that in the low state of his credit he could not find bills of exchange for the sum, and sometimes on other pretences, and by these delays he evaded his promise. The French were very frank in declaring that they could give us no money, and that they would give us no troops. Arms, ammunition, and connivance they made us hope for. The latter, in some degree, we might have had perhaps; but to what purpose was it to connive, when by a multitude of little tricks they avoided furnishing us with arms and ammunition, and when they knew that we were utterly unable to furnish ourselves with them? I had formed the design of engaging French privateers in the Pretender’s service. They were to have carried whatever we should have had to send to any part of Britain in their first voyage, and after that to have cruised under his commission. I had actually agreed for some, and it was in my power to have made the same bargains with others. Sweden on one side and Scotland on the other would have afforded them retreats. And if the war had been kept up in any part of the mountains, I conceive the execution of this design would have been of the greatest advantage to the Pretender. It failed because no other part of the work went on. He was not above six weeks in his Scotch expedition, and these were the things I endeavoured to bring to bear in his absence. I had no great opinion of my success before he went; but