While such feelings tended to produce discontent among all orders, the regular troops, under the Earl of Leven, did not exceed 2500 men, many of whom upon the landing of the Chevalier would most probably have joined him. The castle of Edinburgh was destitute of ammunition; and if it had surrendered, the Jacobites would have found themselves masters of a considerable sum of money. The King of France, with the view of making a diversion from the Netherlands, and of occupying Queen Anne with disturbances at home, had granted considerable assistance to the Pretender. A squadron was assembled at Dunkirk under the Chevalier de Fourbin, and a body of land forces was embarked under M. de Gace: James was furnished with services of gold and silver plate, sumptuous tents, splendid liveries, and all sorts of necessaries, even to profusion. Louis had presented him with a sword studded with diamonds, and had repeated to him the same words with which he had dismissed his father,--that the kindest wish he could express towards him was, "that he might never see him again." The Scottish nobles but awaited the moment of the Chevalier's landing to rise simultaneously in his favour: though outwardly all was quiet, they were on the tip-toe of expectation, when the active measures taken by Queen Anne, the vigilance of Sir George Byng, who intercepted the squadron before it could reach Edinburgh, and the wind, which prevented its ever arriving at Inverness, rendered vain all their hopes and fears. The Chevalier, after having been tost upon the seas during a month of tempestuous weather, returned to Dunkirk; and Sir George Byng sailed up the Leith road to Edinburgh, for the purpose of receiving the freedom of the city which he had delivered from impending danger. Thus ended the Chevalier de St. George's first, and almost ridiculous, attempt to recover the throne of his ancestors. To the Earl of Nithsdale this period had been one of no common anxiety: he was too well aware of the dissensions which Colonel Hook's imprudence had produced among the Chevalier's most faithful partisans, to feel confident of the result under any circumstances; and he knew that till the king was actually in Scotland, and was himself a rallying point for all his adherents, nothing but mischief could accrue from any movement among his friends. He had therefore so conducted himself as to escape the notice of government: his disappointment was great when he found that a moment, in many respects so favourable for the Jacobite cause, had been allowed to escape; but far greater was his mortification at finding the monarch to whom he had devoted himself could be so easily persuaded to return to dependence on the court of France; and his fears for the future affected him still more deeply than his vexation at the failure of the present attempt.