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Now in Barillon's letters to his court, dated the 7th of December, 1684, it appears that the Duke of York had told that ambassador of his intended voyage to Scotland though he represented it in a very different point of view, and said that it would not be attended with any diminution of his favour or credit.

To the savage and ignorant populace the law of nations and the risk of bringing on their country the just vengeance of all Europe were as nothing. The houses of the Ambassadors were besieged. A great crowd assembled before Barillon's door in St. James's Square. He, however, fared better than might have been expected.

* The following passage is an extract from M. Barillon's letters kept in the Dépôt des Affaires étrangères at Versailles. It was lately communicated to the author while in France. "Convention verbale arrêtée le 1 Avril 1681. Charles 2 s'engage

They made a partition of the court. Bonrepaux lived chiefly with Rochester and Rochester's adherents. Barillon's connections were chiefly with the opposite faction. The consequence was that they sometimes saw the same event in different points of view. The best account now extant of the contest which at this time agitated Whitehall is to be found in their despatches.

The sums distributed to all these men, excepting Montague, did not exceed sixteen thousand pounds in three years; and therefore could have little weight in the two houses, especially when opposed to the influence of the crown. Accordingly we find, in all Barillon's despatches, a great anxiety that the parliament should never be assembled.

Your uncharitable discernment, you see, has led me into a digression, and I have, without intending it, connected the motives of my stay with reflections on Voltaire's General History, Barillon's Letters, and all the secret biography of our modern libraries.

Your uncharitable discernment, you see, has led me into a digression, and I have, without intending it, connected the motives of my stay with reflections on Voltaire's General History, Barillon's Letters, and all the secret biography of our modern libraries.

He had determined to begin with Scotland, where his power to dispense with acts of parliament had been admitted by the obsequious Estates. On the twelfth of February, accordingly, was published at Edinburgh a proclamation granting relief to scrupulous consciences. This proclamation fully proves the correctness of Barillon's judgment.