.
Mr. Prior is in a sad way about their refusing at home to send him
his plate. All here admired my lord viscount's portrait, and said
it was a masterpiece of Rigaud. Have you seen it? It is (at the
Lady Castlewood's house in Kensington Square). I think no English
painter could produce such a piece.

Our poor friend the abbe hath been at the Bastille, but is now
transported to the Conciergerie (where his friends may visit him.
They are to ask for) a remission of his sentence soon. Let us hope
the poor rogue will have repented in prison.

(The Lord Castlewood) has had the affair of the plate made up, and
departs for England.

Is not this a dull letter? I have a cursed headache with drinking
with Mat and some more overnight, and tipsy or sober am

Thine ever ----.

All this letter, save some dozen of words which I have put above between
brackets, was mere idle talk, though the substance of the letter was as
important as any letter well could be. It told those that had the key,
that _the king will take the Viscount Castlewood's passports and travel to
England under that lord's name. His Majesty will be at the Lady
Castlewood's house in Kensington Square, where his friends may visit him;
they are to ask for the Lord Castlewood_. This note may have passed under
Mr. Prior's eyes, and those of our new allies the French, and taught them
nothing; though it explains sufficiently to persons in London what the
event was which was about to happen, as 'twill show those who read my
memoirs a hundred years hence, what was that errand on which Colonel
Esmond of late had been busy. Silently and swiftly to do that about which
others were conspiring, and thousands of Jacobites all over the country,
clumsily caballing; alone to effect that which the leaders here were only
talking about; to bring the Prince of Wales into the country openly in the
face of all, under Bolingbroke's very eyes, the walls placarded with the
proclamation signed with the secretary's name, and offering five hundred
pounds reward for his apprehension: this was a stroke, the playing and
winning of which might well give any adventurous spirit pleasure: the loss
of the stake might involve a heavy penalty, but all our family were eager
to risk that for the glorious chance of winning the game.

Nor should it be called a game, save perhaps with the chief player, who
was not more or less sceptical than most publ