With what tenderness did the recollection of home over-power him!--the thousand every-day enjoyments, which are not prized till they are lost! The current of these enervating thoughts was checked by the sounds of steps upon the stairs, and he had only time to resume the unmoved countenance he had before preserved, when the entrance of some menials and attendants again forced him to repress the emotions, which, though repressed, could not be extinguished. The bringing in of his few necessary packages, the arrangements for his personal accommodation, the preparations for some refreshment, were all inexpressibly irksome to him; and he impatiently awaited the welcome solitude of night, when he might revel in the luxury of thinking of the happy past, the wretched present, the fearful future, without a witness. It was at this moment of general dismay, when, as we have already mentioned, each day saw the gradual diminution of the Earl of Mar's army; when the greater proportion of the most zealous Jacobites were already in the hands of government; in the midst of increasing disaffection among his remaining partisans; that the unfortunate descendant of the house of Stuart landed in his native country, at Peterhead, on the 22d of December, in the year 1715. He arrived almost as a fugitive. He had been obliged to traverse Normandy in disguise; his retinue consisted but of six gentlemen; and when the Earl of Mar, the Earl Marischal, and some others, to the number of thirty, went from Perth to kiss the hand of the prince for whose cause they were in arms, they found him at Fetteresso, suffering with a severe attack of ague. Neither in body nor mind was he capable of inspiring his adherents with the ardour which could alone turn or even arrest the untoward course of events. Mutual discouragement was the feeling consequent upon this melancholy meeting. The unwelcome news which awaited the Chevalier, that, for a month previous to his landing, the resolution had been taken to evacuate Perth, did not tend to dispel the despondency natural to him; while in the speech which he made to the privy council, whom he had immediately proceeded to name, the despairing view which he took of his own situation pierced every moment through the words of hope which he thought himself bound to utter. He closed his address by saying, "That for him it would be no new thing to be unfortunate; his whole life, even from his cradle, had shown a constant series of misfortunes; and he was prepared, if it so pleased God, to suffer the extent of the threats which his enemies threw out against him." With a spirit thus crushed by repeated disappointments, and a constitution impaired by illness, did this ill-fated prince proceed to enact the sovereign to a diminished and dispirited party of disunited followers.