Each of these plots was under the direction of a leader specially sent from Saint Germains.  The more honourable mission was entrusted to Berwick.  He was charged to communicate with the Jacobite nobility and gentry, to ascertain what force they could bring into the field, and to fix a time for the rising.  He was authorised to assure them that the French government was collecting troops and transports at Calais, and that, as soon as it was known there that a rebellion had broken out in England, his father would embark with twelve thousand veteran soldiers, and would be among them in a few hours.

A more hazardous part was assigned to an emissary of lower rank, but of great address, activity and courage.  This was Sir George Barclay, a Scotch gentleman who had served with credit under Dundee, and who, when the war in the Highlands had ended, had retired to Saint Germains.  Barclay was called into the royal closet, and received his orders from the royal lips.  He was directed to steal across the Channel and to repair to London.  He was told that a few select officers and soldiers should speedily follow him by twos and threes.  That they might have no difficulty in finding him, he was to walk, on Mondays and Thursdays, in the Piazza of Covent Garden after nightfall, with a white handkerchief hanging from his coat pocket.  He was furnished with a considerable sum of money, and with a commission which was not only signed but written from beginning to end by James himself.  This commission authorised the bearer to do from time to time such acts of hostility against the Prince of Orange and that Prince’s adherents as should most conduce to the service of the King.  What explanation of these very comprehensive words was orally given by James we are not informed.

Lest Barclay’s absence from Saint Germains should cause any suspicion, it was given out that his loose way of life had made it necessary for him to put himself under the care of a surgeon at Paris.654 He set out with eight hundred pounds in his portmanteau, hastened to the coast, and embarked on board of a privateer which was employed by the Jacobites as a regular packet boat between France and England.  This vessel conveyed him to a desolate spot in Romney Marsh.  About half a mile from the landing place a smuggler named Hunt lived on a dreary and unwholesome fen where he had no neighbours but a few rude shepherds.  His dwelling was singularly well situated for a contraband traffic in French wares.  Cargoes of Lyons silk and Valenciennes lace sufficient to load thirty packhorses had repeatedly been landed in that dismal solitude without attracting notice.  But, since the Revolution, Hunt had discovered that of all cargoes a cargo of traitors paid best.  His lonely abode became the resort of men of high consideration, Earls and Barons, Knights and Doctors of Divinity.  Some of them lodged many days under his roof while waiting for a passage.  A clandestine post was established between