of court, which was done accordingly. The purport of this paper, which was drawn up with all that peculiarly artful acuteness, for which Lovat had been all his days distinguished, was to discredit the evidence that had been adduced against him; and, under the pretence of bringing forward exculpatory witnesses, to procure a delay of procedure. The depositions of Schevize of Muirton, his lordship contended, had not even common probability; and "I am sure," he added, "your lordships cannot conceive any good opinion of a person who voluntarily offers himself as an evidence to little trifling conversations, which the only opportunity he had of hearing, was his eating at my table when he must have starved at his own-and perished for cold, unless my money had furnished him with clothes." He was also particularly inveterate at "the three infamous fellows calling themselves secretaries. The one," says he, "I on this occasion name first, is Murray, the most abandoned of mankind; who, forgetting his allegiance to his king and country, has, according to his own confession, endeavoured to destroy both, like another Catiline, to patch up a broken fortune upon the ruin and distress of his native country; to-day stealing into France, to enter into engagements upon, your lordships may believe the most sacred oaths of fidelity, soon after, like a sanguinary monster, putting his hand and seal to a bloody proclamation full of rewards for the apprehending the sacred person of his majesty; and, lest the cup of his iniquity had not been filled, to sum up all in one, he impudently appears at your lordships' bar, to betray those very secrets which he confessed he had drawn from the person he called his lord, his prince, and master, under the strongest confidence. Your lordships will perceive I have yet forbore to mention the other circumstance, of his having received thirty-five thousand louis-d'ors, which he yet expects to live and riot on. But, my lords, who can consider the price of blood and treachery, and not bestow that sort of pity, which Mr. Murray, the greatest criminal, the true disciple of his master Iscariot, calls for?" The second secretary, Mr. Robert Fraser, his lordship described as "a person who

From this it is evident that Lovat was not intrusted with the secret of this money being secreted in the Highlands, for the use of Charles himself, and was, as we have seen, to be delivered only to his own order.

never had the good fortune to be worth a shilling, and whose veracity and truth never exceeded his riches." Of the third secretary, Mr. Hugh Fraser, his lordship did not speak in such unmeasured terms of contempt, only he considered him as "naturally enough swearing away the life of another in order to save his own." Fraser of Dunbaloch he stated to be in the same predicament; and even the testimony of Sir Everard Fawkner as of a very interested character, from the prosecutions that might be brought against him by the prisoner, in case of his being acquitted, "for cutting down his woods, and interfering with the rent of his estates." To this speech the solicitor-general made a full reply, after which his lordship offered to lead a proof, that by repeated threatenings his witnesses had been prevented from attending, which being objected to, the lords adjourned to the chamber of parliament, where it was resolved that it was irregular, and without precedent, to examine any witnesses after the managers had made their reply. The house agreeing to go down again to Westminster hall to pass judgment, the lords spiritual, as usual, gave in a protestation, and withdrew. Having resumed in Westminster hall, and the prisoner being removed, the lord high steward put the question to every peer, beginning with the youngest, Is Simon, lord Lovat, guilty of the high treason with which he has been charged? when each of them in return, laying his right hand upon his left breast, answered, guilty, upon mine honour. Lord Lovat was then set to the bar, and acquainted by the lord high steward that his peers had unanimously found him guilty.

Thursday the nineteenth, the seventh day of the trial, the unhappy lord Lovat was again brought to the bar, when he made a very long and desultory speech, very little to the purpose, and being again asked if he had any thing to offer in arrest of judgment, insisted upon his witnesses being sent for, but this, he was told, could not be granted. Both lords and commons now withdrew to their respective houses. The latter, in a short time, with their speaker, and the mace, appeared at the bar of the lords, and in name of the commons of Great Britain, demanded judgment of their lordships against Simon, lord Lovat, for high treason. The commons were followed to their own house by a message, informing them that the lords were pre

sently going down to Westminster hall, to give judgment as they had requested. Both houses were accordingly in a short time after assembled, when the lord high steward addressed himself to the unhappy prisoner at the bar, in a speech replete with sound sense and feeling,* in conclusion of which he pro

"Simon, lord Lovat,-You have been impeached by the commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, of high treason, charged upon you by particular articles, containing different species and various overt acts of that treason. To these articles your lordship thought fit to put in an answer, amounting to a general plea of not guilty to the whole; and, after a long and impartial trial, upon the clearest and most convincing evidence, against which you offered no defence by witnesses, your peers have unanimously found you guilty.

"What remains, is the disagreeable but unavoidable part of proceeding to that judgment, which is the necessary consequence of such atrocious crimes. Happy had it been for your lordship, if before you engaged in them, you had suffered the terrors of that consequence to have their due weight, when the sacred ties of your allegiance and your oaths, were not strong enough to restrain you.

"In this proceeding, the zeal and dutiful affection of the commons to his majesty and their country, and the justice of the house of peers, have shone forth in their full lustre. The commons found your lordship to be one of the principal conspirators, who contrived and carried on the late detestable rebellion, to destroy our religion and liberties, and to subvert that legal settlement of the crown in his majesty and his royal family, under which alone we can live free and happy.

They rightly judged, that this, which is the common cause of all the people of Great Britain, ought to be prosecuted by the united voice of the people that it became them to investigate and lay open, in full parliament, the source of those calamities which we have lately suffered, and the deep laid and long meditated conspiracy, in which your lordship had so considerable and so flagitious a part. They rightly judged, that no judicature was equal to such an important proceeding, but this high court; on whose penetration and justice they relied, and before whom, in this great assembly, public and indubitable satisfaction might be given. Before your conviction, I have spoken to your lordship upon a presumption of your innocence; but now I am bound by the unanimous decision of my lords your peers, to take the evidence against you to be true, and to address myself to you as a guilty person.

"Your lordship has in your answer endeavoured to avail yourself of former services to his late majesty and the protestant succession, which you have this day enlarged upon at the bar. How unfortunate have you been in referring back to such cancelled merit, since thereby you have furnished an opportunity to the commons, to show, for how long a tract of time you have conceived and nursed up this treason in your heart! Whatever your pretences were,

nounced upon him the terrific sentence of the law. Lord Lovat made a short speech, which he concluded with begging their lordships to recommend him to his majesty's mercy. Turning at the same time to the commons, he said, that he

so infected was your mind, and so forward your zeal, in the cause of that pretender whom you had then abjured, as to engage in that rash and weak attempt from Spain in his late majesty's reign. Yet, at, or very near that time, it appears by the evidence (out of which every observation I will make will naturally arise,) you were soliciting and accepting favours and trusts from that very government you had engaged to destroy. What use did you make of those trusts? The instance of Roy Stewart, now an attainted rebel, speaks it too plainly. Whilst you were sheriff of the shire of Inverness, the largest county in Scotland, and one of the greatest consequence, you suffered that criminal, in the year 1736, to escape out of your public prison; harboured him afterwards in your own house; then charged him with messages and assurances of fidelity to the pretender, and to procure for you a commission of lieutenantgeneral, and a mock title of honour from that pretended prince.

"If any thing could surpass this treachery, it is the association which your lordship signed and sealed, together with six other persons, and sent to Rome and Paris, by Drummond of Bochaldie, in the beginning of 1740. The substance of this was, to assure the pretender, whom you always called your lawful king, of your readiness to appear in open arms for his service; and to solicit an invasion from France against your native country, to support this desperate design.

"It should seem by the evidence, that the foreign enemies of Britain were less forward in this measure to disturb her, than her degenerate, unnatural sons. Whether that reluctance proceeded from a distrust of so false a set of men, or from a conviction that the body of this great people was not to be shaken in their loyalty to a king, who possesses the throne by a most rightful title, and governs them in justice and mercy, according to their laws and constitution; in either case they were in the right. What dependance could the court of France have on a few abandoned traitors? What hopes could they entertain, that a general infatuation would on the sudden seize and delude a brave, a free, and a happy people, to seek their own slavery and ruin ? "From this time till the year 1743, the conspiracy lingered in its progress, though great efforts appear to have been made to render it more extensive and more formidable. Then it happened, as it always has happened, that when France saw such an enterprise, whether successful or not, might be made a convenient engine of her own politics, that court set about an inva sion in earnest. Great preparations were made, and ready at Dunkirk; but the providence of God disappointed them. To be capable of proving transactions of this kind by strict evidence in the forms of law, is not common, nor, in the nature of the thing, ordinarily to be expected. But this the vigilance of the commons has effectually done, to the conviction of all well-intentioned persons, and to the shame and confusion of those, who, though they

hoped the worthy managers, as they were stout, would be merciful. Going from the bar, he added, My lords and gentlemen, God Almighty bless you all; I wish you an everlasting farewell, for we shall never all meet again in one place.

The lord

believed, and perhaps knew it themselves, were industrious to propagate à pernicious incredulity in others.

;" Thus the commons have traced and brought down the series of the conspiracy to the remarkable era of July, 1745, when the eldest son of the pretender landed in Moidart, unsupported by any foreign troops, unattended, and almost alone. The appearing rashness of this attempt gave rise to some apprehensions, some misgivings in the breasts of your lordship and your fellow-conspirators; proceeding from a concern, not for the king or for your country, but for your own private interest and safety. A French invasion had long been solicited; a French force was depended on, to secure you against the just vengeance of your native country, and the failure of that damped your hopes, and produced your expressions of disappointment. However, such was your zeal, that in this rash enterprise your lordship joined; not indeed personally, (this you often excused on account of your infirmities,) but by sending, or rather forcing out your clan, and committing every other species of the blackest treason, which the articles of impeachment have charged upon you.

"Permit me to stop here a little, and lament the condition of part of this united kingdom; happily united in interests both civil and religious; happily united under the same gracious monarch, and the same public policy; and yet the common people, in some of the remote northern counties, are still kept in such a state of bondage to certain of their fellow-subjects, who, contrary to all law, and every true principle of government, have erected themselves into petty tyrants over them, as to be liable to be compelled into rebellion against their lawful sovereign, under the peril of fire and sword. Astonishing it is, that such a dangerous error in government, such a remain of barbarism, should have subsisted so long in any quarter of this civilized, well-governed island. But since such is the misfortune, let it be accounted one good fruit of this inquiry, that it has appeared in this solemn manner. The knowledge of the disease shows the way to the cure, and it calls aloud for a remedy. This usurped power was audaciously made use of even in your clan. 'Tis true, your lordship's activity in exerting it, rose and fell in proportion to the appearances of the good or bad success of the pretender's cause. But, after the advantage gained by the rebels at Prestonpans, which you vainly called a victory not to be paralleled in history, you thought it time to throw off the mask, and with less caution, to espouse a party, which you then hoped might be espoused with impunity.

"I forbear to enumerate the many overt acts of your treason; it would be tedious to this assembly, who have heard them so much better from the witnesses, and from the recapitulation of the managers; it would be grievous to your lordship, if your heart is by this time touched with any remorse for your