The guards, therefore, together with a small
army, new levied and undisciplined, and composed, too, of Englishmen,
were almost the only domestic resources which the king could depend on
in the prosecution of these dangerous counsels.
The assistance of the French king was no doubt deemed by the cabal a
considerable support in the schemes which they were forming; but it is
not easily conceived they could imagine themselves capable of directing
and employing an associate of so domineering a character. They ought
justly to have suspected, that it would be the sole intention of Lewis,
as it evidently was his interest, to raise incurable jealousies between
the king and his people; and that he saw how much a steady, uniform
government in this island, whether free or absolute, would form
invincible barriers to his ambition. Should his assistance be demanded,
if he sent a small supply, it would serve only to enrage the people, and
render the breach altogether irreparable; if he furnished a great force,
sufficient to subdue the nation, there was little reason to trust his
generosity with regard to the use which he would make of this advantage.
In all its other parts, the plan of the cabal, it must be confessed,
appears equally absurd and incongruous.
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