Note 320 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.

Macpherson, i. 608. If Carte's anecdotes are true, which is very doubtful, Godolphin, after he was turned out, declared his concern at not having restored the king; that he thought Harley would do it, but by French assistance, which he did not intend; that the tories had always distressed him, and his administration had passed in a struggle with the whig junto. Id. 170. Somerville says, he was assured that Carte was reckoned credulous and ill-informed by the jacobites. P. 273. It seems indeed, by some passages in Macpherson's Papers, that the Stuart agents either kept up an intercourse with Godolphin, or pretended to do so. Vol. ii. 2 et post. But it is evident that they had no confidence in him.

It must be observed, however, that Lord Dartmouth, in his notes on Burnet, repeatedly intimates that Godolphin's secret object in his ministry was the restoration of the house of Stuart, and that with this view he suffered the act of security in Scotland to pass, which raised such a clamour that he was forced to close with the whigs in order to save himself. It is said also by a very good authority, Lord Hardwicke (note on Burnet, Oxf. edit. v. 352) that there was something not easy to be accounted for in the conduct of the ministry, preceding the attempt on Scotland in 1708; giving us to understand in the subsequent part of the note that Godolphin was suspected of connivance with it. And this is confirmed by Ker of Kersland, who directly charges the treasurer with extreme remissness, if not something worse. Memoirs, i. 54. See also Lockhart's Commentaries (in Lockhart Papers, i. 308). Yet it seems almost impossible to suspect Godolphin of such treachery, not only towards the protestant succession, but his mistress herself.