That the last of the Stuarts had any other object in his
impolitic manoeuvres, than an impracticable scheme to blend
the two churches, there is now authority to disbelieve. He
certainly was guilty of the offence of sending an envoy openly
to Rome, who, by the bye, was received by the Pope with great
discourtesy; and her Majesty Queen Victoria, whose
Protestantism cannot be doubted, for it is one of her chief
titles to our homage, has at this time a secret envoy at the
same court: and that is the difference between them: both
ministers doubtless working however fruitlessly for the same
object: the termination of those terrible misconceptions,
political and religious, that have occasioned so many
martyrdoms, and so many crimes alike to sovereigns and to
subjects.
If James the Second had really attempted to re-establish
Popery in this country, the English people, who had no hand in
his overthrow, would doubtless soon have stirred and secured
their "Catholic and Apostolic church," independent of any
foreign dictation; the church to which they still regularly
profess their adherence; and being a practical people, it is
possible that they might have achieved their object and yet
retained their native princes; under which circumstances we
might have been saved from the triple blessings of Venetian
politics, Dutch finance, and French wars: against which, in
their happiest days, and with their happiest powers, struggled
the three greatest of English statesmen,--Bolingbroke,
Shelburne, and lastly the son of Chatham.
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