to be employed, the English Government left their agents abroad to
send in baffled surmises. From Paris, on March 8, Colonel Joseph
Yorke (whom d'Argenson calls by many ill names) wrote, 'I am told for
certain that he [the Prince] is now returned to Avignon.' {52a}
Mann, in Florence, hears (March 7) that the Prince has sent a Mr.
Lockhart to James to ask for money, but that was really done on
December 31, 1748. {52b} On March 11, Yorke learned from Puysieux
that the Prince had been recognised by postboys as he drove through
Lyons towards Metz; probably, Puysieux thought, on 'an affair of
gallantry.' Others, says Yorke, 'have sent him to Poland or Sweden,'
which, even in 1746, had been getting ready troops to assist Charles
in Scotland. {52c} On March 20, Yorke hints that Charles may be in
or near Paris, as he probably was. Berlin was suggested as his
destination by Horace Mann (April 4). Again, he has been seen in
disguise, walking into a gate of Paris (April 11). {52d} On April
14, Walton, from Florence, writes that James has had news of his son,
is much excited, and is sending Fitzmorris to join him. The Pope
knows and is sure to blab. {52e} On May 3, Yorke mentions a rumour,
often revived, that the Prince is dead. On May 9, the Jacobites in
Paris show a letter from Oxford inviting Charles to the opening of
the Radcliffe, 'where they assure him of better reception than the
University has had at Court lately.' {53a} Mann (May 2) mentions the
Radzivil marriage, arranged, in a self-denying way, by the Princesse
de Talmond. On May 17, Yorke hears from Puysieux that the French
ambassador in Saxony avers that Charles is in Poland, and that Sir
Charles Williams has remonstrated with Count Bruhl. On May 1, 1749,
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams wrote from Leipzig to the Duke of
Newcastle. He suspects that Charles is one of several persons who
have just passed through Leipzig on the way to Poland; Count Bruhl is
'almost certain' of it. {53b} On May 5 (when Charles was really in