HARLEY STABBED AT THE COUNCIL BOARD.

A violent party in the house of commons began to look upon Harley as a lukewarm tory, because he would not enter precipitately into all their factious measures; they even began to suspect his principles, when his credit was re-established by a very singular accident. Guiscard, the French partisan, of whom mention hath already been made, thought himself very ill rewarded for his services, with a precarious pension of four hundred pounds, which he enjoyed from the queen’s bounty. He had been renounced by St. John, the former companion of his pleasures; he had in vain endeavoured to obtain an audience of the queen, with a view to demand more considerable appointments. Harley was his enemy, and all access to her majesty was denied. Enraged at these disappointments, he attempted to make his peace with the court of France, and offered his services, in a letter to one Moreau, a banker in Paris. This packet, which he endeavoured to transmit by the way of Portugal, was intercepted, and a warrant issued out to apprehend him for high-treason. When the messenger disarmed him in St. James’s Park, he exhibited marks of guilty confusion and despair, and begged that he would kill him directly. Being conveyed to the cockpit, in a sort of frenzy, he perceived a penknife lying upon a table, and took it up without being perceived by the attendants. A committee of council was immediately summoned, and Guiscard brought before them to be examined. Finding that his correspondence with Moreau was discovered, he desired to speak in private with secretary St. John, whom in all probability he had resolved to assassinate. His request being refused, he said, “That’s hard! not one word!” St. John being out of his reach, he stepped up to Mr. Harley, and exclaiming, “Have at thee, then!” stabbed him in the breast with the penknife which he had concealed. The instrument broke upon the bone, without penetrating into the cavity; nevertheless he repeated the blow with such force that the chancellor of the exchequer fell to the ground. Secretary St. John, seeing him fall, cried out, “The villain has killed Mr. Harley!” and drew his sword. Several other members followed his example, and wounded Guiscard in several places. Yet he made a desperate defence, until he was overpowered by the messengers and servants, and conveyed from the council-chamber, which he had filled with terror, tumult, and confusion. His wounds, though dangerous, were not mortal; but he died of a gangrene occasioned by the bruises he had sustained. This attempt upon the life of Harley, by a person who wanted to establish a traitorous correspondence with France, extinguished the suspicions of those who began to doubt that minister’s integrity. The two houses of parliament, in an address to the queen, declared their belief that Mr. Harley’s fidelity to her majesty, and zeal for her service, had drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of popery and faction. They besought her majesty to take all possible care of her sacred person; and, for that purpose, to give directions for causing papists to be removed from the cities of London and Westminster. A proclamation was published, ordering the laws to be strictly put in execution against papists. When Harley appeared in the house of commons after his recovery, he was congratulated upon it by the speaker, in a florid and fulsome premeditated speech. An act was passed, decreeing, that an attempt upon the life of a privy-counsellor should be felony without benefit of clergy. The earl of Rochester dying, Harley became sole minister, was created baron of Wigmore, and raised to the rank of earl by the noble and ancient title of Oxford and Mortimer: to crown his prosperity, he was appointed lord-treasurer, and vested with the supreme administration of affairs.