. But, as in place of such a letter as was expected, or
letters to particular persons, as was advised, came a letter
from your Majesty to the Convention, without any copy to
show your friends, in terms absolutely different from those
we had agreed upon, and sent to your Majesty by Mr. Lindsay
from London. Upon other occasions such a letter might have
passed, if there had been power to have backed it, or force
to make good its reception; but after the Parliament of
England had refused to read a letter from your Majesty
because of the Earl of Melfort's countersigning it [and
considering] that England had made the Prince of Orange
their King, and that it was known you had none to sustain
your cause but those who advised letters of another strain,
it was a fault of your advisers hardly to be pardoned....
Crane was brought in and the letter read, with the same
order and respect observed upon such occasions to our Kings;
but no sooner was it twice read and known to be Earl
Melfort's hand and style, but the house was in a
tumult--your enemies in joy and your friends in confusion.
Glad were your enemies to find nothing so much as promised
of what we had asserted should be done for their
satisfaction, [they] having much feared many of their party
would have forsaken them if your Majesty's letter had been
written in the terms we advised from London. Mr. Crane could
give no account why the advice of your friends was not
followed, but Mr. Lindsay made no secret of it after he came
back from St. Germain's, but informed us that, after he had
delivered to [the] Earl of Melfort the letters and advices
of your friends at London to your Majesty, his Lordship kept
him retired, and he was not suffered to attend you--fearing
that what he had written to your Majesty relating to his
Lordship might spoil his project of going to Ireland with
you. We had observed at London the great aversion men of all
professions had at his being employed, and we knew he was in
no better esteem in his own country, which made us entreat
your Majesty to leave him in France, and some, upon his own
account, advised his not coming over, knowing the danger he
might be in; but his Lordship either suppressed our letters
or gave our advices another turn than was intended, by which