Note 329 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.

Lockhart gives us a speech of Sir William Whitelock in 1714, bitterly inveighing against the elector of Hanover, who, he hoped, would never come to the crown. Some of the whigs cried out on this that he should be brought to the bar; when Whitelock said he would not recede an inch; he hoped the queen would outlive that prince, and in comparison to her he did not value all the princes of Germany one farthing. P. 469. Swift, in "Some Free Thoughts upon the present State of Affairs," 1714, speaks with much contempt of the house of Hanover and its sovereign; and suggests, in derision, that the infant son of the electoral prince might be invited to take up his residence in England. He pretends in this tract, as in all his writings, to deny entirely that there was the least tendency towards jacobitism, either in any one of the ministry, or even any eminent individual out of it; but with so impudent a disregard of truth that I am not perfectly convinced of his own innocence as to that intrigue. Thus, in his "Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry," he says, "I remember, during the late treaty of peace, discoursing at several times with some very eminent persons of the opposite side with whom I had long acquaintance. I asked them seriously, whether they or any of their friends did in earnest believe, or suspect the queen or the ministry to have any favourable regards towards the Pretender? They all confessed for themselves that they believed nothing of the matter," etc. He then tells us that he had the curiosity to ask almost every person in great employment, whether they knew or had heard of any one particular man, except professed nonjurors, that discovered the least inclination towards the Pretender; and the whole number they could muster up did not amount to above five or six; among whom one was a certain old lord lately dead, and one a private gentleman, of little consequence and of a broken fortune, etc. (vol. 15, p. 94, edit. 12mo, 1765). This acute observer of mankind well knew that lying is frequently successful in the ratio of its effrontery and extravagance. There are, however, some passages in this tract, as in others written by Swift, in relation to that time, which serve to illustrate the obscure machinations of those famous last years of the queen.