No. LXXII.
An anonymous letter, written by Mr. Duncan Forbes to Sir Robert Walpole, most likely in August 1716—a copy is extant (from which the present is taken) in the President's handwriting.
Sir, ... When the late Rebellion was happily ended by the Pretender's flight, his deluded followers found themselves all in chains, or obliged to surrender and sue for mercy, or to fly their country with him. Every man concerned in that odious work certainly deserved death, and the punishment due by law; but humanity and prudence forbade it. It was not fit to dispeople a country; nor prudent to grieve the King's best friends, who mostly had some concern in those unfortunate men; or expedient to give too just grounds of clamour to the disaffected.
It will be agreed on all hands, that the proper rule in this case would have been, to have punished only as many as was necessary for terror, and for weakening the strength of the rebels for the future; and to extend mercy to as many as it could conveniently be indulged to with the security of the Government; and this maxim every thinking Whig had then in his mouth, however offended at the insolences of the rebels. In place of a course of this kind, the method followed was, 1st, to try all the criminals in England; 2dly, to detain in prison all those in custody in Scotland, except some who had interest with certain great men to obtain a previous pardon, to the manifest dishonour of the Government; 3dly, to attaint a vast number of Scots noblemen and gentlemen; 4thly, to put it out of his Majesty's power to grant any part of estates forfeited; and 5thly, to appoint a Commission for enquiry, and levying the rebels' goods and chattels. The necessary consequences of this procedure in general are two; first, it makes all those who had the misfortune to be seduced into the rebellion, with their children, relatives, and such as depend on them, forever desperate; and it's hard to tell what occasions may offer for venting their rage. We see that want and hard circumstances lead men daily into follies, without any other temptation; but when those circumstances are brought on by adherence to any principle, or opinion, it's certain the sufferers will not quit their attempts to better their condition, but with their lives. 2d, as there are none of the rebels who have not friends among the King's faithful subjects, it is not easy to guess how far a severity of this kind, unnecessarily pushed, may alienate the affections even of those from the Government. But in particular, as this case relates to Scotland, the difficulty will be insurmountable. I may venture to say, there are not 200 gentlemen in the whole kingdom who are not very nearly related to some one or other of the rebels. Is it possible that a man can see his daughter, his grandchildren, his nephews, or cousins, reduced to beggary and starving unnecessarily by a Government, without thinking very ill of it; and where this is the case of a whole nation, I tremble to think what dissatisfactions it will produce against a settlement so necessary for the happiness of Britain.
If all the rebels, with their wives, children, and immediate dependants, could be at once rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonishing; but time would commit it to oblivion, and the danger would be less to the Constitution, than when thousands of innocents, punished with misery and want for the offences of their friends, are suffered to wander about the country, sighing out their complaints to Heaven, and drawing at once the compassion and moving the indignation of every human creature.
THE SCOTTISH CAPITAL.[64]
Source.—A Journey through Scotland, in Familiar Letters from a Gentleman here, to his Friend Abroad, p. 65, by J. Macky. Second edition. (London: 1729.)
The High-Street of Edinburgh, running by an easy ascent from the Netherbow to the Castle, a good half mile, is doubtless the stateliest street in the world, being broad enough for five coaches to drive up abreast; and the houses on each side are proportionately high to the broadness of the street; all of them six or seven story high, and those mostly of free stone, makes this street very august.
Half way up this street stands St. Giles's Church, the ancient cathedral of this city, in the form of a cross; but since the Reformation it is turned into four convenient churches, by partitions, called the High-Kirk, the Old-Kirk, the Tolbooth-Kirk, and Haddock's Hole. A-top of this church is erected a large open cupola, in the shape of an imperial crown, that is a great ornament to the city, and seen at a great distance. King David erected a copy after this over St. Nicholas's Church in Newcastle, but it does not near come up to it. Besides these four churches of St. Giles's, there is in the same street a little lower the Trone[65] Church, built after the model of Inigo Jones's St. Paul's Covent Garden; a very handsome church at the east end of the lake, called the Collegiate Church, built by Mary of Gelder,[66] Queen to James the Second; a church built by a Lady Yester, a handsome new church in the middle of the Canongate, and two good churches under the same roof at the Grey-Friars. There are also some chapels; but they are converted into halls for trades.