Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/311

Rh loyal, to sustain them in their indigent state until they are found guilty. The law has brought them to England to be tried by foreign juries—so far it is well—but no law can hinder a Scotsman to wish that his countrymen, not hitherto condemned, should not be a derision to strangers, or perish for want of necessary defence or sustenance out of their own country." To the forfeitures he was also decidedly hostile, and some of his reasons for this hostility threw a particular light upon the state of Scotland at that period. "There are," he says, " none of the rebels who have not friends among the king's faithful subjects, and it is not easy to guess, how far a security of this kind, unnecessarily pushed, may alienate the affections, even of these from the government. But in particular, as this relates to Scotland, the difficulty will be insurmountable. I may venture to say, there are not two hundred gentlemen in the whole kingdom who are not very nearly related to some one or other of the rebels. Is it possible that a man can see his daughter, his grandchildren, his nephews, or cousins, reduced to beggary and starving unnecessarily by a government, without thinking very ill of it, and where this is the case of a whole nation, I tremble to think what dissatisfactions it will produce against a settlement so necessary for the happiness of Britain. If all the rebels, with their wives and children, and immediate dependents, could be at once rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonishing; but time would commit it to oblivion, and the danger would be less to the constitution, than when thousands of innocents punished with misery and want, for the offences of their friends, are suffered to wander about the country sighing out their complaints to heaven, and drawing at once the compassion and moving the indignation of every human creature." "To satisfy," he adds, "any person that the forfeitures in Scotland will scarce defray the charges of the commission, if the saving clause in favour of the creditors takes place, I offer but two considerations that, upon enquiry, will be found incontestible. First, it is certain, that of all the gentlemen who launched out into the late rebellion, the tenth man was not easy in his circumstances, and if you abate a dozen of gentlemen, the remainder upon paying their debts could not produce much money clear, nor was there any thing more open to observation, than that the men of estates, however disaffected in their principles, kept themselves within the law, when at the same time men supposed loyal, in hopes of bettering their low fortunes, broke loose. Besides, it is known that the titles by which almost all the estates in Scotland are possessed are diligences upon debts affecting those estates purchased in the proprietors' own name or in that of some trustee: now, it is certain, that when the commissioners of enquiry begin to seize such estates, besides the debts truly due to real creditors, such a number of latent debts will be trumped up, not distinguishable from the true ones by any else than the proprietors, as will make the inquiry fruitless and the commission a charge upon the treasury, as well as a nuisance to the nation."

Such Avere the arguments, drawn from expediency, and the state of the country, by which forbearance on the part of the government was recommended by this excellent man, though it appears that they had little effect but to excite a suspicion of his own loyalty. In spite of all this, his character made him too powerful to be resisted. In 1716, he was rewarded for his services by the office of advocate-depute, that is, he became one of the inferior prosecutors for the crown. On the 20th of March, he is found writing thus to his principal, the lord advocate: "Yesterday I was qualified, the Lord knows how, as your depute. The justice clerk shows a grim sort of civility towards me, because he finds me plaguey stubborn. I waited upon him, however, and on the other lords, to the end they might fix on a dyet for the tryall of the Episcopall clergy. The justice clerk does not smile on their prosecution, because it is not his own contrivance;