erwentwater, and it was of course assigned to him at the court of St.
Germains, and indeed always insisted upon by him; but the estates were
alienated, and there appeared no hope under the present government of
ever recovering those once enviable possessions. Under these
circumstances, Mr. Radcliffe was naturally a likely object for the
representations of the sanguine, or the intrigues of the designing to
work upon; and in this temper of mind he met, in the year 1743, with
John Murray of Broughton, at Paris, where that gentleman remained three
weeks; and became intimately acquainted with Mr. Radcliffe, who is
described among others, as a "wretched dependant on French pensions,
with difficulty obtained, and accompanied with contempt in the payment."

While the fashionable world were diverting themselves with epigrams upon
the Rebellion, a small expedition was fitted out, consisting of twenty
French officers, and sixty Scotch and Irish, who embarked at Dunkirk on
board the Esperance privateer; among these was Charles Radcliffe and his
eldest son. At this time nothing was spoken of in London except the
daring attempt in Scotland,--sometimes in derision,--sometimes in
serious apprehension: "the Dowager Strafford," writes Horace Walpole
(Sept. 1745), "has already written cards for my Lady Nithesdale, my Lady
Tullebardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more revived
peeresses, to invite them to play at whist, Monday three months: for
your part, you will divert yourself with their old taffetys, and
tarnished slippers, and their awkwardness the first day they go to Court
in clean linen."[415] "I shall wonderfully dislike," observes the same
writer, "being a loyal sufferer in a threadbare coat, and shivering in
an attic chamber at Hanover, or reduced to teach Latin and English to
the young princes at Copenhagen. Will you ever write to me in my garret
at Herenhausen? I will give you a faithful account of all the promising
speeches that Prince George and Prince Edward make whenever they have a
new sword, and intend to reconquer England."

One of the first adverse circumstances that befel the Jacobites in 1745,
was the capture of the vessel in which Mr. Radcliffe hoped to reach the
shores of Scotland. It was taken during the month of November by the
Sheerness man-of-war; and Mr. Radcliffe and his son were carried to
London and imprisoned in the Tower.

On the twenty-first of November he was conveyed, under a strong g