The suspicions of many people, however, had been too deeply planted, by the arts and insinuations of the whig leaders, to be eradicated by this or any other declaration; and what served to rivet their apprehensions, was a total removal of the whigs from all the employments, civil and military, which they had hitherto retained.

These were now bestowed upon professed tories, some of whom were attached at bottom to the supposed heir of blood.

At a time when the queen's views were maliciously misrepresented; when the wheels of her government were actually impeded, and her servants threatened with proscription by a powerful, turbulent, and implacable faction; no wonder that she discharged the partisans of that faction from her service, and filled their places with those who were distinguished by a warm affection to the house of Stuart, and by a submissive respect for the regal authority.

Those were steps which her own sagacity must have suggested; and which her ministers would naturally advise, as necessary for their own preservation.

The whigs were all in commotion, either apprehending or affecting to apprehend that a design was formed to secure the pretender's succession to the throne of Great Britain.
{1714.} Their chiefs held secret consultations with baron Schutz, the resident from Hanover.