Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/379

 1920 MACPHERSON AND THE NAIRNE PAPERS 371 {d) The Berkeley Reports} Colonel Parnell remarked : Here we see a ' memorial ', evidently intended to be sent to the French government by Melfort as the actual reports of Jacobite spies at home, not only written by Nairne, but afterwards deliberately altered and added to by his master Melfort, and actually endorsed by the latter as a ' Draught ', or, what is the same thing, a ' Project '. He also thought that the Berkeley papers proved that the whole of these French documents, purporting to be composed of reports from agents in England, were in reality either written to order for^ or were actually constructed by, Nairne and his colleagues at St. Ger- main. It would seem that Colonel Parnell did not understand the character of these draughts. They are almost certainly transla- tions into French of the reports of English Jacobites, who presumably wrote in their native tongue. There is nothing dishonourable in altering or correcting a translation, and Melfort neither added nor corrected anything of importance. Both the reports of Berkeley and Williamson are correct enough representa- tions of the situation in England from a Jacobite point of view, and contain no such absurdities as appear in (c) the Landen Memorial} (e) The Sunderland Memorial} The only interesting feature of this draught is the alleged complicity of Sunderland in Jacobite plots. This involves, says Colonel Parnell, the imbecile theory that the chief designer of the Kevolution, and the con- fidential adviser of William, both then and at this time, was himself deeply concerned in the alleged plot to replace James on the throne. This is an exaggerated estimate of Sunderland's services. He himself only claimed that, when it was generally known that William meant to lead an expedition to England, he dissuaded James from accepting the offer of French naval assistance.* He also probably authorized his wife to promise William his support when she wrote to Henry Sidney. His previous career was not such as to preclude a further change of sides, since he was successively the minister of Charles II, a supporter of the Exclusion » Carte MS. 181, £f. 529-33 ; Original Papers, i. 463-9 ; arUe, xii. 259-62. ^ I think, however, Williamson erred in attributing to William Penn advice to James to land with 30,000 men in England, although Macaulay here follows him, iv. 1998, n. 1 (ch. xvii). Pari. Hist, v, app. iii. The letter from Sunderiand to William which Dalrymple quotes {Memoirs, ii, pt. ii. 4) is scarcely that of a man conscious of great services. It was apparently written about April 1689. William informed Bumet that he had had no correspondence with Sunderiand before the Revolution {History of My Own Time, J. 756). Bb2
 * Carte MS. 181, ff. 563-5 ; Original Papers, i. 475 ; ante, xii. 262.
 * See The Earl of Sunderland^ s Letter to a Friend in the Country, 1689 ; reprinted in