•WILLIAM THE THIRD.

27

claimed that England was a conquered country, a manwhose servile pages the English Commons had ordered to"be burned by the hangman, could be a fit instructor foran English Prince. Some reviled the Bishop for being aSocinian, which he was not, and some for being a Scotch-man, which he was. His defenders fought his battle gal-lantly. “Grant,” they said, “that it is possible to find,amidst an immense mass of eloquent and learned matterpublished in defence of the Protestant religion and of theEnglish Constitution, a paragraph which, though well in-tended, was not well considered, is that error of an un-guarded minute to outweigh the services of more thantwenty years? If one House of Commons, by a very smallmajority, censured a little tract of which his Lordship wasthe author, let it be remembered that another House ofCommons unanimously voted thanks to him for a work ofvery different magnitude and importance, the History ofthe Reformation. And, as to what is said about his birth-place, is there not already ill humour enough in Scotland?Has not the failure of that unhappy expedition to Darienraised a sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughoutthat kingdom? Every wise and honest man is desirous tosooth the angry passions of our neighbours. And shallwe, just at this moment, exasperate those passions by pro-claiming that to be born on the north of the Tweed is adisqualification for all honourable trust?” The ministerialmembers would gladly have permitted the motion to bewithdrawn. But the opposition, elated with hope, insisted

CFTAP.

xxv.

1ULPU.