to France, with the cheering intelligence that the most depraved
of all rebels had been wonderfully transformed into a loyal
subject. The tidings filled James with delight and hope. Had he
been wise, they would have excited in him only aversion and
distrust. It was absurd to imagine that a man really heartbroken
by remorse and shame for one act of perfidy would determine to
lighten his conscience by committing a second act of perfidy as
odious and as disgraceful as the first. The promised atonement
was so wicked and base that it never could be made by any man
sincerely desirous to atone for past wickedness and baseness. The
truth was that, when Marlborough told the Jacobites that his
sense of guilt prevented him from swallowing his food by day and
taking his rest at night, he was laughing at them. The loss of
half a guinea would have done more to spoil his appetite and to
disturb his slumbers than all the terrors of an evil conscience.
What his offers really proved was that his former crime had
sprung, not from an ill regulated zeal for the interests of his
country and his religion, but from a deep and incurable moral
disease which had infected the whole man. James, however, partly
from dulness and partly from selfishness, could never see any
immorality in any action by which he was benefited. To conspire
against him, to betray him, to break an oath of allegiance sworn
to him, were crimes for which no punishment here or hereafter
could be too severe. But to murder his enemies, to break faith
with his enemies was not only innocent but laudable. The
desertion at Salisbury had been the worst of crimes; for it had
ruined him. A similar desertion in Flanders would be an
honourable exploit; for it might restore him.

The penitent was informed by his Jacobite friends that he was