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rous. If his authority were still recognized in Scotland, the vicinity and the opposition of a warlike nation would impede or endanger the new settlement; and his presence there might invite the English to return to their recent allegiance to the Stuarts. But in this perplexing situation, it reflects the purest lustre on William, that he recurred to no expedient except the free choice and consent of the people. He assembled the nobility and gentry attending in London, and representing concisely the object of his expedition, requested their advice on the most proper expedient to restore and to secure their liberties, their religion, and laws. The duke of Hamilton was elected president; a boisterous yet temporizing statesman, who had maintained an open, or, more frequently, a secret opposition during the preceding reigns; and according to the policy ascribed to the Scottish nobility, his son, lord Arran, accompanied James in his barge to Rochester, while the father attended the prince at St. James's. From the disorders and the mutinous situation of Scotland, he intimated that the government should be lodged with the prince, till a convention were assembled; but an unexpected motion was made by Arran, to invite the king to return and call a parliament, as the best expedient to secure their liberties and the protestant faith. Many of the king's adhe rents were present; Balcarras, treasurer, Claverhouse, whom he had created viscount Dundee;

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-but the motion was reprobated as derogatory to BOOK the prince's honour, and was supported by none. An address was signed and presented by thirty Jan. 10. noblemen and eighty gentlemen, requesting the prince of Orange to assume the government, and to summon a convention of estates; and the irregular application of a few noblemen and gentlemen beyond the realm, was justified by the unreserved obedience with which his authority was received 41. The convention of estates was appointed to meet, at their request, on the fourteenth of March, that the settlement of England might first be completed; and the convention of that kingdom declared that James had abdicated the government, and proceeded to place the prince and princess of Orange, as joint sovereigns, on the vacant throne.

of estates.

In England the revolution was accomplished Convention by a coalition of whig and tory; but in Scotland, where the same distinctions prevailed under different names, the episcopal party, deprived of their former despotical power, persevered in their attachment to the exiled king. Whether to attend or to decline an illegal convention, which it was their interest to embarrass, perplexed and divided their measures, till secret instructions were received from James to secure an ascendancy in the convention of estates. Had the convention been

41 Balcarras's Mem. Hist. Revol. 40. Balcarras's State Tracts.

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BOOK returned like the late parliament, or chosen as the boroughs were afterwards modelled, their influence must have predominated in every election; and the presbyterians, even in counties, would have been excluded by the test. But Dalrymple, the late president, had artfully provided, in the address to William, that none but papists should be excluded from their legal vote, and that the election should be conducted in boroughs by a poll of freemen, from which it is to be regretted that they have since departed. The elections were transferred to the presbyterians, whose active zeal was supported by the people; but their adversaries relied on a majority of the nobility and on the whole bishops; the castle of Edinburgh remained in their hands, to dislodge the convention; and the viscount Dundee introduced into the town a troop of threescore horse, which had deserted and returned from his regiment in England. The Cameronians were summoned to town to counteract these designs; and the convention assumed the threatening aspect of a Polish diet 42.

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The choice of a president was the first question decisive of their strength. The duke of Hamilton was supported by the presbyterians, the marquis of Athol by the episcopal party, with whom, disappointed in his expectations from William, he

42 Balcarras.

General Mackay's Memoirs, MS. Adv.

Lib.

had renewed his intrigues. Parties were so nearly balanced, that the former was chosen by a majority of fifteen 43; but their success was decisive, and on the next question the whigs obtained an accession of twenty votes. A committee for disputed elections was appointed, in order to increase the majority by their partial reports; but the demand of the bishops to name a proportion of the committee from the spiritual, as a distinct estate from the temporal peers, was disregarded without a vote; a sure presage of their approaching downfall. The security of the convention was next consulted. The duke of Gordon, who had consented, but, by the influence of Dundee and Balcarras, refused next day to resign the castle, was proclaimed a traitor to the estates. His reluctance to fire on the city, disappointed every plan to disperse the convention. A pretext was therefore sought to withdraw to Stirling, and to hold a separate convention, by a commission from James. On the report of a design to assassinate Dundee and sir George Mackenzie, the removal of all

43 Minutes of Convention, MS. Ibid.

44 Historians have supposed that Dundee was seriously afraid of assassination, and that the parliament refused to listen to the evidence which he offered. But it appears that his only witness was examined, who declared that two men had threatened, in his house, to use Dundee and Mackenzie as they had been used themselves. (Minutes of Convention, MS.) As the men were not named, and as Mackenzie conti. nued to attend the convention, it is obvious that Dundee

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March 18.

Dundee

retires to Stirling.

BOOK strangers from town was required; and the refusal of this demand, before the castle had surrendered, was the signal to retire. But the fears of the marquis of Athol recurred, while Dundee, alike indignant at his friends and enemies, was impatient of delay. He issued with his horse from the city, and, on a signal from the castle, halted to confer with the duke at the foot of the walls. The spectators were mistaken for his adherents, and when it was reported to the convention that his numbers were still increasing, the result apprehended from this remarkable interview, was, that the castle would begin to fire during an attack upon the town. But the president exclaimed, that there was more danger within the conven tion: the doors were secured, and the keys produced upon the table; and while the drums beat to arms, the Cameronians emerged from the caverns and cellars, where they had lain concealed. The episcopal party enclosed in the convention, and surrounded without by enemies, were apprehensive of a massacre, till the tumult subsided; and when released, on Dundee's departure for Stirling, they yielded to the terrors which their adversaries sought to inspire. The marquis of

affected an alarm. "That he went wherever the spirit of "Montrose should direct him," is a modern fiction, ex、 ceeded only by another, that his heroism was caught from the recitation of Ossian's Poems! Dalrymple's Memoirs, ii. 305. and part 2d. 73.

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