BOOK into a fortress or state prison, where they pined VII. in misery and want for years, neglected and for1677. gotten. The people intercepted on their return 1678. January. erial, from conventicles, were delivered up as recruits for the service of France.63 In this desperate situation of the country, a severe example was chosen to intimidate, or rather to exasperate the people by a perfidious violation of honour, justice, and of the public faith. Archbishop Sharp had observed a person who Mitchel's eyed him attentively, and imagined that he beheld the features of the assassin who had attempted his life. When arrested, he proved to be Mitchel, a fanatical preacher; a loaded pistol was found in his custody to confirm the suspicion; but no proof appeared of his actual guilt. To discover his confederates, and the extent of the danger, a solemn promise was made by Sharp to procure a pardon if he would confess the fact. On the most solemn assurance of life, confirmed by the chancellor, commissioner, and privy council, he acknowledged the attempt to assassinate the primate; but instead of numerous associates, or a regular conspiracy, none but a single person then dead, was privy to the design. Disappointed and mortified at such a slight discovery, the perfidious council proceeded to determine what punishment less than death might be inflicted on the crime. The justiciary 68 Burnet, ii. 167. Kirkton. Ralph, i. 315. Wodrow, i, 427-32-41. court was instructed secretly to pronounce a sentence for the amputation of his hand; but when he was produced to renew his confession at the bar, the whisper of a judge in passing, admonished him to acknowledge nothing, unless his limbs as well as his life were secured. The torture was next applied under the false pretext of extorting a confession of his cóncern in the insurrection of Pentland; and after enduring the question till he fainted under the repeated strokes of the executioner, he remained four years in fetters forgotten in the solitary confinement of the Bass.69 His trial, on the return of Lauderdale, was now resumed at the instigation of Sharp. Nisbet, the king's advocate, was displaced for Mackenzie, who, as counsel for Mitchel in the former trial, could not be ignorant of the promise to preserve his life, yet preferred an indictment against him for a capital crime. Primrose, from the lucrative office of clerk register, removed to be justice general, transmit, ted privately to his advocates a copy of the act of 69 Wodrow, i. 375. 511. Burnet, ii. 176. At first it was proposed in council to cut off both his hands, but this was prevented, not from humanity, but by a jest of Rothes, too gross to be transcribed. Id. 70 Nisbet was removed, because he was rich, and had re fused a sum of money to the duchess of Lauderdale; Primrose, because the clerk register's was a lucrative place. It was given nominally to another, but the profits were seized by the rapacious duchess, and Primrose was made justice ge neral to stop his mouth. Kirkton, MS. 96, 7. VII. 1678. BOOK Council in which the assurance was contained. His VII. former extrajudicial confession, the only evidence 1678. of his attempt to assassinate a prelate and a privy counsellor, was attested by Sharp the primate, Rothes the chancellor, Lauderdale high commissioner, and Hatton a lord of the treasury and session, who, in their zeal to convict the prisoner, did not scruple to declare on oath that no assurance whatsoever had been given for the preservation of his life. The copy of the act of council was produced. The books of council, deposited in the adjoining chamber, were demanded as evidence for the prisoner, since his extrajudicial confession before the same judicature had been admitted as proof. But the duke of Lauderdale, who as a witness was not entitled to speak, interrupted the court in a strain of imperious authority, declared that the books of council contained the secrets of the king, which no court should be pers mitted to examine; and as he affirmed that the four counsellors came not there to be accused of perjury, it was immediately understood that they were all forsworn. The court, intimidated perhaps by his threats, determined by an obsequious majority that it was too late to apply for production of the record, of which an authenticated copy had been refused by the clerk. But it is observable, as a melancholy instance of the depravity or servility of the bench, that the justice general, who furnished a surreptitious copy, and had previously admonished Lauderdale of the existence of the act, possessed neither virtue nor fortitude sufficient to attest the fact, as a witness or as a judge, but pronounced condemnation to death, upon a man whom his evidence ought to have preserved.*1 BOOK tion. VII. 1678. Before the jury had returned a verdict, the four and execu lords, as soon as the court had adjourned, examin- Jan. 18. ed the books of council where the evidence of their perjury was recorded, and where it is still preserv ed to their eternal reproach. Their conduct sufficiently evinces the persuasion under which they acted, that there was no record of their assurance to Mitchel; and they still affected to believe, that nothing more was intended than a promise to intercede with the king for his life. The blame was transferred from the chancellor who subscribed, to the clerk who inserted the assurance in their mi nutes; the latter discovered that the act of council was framed by Nisbet, from whom they proposed to levy a severe fine; but the latter procured nine privy counsellors who offered to swear, and lord Hatton's letters also were produced to prove, that a full assurance of life had been approved and confirmed by the privy council, when engrossed in its books. Lauderdale was at length inclined to grant a respite till the king was consulted; but the primate was inexorable. He urged that the example was absolutely necessary to preserve his life from assassins, to which Lauderdale assented with a 71 State Trials, ii. 627. BOOK profane and inhuman jest.72 Doubtless the fanaVII. ticism of Mitchel was of the most daring and atro 1678. cious nature; but the guilt of that fanatick is lost in the complicated perfidy, cruelty, perjury and revenge which accomplished his death. It was the ardent desire of ministers to involve the whole body of presbyterians in his guilt; but in the prosecution of this object they incurred the just imputation of more detestable crimes. Horror and universal execration were excited by the treachery and almost unexampled perjuries of the first ministers in the church and in the state; and the precautions employed by Sharp for his safety and revenge, contributed two years afterwards to his disastrous fate. Nay, then, let him glorify God in the Grass-market," the place of execution. Burnet, ii. 80. Wodrow, i. 375.514, |