THREE:Scarcely had Parliament ceased to sit, and the king was gone to spend the summer months in Germany, when the vigilance of the Ministry was demanded to ward off a fresh invasion. Alberoni, defeated in his schemes on France, and his hopes of the invasion of England by Charles XII. crushed by that monarch's death, determined now to make a grand effort to support the Pretender himself. For this purpose, he invited him to Spain, and at the same time began the equipment of a formidable fleet to carry over a Spanish force, under the command of the Duke of Ormonde, to the shores of Britain. The Pretender was not intended to accompany the expedition, but to be in readiness to follow on the first news of its[43] successful landing. But it was no more destined to reach these shores than the Grand Armada. It has always been the fate of invading squadrons to encounter providential tempests in coming hitherward, and the usual hurricane was ready to burst. Scarcely, indeed, had the fleet lost sight of Cape Finisterre before the storm swooped down upon it. For twelve days the terrible Bay of Biscay was swept by a frightful wind, which drove the vessels in all directions, and rendered it impossible to manage them. Fortunate would it have been if every vessel had failed to reach the shores at which they aimed; but two vessels, on board of which were the Earls Marshal and Seaforth, and the Marquis of Tullibardine, accompanied by about three hundred Spanish soldiers, reached Scotland, and landed, on the 16th of April, at Kintail, in Ross-shire. In the hope that Ormonde would still reach England, this small force lay quiet for some time, and so little did they excite notice, that the Government imagined that they had re-embarked. Their presence there, however, had the mischievous effect of exciting some few of the Highlanders to join them. They seized Donan Castle, and thus attracted the attention of the English. Some vessels of war arrived upon the coast. The castle was speedily retaken, and Lord Carpenter, the commander of the forces in Scotland, sent some troops from Inverness against them. General Wightman, the officer thus despatched, was attended by about a thousand men, and found the enemy, now swollen to about two thousand, strongly posted at Glenshiel. He immediately attacked them, and the miscellaneous force speedily dispersed. The Highlanders, who knew the country, rapidly disappeared amongst the hills, and the Spaniards had no other resource than to lay down their arms. Above all, he exclaims, we must not fail to notice what effect this doctrine has on the minds of those whom they have persuaded to despise the world and all that it contains. Of the two chief methods for attaining the supreme good, one has sensual pleasure for its end, the other virtue, the effort after which begins and ends with God. Epicurus, by his denial of providence, leaves us no choice but to pursue the former. But this doctrine [Gnosticism], involving as it does a still more insolent denial of divine order and human law, laughs to scorn what has always been the accepted ideal of conduct, and, in its rage against beauty, abolishes temperance and justicethe justice that is associated with natural feeling and perpetuated by discipline and reasonalong with every other ennobling virtue. So, in the absence of true morality, they are given over to pleasure and utility and selfish isolation from other menunless, indeed, their nature is better than their principles. They have an ideal that nothing here below can satisfy, and so they put off the effort for its attainment to a future life, whereas they should begin at once, and prove that they are of divine race by fulfilling the duties of their present state. For virtue is the condition of every higher aspiration, and only to those who disdain sensual enjoyment is it given to understand the divine. How far our opponents are from realising this is proved by their349 total neglect of ethical science. They neither know what virtue is, nor how many virtues there are, nor what ancient philosophy has to teach us on the subject, nor what are the methods of moral training, nor how the soul is to be tended and cleansed. They tell us to look to God; but merely saying this is useless unless they can tell us what the manner of the looking is to be. For it might be asked, what is to prevent us from looking to God, while at the same time freely indulging our sensual appetites and angry passions. Virtue perfected, enlightened, and rooted in the soul, will reveal God to us, but without it he will remain an empty name.521
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