and detection. But do
not let us insist upon a sacrifice so humiliating, while he has scarce
placed a foot upon the beach of his kingdom. Let us act generously by
our sovereign; and when we have shown what we will do for him, we
shall be able, with better face, to state what it is we expect him to
concede.'

'Indeed, I think it is but a pity,' said MacKellar, 'when so many pretty
gentlemen are got together, that they should part without the flash of a
sword among them.'

'I should be of that gentleman's opinion,' said Lord ------, 'had I
nothing to lose but my life; but I frankly own, that the conditions
on which our family agreed to join having been, in this instance, left
unfulfilled, I will not peril the whole fortunes of our house on the
doubtful fidelity of an artful woman.'

'I am sorry to see your lordship,' said Redgauntlet, 'take a course
which is more likely to secure your house's wealth than to augment its
honours.'

'How am I to understand your language, sir?' said the young nobleman,
haughtily.

'Nay, gentlemen,' said Dr Grumball, interposing, 'do not let friends
quarrel; we are all zealous for the cause--but truly, although I know
the license claimed by the great in such matters, and can, I hope, make
due allowance, there is, I may say, an indecorum in a prince who comes
to claim the allegiance of the Church of England, arriving on such an
errand with such a companion--SI NON CASTE, CAUTE TAMEN.'

'I wonder how the Church of England came to be so heartily attached to
his merry old namesake,' said Redgauntlet.

Sir Richard Glendale then took up the question, as one whose authority
and experience gave him right to speak with much weight.

'We have no leisure for hesitation,' he said; 'it is full time that
we decide what course we are to hold. I feel as much as you, Mr.
Redgauntlet, the delicacy of capitulating with our sovereign in his
present condition. But I must also think of the total ruin of the
cause, the confiscation and bloodshed which will take place among his
adherents, and all through the infatuation with which he adheres to
a woman who is the pensionary of the present minister, as she was
for years Sir Robert Walpole's. Let his Majesty send her back to the
continent, and the sword on which I now lay my hand shall instantly be
unsheathed, and, I trust, many hundred others at the same moment.'

The other persons present testified their unanimous acquiescence in what
Sir Richard Glendal