Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/201

Rh acts as lord advocate, was the proclamation of Charles II. on the 5th of February, 1649; and he was on the 10th of March, in the same year, appointed to his long-looked-for post of lord register, in place of Gibson of Durie, superseded by the act of classes. At the battle of Dunbar, in 1650, he was one of the committee of the estates appointed to superintend the military motions of Leslie, and was urgent in pressing the measure which is reputed to have lost the day to the Scots. He was naturally accused of treachery, but the charge has not been supported. "Waristoun," says Burnet, "was too hot, and Lesley was too cold, and yielded too easily to their humours, which he ought not to have done;" and the mistake may be attributed to the obstinacy of those, who, great in the cabinet and conventicle, thought they must be equally great in war.

Warriston was among the few persons who in the committee of estates refused to accede to the treaty of Charles II. at Breda; an act of stubborn consistency, which, joined to others of a like nature, sealed his doom in the royal heart. After the battle of Dunbar, the repeal of the act of classes, which was found necessary as a means of reconstructing the army, again called forth his jaw-breaking powers. He wrote "a most solid letter" on the subject to the meeting held at St Andrews, July 18, 1651, which appears never to have been read, but which has been preserved by the careful Wodrow for the benefit of posterity. He wrote several short treatises on "the sinfulness of joining malignants," destroying their jaws in a very considerate and logical manner. One of these is extant, and lays down its aim as follows:

"The first question concerning the sinfulness of the publick resolutions, hath bene handled in a former tractat. The other question remaines, anent ye sinfulness and unlawfulness of the concurrence of particular persons." The question is proposed in the following terms:—"vizt, when God's covenanted people intrusts God's covenanted interest to the power of God's anti-covenanted enemies,—though upon pretence to fight against ane other anti-covenanted enemy whether a conscienscious covenanter can lawfullie concurre with such a partie in such a cause, or may lawfullie abstane, and rather give testimonie by suffering against both parties and causes, as sinfull and prejudiciall to God's honour and interest. It is presupposed a dutie to oppose the common enemie. The question is anent the meanes of resisting the unjust invader."

"Three things premitted. I. The clearing of terms. II. Some distinctions. III. Some conjunctions handled." The postulates are, perhaps, rather too sweeping for general opinion, but, presuming them to be granted, the reasonings of this lay divine are certainly sufficiently logical within their narrow space, and may have appeared as mathematical demonstrations to those who admitted the deep sin of accepting assistance from opponents in religious opinion. This resistance appears, however, to have been of a negative nature, and not to have extended to the full extremity of the remonstrance of the west; at least when called on for an explanation by the committee of Estates, he declined owning connexion with it: "Warreston did grant that he did see it, was at the voting of it, but refussed to give his votte therin. He denayed that he wes accessorey to the contriving of it at first."

After this period he appears to have been for some time sick of the fierce politics in which he had been so long engaged, and to have retired himself into the bosom of a large family. He is accused by a contemporary—not of much credit—of peculation, in having accepted sums of money for the disposal of offices under him; and the same person in the same page states the improbable circumstance of his having restored the money so gained, on all the offices