Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/194

 Two hundred and fifty Papists had contrived to enrol themselves in those regiments; but a conspiracy having been discovered at Dundalk to promote desertion, they were detected and cashiered. Their ringleader, Captain Du Plessis, and five of the traitors, were tried and executed. The rest were sent prisoners to England, and transported thence to Holland, where they were set at liberty.

It was not from dread of Popery in disguise, that the refugee officers were unpopular with some politicians. It was the French refugees’ honest aud immutable attachment to King William that led to the ultimately successful proposal to disband their regiments. And a new stroke of vindictiveness was attempted in 1701 by the Earl of Rochester, the Semi-Jacobite Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland: “That which gave the greatest disgust in his administration there,” says Burnet, “was his usage of the reduced officers who were on half-pay, a fund being settled for that by Act of Parliament, and they being ordered to live in Ireland, and to be ready for service there. The Earl of Rochester called them before him, and required them to express under their hands their readiness to go and serve in the West Indies. They did not comply with this; so he set them a day for their final answer, and threatened that they should have no more appointments if they stood out beyond that time. This was represented to the King as a great hardship put on them, and as done on design to leave Ireland destitute of the service that might be done by so many gallant officers, who were all known to be well affected to the present government. So the King ordered a stop to be put to it.” (II. 291.)

These officers did afterwards tender their services for an expedition to the West Indies to be commanded by the Earl of Peterborough. Some progress had been made in organising a regiment before the withdrawal of that Earl’s commission.

The refugee officers were offered congenial employment. Britain and Holland planned a descent upon France in 1706, the Earl of Rivers to command in chief The Protestants in France were to be invited to rise, and to furnish the principal strength of six regiments, the frame-work of which was to be manned by the refugees. A translation of Lord Rivers’ preamble to his proposed manifesto shews the spirit of the undertaking — “Whereas (as is known to everybody) there has for several years past, appeared in the management of the councils of France an ambitious and restless spirit which has manifested itself by the most outrageous violences against her neighbours without the least provocation on their side; and treaties of peace which had been sworn in the most solemn manner, have been violated with design to usurp a universal monarchy in Europe, the French king being first made absolute master at home: Whereas, in the accomplishment of this design the liberties and privileges of the French nation have been totally overthrown, the ancient rights of the States-General, Parliaments, and Courts of Judicature have been suppressed, the immunities of provinces, cities, towns, clergy, princes, nobility, and people have been abolished, and a great number of innocent persons have been sent to the galleys, or reduced to the hard necessity of abandoning their country, and seeking sanctuary elsewhere: And, whereas, in the train of all these violences at home, use has been made of the sunk subjects of France to carry like desolation into other countries, Therefore, the Queen of Great Britain, the Lords of the States-General, &c., &c., were obliged to enter into engagements for the preservation of their own dominions, and for stopping the encroachments of so encroaching and so dreadful a Potentate.” The project is thus described:— “Because the High Allies ardently wish, that the French who at present are reduced to the extremest misery, may not henceforward serve as instruments in enslaving both their countrymen and their neighbours, but may reap the opposite fruit and advantage, Her Britannic Majesty and the States-General have sent a considerable military force and a strong fleet to put arms into their hands ... to restore the States-General, the Parliaments of France and the ancient rights of all cities, provinces, clergy, princes, nobility, and people, and to secure for those of the Reformed Religion the enjoyment of the privileges stipulated by the Edict of Nantes.” The manifesto was dated London, 25th July 1706. 