al Sovereign on the
twenty-seventh of November, the vessel then lying at the Nore, and
conveyed to London. Here she was kept a prisoner under circumstances of
great mitigation, for she was lodged in a private house. In this
situation she continued for a year; when the Act of indemnity, passed in
1747, set her at liberty. She was then discharged, without a single
question being addressed to her on the subject of her conduct. After
being released,--at the instigation, according to a tradition in her
family, of Frederic Prince of Wales,--she was domesticated in the family
of the Dowager Lady Primrose, an ardent Jacobite, who afterwards, in
1750, was courageous enough to receive the young Chevalier during a
visit of five days, which were employed by Charles in the vain endeavour
to form another scheme of invasion. The abode of Lady Primrose was the
resort of the fashionable world; and crowds of the higher classes
hastened to pay their tribute to the heroine of the day. It may be
readily conjectured, how singular an impression the quiet, simple
manners of Flora must have made upon the excited minds of those who
looked, perhaps, for high pretensions,--for the presence of an amazon,
and the expressions of an heroine of romance. The compliments which were
offered to Flora, excited in her mind nothing but the most unequivocal
surprise that so simple an act should produce so extraordinary a
sensation. She is stated to have been presented to Frederic Prince of
Wales, and to have received from him the highest compliment to her
fidelity and heroism. When, in explanation of her conduct, Flora
Macdonald said that she would perform the same act of humanity to any
person who might be similarly situated, the Prince remarked, "You would,
I hope, madam, do the same, were the same event to happen over again."
The grace and courtesy of this speech may partly be attributed to the
amiable traits which profligate habits had not wholly obliterated in the
Prince; partly to his avowed opposition to his royal father, and the bad
terms on which he stood with his brother. It must still be acknowledged,
that Frederic displayed no ordinary degree of good-feeling in this
interview with Flora. His son George the Third, and his grandson George
the Fourth, both did credit to themselves by sentiments equally generous
towards their ill-fated and royal kinsman.

After this intoxicating scene, presenting in their most brilliant
colours, to the eye of one who h