his perfidy in disclosing the whole to that nobleman has been
clearly discovered. It seems, however, more than probable, that he could
not go on in the straightforward path; and that he was in the employ of
the Duke of Queensbury from the first, has been confidently stated.[167]

Early in 1702, Lord Lovat went to France, and pretending to have
authority from some of the Highland clans and Scottish nobility, offered
the services of his countrymen to the Court of St. Germains. This offer
was made shortly before the death of James the Second, and a proposal
was made in the name of the Scottish Jacobites to raise an army of
twelve thousand men, if the King of France would consent to land five
thousand men at Dundee, and five hundred at Fort William. His proposals
were listened to, but his integrity was suspected.[168]

According to his own account, Lord Lovat, being in full possession of
his family honours, upon the death of King William, immediately
proclaimed the Prince of Wales in his own province, and acting, as he
declares, in accordance with the advice of his friend, the Duke of
Argyle, repaired to France, "in order to do the best that he could in
that country."[169]

He immediately, to pursue his own statement, engaged the Earl Lord
Marischal, the Earl of Errol, Lord Constable of Scotland, in the cause;
and then, passing through England and Holland, in order to go to France
through Flanders, he arrived in Paris with this commission about the
month of September.

Sir John Maclean, cousin-german of Lord Lovat, had resided ten years at
the Court of St. Germains, and to his guidance Lovat confided himself.
By Maclean, Lovat was introduced to the Duke of Perth, as he was called,
who had been Chancellor of Scotland when James the Second abdicated, and
whose influence was now divided at the Court of St. Germains, by the
Earl of Middleton. For never was faction more virulent than in the Court
of the exiled Monarch, and during the minority of his son. The Duke of
Perth represented Lord Middleton as a "faithless traitor, a pensionary
of the English Parliament, to give intelligence of all that passes at
the Court of St. Germains." It was therefore agreed that this scheme of
the invasion should be carried on unknown to that nobleman, and to this
secrecy the Queen, it is said, gave her consent. She hailed the prospect
of an insurrection in Scotland with joy, and declared twenty times to
Lord Lovat that she had sent her jewels