dared trust them to nobody: my house might have been searched without warning, consequently they were far from being secure there. In this distress, I had the precaution to bury them in the ground, and nobody but myself and the gardener knew where they were. I did the same with other things of value. The event proved that I had acted prudently; for after my departure they searched the house, and God only knows what might have transpired from those papers! All these circumstances rendered my presence absolutely necessary, otherwise they might have been lost; for though they retained the highest preservation after one very severe winter, (for when I took them up they were as dry as if they came from the fire-side,) yet they could not possibly have remained so much longer without prejudice." Lord Nithisdale went to Rome, and never revisited his native country; indeed, the project of the Rebellion of 1745, and the unceasing efforts and hopes by which it was preceded on the part of the Jacobites, must have rendered such a step impracticable to one who seems to have been especially obnoxious to the house of Hanover. His escape, according to Lady Nithisdale, both infuriated and alarmed George the First, "who flew into an excessive passion," as she expresses it, on the news transpiring; and exclaimed that he was betrayed, and that it could not have been done without a confederacy. He instantly dispatched messengers to the Tower, to give orders that the prisoners who were still there, might be the more effectually secured. He never forgave Lady Nithisdale; and the effects of his powerful resentment were such, as eventually to drive her for ever from England. Inexperienced, young, a stranger in the vast metropolis, Lady Nithisdale was now left alone, to skulk from place to place that she might avoid the effects of the royal displeasure. She absconded to the house of an "honest man" in Drury Lane, where she remained in concealment until she heard of her husband's safe arrival on the Continent. A report, meantime, prevailed of her having been the means of Lord Nithisdale's escape; and it was generally believed that she had gone with him. To the surprise of the Duchess of Buccleugh, Lady Nithisdale one day appeared before her, the object of that sudden and perhaps undesired visit being to obtain, by the influence of the Duchess, leave to quit London; and to disseminate, through her Grace, a belief that the safety of Lord Nithisdale was not procured by his wife's means. It must have been one of the most aggravating circumstances to that noble and affectionate being, to have employed so much artifice in the conduct of this affair; but, if ever artifice be allowable, it is when opposed as a weapon to tyranny. Besides, Lady Nithisdale had now not only her own safety to consider; she had to protect the interests of her son. Those whom she had mortally offended were eager to punish her courage by imprisonment.