While he was trying to find excuses which might satisfy his political friends, Sir James Montgomery visited him.

Montgomery was now the most miserable of human beings.
Having borne a great part in a great Revolution, having been charged with the august office of presenting the Crown of Scotland to the Sovereigns whom the Estates had chosen, having domineered without a rival, during several months, in the Parliament at Edinburgh, having seen before him in near prospect the seals of Secretary, the coronet of an Earl, ample wealth, supreme power, he had on a sudden sunk into obscurity and abject penury.

His fine parts still remained; and he was therefore used by the Jacobites; but, though used, he was despised, distrusted and starved.

He passed his life in wandering from England to France and from France back to England, without finding a resting place in either country.

Sometimes he waited in the antechamber at Saint Germains, where the priests scowled at him as a Calvinist, and where even the Protestant Jacobites cautioned one another in whispers against the old Republican.