Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

93

Montesquieu to the Abbé de Guasco, March 7, 1749.

94

The sequel of the chivalrous attempt to catch Keith’s mistress may he found in letters of Newcastle to Colonel Guy Dickens (February 12, 1751), and of Dickens (St. Petersburg, March 27, 30, May 4, 1751) to the Duke of Newcastle. (State Papers.)

95

Correspondence of the Duke of Bedford, ii. 69.

96

Letters, ii. 116.

97

Spence’s Anecdotes, p. 168.

98

Browne, iv. 17.

99

Stuart Papers.

100

Ibid.

101

Potzdam, August 24, 1751. Œuvres, xxxviii. 307. Edition of 1880.

102

Newcastle to Lord Chancellor, September 6, 1751. Life of Lord Hardwicke, ii. 404.

103

Anecdotes.

104

Stuart Papers. Lady Montagu was Barbara, third daughter of Sir John Webbe of Hathorp, county Gloucester. In July 1720 she married Anthony Brown, sixth Viscount Montagu.

105

Walton’s Life of Wotton.

106

Browne, iv. 89–90.

107

S. P. France, 455.

108

S. P. Poland, No. 79.

109

Angleterre, 81, f. 94, 1774.

110

Pichot, in his Vie de Charles Edouard, obviously cites this document, which is quoted from him by the Sobieski Stuarts in Tales of the Century. But Pichot does not name the source of his statements.

111

A French agent, Beson probably, whom Charles desired to dismiss, because a Frenchman.

112

Scott’s Letters, ii. 208. June 29, 1824.

113

For reasons already given, namely, that Madame de Vassé was the only daughter of her father by his wife, and that Mademoiselle Ferrand was her great friend, while the Prince addresses Mademoiselle Luci by a name derived from an estate of the Ferrands, I have identified Mademoiselle Ferrand with Mademoiselle Luci. This, however, is only an hypothesis.

114

Some of Pickle’s letters were published by Mr. Murray Rose in an essay called ‘An Infamous Spy, James Mohr Macgregor,’ in the Scotsman, March 15, 1895. This article was brought to my notice on June 22, 1896. As the author identifies Pickle with James Mohr Macgregor, though Pickle began to communicate with the English Government while James was a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, and continued to do so for years after James’s death, it is plain that he is in error, and that the transactions need a fresh examination. Mr. Murray Rose, in the article cited, does not indicate the provenance of the documents which he publishes. When used in this work they are copied from the originals in the British Museum, among the papers of the Pelham Administration. The transcripts have been for several years in my hands, but I desire to acknowledge Mr. Murray Rose’s priority in printing some of the documents, which, in my opinion, he wholly misunderstood, at least on March 15, 1895. How many he printed, if any, besides those in the Scotsman, and in what periodicals, I am not informed.

115

The portrait, now at Balgownie, was long in the possession of the Threiplands of Fingask. I have only seen a photograph, in the Scottish Museum of Antiquities.

116

MS. in Laing Collection, Edinburgh University Library.

117

A note of Craigie’s communicated by Mr. Omond.

118

Cope to Forbes of Culloden, August 24, 1745. Culloden Papers, p. 384.

119

Culloden Papers, p. 405.

120

Young Glengarry to Edgar. Rome, September 16, 1750. In the Stuart Papers.

121

Chambers’s The Rebellion, v. 24. Edinburgh, 1829.

122

Letter of Warren to James, October 10, 1746. Browne, iii. 463.

123

Stuart Papers. Browne, iv. 100.

124

Ibid. iv. 22, 23.

125

Browne, iv. 51.

126

Browne, iv. 61, 62.

127

I presume the first beautiful Mrs. Murray is in question. The second is ‘another story.’ See the original letter in Browne, iv. 90–101.

128

State Papers, Domestic, No. 87.

129

Stuart Papers.

130

Browne, iv. 60.

131

Browne, iv. 117.

132

Correspondence of the Duke of Bedford, ii. 39.

133

Paris, February 14, 1752. Stuart Papers.

134

iv. 84.

135

Rome, September 4, 1750. In Browne.

136

Browne, iv. 102.

137

Journal, February 14, 1826.

138

May 4, 1753. Stuart Papers. To old Edgar.

139

His father’s name was John. One of Pickle’s aliases.

140

This identifies ‘Pickle’ with ‘Jeanson.’

141

Cypher names.

142

That is, probably, Pickle said to Jacobite friends that his money came from Major Kennedy.

143

Lord Elcho knew it, probably from his brother.

144

Elcho says he was in London, at Lady Primrose’s. We have seen that Charles had had a difficulty with this lady.

145

To this illness Glengarry often refers, when writing as Pickle.

146

Hay to Edgar, October 1752. In Browne, iv. 106.

147

‘Mildmay’ to ‘Green,’ January 24, 1753.

148

S. P. Poland. No. 81.

149

Carlyle’s Frederick, iv. 467. Compare, for the views of political circles, Horace Walpole’s Reign of George II. i. 333, 353, and his Letters to Horace Mann for 1753.

150

Reign of George II. i. 290.

151

Add MSS. British Museum, 33,847, f. 271. ‘Private and most secret.’

152

Politische Correspondenz Friederichs des Grossen. Duncker. Berlin, 1879, ix. 356.

153

Can the Earl and the Doctor have approved of renewing the infamous Elibank plot?

154

Many historians, such as Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chancellors, condemn as cruel the execution of Cameron. But the Government was well informed.

155

The Active Testimony of the Presbyterians of Scotland, 1749.

156

xix. 742.

157

French service. He seems to think that Archy was betrayed by French means. He perhaps suspected Dumont, who had been in the French army.

158

Glengarry had been a captain in the French service.

159

Brother of d’Argenson of the Mémoires.

160

Pol. Corr. No. 5,933.

161

As early as 1748 Dawkins was in Paris, drinking with Townley, who calls him un bon garçon. Townley’s letters to a friend in Rome were regularly sent to Pelham.

162

Pol. Corr. ix. 417. No. 5,923.

163

Droysen, iv. 357. Note 1.

164

S. P. France. 462.

165

Browne, iv. p. 111.

166

In his article on James Mohr (Scotsman, March 15, 1896), Mr. Murray Rose cites some papers concerning James’s early treacheries. For unfathomable reasons, Mr. Murray Rose does not mention the source of these papers. This is of the less importance, as Mr. George Omond, in Macmillan’s Magazine, May 1890, had exposed James’s early foibles, from documents in the Record Office.

167

Trials of Rob Roy’s Sons (Edinburgh, 1818), p. 3.

168

The reader may remember that Pickle’s earliest dated letter is from Boulogne, November 2, 1752. As on that day James Mohr was a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, the absurdity of identifying Pickle with James Mohr becomes peculiarly glaring.

169

Trial, &c. p. 119.

170

According to Mr. Murray Rose, James Mohr applied to the King for money on May 22, 1753. This letter I have not observed among the Stuart Papers, but, from information given by Pickle to his English employers, I believe James Mohr to have been in France as early as May 1753. Pickle, being consulted as to James’s value, contemns him as a spy distrusted by both sides.

171

Add. MSS. 32,846.

172

He had been, as a spy!

173

How worthy of our friend!

174

As James was not in France till May 1753, he cannot have written Pickle’s letters from France of March in that year.

175

Balhaldie’s papers, not treasonable, belong to Sir Arthur Halkett of Pitfirrane, who also possesses a charming portrait of pretty Mrs. Macfarlane. Sir Arthur’s ancestor, Sir Peter, fought on the Hanoverian side in the Forty-five, was taken prisoner, and released on parole, which he refused to break at the command of the Butcher Cumberland.

176

MSS. Add. 33,050, f. 369.

177

Nothing of all this in the Stuart Papers.

178

Observe James’s Celtic memory.

179

Mr. Savage, according to James Mohr, was the chief of the Macgregors in Ireland.

180

These are transparent falsehoods. The Earl Marischal, if we may believe Pickle, had no mind to resign his comfortable Embassy.

181

He was really at Avignon.

182

Add. MSS. 33,050, f. 409.

183

In ‘Mémoire Historique et Généalogique sur la Famille de Wogan,’ par le Comte Alph. O’Kelly de Galway (Paris, 1896) we read (p. 33) that, in 1776, Charles was ‘entertained at Cross Green House, in Cork.’ The authority given is a vague reference to the Hibernian Magazine.

184

Stuart Papers.

185

Probably Glengarry.

186

This too well confirms Dr. King’s charges.

187

Goring must mean a clansman – a Cameron.

188

Goring was probably at the Convent of St. Joseph, with Madame de Vassé.

189

See Mémoires of Madame Hausset, and the De Goncourts on Madame de Pompadour.

190

These letters have been printed in full by Mr. Murray Rose (Scotsman, March 15, 1895). Mr. Murray Rose attributes them to James Mohr Macgregor, wrongly, of course.

191

That is, seats for Jacobites should be purchased at the General Election.

192

The surgeon of Lunéville, with whom Charles had resided secretly.

193

‘Women’ refers to Miss Walkinshaw. It is clear that Charles had rejected MacNamara’s request for her dismissal, described by Dr. King.

194

Browne, iv. 120, 121.

195

Culloden Papers, p. 412.

196

Robertson of Inerchraskie to Forbes of Culloden. September 23, 1745.

197

Manuscripts in the Charter Chest at Cluny Castle. Privately printed.

198

Pickle was inducted into his estates, before the Bailies of Inverness and a jury, on February 2, 1758. The ‘Retour’ is cited in Mr. Mackenzie’s History of the Macdonalds.

199

The story is in Mr. Mackenzie’s History of the Macdonalds.

200

All this is probably false.

201

Mr. Bruce, October 10, 1754, to Gwynn Vaughan, Esq.

202

Arniston Memoirs, edited by G. W. T. Omond, p. 153. Mr. Dundas of Arniston has kindly supplied a copy containing what is omitted in Mr. Omond’s book – Pickle’s dealings with his tenantry.

203

See Macallester’s huge and intolerably prolix book, A Series of Letters (London: 1767).

204

D’Argenson, July 1755.

205

S. P. France, 468.

206

Browne, iv. 124.

207

Ibid. iv. 125.

208

Ewald’s Prince Charles, ii. 223–228. From State Papers.

209

Letter to Edgar, September 16, 1755.

210

Madame Adélaïde, according to gossip in the Scots Magazine.

211

Pol. Corr. xi. p. 37. No. 7,199, and p. 63.

212

I have never seen this document.

213

A full account of Macallester, from which these remarks are taken, was published by myself in the English Illustrated Magazine.

214

Archives of French Foreign Office. Angleterre. 81. fol. 11.

215

Pol. Corr. xiii. 320. No. 8,660.

216

See Le Secret du Roi, by the Duc de Broglie.

217

Mémoire of Charlotte Stuart. French Foreign Office. 1774.

218

Mr. Alexander Pelham Trotter has kindly permitted me to consult this document in his possession.

219

D’Aiguillon.

220

Prince de Soubise.

221

As is proved by Murray’s letter of December 10.

222

Mémoire of Charlotte Stuart. 1774.

223

Charles, as Lumisden writes (December 3, 1760), ‘positively insists on having the young filly returned to him.’

224

The article on the Tales of the Century in the Quarterly Review (vol. lxxxi. p. 57) was not ‘by Lockhart,’ as Mr. Ewald says, and is not, in fact, accurate.

225

Nothing in the Stuart Papers confirms the story that Charles was at the Coronation of George III., in 1761. In the present century Cardinal York told a member of the Stair family that the Prince visited England in 1763. It may have been then that he saw Murray of Broughton, and was seen by Murray’s child, afterwards the actor known to Sir Walter Scott.