"At my earnest request, my lord duke has constantly made inquiries concerning the prisoners in the Tower, and your good lord arrived there in health and safety on the 10th. I understand he is not inconveniently lodged, and I do not learn that he is in want of any necessary comforts; indeed, many of your party who have been slack in openly joining the insurrection, make peace with their consciences by supplying the Jacobite prisoners with money and luxuries of all kinds. I have heard say, that when in the streets it has been difficult to procure silver for a guinea, in the various prisons change for large sums might be procured in silver and in gold. They say also, that among the more wild and thoughtless of the prisoners, much mirth and revelry prevail; and, as I hear, they so confidently rely upon the merit of their unconditional surrender at Preston, that they trouble themselves but slightly concerning their approaching trials. It is reported, that the Earl of Derwentwater observed to your good lord, that many of his followers were fitter inhabitants for Bridewell than a state prison. "Let not my dear cousin be needlessly alarmed, when I tell her that the lords will be impeached on the 10th of January, and that I have reason to believe my Lord Nithsdale would not now deem it unadvisable that she should repair to London. Indeed, I am informed that his most earnest wish is to see her; and I have no doubt that, supposing the result should not be so favourable as many of the more sanguine are inclined to believe, her presence may prove of service as well as of comfort to her lord. "I should advise her to lodge herself privately, as, to my poor way of thinking, any appearance of rank or splendour may not be agreeable to those in power; and I think I am not mistaken when I say that the riotous mode of living of many of those in confinement does not serve to forward their cause. "I would myself have visited the good Earl of Nithsdale, that I might have informed you how it fared with him, had it been fitting that I should do so openly; but my lord duke deemed such a measure would not be advisable; and as to visiting him privately, I feared that you and others might have suspected your noble husband of having learned from young Bottair of Athol, that a prisoner may be a very dangerous gallant, that-- 'Stone walls do not a prison make.' "'Mad-cap Christian,' as you called me once at Terreagles, is not so void of discretion as to run the risk of being taken for one of the 'divine Altheas' who come 'to whisper at the grate.'