ed-guard. The general was acquitted, but, retiring to his wife's
house at Carham, he deserted Westbrook Place.

The empty house, retired in its woodlands, on the Portsmouth road,
convenient for the coast, was the very place for Prince Charles to
lurk in, while Murray and Glengarry cleared the way to the throne. And
so, in fact, we find Eleanor Oglethorpe secretly ensconced at
Westbrook Place while the plot ripened, and local tradition still
shows the vault in which 'the Pretender' could take refuge if the
house was searched. All this, again, coincides with the vague legend
of the tall, brown-haired ghost who haunts Westbrook Place,--last home
of a last hope.

The young Glengarry, as we know, carried all the tale of the plot to
the English Prime Minister, while he made a merit of his share in it
with James at Rome. Eleanor, too, was run to earth at Westbrook Place.
She held her own gallantly. As to having no passport, she reminded
Newcastle that she _had_ asked for a passport twelve years ago, in
1740. She was now visiting England merely to see her sister Anne, who
'could not outlast the winter,' but who did so, none the less. Nor
could Anne have been so very ill, for on arriving at Dover in October
Eleanor did not hasten to Anne's sick-bed. Far from that, she first
spent an agreeable week--with whom? With my Lady Westmoreland, at
Mereworth, in Kent. Now, Lord Westmoreland was the head of the English
Jacobites, and at Mereworth, according to authentic family tradition,
Prince Charles held his last Council on English ground. The whole plot
seems delightfully transparent, and it must be remembered that in
October Newcastle knew nothing of it; he only received Glengarry's
information early in November.

The letter of Madame de Mezieres, with her account of her innocent
proceedings, is written in French exactly like that of the Dowager
Countess of Castlewood, in _Esmond_. She expressed her special
pleasure in the hope of making Newcastle's personal acquaintance. She
went to Bath; she made Lady Albemarle profoundly uncomfortable about
her lord's famous mistress in Paris, and no doubt she plunged, on her
return, into the plots with Prussia for a Restoration. In the Privy
Council, in November 1753, her arrest was decided on. Newcastle jots
down, on a paper of notes: 'To seize Madame de Mezieres with her
papers. No expense to be spared to find the Pretender's son. Sir John
Gooderich to be sent after him. Lord Anson to have fr