At the beginning of the month the Pretender suddenly disappeared, in the most secret manner, and with scarce any attendance. As France had lately sent the Marquis de Viomenil, an able general, with sixty officers, to Poland, it was supposed that she favoured that adventurer in his pursuit of a crown that tottered on the head of the wearer, and to which Stuart, by his mother Sobieski, was allied. The first news learned of him was, that he was at Paris, protected by the Duc d’Aiguillon, who had always wished well to his cause. This was, however, soon denied; and it was pretended that the Marquis de Fitzjames, grandson of the Duke of Berwick, had received orders from Versailles to re-conduct the Prince, his cousin, to Genoa. In the streets of that city chance gave him and the Duke of Gloucester to meet. They bowed, turned back, and both smiled. During the Pretender’s eclipse, the Cardinal of York being questioned on the motive of his brother’s journey, replied enigmatically, “He is gone whither he should have gone a year ago;” a sentence not understood till six months after, when it came out that Stuart had gone to Paris to see the Princess of Stolberg, whom he married there by proxy in the March following,--no contradiction of the idea that D’Aiguillon favoured the House of Stuart. He had long countenanced the Jesuits, though the emergence of party now obliged him, in opposition to the Chancellor, to take the contrary part. In Ireland the scene was very turbulent. Lord Townshend’s conduct was equally insolent and preposterous. He set the whole nation at defiance; shut himself up with a low woman and her friends, and at his own table publicly ridiculed all parties, declaring he knew he could, and declaring he would buy a majority. Nor was this silly profligacy confined within the palace. He wrote satiric ballads on friends and foes, and distributed them without reserve. To the shame of the Irish Parliament, and to the dishonour of the English Government, that still supported such a buffoon, a list of pensions to the amount of 25,000_l._ a-year was sent by him to London, and though delayed, was not rejected. Still as the English Administration demurred on the demand, they who had promised their votes for promises, not seeing the conditions performed, threw their weight into the opposite scale, lest the Viceroy, profiting of their acquiescence, should afterwards frustrate their hopes. These fluctuations, and the acrimony of the rest of the Opposition, who were men of parts superior to those employed by the Lord-Lieutenant, cost the Castle a question early in the session; nor were its advocates prepared to support even the address on the speech; for the capricious ruler had neither sent a copy of the speech to England, nor communicated it to many in office. It was consequently composed with his Lordship’s usual want of judgment, and gave much offence by charging the deficiencies of the revenue