dear-bought liberties in torrents of blood, and compel them to take refuge once more under a master.
I am aware of your excuse. You gave your votes to the men who favoured the acquisition of privilege by you. But did they do so for your sake. With unutterable contempt for your silly vanity, they called you wise, liberal, enlightened, superior to every old prejudice, liable to no delusion—and what followed? Having risen on your necks to power, they set an example of greed of money never before witnessed among European statesmen. Relying on your want of discernment, they sold you to Popery to retain pay. In no one instance did they give preferment beyond the narrow circle of their own faction. With or without even a pretext of merit, their associate was promoted, and rarely had he other merit than that of adherence to the venal faction. Even the national government has, in such hands, sunk into contempt over the land, because neither graced by talents nor supported by virtue.
It may be that, on account of benefits thanklessly enjoyed, or prodigally wasted or neglected, the Lord of all is about to withdraw the singular patronage which has so long been bestowed on our favoured land. But the government of this world is administered on a principle of mercy, and before final ruin is inflicted opportunity for repentance is given. In deserting the cause for which our fathers contended, and the privileges which a beneficent Providence granted to their prayers, their efforts, and their sufferings, a great crime has been committed; but, on detecting the fallacies and the moral weaknesses by which we have been misled, a final and fatal lapse may yet, perhaps, be avoided. If ten righteous persons could have saved a guilty city, I cannot forget that in every city and in every county of Scotland, there have been many discerning persons of every station whom the blind subserviency to Popery never reached, and against whom the bitter things I have to write are not directed. I sincerely trust that the dangerous error into which the Protestants of Scotland have recently fallen, has been the result of not understanding clearly what Popery truly is, and its sure tendency to undermine and ultimately to destroy the worth, liberty, and prosperity of nations. In this hope, I propose to state what I regard as the true nature of Popery—what our fathers did to protect us against it—and how the bulwarks which they reared have, by the criminal ignorance and dereliction of duty on the part of their posterity, been suffered to fall into decay, and the foe to enter by unrepaired and unguarded breaches in every quarter. Their example will point out our duty. It is very probable that what I write may have little success or effect. That will be your misfortune and not mine, yo nominal Protestants of Scotland. This world is not mine, and I claim no right to rule it, intellectually or otherwise. Enough for me to have attempted to perform my own duty, leaving the result to the Power to whom all belongs. Yet, I have some hope for my country. The tombs of the martyrs in Ayrshire have at length not testified in vain. The inhabitants of its fields, and towns, and villages, have recently done their duty, and I trust that, independent of my aid, the day is dawning over the land.
Still you must not expect that I am to address you in the style of those who have with flattery obtained the suffrages you have abused. I frankly say, that in my estimation never was there a people led away from truth, and duty, by pretexts so utterly contemptible as those which have imposed for years on Scotsmen. I state, as a ready example, the names by which many of you have designated yourselves; viz., Whigs and Reformers: the result of whose triumph has been a sliding backward and downward into Popery! But what and who is a Whig?
The name Whig, borrowed from us by the English, was originally applied in derision to the persecuted adherents of the Covenant, by which the Scottish people bound themselves to support the Protestant faith. These men held not their lives dear to them in comparison of fidelity to their engagement. Gradually their indomitable spirit converted a contemptuous epithet into an honourable designation. When the royal Papists, Charles and James II. (or VII.,) attempted to train or lead them back to Popery, by imposing a system of forms and ceremonial like that of the English prelacy, who for a brief period had seemed accessible to Popery, the Scottish Whigs discerned the snare,
