Stowe MS 246-247

COLLECTION of letters, principally on state affairs, addressed with few exceptions to James Craggs, Jun., Secretary at War [13 Apr. 1717], and Secretary of State [16 Mar. 1718]; 1711- 1720. With a few papers of an earlier date. Two volumes. Paper. Folio. The most important series consists of letters of John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to France in Jan. 17l5 and Ambassador in Feb. 1719. They are his private letters, as distinct from his formal despatches, and their nature may best be described by the following quotation from that of 2 Apr. 1718 (vol. i. f. 79): " I shall continue from time to time to write. you epistles of this kind for yourself only , which will give you hints sometimes of things that are not propper to put into dispatches that must in the first place be communicated to a cabinet counsell, and after lye in offices on record. There is no need of signing such letters, and the best is to burn them on both sides." The principal matters of which he treats are as follows.- Firstly, the negotiations for the treaty between England, France and the Emperor, which was ultimately agreed to by the Regent Orléans in July, 1718, by the Emperor a little later, and by the States of Holland in the following spring, and was known henceforth as the Quadruple Alliance. Secondly, the Spanish expedition against Sicily, which ended in the destruction of the Spanish fleet by Sir George Byng ill Aug. 1718. In writing on tliis subject Lord Stair finds occasion, in Aug. 1718 (vol. i. f 120), to remonstrate with Craggs on the difficulties of his own position, consequent on the attitude and conduct of the Abbé Dubois, at that time French Minister in London, whom he describes as " fearfull, distrustfull and jealous to a supreme degree." He continues, " He [Dubois] had sent two couriers to the D. of Orleans about that matter, as a mighty mystery of State he had discovered, before I knew one word of it from our court. If I had been acquainted with the matter in the first place, I should have told the story to the Regent naturally as it was, and you would have heard no more of it, but, as it happened, the Abbé filled the Regent's head with distrusts and jealousies and putt him upon consulting with D'Huxelles and the rest of our ennemys, who upon that occasion bid fair to overturn our whole treaty. To such accidents you will be ever lyable as you lett the foreign ministers that reside at your court be apprised of your secrets and designs before your own ministers abroad know anything of 'em; by that means you make your own ministers abroad entirely useless, and take it out of their power to negociate any thing." In a later letter, 11 Feb. 1719 (vol. i. f. 225 b), he again expresses his opinion of the Abbé: " I appear to believe all the Abbé tells me. The worst of the Abbé is that he will now and then accommodate truth to what he fancys his present purpose, and that is what I have all along liked worst in him. He seems to be playing a very difficult game, that I think cannot be played through." Thirdly, the affairs of the Northern Courts, complicated by the intrigues of Card. Alberoni with Sweden and Russia, which, however, were rendered abortive by the death of Charles Xll. at the siege of Frederikshald oil 11 Dec. 1718. Fourthly, the dispute between Lord Stair and the French Princes of the Blood on the question of ceremonial, arising from the former's formal entry as Ambassador in Feb. 1719. Fifthly, the expedition against England projected by Card. Alberoni in support of the Jacobites, under the command of the Duke of Ormonde in April, 1719. Throughout the letters of Lord Stair (as well as those of some of the other writers) there are frequent allusions to the prospect.., and plans of the Pretender and the Jacobites, and to the various attempts to organize movements in their favour. From time to time he also mentions " Mr. York," as Lord Bolingbroke was called, who bad now broken with the Pretender, but was still living in exile in France, e.g. in his letter of 4 Mar. 1719 (vol. ii.

26 b), " I have a letter from our poor friend York, who begins to be in great pain as to his destiny."