declared that they would draw their swords for their rightful Sovereign as soon as their rightful Sovereign was in the island with a French army; and Berwick had been empowered to assure there that a French army should be sent as soon as they had drawn the sword.  But between what they asked and what he was authorised to grant there was a difference which admitted of no compromise.  Lewis, situated as he was, would not risk ten or twelve thousand excellent soldiers on the mere faith of promises.  Similar promises had been made in 1690; and yet, when the fleet of Tourville had appeared on the coast of Devonshire, the western counties had risen as one man in defence of the government, and not a single malecontent had dared to utter a whisper in favour of the invaders.  Similar promises had been made in 1692; and to the confidence which had been placed in those promises was to be attributed the great disaster of La Hogue.  The French King would not be deceived a third time.  He would gladly help the English royalists; but he must first see them help themselves.  There was much reason in this; and there was reason also in what the Jacobites urged on the other side.  If, they said, they were to rise, without a single disciplined regiment to back them, against an usurper supported by a regular army, they should all be cut to pieces before the news that they were up could reach Versailles.  As Berwick could hold out no hope that there would be an invasion before there was an insurrection, and as his English friends were immovable in their determination that there should be no insurrection till there was an invasion, he had nothing more to do here, and became impatient to depart.

He was the more impatient to depart because the fifteenth of February drew near.  For he was in constant communication with Barclay, and was perfectly apprised of all the details of the crime which was to be perpetrated on that day.  He was generally considered as a man of sturdy and even ungracious integrity.  But to such a degree had his sense of right and wrong been perverted by his zeal for the interests of his family, and by his respect for the lessons of his priests, that he did not, as he has himself ingenuously confessed, think that he lay under any obligation to dissuade the assassins from the execution of their purpose.  He had indeed only one objection to their design; and that objection he kept to himself.  It was simply this, that all who were concerned were very likely to be hanged.  That, however, was their affair; and, if they chose to run such a risk in the good cause, it was not his business to discourage them.  His mission was quite distinct from theirs; he was not to act with them; and he had no inclination to suffer with then.  He therefore hastened down to Romney Marsh, and crossed to Calais.664