280

IIISTOItY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XIII.

1689.

Let nobody go out but those lords and gentlemen whom weshall appoint to call the citizens to arms. There are some goodmen from the West in Edinburgh, men for whom I can answer.”The assembly raised a general cry of assent. Several membersof the majority boasted that they too had brought with themtrusty retainers who would turn out at a moment’s notice againstClaverhouse and his dragoons. All that Hamilton proposedwas instantly done. The Jacobites, silent and unresisting, be-came prisoners. Leven went forth and ordered the drums tobeat. The Covenanters of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire promptlyobeyed the signal. The force thus assembled had indeed novery military appearance, but was amply sufficient to overawethe adherents of the House of Stuart. From Dundee nothingwas to be hoped or feared. He had already scrambled downthe Castle hill, rejoined his troopers, and galloped westward.Hamilton now ordered the doors to be opened. The suspectedmembers were at liberty to depart. Humbled and broken-spirited, yet glad that they had come off so well, they stoleforth through the crowd of stern fanatics which filled theHigh Street. All thought of secession was at an end.*

On the following day it was resolved that the kingdomshould be put into a posture of defence. The preamble of thisresolution contained a severe reflection on the perfidy of thetraitor w’ho, within a few hours after he had, by an engagementsubscribed with his owm hand, bound himself not to quit hispost in the Convention, had set the example of desertion, andgiven the signal of civil war. All Protestants, from sixteen tosixty, were ordered to hold themselves in readiness to as-semble in arms at the first summons; and, that none mightpretend ignorance, it was directed that the edict should beproclaimed at all the market crosses throughout the realm.**

* Balcarras’s Memoirs; MS. in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.

** Act. Pari. Scot., Mar. 19. 1G8§; History of the late Revolution inScotland, 1G90.