your majesty will, in your royal wisdom, find out such means as shall be most proper for making your religious purposes more effectual, than, to our deep regret, they have hitherto been!"*

This assembly presented a congratulatory address to her majesty, upon her recovery from sickness-passed an act, for the better execution of the laws against profaneness-for further regulating the trial of probationers-for discouraging unworthy bursars, and for restoring and preserving unity in this church. They also published an act and recommendation, in favours of the society for propagating christian knowledge, which is stated to be already maintaining seventeen schools, in some of which, there were not fewer than one hundred and eighteen scholars, and an act for procuring the better execution of former acts against popery, and for preventing the growth thereof. This assembly, also "confirmed a sentence of the synod of Lothian, appointing Mr. James Webster, or any who will join with him, in charging Mr. John Simson, professor of Divinity at Glasgow, with error, to table their complaint before the presbytery where he lives, and allowing any person, or persons, that are willing to assist Mr. Webster in that pursuit, in point of form, to give him their assistance, and declaring, that by so doing, they shall not be accounted libellers, unless they engage in the cause."+

Great progress was, in the meantime, making in the change of persons who held offices of trust, both in Scotland and in England. Thomas Kennedy and John Carnegy of Boisack, two notorious Jacobites, were appointed, the former lord advocate for Scotland, and the latter, solicitor general. The former of these offices, had been in the possession of Sir James Stuart, from an early period, in the reign of king William, till a little after the Union, when it was conferred on Sir David Dalrymple, who, as we have already stated, was removed, on account of the pretender's medal, presented to the faculty of advocates by the dutchess of Gordon. The office was again bestowed upon Sir James, who held

*Acts of Assembly, 1714.

Index to Unprinted Acts of Assembly, 1714.

it till his death, which happened somewhat more than a year previous to the appointment of Mr. Kennedy. The ministry, according to Lockhart, had determined on letting the office fall, and applying the money to their own purposes; but the outcry of the people, seconded by the earl of Marr, at whose instance Mr. Kennedy was appointed, altered their determination. The place of solicitor, had been filled by Sir James Stuart, son to the late lord advocate, who was equally obnoxious with his father to the Scotish Jacobites, and they had long laboured to have him displaced, but without effect, till now, that, by a speech in the house of commons, he so exasperated the whole party, that a peremptory message was sent to lord Oxford, immediately to dismiss him, or they would move the house to address the queen to that effect. With this request, Oxford thought it prudent to comply, and the place was, at the instance of lord Bolingbroke, bestowed upon his friend and dependant, Mr. Carnegy.*

It was about the same time that the duke of Argyle was under the necessity of selling his troop of Scotish horse guards, and the earl of Dundonald, being well affected in a certain quarter, was pitched upon as a proper person to buy it. The earl of Stair, who was known to be zealous for the protestant succession, and whose influence in Scotland was greatly feared by the tories, was also called upon to sell his regiment of Scots Greys to the earl of Portmore, in whose hands, it was thought, they would be in safer keeping. It had also been the intention of Bolingbroke and Marr, to have all the lord lieutenants of Scotland appointed from among their own creatures, and thus they would have had the whole militia of Scotland entirely at their own disposal; but it failed, as did the whole project at last, from the want of cordiality, or rather from the inveterate selfishness of the parties, who could never so far master their individual propensities, as to bring their united strength to bear upon the grand objects of their ambition.

It cannot be denied, but that, at this time, the prospects of the Jacobites were of the most flattering description, yet

*Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 458, 459.

there were dark shades in the distance, indicating a storm, that would require to be met with prudence and unanimity. Among the mob of England, the cant of the king and the church had been pretty generally diffused. "Men were

almost openly enlisted for the service of the pretender, and his health, as James VIII., was as openly pledged, at numerous meetings and clubs, held by Jacobites of all ranks and denominations in the metropolis." But loyalty and devotion, by a warm fireside, over a good dinner, and plenty of wine, and the same qualities in the tented field, where all that the many can reasonably expect is hard fare, hard blows, and unprofitable honour, are very different things, as the friends of James found to their cost, when they afterwards made the experiment. There was also a numerous and powerful party, equally ambitious with themselves, who were set upon maintaining the liberties of the kingdom, and the protestant succession, whatever it might cost them, and who were equally zealous in their preparations, and in as much as the law was yet upon their side, could do so, with far more effect. They possessed also great advantages over their opponents, in case of coming suddenly to extremities, in having the principal military characters in the kingdom, Marlborough, Argyle, Cadogan, Stanhope, and Stair, entirely of their party.

In Scotland, where the pretender's friends, if not the most numerous, were always understood to be the most forward, and being less accustomed to the sweets of a peaceful and luxurious life, and having less to lose, were more likely to come forward in his behalf with the first opportunity, matters were scarcely more favourable. The consultations of the disaffected had been long openly, though artfully carried on, under the cover of hunting matches, and horse races, where the orgies of dissipation were probably as much attended to as those of rebellion. On the contrary, the well-affected met

• Coxe's Life of Marlborough, vol. iii. p. 559.

The following is an account of one of these masked meetings, from a publication of the time:

"Upon Saturday, the 29th of May, there was a great confluence of gentlemen and country people, at Lochmaben, on the occasion of a horse race there; two plates, which were the prizes, had peculiar devices; the one had a woman

openly and avowedly, for the purpose of supporting the dignity of the laws, and counteracting these secret machinationspublished their resolutions to the world, calling upon all their fellow subjects, to unite in defeating the intrigues of a restless and abandoned faction, which, in the paltry hope of personal aggrandizement, was about to plunge the nation into all the horrors of civil war, in order to subject it, in the issue, to the misrule of the emissaries of France and of Rome. Nor did they content themselves with holding public meetings and publishing resolutions. They also set about providing arms and ammunition, plenty of which they obtained from Holland, through the connivance of the custom-house officers, all of whom, Lockhart informs us, were "notoriously disaffected to the queen's present administration."*

Among those who distinguished themselves in this manner, the Hanoverian club at Edinburgh deserves to be mentioned with peculiar honour. This club was formed by the earl of Buchan, his brothers, Thomas and Charles Erskines, Mr. George Drummond, Mr. Alexander Campbell, commissary of artillery, Robert Stuart, one of the regents of the college

with balances in her hand, the emblem of justice, and over the head was Justitia (Justice), and at a little distance, Suum Cuique (to every man his own). The other, had several men with their heads downwards, in a tumbling posture, and one eminent person erected above the rest, with that scripture, Ezek. xxi. 27. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until he come; whose right it is and I will give it him." After the race, the popish and Jacobite gentry, such as Francis Maxwell of Tinwall, John Maxwell his brother, Robert Johnston of Wamphrey, Robert Carruthers of Rammersscales, the master of Burleigh (who is under the sentence of death, for murder, and made his escape out of the tolbooth of Edinburgh, a little before he was to have been executed), with several others I could name, went to the cross, where, in a very solemn manner, before hundreds of witnesses, with drums beating, and colours displayed, they did upon their knees, drink their king's health. The master of Burleigh, began the health, with a God damn them that would not drink it, &c. The year before, they had another such meeting, on the like occasion, in the same place; and their plate had the king in the royal oak, with this inscription, " God will restore;" and medals were produced, with the pretender's head on the one side, with this motto, cujus est (whose right it is), and on the reverse, Britannia, or the Islands of Great Britain, with this inscription, reddite, (return). But yet the government took no notice of them." Rae's History of the Rebellion, pp. 49, 50.

• Rae's History of the Rebellion, pp. 41, 42. Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 465.

of Edinburgh, Mr. James Nimmo, John Martin of Ayres, &c. &c. and was of singular use in discovering, by its watchful vigilance, every motion of the Jacobites and their friends, whether at home or abroad, and by the vigour of its correspondence, keeping alive the zeal and spirit of the people in every quarter of the country, especially in the south and in the western shires, where, in particular places, the Jacobites were numerous and powerful. In consequence of the advice and information of the above gentlemen, a meeting was held at Dalmellington, in Kyle, in the month of March, where it was unanimously resolved, that the imminent danger to which the civil and religious liberties of the nation were exposed, from "the growth of popery, and the insults of papists and Jacobites upon our laws and constitution," it was become necessary, "for strengthening one another's hands," to lay down measures for their joint security.

In pursuance of these measures, particular meetings were kept in the several districts for training the people to the use of arms, that so they might be in a condition to defend themselves, their religion and liberty, by whom, or whensoever they might be attacked. Considerable sums of money were also advanced by the well disposed, with whom the ministers of the gospel generally concurred, for providing arms and ammunition for such as had not the means of providing themselves with these now necessary articles; and, as they had nothing in view but the preservation of that succession which had been established by act of parliament, and for which the ministry had hitherto made her majesty, in all her public speeches, express the highest deference, they supposed themselves to be performing nothing more than the duty of affectionate and loyal subjects. Had they been acting for the pretender, they had certainly been overlooked, if, like the highland clans, they had not been rewarded for their diligence; but the army had occupied too much of the attention of Bolingbroke and his associates of late, and excited their fears too sensibly, for them to suffer such formidable preparations in aid of it quietly to take effect. Orders were instantly sent down to seize upon their arms and ammunition, and these orders the Jacobites showed an extreme avidity to