advocate of the Church. Harley's views were at one time of the same character: as were also those of many other distinguished men of the period.
The Tories also were divided into two sections—one secretly devoted to the exiled family, and consequently anxious for their restoration, whenever it could be accomplished, the other strongly attached to the Protestant succession. During this period of strong party feeling, it was usual to charge the whole body of the Tories with a secret attachment to the Pretender: and the same charge is still alleged by some modern writers.
While, however, it is certain that a section of the Tories favoured the cause of the exiled line, it is equally certain, that many of the leading Whigs held a secret correspondence with the Pretender. Had they been able to have secured the ascendancy of their party, they would have been ready to have placed the Pretender on the throne, though some may have acted from no other motive than a wish to embarrass the government. It is clear, therefore, that, if some of the Tories wished to restore the Pretender, many of the Whigs were by no means anxious, that his family should become extinct. His name was a very convenient pretence to the Whigs, whenever they wished to excite the popular feeling against their opponents. If then it were criminal in the Tory section to favour the Pretender, it was equally criminal in the Whigs, no matter from what motives, to hold a secret correspondence with him, and thereby endanger that Protestant succession, respecting which they were always declaiming in their speeches in Parliament, and in their addresses to the people. Under such circumstances, it was not strange that Swift, Harley, and other Whigs, who were the warm
