158 A JACOBITE EXILE

All these are but pretences. His real object is to enter
into personal communication with two or three powerful
personages well disposed towards us. Come again to
me this evening when you have thought the matter over.
I shall then be glad to hear any suggestion you may like
to make.”

“There is one thing, sir, that J should like to ask you.
It will evidently be of great advantage to me if I can obtain
private letters of introduction to Scotch traders in the
city. This I cannot do unless by mentioning the fact that
Iam bound for Warsaw. Have I your permission to do
so, or is it to be kept a close secret?”

“No. Isee no objection to your naming it to anyone
you can implicitly trust, and who may as you think be
able to give you such introductions, but you must impress
upon them that the matter must be kept a secret. Doubt-
less the Saxons have in their pay people in our camp just
as we have in theirs, and were word of your going sent,
you would find yourself watched and perhaps arrested.
We should of course wish you to be zealous in your mis-
sion, but I would say, do not be over-anxious. We are
not trying to get up a revolution in Warsaw, but seeking to
ensure that the feeling in the city should be in our favour;
and this, we think, may be brought about to some extent
by such assurances as you can give of the king’s friend-
ship, and by such expressions of a belief in the justice of
our cause, and in the advantages there would be in getting
rid of this foreign prince, as might be said openly by one
trader to another when men meet in their exchanges or
upon the street. So that the ball is once set rolling, it
may be trusted to keep in motion, and there can be little
doubt that such expressions of feeling among the mercan-
tile community of the capital will have some effect even
upon nobles who pretend to despise trade, but who are not