Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/157

Rh many to the scaffold, was not so much owing to the Scottish statesmen and rulers, as to the prelates, by whom the persecution was urged onward, and at whose hands the blood of the sufferers would be required. He then declared his cheerful readiness to die for the cause of God, the covenants, and the work of reformation, once the glory of Scotland. Here, on being interrupted by loud weeping, he told the people that it was their prayers not their tears which were needed now. After expressing his triumphant assurance of the bliss into which he was about to enter, and consoling them with the thought, he suddenly broke off into the following sublime, prophet-like declaration, which has so often stirred the heart of Scottish piety to its lowest depths: "And now, I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father and mother, friends and relations, farewell the world and all delights, farewell meat and drink, farewell sun, moon, and stars ! Welcome God and Father; welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant; welcome blessed Spirit of grace, and God of all consolation; welcome glory, welcome eternal life, and welcome death!"

Such was the departure of Hugh M'Kail, standing upon an ignominious ladder, and yet upon the threshold of heaven, and all but glorified before he had departed. And below was a crowd among whom nothing was heard but heavy groans and loud lamentation. It was a death such as only a martyr can die, and which the living might well have envied.

MACKENZIE, .—In the list of those adventurers who have explored the wild recesses of North America, and acted as the pioneers of Anglo-Saxon civilization, the name of Sir Alexander Mackenzie occupies a place inferior to none. Originally, however, an obscure mercantile adventurer, we are unable to ascertain the early training through which he not only became such an enterprising and observant traveller, but so excellent a write'r in the account he has left of his journey. He is supposed to have been a native of Inverness, and to have emigrated to Canada while still a very young man. The first account we have of him is from himself, in his general history of the fur trade prefixed to the narrative of his travels, when he held a situation in the counting-house of Mr. Gregory, one of the partners of the North-West Fur Company. After he had been in this situation for five years, Mackenzie, in 1784, set off to seek his fortune at Detroit, having been intrusted for this purpose with a small venture of goods, on condition of proceeding to the back settlements or Indian country in the following spring. He accordingly set off on this half-mercantile half-exploratory journey with a party of associates; but on arriving at the scene of enterprise, they soon found themselves regarded as intruders by those Europeans who had established themselves in the country and full pre-occupation of the trade, and who not only opposed their progress, but stirred up the natives against them; and after the "severest struggle ever known in that part of the world," in which one of the partners of the company was murdered, another lamed, and a clerk shot through his powder-horn, by which the bullet was prevented from passing through his body, the jealous occupants at last admitted the new-comers to a share in their trade in 1787.

The acquaintanceship which Mackenzie had acquired of the country and the native tribes, during a residence of several years at Fort Chipewyan, situated at the head of the Athabasca Lake, in the territory of the savages to the west of Hudson's Bay, and the intelligence, courage, and enterprising character which he had already displayed, pointed him out to his employers as a fit person to be