everybody's opinion in their turn. There was one-third
of the council whose principles were, that Kings and Princes can never
either act, or think wrong; so, in consequence, they always confirmed
whatever the Prince said. The other two-thirds, who thought that Kings
and Princes thought sometimes like other men, and were not altogether
infallible, and that this Prince was no more so than others, begged
leave to differ from him, when they could give sufficient reasons for
their difference of opinion, which very often was no hard matter to do;
for as the Prince and his old governor, Sir Thomas Sheridan, were
altogether ignorant of the ways and customs in Great Britain, and both
much for the doctrine of absolute monarchy, they would very often, had
they not been prevented, have fallen into blunders which might have hurt
the cause. The Prince could not bear to hear anybody differ in sentiment
from him, and took a dislike to everybody that did; for he had a notion
of commanding this army, as any general does a body of mercenaries, and
so let them know only what he pleased, and they obey without inquiring
further about the matter. This might have done better had his favourites
been people of the country; but they were Irish, and had nothing at
stake. The Scotch, who ought to be supposed to give the best advice they
were capable of giving, thought they had a little right to know, and be
consulted in what was for the good of the cause in which they had so
much concern; and, if it had not been for their insisting strongly upon
it, the Prince, when he found that his sentiments were not always
approved of, would have abolished his council long ere he did. There was
a very good paper sent one day by a gentleman in Edinburgh, to be
perused by this council. The Prince, when he heard it read, said that it
was below his dignity to enter into such a reasoning with subjects, and
ordered the paper to be laid aside. The paper afterwards was printed
under the title of the Prince's Declaration to the People of England,
and is esteemed the best manifesto published in those times; for the
ones that were printed at Rome and Paris were reckoned not well
calculated for the present age."

Before the Prince had left Edinburgh, intrigues had begun to distract
his councils. "An ill-timed emulation," remarks an eye-witness of the
rebellion, "soon crept in, and bred great dissension and animosities:
the council was insensibly divided into factions, and