Page:Worksofrightrevb00strauoft.djvu/30

 peared on that difficult and important subject. Not long after, his Sincere, Devout, and Pious Christian were successively laid before the public, and were received with much favour. The Catholic Bishops of Ireland bestowed on them the highest encomiums, and strongly recommended them to the use of the faithful. The reputation of Dr Hay as an author was now established, and the most distinguished prelates in both kingdoms entered into correspondence with him. The British Government having at length evinced a disposition to repeal some of the most oppressive of the penal laws which had so long been a disgrace to the legislature. Bishop Hay seized the favourable moment to procure some relief for the Catholics of Scotland, who felt even more heavily than their brethren in England and Ireland the iron rod of persecution. The fanatics, all over Scotland, immediately took alarm. Declarations and Resolutions were everywhere published against the mitigation of the penal statutes. The press teemed with misrepresentations and calumnies, the pulpits resounded with furious invectives against Catholics. The popular fury was especially directed against the Bishop, and a day was fixed for burning the chapel and house which he had lately built in Chalmers' Close, High Street. Handbills were distributed inviting all to aid in the good work, as it was impiously termed; and at length, on the 2d of February 1779, the mob assembled, and, with the assistance of five hundred sailors from Leith, proceeded to their work of destruction. Repeated applications were made to the Lord Provost for protection against the rioters, but he was deaf to all entreaties. The Duke of Buccleuch, and some other officers, fired with indignation at such daring excesses, hastened, with a few troops, to the spot, seized the most forward of the incendiaries, and would have dispersed the mob, but