BOOK and adjourned the parliament without obtaining XI. Fletcher of character. supplies. 1703. It was in this parliament that the cloquence of Salton's Fletcher of Salton was first distinguished. Fletcher was apparently the early pupil of Burnet; but his virtues were confirmed by mature study, foreign travel, persecution, and exile. When he withdrew from the oppressive government of the duke of York, he engaged as a volunteer in the Hungarian wars; and, rather than desert his friend, embarked in Monmouth's unhappy expedition, of which he disapproved. At the revolution he returned with the prince of Orange, whose service he declined when that prince was advanced to the throne. From the study of the ancients, and the observation of modern governments, he had imbibed the principles of a genuine republican. Disgusted at William's authority as inordinate, he considered the prince as the first and most dangerous magistrate of the state, to be severely restrained, not indulged in the free exercise, or abuse of power. His mind was firm and independent, sincere and inflexible in his friendship and resentments, impatient of contradiction, obstinate in his resolves, but unconscious of a sordid motive or an ungenerous desire. His countenance was stern, and his disposition unaccommodating; however affable to his friends; but his word was sacred; his probity was never sullied by the breath of suspicion; and equally tenacious of his dignity, XI. 1703. and scrupulous in the observance of every point BOOK of honour, his spirit was proverbially brave as the sword he wore F. His schemes were often eccentric and impracticable; but his genius was actuated by a sublime enthusiasm, and enriched by an extensive converse with books and men. His eloquence is characterized by a nervous and concise simplicity, always dignified, often sublime; and his speeches in parliament may be classed among the best and purest specimens of oratory which the age produced. His free opinions were confined to no sect in religion, nor party in the state. The love of his country was the ruling passion of his breast, and the uniform principle of his whole life. In a corrupt age, and amidst the violence of contending factions, he appeared a rare example of the most upright and steady integrity, the purest honour, the most disinterested patriot 15 The same expression is used without communication by Lockhart and Macky; but the last is peculiarly happy in his character of Fletcher. "He is a gentleman steady in his "principles, of nice honour---brave as the sword he wears, "and bold as a lion---would lose his life readily to serve his 66 country, and would not do a base thing to save it." 16 It appears from Sir John Clerk's Memoirs, that Fletcher was not expert at extemporary replies. His speeches, to be distinctly understood, must be read historically, as they refer to the different clauses of the act of security and limitations on the crown. In this view, his Conversation on Governments, written to vindicate the proceedings of this session, appears to me to be one of the best specimens of dialogue writing in modern times. XI. BOOK ism; and while the characters of his venal, but more successful competitors are consigned to infamy or oblivion, his memory is revered and cherished as the last of the Scots. 1.703, Scotch plot. The courts of France and St. Germains were not inattentive to these transactions. Among other emissaries, Simon Fraser was employed in Scotland; a man of low cunning, but of a flagitious and desperate character, who claimed the honours and estate of Lovat. He had fled from justice for a rape on the late lord Lovat's widow"", whom, to secure possession of the estate, he had forced to consummate a pretended marriage; but the influence of her brother, the marquis of Athol, intercepted a pardon. On his becoming a proselyte to the catholic religion, his extravagant proposals were embraced and recommended by the exiled queen. He obtained a private interview with Louis, and assured de Torcy, that if five thousand French troops were landed at Dundee, and five hundred at Fort William, the highland chieftains, from whom he was commissioned, 17 Lovat's Memoirs have been lately published, in which he denies that he ever approached the house where the dowager resided. We may judge of his veracity not only from the trial (Arnot) but from his father's letter to Argyle, (Carstairs, 434.) representing his son as advantageously married to the widow, and both living very happily together. It is amusing to read the pompous accounts of the territories, the subjects, and the wars of this highland adventurer, whose whole clan exceeded not seven hundred men. would appear in arms with ten thousand men, The assurances of an unknown adventurer were not hastily credited, and he was dismissed with a gratuity, to procure credentials from the clans. On his return to Scotland, he was introduced to Queensberry, whom the Jacobites had just deserted in parliament, by Argyle and Leven, whose protection he enjoyed as an useful spy. Tarbet, created earl of Cromarty, Seafield and Athol, though officers of state, had abandoned the court party; and as the last had introduced the act of security, the commissioner listened with avidity to whatever Fraser's invention or resentment suggested. He affirmed that Cromarty, Hamilton, and Athol, his personal enemies, were engaged in a clandestine correspondence with the court of St. Germains; and to confirm his information, he produced a letter from the exiled queen, which had been intended for the duke of Gordon, but was addressed to Athol by Fraser himself. As the evidence was still defective, he was permitted to range through the highlands in quest of intelligence; and was furnished, for the same purpose, with passports and money to return to France. But Ferguson, a more experienced plotter, whom he met in London, discovered and communicated his designs to Athol, who complained loudly to the queen that a fictitious plot was contrived for his destruction. Fraser, on his return to Paris, was imprisoned in the Bastile; but in a few years BOOK XL 1708, XI. 1704. BOOK he was restored to liberty, and by his services, on the accession of the Hanoverian family, he reco vered the titles and estates of Lovat. At the age of fourscore he was destined to suffer on the scaffold, for his concern in the last rebellion to restore the Stuarts; but whatever his character or his crimes might be, the humanity of the British government incurred a deep reproach, from the execution of an old man on the very verge of the grave 18 Queens berry and displaced. The Scotch Plot, as it was termed in England, his friends when communicated by the queen to the two houses, excited the most violent disputes. The whigs endeavoured to establish, and the tories to discredit, the existence of the plot, which they represented as a political contrivance, devised by Queensberry to ruin his opponents. As some intercepted letters, and the confession of Fraser's associates, seemed to confirm its reality, the house of peers, where the interest of the whigs predominated, declared that a dangerous plot had existed in Scotland to introduce the pretender, to which nothing contributed so much in that kingdom, as the protestant succession remaining unsettled. But their interference served to obstruct the succession; and in consequence of the outcry against a fictitious plot, the removal of the duke of Queensberry became indispensable. The marquis of Twee 18 Lovat's Memoirs. Collection of Papers concerning the Scotch Plot. Macpherson's Orig. Pap. 1704. |