Memoir of Marshal Keith

20 EARL MARISCHAL'S CAREER.
When his brother was sent on some diplomatic business
to England, the Earl retired again to Spain, where he
seems to have continued for some time. In the year I74°>
on the rupture between Great Britain and that country, he
was sent, by the Chevalier, to the Spanish court to induce
them to adopt measures for his restoration. These seem,
however, to have failed. Three years afterwards, we find
him at Boulogne, and one of the parties selected for the
command of an expedition to be sent to Scotland, by
France, in support of the Pretender. Finding, however,
that either the French Ministry or the Chevalier's agents
at Paris were determined to exclude both him and the
Duke of Ormond from any share in the expedition, he
appears to have retired from it, after communicating with
the Chevalier on the subject. He seems to have con-
sidered, on very good grounds, that France was not to be
trusted in the matter, and strongly dissuaded the young
Pretender from listening to any proposals from her. For
speaking thus plainly, and also for advising him against
joining the French army in Flanders, where he would have
fought against Englishmen and the allies of England, the
Pretender was furious, and wrote to his father at Rome to
accuse and abuse the noble exile, by far the best man that
ever engaged in that desperate cause.
So eager was the Prince to enter upon the great work
of his life that he is said to have proposed to the Earl to
embark in a herring boat, and make his way to Scotland,
with characteristic trust in the ancient heroic kingdom.
But, though it came to something very like this in the end,