. . .Put them Upon Measures of Uniteing, which may shut the door upon all future Measures, what Ever the Occasion may be....

Now they have Returnd their Number, it were to be Wished they Could have Avoided a few who are Declar'd profest Jacobites, Such as 197 [Marischal], Kilsyth, Blantire, Hume &c. who are known to aim in all they do at the Pretender, and whose being Now Chosen has many ill Effects here What Ever may be as to Over-ruleing them in England, I mean as to Encreasing the Insolence of Jacobitisme in the North, where its Strength is far from being Contemptible.7

What Defoe hoped to obtain from Harley by this and succeeding letters on this subject is not clear. He may have been seeking Harley's public repudiation of the Jacobite peers, or at least some private assurances that what Argyll had told the peers did not represent the new Ministry's policies. Whatever it was he sought, by late December it was obviously not forthcoming from Harley or his Mi. . . Read More