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A.D. 1708.] unquestionably which operated to prevent that bloody retaliation which followed the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Another reason of equal obviousness was that the opposing parties did not come to actual conflict, nor was the kingdom alarmed to the sanguinary pitch by the insurgents being in the very heart of the kingdom. On the other hand, it was contended that the expedition altogether was a mere feint on the part of Louis; that it never was intended to land, but only to alarm the government, and thus paralyse the preparations for the continental campaign. But both the memoirs of the duke of Berwick, and the report of M. Andrezel, who accompanied the fleet, prove that the endeavour was earnest enough, but that Sir George Byng was too close on their heels, and the weather too inauspicious. So far from not wishing to land, Louis, immediately after the return of the fleet, dispatched an emissary to Ireland to ascertain the condition of that island, and discover whether a descent might not be made there. This emissary was father Ambrose O'Connor, provincial of the Irish Dominicans. He arrived in Ireland early in the month of May, and was very near being taken immediately on landing; but, having managed to escape, he went through the length and breadth of Ireland, and found the people all ready enough for insurrection, but without any means of effecting it. They were miserably poor, and, in the alarm of the descent of the French on Scotland, all the chief catholic landholders and clergy had been put under arrest, and all the horses taken away. He found the presbyterians in the north devoted to the house of Hanover, but the episcopalians were generally for the king, and both more bitter against each other than ever was known in England; that the country was wholly defenceless, the garrisons in the most wretched and neglected condition, and not above six thousand regular troops in all Ireland. On the other hand, the catholics assured him that they could muster twenty thousand in five counties alone, but then the universal cry was Money, money, money! O'Connor was bold enough to return through England, even penetrating to the Scottish lords in the Tower. There, again, the cry was not only Money, but Troops. Five thousand soldiers landed in Ireland, ten thousand in Scotland; and these, well provided and well paid, would, they assured him, certainly re-establish the king. In fact, if Louis had been in a condition to clothe, and feed, and arm all Ireland and a good part of Scotland, he might for a time have made a fine diversion in the dominions of queen Anne; but, fortunately for England, he had neither the money nor the men, the arms nor the ammunition necessary. All the means in his power were insufficient to enable his armies to face his foes in the Netherlands, in Provence, and in Spain.

At this time a few of the Camisards, or protestants of the Cevennes, who had given so much trouble to Louis in the south of France, had made their way, after many adventures, into England. The Cevennois, as well as the protestants of Dauphiné and the neighbouring mountain districts, had been so horribly persecuted by Louis XIV. and the Jesuits since the revocation of the edict of Nantes, that they had been roused to a pitch of desperate resistance. With only about two thousand men, wretchedly armed with pikes, scythes, and a few muskets, they had encountered successive armies sent against them, sometimes to the amount of sixty thousand men. They had so often defeated them that Louis was at length compelled to come to a compromise with them, which, however, was very badly observed. The poor, persecuted, but undaunted people exhibited a high tone of religious enthusiasm, claimed to be influenced by the Divine Spirit like the ancient church, and were thence called "the prophets of the Cevennes." They united the spiritual belief of the quakers in immediate inspiration with the spirit of the Scotch covenanters, who defended their hearths, and homes, and religion with "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." The English sent to them some assistance in arms, money, and ammunition; but the French, getting aware of this, interposed troops betwixt the mountains and the sea coast, and when Sir Cloudesley Shovel, in 1706, endeavoured to convey aid to them, he found that he could not communicate with them. The few of these brave men who reached London met, however, with a very unworthy reception. Their peculiar views of religion excited the sectarian spirit against them. Dr. Edmund Calamy, the nonconformist, who appears to have been of a most hard, bigoted temper, preached against them and wrote against them, presenting his book, or "Caveat," as he called it, to the queen and prince of Denmark. The French in London, who had other views, also denounced them. They were condemned as fanatics, and set in the pillory. The worst and most groundless calumnies were propagated against them, which have been regularly taken up without further inquiry by our historians. But the accounts given of them by Sir Richard Bulkeley in an admirably-reasoned tract, and by others, sufficiently refute these calumnies. Dr. Josiah Woodward, a clergyman of the church of England though differing in opinion from these unfortunate Cevennois, thought them truly pious and honest, bore testimony to the high characters of the gentlemen who espoused their cause, and thought it would much more become us as a Christian people to restore them to their native mountains than to persecute them here.

On the 1st of April, 1708, the queen prorogued the parliament, and then dissolved it by proclamation. Writs were issued for new elections, and a proclamation commanding the peers of Scotland to assemble at Holyrood on the 17th of June, to elect the sixteen peers to represent them in the British parliament. The duke of Queensberry was created a British peer by the titles of baron Ripon, marquis of Beverley, and duke of Dover.

The allies and France prepared for a vigorous campaign in the Netherlands. Notwithstanding the low state of Louis XIV.'s funds and a series of severe disasters which had attended his arms, he put forth wonderful energies for the maintenance of his designs. He assembled at least one hundred thousand men in the Netherlands under the command of the duke of Burgundy, the duke of Vendôme, the duke of Berwick—who had been so suddenly called from Spain—marshal Boufflers, and the young pretender, who sought here to learn martial skill, which he might employ in attempting to regain his crown. On the other hand, Marlborough went to the Hague towards the end of March, where he was met by prince Eugene, and the plan of the campaign was concerted betwixt them, the pensionary