c. &c book, because we can only select parts of that evidence, which owes its strength to its concatenation, and which will be weakened whenever it is disjoined. The account of the feizure of these controverted let ters is thus given by the queen's enemies. "That in the caftell of Edinburgh thair was left be "the Erle of Bothwell, before his fleeing away, and was "fend for be ane George Dalgleish, his fervand, who was "taken be the Erle of Mortoun, ane finall gylt coffer, not fully ane fute lang, garnisht in findrie places, with "the Roman letter F. undèr ane king's crowne; wharin "were certane letteris and writings weel knawin, and "be aithis to be affirmit to have been written with the Quene of Scottis awn hand to the Erle." The papers in the box were faid to be eight letters in French, fome love fonnets in French alfo, and a promise of marriage by the Queen to Bothwell. To the reality of these letters our author makes fome confiderable objections, from the nature of things; but as fuch arguments do not always convince, we will pafs to the evidence of facts. On June 15, 1567, the queen delivered herself to, Morton, and his party, who imprisoned her. June 20, 1567, Dalgleish was feized, and fix days after was examined by Morton; his examination is ftill extant, and there is no mention of this fatal box. Dec. 4, 1567, Murray's fecret council published an act, in which is the first mention of thefe letters, and in which they are faid to be written and fubfcrivit with ber awin hand. Ten days after Murray's first parliament met, and passed an act, in which they mention previe letters, letters written balelie [wholly] with her awin band. The difference between written and subscribed, and wholly written, gives the author juft reafon to fufpect, first, a forgery, and then a variation of the forgery. It is indeed very remarkable, that the first account afferts more than the fecond, though the fecond contains all the truth; for the letters, whether written by the queen or not, were not fubfcribed. Had the fecond account differed from the first only by fomething added, the first might have contained truth, though not all the truth; but as the fecond corrects the first by diminution, the first cannot be cleared from falfhood. In October 1568, thefe letters were fhewn at York to Elizabeth's commiffioners, by the agents of Murray, but not in their public character as commiffioners, but by way of private information, and were not therefore expofed to Mary's commiffioners. Mary, however, hearing that fome letters were intended to be produced against her, directed her commiffioners to require them for her infpection, and, in the mean time, to declare them falfe and feigned, forged and invented, obferving that there were many that could counterfeit her hand. To counterfeit a name is eafy, to counterfeit a hand through eight letters very difficult. But it does not appear that the letters were ever fhewn to those who would defire to detect them; and to the English commiffioners a rude and remote imitation might be fufficient, fince they were not shewn as judicial proofs; and why they were not fhewn as proofs, no other reafon can be given than they must have then been examined, and that examination would have detected the forgery. Thefe These letters, thus timorously and fufpiciously communicated, were all the evidence against Mary; for the fervants of Bothwell, executed for the murder of the king, acquitted the queen at the hour of death. These letters were fo neceffary to Murray, that he alledges them as the reafon of the queen's imprisonment, though he im→ prifoned her on the 16th, and pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.. Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was fufpended, the authority fhould have been put out of doubt; yet that fuch letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton, who accufed the queen, and Crawfurd, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accufers. Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning them; and Hulet, mentioned /5 in them, though then in prifon, was never called to authenticate them, nor was his confeffion produced against Mary till death had left him no power to disown it. Elizabeth, indeed, was eafily fatisfied; fhe declared herself ready to receive the proofs against Mary, and abfolutely refused Mary the liberty of confronting her accufers, and making her defence. Before fuch a judge, a very little proof would be fufficient. She gave the accufers of Mary leave to go to Scotland, and the box and letters were feen no more. They have been fince loft, and the discovery, which comparison of writing might have made, is now no longer poffible. Hume has, however, endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but his account, fays our author, is contradicted almoft in every fentence by the records, which, it appears, he has himself perused. In the next part, the authenticity of the letters is examined, and it feems to be proved beyond contradiction, that the French letters, fuppofed to have been written by Mary, are tranflated from the Scotch copy, and, if originals, which it was fo much the interest of fuch numbers to preferve, are wanting, it is much more likely that they never existed, than that they have been loft. The arguments ufed by Dr. Robertson, to prove the genuineness of the letters, are next examined. Robertfor makes ufe principally of what he calls the internal evidence, which, amounting at mot to conjecture, is oppofed by conjecture equally probable. In examining the confeffion of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, this new apologift of Mary feems to gain ground upon her accufer. Paris is mentioned in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the rest of Bothwell's fervants were executed, clearing the queen in the last moment, Paris, inftead of fuffering his trial with the reft at Edinburgh, was conveyed to St. Andrews, where Murray was abfolute, put into a dungeon of Murray's citadel, and two years after condemned by Murray himself nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a confeffion in his name, without the regular teftifications, was fent to Cecil, at what exact time nobody can tell. Of this confeffion, Lefly, bishop of Ross, openly denied the genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppreffed by Elizabeth; and another hiftorian of that time. declares, that Paris died without any confeffion; and the confeffion itself was never fhewn to Mary, or to Mary's Mary's commiffioners. The author makes this reflection: "From the violent prefumptions that arife from their carrying this poor ignorant ftranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary feat of juftice; their keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not producing him with their other evidences, fo as he might have been publicly queftioned; the pofitive and direct teftimony of the author of Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with the public affirmation of the bishop of Rofs at the time of Paris's death, that he had vindicated the queen with his dying breath; the behaviour of Murray, Morton, Buchanan, and even of Hay, the attefter of this pretended confeffion, on that occafion; their clofe and referved filence at the time when they must have had this confeffion of Paris in their pocket; and their publishing every other circumftance that could tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confeffion, the only direct evidence of her fuppofed guilt; all this duly and difpaffionately confidered, I think, one may fafely conclude, that it was judged not fit to expofe fo foon to light this piece of evidence against the queen; which a cloud of witneffes, living, and prefent at Paris's execution, would furely have given clear teftimony againft, as a notorious impofture." Mr. Hume, indeed, obferves, "It is in vain at present to feek for improbabilities in Nicholas Hubert's dying confeffion, and to magnify the fmalleft difficulties into a contradiction. It was certainly a regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to have been canvaffed at the time, if the perfons, whom it con |