Verses composed at the time of the arrest of Prince Charles Edward, Jacobite pretender to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in November 1748. Prince Charles Edward had fled England and taken refuge on France, unaware of the secret clauses of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) under which the King of France was committed to expelling his cousin. The poem criticises Louis XV for shamefully abandoning the cause of the Stuarts.