The croak of flesh-gorged ravens, as they slake
Their thirst in hoof-prints fill'd with gore, disturbs
The stupor of the dying man: while death
Triumphantly sails down th' ensanguin'd stream,
On corses throned, and crown'd with shiver'd boughs,
That erst hung imaged in the crystal tide.*

And what the harvest of these bloody fields?
A double weight of fetters to the slave,

And chains on arms that wielded Freedom's sword!
Spirit of Tell! and art thou doom'd to see
Thy mountains, that confess'd no other chains
Than what the wintry elements had forged-
Thy vales, where freedom and her stern compeer,
Proud virtuous poverty, their noble state
Maintain❜d, amid surrounding threats of wealth,
Of superstition, and tyrannic sway

Spirit of Tell! and art thou doom'd to see
That land subdued by slavery's basest slaves,
By men, whose lips pronounce the sacred name
Of Liberty, then kiss the despot's foot?
Helvetia hadst thou to thyself been true,
Thy dying sons had triumph'd as they fell:
But 'twas a glorious effort, though in vain.
Aloft thy genius 'mid the sweeping clouds,
The flag of freedom spread; bright in the storm
The streaming meteor waved, and far it gleam'd;
But ah! 'twas transient as the iris' arch,
Glanced from leviathan's ascending shower,
When 'mid the mountain waves heaving his head.
Already had the friendly-seeming foe
Possess'd the snow-piled ramparts of the land;
Down like an avalanche they roll'd, they crush'd
The temple, palace, cottage, every work
Of art and nature, in one common ruin.
The dreadful crash is o'er, and peace ensues-
The peace of desolation, gloomy, still:
Each day is like a Sabbath; but, alas!
No Sabbath-service glads the seventh day;
No more the happy villagers are seen,
Winding adown the rock-hewn paths that wont
To lead their footsteps to the house of prayer;
But, far apart, assembled in the depth
Of solitudes, perhaps a little group
Of aged men, and orphan boys, and maids
Bereft, list to the breathings of the holy man
Who spurns an oath of fealty to the power
Of rulers chosen by a tyrant's nod.
No more, as dies the rustling of the breeze,
Is heard the distant vesper-hymn; no more
At gloamin hour, the plaintive strain that links
His country to the Switzer's heart, delights
The loosening team; or if some shepherd boy
Attempt the strain, his voice soon faltering stops;
He feels his country now a foreign land.

Oh Scotland! can'st thou for a moment brook
The mere imagination, that a fate

Like this can e'er be thine, that o'er those hills
And dear-bought vales, whence Wallace, Douglas, Bruce,
Repell'd proud Edward's multitudinous hordes,
A Gallic foe, that abject race, should rule?
No, no! let never hostile standard touch
Thy shore: rush, rush into the dashing brine,
And crest each wave with steel; and should the stamp
Of Slavery's footstep violate the strand,
Let not the tardy tide efface the mark;
Sweep off the stigma with a sea of blood!

But truce with war, at best a dismal theme; Thrice happy he, who far in Scottish glen Retired (yet ready at his country's call), Has left the restless emmet-hill of man! He never longs to read the saddening tale Of endless wars; and seldom does he hear

* After a heavy cannonade, the shivered branches of trees, and the corpses of the killed, are seen floating together down the rivers.

The tale of woe; and ere it reaches him,
Rumour, so loud when new, has died away
Into a whisper, on the memory borne
Of casual traveller: as on the deep,
Far from the sight of land, when all around
Is waveless calm, the sudden tremulous swell,
That gently heaves the ship, tells, as it rolls,
Of earthquakes dread and cities overthrown.

Oh Scotland! much I love thy tranquil dales;
But most on Sabbath eve, when low the sun
Slants through the upland copse, 'tis my delight,
Wandering and stopping oft, to hear the song
Of kindred praise arise from humble roofs;
Or when the simple service ends, to hear
The lifted latch, and mark the grey-hair'd man,
The father and the priest, walk forth alone
Into his garden-plat or little field,

To commune with his God in secret prayer-
To bless the Lord, that in his downward years
His children are about him: sweet meantime,
The thrush that sings upon the aged thorn,
Brings to his view the days of youthful years,
When that same aged thorn was but a bush.
Nor is the contrast between youth and age
To him a painful thought; he joys to think
His journey near a close; heaven is his home.
More happy far that man, though bowed down,
Though feeble be his gait, and dim his eye,
Than they, the favourites of youth and health,
Of riches and of fame, who have renounced
The glorious promise of the life to come-
Clinging to death. Or mark that female face,
The faded picture of its former self,

The garments coarse but clean; frequent at church
I've noted such a one, feeble and pale,
Yet standing, with a look of mild content,
Till beckon'd by some kindly hand to sit.
She had seen better days; there was a time
Her hands could earn her bread, and freely give
To those who were in want; but now old age
And lingering disease have made her helpless.
Yet is she happy, ay, and she is wise,
(Philosophers may sneer, and pedants frown),
Although her Bible be her only book;
And she is rich, although her only wealth
Be recollection of a well-spent life-
Be expectation of the life to come.
Examine here, explore the narrow path

In which she walks; look not for virtuous deeds
In history's arena, where the prize
Of fame or power prompts to heroic acts.
Peruse the lives themselves of men obscure;
There charity, that robs itself to give,
There fortitude in sickness nursed by want,
There courage that expects no tongue to praise,
There virtue lurks, like purest gold deep hid,
With no alloy of selfish motive mix'd.
The poor man's boon, that stints him of his bread,
Is prized more highly in the sight of Him
Who sees the heart, than golden gifts from hands
That scarce can know their countless treasures less :*
Yea, the deep sigh that heaves the poor man's breast
To see distress, and feel his willing arm
Palsied by penury, ascends to Heaven,
While ponderous bequests of lands and goods,
Ne'er rise above their earthly origin.

And should all bounty that is clothed with power Be deem'd unworthy? Far be such a thought!

"And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury; and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."-MARK, xii. 41-44.

Even when the rich bestow, there are sure tests
Of genuine charity: yes, yes, let wealth
Give other alms than silver or than gold-
Time, trouble, toil, attendance, watchfulness,
Exposure to disease; yes, let the rich

Be often seen beneath the sick man's roof;
Or cheering, with inquiries from the heart,
And hopes of health, the melancholy range
Of couches in the public wards of woe:
There let them often bless the sick man's bed,
With kind assurances that all is well

At home, that plenty smiles upon the board,
The while the hand that earn'd the frugal meal
Can hardly raise itself in sign of thanks.
Above all duties, let the rich man search
Into the cause he knoweth not, nor spurn
The suppliant wretch as guilty of a crime.

Ye bless'd with wealth (another name for power
Of doing good), oh would ye but devote
A little portion of each seventh day
To acts of justice to your fellow men!
The house of mourning silently invites.
Shun not the crowded alley; prompt descend
Into the half-sunk cell, darksome and damp;
Nor seem impatient to be gone: inquire,
Console, instruct, encourage, soothe, assist;
Read, pray, and sing a new song to the Lord;
Make tears of joy down grief-worn furrows flow.

O health! thou sun of life, without whose beam
The fairest scenes of nature seem involved
In darkness, shine upon my dreary path
Once more; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope
That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray:
Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet,
Like midnight music, stealing on the ear,
Then gliding past, and dying slow away.
Music! thou soothing power, thy charm is proved
Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul-
So light displays its loveliest effect

In lowering skies, when through the murky rack
A slanting sunbeam shoots, and instant limns
Th' ethereal curve of seven harmonious dyes,
Eliciting a splendour from the gloom:
Oh Music! still vouchsafe to tranquillise

This breast perturb'd; thy voice, though mournful, soothes;

And mournful aye are thy most beauteous lays,
Like fall of blossoms from the orchard boughs-
The autumn of the spring. Enchanting power!
Who, by thy airy spell, canst whirl the mind
Far from the busy haunts of men to vales
Where Tweed or Yarrow flows; or, spurning time,

Recall red Flodden field; or suddenly
Transport, with alter'd strain, the deafen'd ear
To Linden's plain! But what the pastoral lay,
The melting dirge, the battle's trumpet peal,
Compared to notes with sacred numbers link'd
In union, solemn, grand! Oh then the spirit,
Upborne on pinions of celestial sound,

Soars to the throne of God, and ravish'd hears
Ten thousand times ten thousand voices rise
In slow explosion-voices that erewhile
Were feebly tuned perhaps to low-breathed hymns
Of solace in the chambers of the poor,
The Sabbath worship of the friendless sick.

Blest be the female votaries, whose day No Sabbath of their pious labours prove, Whose lives are consecrated to the toil Of ministering around th' uncurtain'd couch Of pain and poverty: blest be the hands, The lovely hands (for beauty, youth, and grace, Are oft conceal'd by Pity's closest veil), That mix the cup medicinal, that bind

The wounds which ruthless warfare and disease Have to the loathsome lazar-house consign'd.

Fierce Superstition of the mitred king! Almost I could forget thy torch and stake, When I this blessed sisterhood surveyCompassion's priestesses, disciples true

Of him whose touch was health, whose single word Electrified with life the palsied arm

Of him who said, "Take up thy bed and walk!"— Of him who cried to Lazarus "Come forth!"

And he who cried to Lazarus "Come forth!" Will, when the Sabbath of the tomb is past, Call forth the dead, and reunite the dust (Transform'd and purified) to angel souls. Ecstatic hope! belief! conviction firm! How grateful 'tis to recollect the time When hope arose to faith! Faintly at first The heavenly voice is heard. Then by degrees Its music sounds perpetual in the heart. Thus he, who all the gloomy winter long Has dwelt in city crowds, wandering afield Betimes on Sabbath morn, ere yet the spring Unfold the daisy's bud, delighted hears The first lark's note, faint yet, and short the song, Check'd by the chill ungenial northern breeze; But, as the sun ascends, another springs, And still another soars on loftier wing, Till all o'erhead, the joyous choir unseen, Poised welkin-high, harmonious fills the air, As if it were a link 'tween earth and heaven.

How still the morning of the hallow'd day, &c.-P. 5. THAT the religious observance of one day in seven was a point of main importance under the Jewish and Christian dispensations, is evident from the very strong terms in which the law commanding its observance is couched-from the anxious repetitions of that law, the judgments which the prophets denounced against its violation, the fulfilment of those denunciations, the strict observance of the Sabbath during the best times of the Jewish polity; and its observance by Christ, the apostles, and the primitive Christians. What is more material, that the Sabbath was instituted not as a mere ritual observance, but as an essential article of moral duty, is proved by this consideration, that one of the objects of the institution was-the amelioration of the lot of the laborious part of the creation, animals as well as men. But the spirit of this admirable institution will be best illustrated, by bringing into one view some of those passages of scripture, whether preceptive, prophetic, or historical, in which the Sabbath is mentioned.

"Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work. But the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy

daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbatlı day."-DEUT. v. 12-15.

"Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord."-LEV. xix. 30.

"Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation: ye shall do no work therein; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings."-LEV. xxiii. 3.

"Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed."-Exod. xxiii. 12.

"Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant, even them will I bring to my holy moun tain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their b offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mines

poor man, that, even in that extremity, he capitulated that no new questions should be put to him but those already agreed on; and that he should not be obliged to be a witness against any person, and that he himself should be pardoned: so all he could tell them was, who were Lord Argyle's correspondents. The chief of them was Holmes, at London, to whom Lord Argyle writ in a cypher that had a particular curiosity in it. A double key was necessary: the one was, to show the way of placing the words or cypher, in an order very different from that in which they lay in the paper; the other was the key of the cyphers themselves, which was found among Holmes's papers when he absconded. Spence knew only the first of these; but he putting all in its true order, then by the other key they were deciphered. In these it appeared what Argyle had demanded, and what he undertook to do upon the granting his demands; but none of his letters spoke any thing of any agreement then made.

When the torture had this effect on Spence, they offered the same oath to Carstairs: and upon his refusing to take it, they put his thumbs in the screws, and drew them so hard, that as they put him to extreme torture, so they could not unscrew them, till the smith that made them was brought with his tools to take them off. So he confessed all he knew, which amounted to little more than some discourses of taking off the duke, to which he said that he answered, his principles could not come up to that; yet in this he, who was a preacher among them, was highly to blame for not revealing such black propositions; though it cannot be denied but that it is a hard thing to discover any thing that is said in confidence. And therefore I saved myself out of those difficulties, by saying to all my friends that I would not be involved in any such confidence; for as long as I thought our circumstances were such that resistance was not lawful, I thought the concealing any design in order to it was likewise unlawful; and by this means I had preserved myself. But Carstairs had at this time some secrets of great consequence from Holland trusted to him by Fagel, of which they had no suspicion; and so they asked him no questions about them. Yet Fagel saw by that, as he himself told me, how faithful Carstairs was, since he could have saved himself from torture, and merited highly, if he had discovered them. And this was the foundation of his favour with the Prince of Orange, and of the great confidence he put in him to his death.

Upon what was thus screwed out of these two persons, the Earl of Tarras, who had married the Duchess of Monmouth's eldest sister, and six or seven gentlemen of quality, were clapt up. The ministers of state were still most earnestly set on Baillie's destruction, though he was now in so languishing a state, occasioned chiefly by the bad usage he met with in prison, that if his death would have satisfied the malice of the court, that seemed to be very near. Baillie's illness increased daily; and his wife prayed for leave to attend on him, and if they feared an escape, she was willing to be put in irons; but that was denied. Nor would they suffer his daughter, a child of twelve years old, to attend him, even when he was so low that it was not probable he could live many weeks, his legs being much swelled. But upon these examinations a new method in proceeding against him was taken. An accusation was sent him, not in the form of an indictment, nor grounded on any law, but on a letter of the king's, in which he charged him, not only for a conspiracy to raise rebellion, but for being engaged in the rye-plot; of all which he was now required to purge himself by oath, otherwise the council would hold him guilty of it, and proceed accordingly. He was not, as they said, now in a criminal court upon his life, but before the council, who did only fine and imprison. It was to no purpose for him to say, that by no law, unless it was in a court of inquisition, a man could be required to swear against himself, the temptation to perjury being so strong when self-preservation was in the case, that it seemed against all law and religion to lay such a snare in a man's way. But to answer all this, it was pretended he was not now on his life, and that whatsoever he confessed was not to be made use of against his life; as if the ruin of his family, which consisted of nine children, and perpetual imprisonment, were not more terrible, especially to one so near his end as he was, than death itself. But he had to do with inexorable men; so he was required to take this oath within two days. And by that time, he not being able to appear before the council, a committee of council was sent to tender him the oath, and to take his examination. He told them he was not able to speak by reason of the low state of his health, which appeared very evidently to them; for he had almost died while they were with him. He in general protested his innocence, and his abhorrence of all designs against the king or the duke's life. For the other interrogatories, he desired they might be left with him, and he would consider them. They persisted to require him to take this oath; but he as firmly refused it. So, upon their report, the council construed this refusal to be a confession, and fined him £6000, and ordered him to lie still in prison till it was paid. After this it was thought that this matter was at an end, and that this was a final sentence; but he was still kept shut up, and denied all attendance or assistance. He seemed all the while so composed and even so cheerful, that his behaviour looked like the reviving of the spirit of the noblest of the old Greeks or Romans, or rather of the primitive Christians and first martyrs in those best days of the church. But the duke was not satisfied with all this. So the ministry applied their arts to Tarras, and the other prisoners, threatening them with all the extremities of misery, if they would not witness treasonable matter against Baillie. They also practised on their wives, and, frightening them, set them on

their husbands. In conclusion, they gained what had been so much laboured: Tarras, and one Murray of Philiphaugh, did depose some discourses that Baillie had with them before he went up to London, disposing them to a rebellion. In these they swelled up the matter beyond the truth. Yet all did not amount to a full proof; so the ministers, being afraid that a jury might not be so easy as they expected, ordered Carstairs's confession to be read in court; not as an evidence (for that had been promised him should not be done), but as that which would fully satisfy the jury, and dispose them to believe the witnesses. So Baillie was hurried on to a trial. And upon the evidence he was found guilty, and condemned to be executed that same day; so afraid they were lest death should be too quick for them. He was very little disturbed at all this; his languishing in so solitary a manner made death a very acceptable deliverance to him. He in his last speech showed that in several particulars the witnesses had wronged him. He still denied all knowledge of any design against the king's life, or the duke's; and denied any plot against the government. He thought it was lawful for subjects, being under such pressures, to try how they might be relieved from them; and their design never went farther; but he would enter into no particulars. Thus a learned and worthy gentleman, after twenty months' hard usage, was brought to such a death, in a way so full, in all the steps of it, of the spirit and practice of the courts of inquisition, that one is tempted to think, that the methods taken in it were suggested by one well studied, if not practised in them. The only excuse that was ever pretended for this infamous prosecution was, that they were sure he was guilty, and that the whole secret of the negotiation between the two kingdoms was trusted to him; and that since he would not discover it, all methods might be taken to destroy him: not considering what a precedent they made on this occasion, by which, if men were once possessed of an ill opinion of a man, they were to spare neither artifice nor violence, but to hunt him down by any means." It will surely be admitted that the practice of torture, as a mode either of detection or conviction, is the consummation of injustice and tyranny.

NOTE VII.

A people doom'd, &c.-P. 6, 1. 61.

By the tyrannous and bloody laws that were passed between the year 1661, and the ever-memorable year of the blessed revolution, the whole inhabitants of extensive districts in the Lowlands of Scotland might be said to have lived under sentence of death.

NOTE VIII.

Old men, and youths, and simple maids.-P. 6, 1. 62. One morning, between five and six hours, John Brown, having performed the worship of God in his family, was going, with a spade in his hand, to make ready some peat-ground. The mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and there examined him; who, though he was a man of a stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and solidly; which made Claverhouse to examine those whom he had taken to be his guide through the muirs, if they had heard him preach? They answered, "No, no, he was never a preacher." He said, "If he has never preached, meikle he has prayed in his time." He said to John, "Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die." When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times: one time that he stopped him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, "I gave you time to pray, and ye are begun to preach." He turned about upon his knees and said, "Sir, you know neither the nature of praying nor preaching, that calls this preaching:" then continued without confusion. When ended, Claverhouse said, "Take goodnight of your wife and children." His wife standing by with her child in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and another child of his first wife's, he came to her, and said, "Now, Marion, the day is come that I told you would come, when I spake first to you of marrying me." She said, "Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you." Then he said, "This is all I desire, I have no more to do but die." He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased and promised blessings to be multiplied upon them, and his blessing. Claverhouse ordered six men to shoot him; the most part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground. Claverhouse said to his wife, "What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?" She said, "I thought ever much of him, and now as much as ever." He said, "It were justice to lay thee beside him." She said, "If ye were permitted, I doubt not but your cruelty would go that length; but how will ye make answer for this morning's work?" He said, "To man I can be answerable; and for God, I will take him in mine own hand." Claverhouse mounted his horse, and marched, and left her, with the corpse of her dead husband lying there. She set the bairn on the ground, and tied up his head, and straighted his body, and covered him in her plaid, and sat down, and wept over him. It being a very desert place, where never victual grew, and far from neighbours, it was some time before any friends came to her; the first that came was a very fit hand, that old singular Christian woman in the Cummerhead, named Elizabeth Menzies, three miles distant, who had been tried with the violent death of her husband at Pentland, afterwards of two worthy sons, Thomas Weir, who was killed at Drumclog, and David Steel, who was suddenly shot afterwards when taken. The said Marion Weir, sitting upon her husband's grave, told me,

that before that, she could see no blood but she was in danger to | faint, and yet she was helped to be a witness to all this, without either fainting or confusion; except when the shots were let off, her eyes dazzled. His corpse was buried at the end of his house, where he was slain.-PEDEN'S LIFE.

Claverhouse was rewarded by his master, James, with the title of Viscount Dundee, and with the confiscated lands and goods of the sufferers. A late memoir-writer, the slanderer of Sydney and Russel, apostrophises this dastardly murderer as a generous and heroic character.

James Stewart, a boy, "came in from the west country to see a relation of his in prison at Edinburgh. By what means I know not the other got out, and he was found in the room whence the other escaped; whereupon he was brought before a committee of the council, and soon ensnared by their questions. When he was silent on some heads, and would not answer, some papers before me bear, that Sir George M'Kenzie threatened to take out his tongue with a pair of pincers. Precisely on his answers, he was condemned, and in a few days after he was taken with the rest (six others), and executed at the Gallow-lee."-WODROW, b. iii. c. 5. § 4., year 1681.

"Marion Harvie, a young woman, not twenty years of age, on her way to the place of execution, was interrupted in her devotions; on which she turned to her fellow prisoner, Isabel Alison, and said, Come, Isabel, let us sing the 23d psalm:' which accordingly they did, Marion repeating the psalm line by line without book. Being come to the scaffold, after singing the 84th psalm, and reading the 3d of Malachi, she said, I am come here to-day for avowing Christ to be the head of his church, and king in Zion. They say, I would murder; but I declare, I am free of all matters of fact; I could never take the life of a chicken but my heart shrinked. But it is only for my judgment of things that I am brought here. I leave my blood on the council and the duke of York.' At this the soldiers interrupted her, and would not allow her to speak any."-CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

NOTE IX.

But that morn.-P. 6, 1. 63.

NOTE XIII.

The party for his judge.—P. 7, 1. 71.

One most absurdly iniquitous article of our civil code, is that which confers on creditors a jurisdiction over their debtorsa jurisdiction extending to the power of inflicting perpetual imprisonment. This power, too, is most rigorously exercised on the least culpable of the offenders. The poor mechanic who owes a few pounds for a house to shelter him, or for bread to eat-the wreck of whose substance would be invisible in the abyss of chancery proceedings-is left to starve and to rot in a jail, while the great, the wholesale bankrupt, who has staked a swindled capital on the hazard table of speculation, is sent forth with a judicial diploma, authorising him to recommence the practice of his former art. If a man be a fraudulent bank

NOTE X.

By Cameron thunder'd.-P. 6, 1. 83.

"The last night of his life, he was in the house of William Mitchell in Meadowhead, at the water of Ayr, where about twenty-three horse and forty foot had continued with him that week. That morning, a woman gave him water to wash his face and hands; and having washed and dried them with a towel, he looked to his hands, and laid them on his face, saying, This is their last washing; I have need to make them clean, for there are many to see them.' At this the woman's mother wept. He said, Weep not for me, but for yourself and yours, and for the sins of a sinful land, for ye have many melancholy, sorrowful, and weary days before you.'

The people who remained with him were in some hesitation whether they should abide together for their own defence, or disperse and shift for themselves. But that day, being the 22d of July, they were surprised by Bruce of Earlshall; who having got command of Airly's troop and Strahan's dragoons, upon notice given him by Sir John Cochran of Ochiltree, came furiously upon them, about four o'clock in the afternoon, when lying on the east end of Airsmoss. When they saw the enemy approaching, and no possibility of escaping, they all gathered round about him while he prayed a short word; wherein he repeated this expression thrice over, Lord, spare the green, and take the ripe.' When ended, he said to his brother, with great intrepidity, Come, let us fight it out to the last; for this is the day that I have longed for, and the day that I have prayed for, to die fighting against our Lord's avowed enemies; this is the day that we will get the crown.' And to the rest he said, 'Be encouraged all of you to fight it out valiantly; for all of you that shall fall this day, I see heaven's gates open to receive you.'

But the enemy approaching, they immediately drew up eight horse with him on the right, the rest with valiant Hackston on the left, and the foot in the middle, where they all behaved with much bravery, until overpowered by a superior number. At last Hackston was taken prisoner, and Mr Cameron was killed on the spot, and his head and hands cut off by one Murray, and taken to Edinburgh. His father being in prison for the same cause, they carried them to him, to add grief unto his former sorrow, and inquired at him if he knew them. He took his son's hands and head, which were very fair, being a man of a fair complexion with his own hair, and kissed them and said, I know, I know them; they are my son's, my own dear son's; it is the Lord, good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.' After which, by order of the council, his head was fixed upon the Nether-bow Port, and his hands beside it, with the fingers upward."-CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

NOTE XI.

Or by Renwick pour'd.-P. 6, 1. 84. "He was of stature somewhat low, of a fair complexion, and like another young David, of a ruddy and beautiful countenance. Most men spoke well of him after he was dead; even his murderers, as well as others, said they thought he went to heaven.

disappointed and irritated creditor, but by the tribunals before which other crimes are tried. The present state of this branch of the law offers one great incitement to dishonesty-the certainty that innocence is not more safe than guilt. All bankrupt debtors are, or may be, treated as if they were dishonest, that is, as if they refused (for such is the idea of the law), though able

to pay.

It may be said, that imprisonment for debt is necessary, not as a punishment of guilt, but as a security to creditors. Now, what sort of a security is this? It plainly amounts to this, that a debtor by the act of incurring debt, grants a security, not only over his lands and his chattels, but his person. Ought not such a bargain to be reprobated, as contrary to every principle of justice and expediency? And what would follow if the power of giving and receiving this species of corporal security were taken away? Only this, that in proportion to the diminution of the security, lenders and sellers would be more circumspect in giving credit. And who will deny that a little more caution in this respect would be of infinite advantage to creditors, as well as to debtors? "But you strike," it is said, "at the roots of trade, if you abrogate the law of imprisonment." The answer is, that nobody would propose to abrogate the law. But let this law be applied like other laws-by the judge, not by the party. It is all, however, a mere gratuitous and rashly-received position, that the prosperity of trade depends, in the slightest degree, on the law of imprisonment for debt. In truth, there prevails at present a superstitious veneration for commerce. It is an idol to which we are every day sacrificing thousands of human victims. It is an idol for whose sake we are endangering our very existence. Why, at a moment like the present, is not every man armed? Why is not the art of war the business of the people? Why should we fear when we might defy? There are in this island a million of strong right hands, a million of intrepid hearts. Were each right hand armed, what should we have to dread from the despair-whetted ambition of the Parisian despot, or the rapacious cupidity of his slaves? Even a landing would be impossible. The shores of Albion would present to the invaders one unbroken line of bayonets.

NOTE XIV.

The mark which rashness branded on their names.-P. 7, 1. 92. I am convinced that in England, and especially in London, such is the dispatch used in criminal proceedings, unwarranted verdicts are sometimes pronounced. The mechanical notion of weighing evidence seems to have got an unfortunate hold of the minds of jurymen; and it thus happens, that if there be something like evidence on the one side, and no evidence on the other, the one scale, as it is called, of the judicial balance sinks, and the proof is estimated, not by what it is in itself, but by what it is in comparison of something else. The law of England recognises the evidence of one witness as sufficient to warrant a capital convic. tion. The law of God was different: "Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses; but one witness shall not testify against any person, to cause him to die."-NUMB. Xxxv. 30.

"At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death."-DEUT. xvii. 6.