urch, and among the merchants in the City. The
prince had friends numberless in the army, in the Privy Council, and the
officers of state. The great object, as it seemed, to the small band of
persons who had concerted that bold stroke, who had brought the queen's
brother into his native country, was, that his visit should remain unknown
till the proper time came, when his presence should surprise friends and
enemies alike; and the latter should be found so unprepared and disunited,
that they should not find time to attack him. We feared more from his
friends than from his enemies. The lies, and tittle-tattle sent over to
St. Germains by the Jacobite agents about London, had done an incalculable
mischief to his cause, and wofully misguided him, and it was from these
especially, that the persons engaged in the present venture were anxious
to defend the chief actor in it.(16)

The party reached London by nightfall, leaving their horses at the
Posting-House over against Westminster, and being ferried over the water
where Lady Esmond's coach was already in waiting. In another hour we were
all landed at Kensington, and the mistress of the house had that
satisfaction which her heart had yearned after for many years, once more
to embrace her son, who on his side, with all his waywardness, ever
retained a most tender affection for his parent.

She did not refrain from this expression of her feeling, though the
domestics were by, and my Lord Castlewood's attendant stood in the hall.
Esmond had to whisper to him in French to take his hat off. Monsieur
Baptiste was constantly neglecting his part with an inconceivable levity:
more than once on the ride to London, little observations of the stranger,
light remarks, and words betokening the greatest ignorance of the country
the prince came to govern, had hurt the susceptibility of the two
gentlemen forming his escort; nor could either help owning in his secret
mind that they would have had his behaviour otherwise, and that the
laughter and the lightness, not to say licence, which characterized his
talk, scarce befitted such a great prince, and such a solemn occasion. Not
but that he could act at proper times with spirit and dignity. He had
behaved, as we all knew, in a very courageous manner on the field. Esmond
had seen a copy of the letter the prince writ with his own hand when urged
by his friends in England to abjure his religion, and admired that manly
and magnanimous reply by wh