PROJECTED INVASION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

The dissensions of the British parliament were suddenly suspended by an event that seemed to unite both parties in the prosecution of the same measures. This was the intelligence of an intended invasion. By the parliamentary disputes, the loud clamours, and the general dissatisfaction of the people in Great Britain, the French ministry were persuaded that the nation was ripe for a revolt. This belief was corroborated by the assertions of their emissaries in different parts of Great Britain and Ireland. These were papists and Jacobites of strong prejudices and warm imaginations, who saw things through the medium of passion and party, and spoke rather from extravagant zeal than from sober conviction. They gave the court of Versailles to understand, that if the chevalier de St. George, or his eldest son Charles Edward, should appear at the head of a French army in Great Britain, a revolution would instantly follow in his favour. This intimation was agreeable to cardinal de Tencin, who, since the death of Fleury, had borne a share in the administration of France. He was of a violent enterprising temper. He had been recommended to the purple by the chevalier de St. George, and was seemingly attached to the Stuart family. His ambition was flattered with the prospect of giving a king to Great Britain; of performing such eminent service to his benefactor, and of restoring to the throne of their ancestors a family connected by the ties of blood with all the greatest princes of Europe. The ministry of France foresaw, that even if this aim should miscarry, a descent upon Great Britain would make a considerable diversion from the continent in favour of France, and embroil and embarrass his Britannic majesty, who was the chief support of the house of Austria, and all its allies. Actuated by these motives, he concerted measures with the chevalier de St. George at Rome, who being too much advanced in years to engage personally in such an expedition, agreed to delegate his pretensions and authority to his son Charles, a youth of promising talents, sage, secret, brave, and enterprising, amiable in his person, grave, and even reserved in his deportment. He approved himself in the sequel composed and moderate in success, wonderfully firm in adversity; and though tenderly nursed in all the delights of an effeminate country, and gentle climate, patient almost beyond belief of cold, hunger, and fatigue. Such was the adventurer now destined to fill the hope which the French ministry had conceived, from the projected invasion of Great Britain.