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mained. But the carnage was succeeded by rapine and desolation. The cattle were driven

off or destroyed. The houses, to fulfil Dalrymple's instructions, were burnt to the ground; and the women and children, stript naked, were left to explore their way to some remote and friendly · habitation, or to perish in the snows 33.

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1692.

outcry

The outcry against the massacre of Glenco was Universal not confined to Scotland; but by the industry of against it. the Jacobites, it resounded with every aggravation through Europe 34. Whether the inhuman rigour, or the perfidious execution of the orders were considered, each part of the bloody transaction discovered a deliberate, treacherous, and an impolitic cruelty, from which the king himself was not altogether exempt. Instead of the terror which it was meant to inspire, the horror and universal execration which it excited, rendered the highlanders irreconcileable to his government, and the government justly odious to his subjects. His friends endeavoured, by the plea of inadvertence and haste, to transfer the blame to his ministers; and his ministers were equally earnest to vindicate the orders as strictly legal; or as analogous to

33 Enquiry into the Massacre. Memoirs of the Massacre. Burnet.

34 When the orders were published in the Paris Gazette, Dalrymple deliberately remarks, that all that could be said was, that in the execution it was neither so full nor so fair as might have been. Enquiry, &c.

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X.

1692.

BOOK letters of fire and sword, which the privy council had been accustomed to grant. But when a second order, signed and countersigned by the king with such unusual precaution, is combined with the impurity which his ministers enjoyed, no doubt can remain that, however the execution might exceed his intentions, the measure was not concerted without his knowledge and previous consent. No enquiry was made at the time, no punishment was inflicted afterwards, on the authors of the massacre. On the coutrary, it is asserted that the officers most active in the execution were preferred. The best, and perhaps the just explanation of the transaction is, that William, beset with ministers inured to the sanguinary measures of the former government, was betrayed for once into an act of cruelty inconsistent with his character, and with the mild and merciful tenor of his reign.

Sept. 18.

Session of

The parliament, hitherto deferred from the parliament. discontent excited by the massacre of Glenco, was assembled at length to provide troops and supplies. Hamilton was appointed commissioner, and the session was conducted by Johnson the secretary, a younger son of Wariston, with consummate address. By the detection of Pain's correspondence, who conducted the intrigues of the Jacobites from the recesses of his prison, the presbyterians were alarmed at the danger of a plot, and by some partial alterations, were reconciled to government.

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1693.

The Jacobites were deterred from opposition; and BOOK from their mutual apprehensions, the enquiry into the massacre of Glenco was suppressed. An additional land-tax, capitation and excise, were provided for the support of six thousand additional troops. The assurance to government was imposed on church, and state. All correspondence with France, however innocent, was converted into treason but Pain, whose correspondence occasioned these acts, was preserved from trial by a secret intimation to Hamilton and others, that if -condemned he might obtain a pardon, by an ample discovery of the participation of their relations and friends in his plots 35.

reforms.

During the preceding reign, the corruption of Judicial justice excites no surprise. But the glory which the nomination of pure and upright judges reflects on William, was confined to England; nor is it sufficient to ascribe to political animosities the outcry of all parties against Lord Stair as president. The evil of which they complained, may be estimated from the milder remedies to which the indignation of parliament was with difficulty restrained. Its own minutes were repeatedly falsified by Tarbat, lord register. Orders never made were inserted in private causes depending in parliament 36; and it would appear that the same

35 Carstairs's State Papers, 154-8, 9. Ralph, ii. 426. Burnet, iv. 176. Parl. 1693, ch. 2, 3. 6. 8, 9.

36 Carstairs, 153-67-9-72-81.

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1693.

BOOK frauds were employed to alter, and pervert the judgments of the court of session. Under the decent pretext of preventing mistakes, the clerk was enjoined to prepare, and the chancellor, or the presiding judge, to subscribe its interlocutors, as soon as they were pronounced, and in the presence of the court. That these mistakes were neither accidental, nor of a venial nature, is sufficiently manifested by the penalty of deprivation, to be inflicted on such high officers as the chancellor and president, as well as by the nullity of whatever sentences were otherwise signed. For the dispatch of business, each judge was required to officiate as ordinary, and was confined in weekly rotation to the outer-house; but the reason was explained in the act, that on his irregular attendance in the inner house, either party, suspicious of his influence, and partial interference, might decline his authority as a judge 37. By a strange abuse, the judgments, both of the session and of the justiciary, were pronounced or concerted in private, when the parties were withdrawn; and

37 Each of the fourteen subordinate judges sits in rotation as ordinary in the outer-house, to determine causes, in the first instance, before they are brought under the review of the whole court. The prohibition was directed against his attending, or being called in by the president, to determine a doubtful question in favour of a friend. The prohibition was obviously inadequate; as the president might delay the cause till the ordinary's week had expired, or till a judge, whose opinion was adverse to his own, were employed as ordinary.

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1693.

to reduce the judges under the salutary influence BOOK of public opinion, they were ordered to deliberate with open doors. But the anxious precaution of parliament to reform the administration of justice, demonstrates rather the extent of the evil than the efficacy of the cure 38.

cal affairs.

The parliament was not inattentive to the peace Ecclesiastiof the church. On accepting the oaths to government, such of the episcopal clergy as subscribed the confession of faith, and acknowledged presbytery as the only legal establishment, were to be admitted by the next assembly into the government of the church; or, on its refusal, were to be received under the protection of the crown. Elated by the introduction of their party into office, the episcopal clergy imagined that the king was their own; and expecting nothing less than to supplant the presbyterians, they neglected to

38 Parl. 1693, ch. 18, 19. 21. 26, 27, Secretary Johnson writes to Carstairs on the perversion of justice. "Mr. Stevenson will tell you the instance of the nation's aversion to the session, that all parties agree in that. An honest man knows not what colours to give to the concern that appears to support an established perversion of justice. I should sleep sound were I assured the king would defeat the French, as it is evident whoever pays well some lawyers, do infallibly carry their cause, &c. Carstairs, 184. See also 174. Balcarras ascribes the duke of Hamilton's opposition to Stair, to the desire of filling the bench with dependents, as he had a number of law-pleas in hand. It is not where impartial justice is administered that we complain of the judges, or endeavour to corrupt them.

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