Note 325 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.

The pamphlets on Harley's side, and probably written under his inspection, for at least the first year after his elevation to power, such as one entitled "Faults on both Sides," ascribed to Richard Harley, his relation (Somers Tracts, xii. 678); "Spectator's Address to the Whigs on Occasion of the stabbing Mr. Harley," or the "Secret History of the October Club," 1711 (I believe by De Foe), seem to have for their object to reconcile as many of the whigs as possible to his administration, and to display his aversion to the violent tories. There can be no doubt that his first project was to have excluded the more acrimonious whigs, such as Wharton and Sunderland, as well as the Duke of Marlborough and his wife, and coalesced with Cowper and Somers, both of whom were also in favour with the queen. But the steadiness of the whig party, and their resentment of his duplicity, forced him into the opposite quarters, though he never lost sight of his schemes for reconciliation.

The dissembling nature of this unfortunate statesman rendered his designs suspected. The whigs, at least in 1713, in their correspondence with the court of Hanover, speak of him as entirely in the jacobite interest. Macpherson, ii. 472, 509. Cunningham, who is not on the whole unfavourable to Harley, says, that "men of all parties agreed in concluding that his designs were in the Pretender's favour. And it is certain that he affected to have it thought so."—P. 303. Lockhart also bears witness to the reliance placed on him by the jacobites, and argues with some plausibility (p. 377) that the Duke of Hamilton's appointment as ambassador to France, in 1712, must have been designed to further their object; though he believed that the death of that nobleman, in a duel with Lord Mohun, just as he was setting out for Paris, put a stop to the scheme, and "questions if it was ever heartily re-assumed by Lord Oxford."—"This I know, that his lordship regretting to a friend of mine the duke's death, next day after it happened, told him that it disordered all their schemes, seeing Great Britain did not afford a person capable to discharge the trust which was committed to his grace, which sure was somewhat very extraordinary; and what other than the king's restoration could there be of so very great importance, or require such dexterity in managing, is not easy to imagine. And indeed it is more than probable that before his lordship could pitch upon one he might depend on in such weighty matters, the discord and division which happened betwixt him and the other ministers of state diverted or suspended his design of serving the king." Lockhart's Commentaries, p. 410. But there is more reason to doubt whether this design to serve the king ever existed.