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less, had not an event for which he was not answerable made hisenemies implacable, and made him desperate.*

An emissary of James had crossed from Ireland to Scotlandwith letters addressed to Dundee and Balcarras. Suspicionwas excited. The messenger was arrested, interrogated, andsearched; and the letters w r ere found. Some of them provedto be from Melfort, and were worthy of him. Every lineindicated those qualities which had made him the abhorrenceof his country and the favourite of his master. He announcedwith delight the near approach of the day of vengeance andrapine, of the day when the estates of the seditious would bedivided among the loyal, and when many who had been greatand prosperous would be exiles and beggars. The King,Melfort said, was determined to be severe. Experience hadat length convinced his Majesty that mercy would be weakness.Even the Jacobites were digusted by learning that altestorationwould be immediately followed by a confiscation and a pro-scription. Some of them did not hesitate to say that Melfortwas a villain, that he hated Dundee and Balcarras, that hewished to ruin them, and that, for that end, he had writtenthese odious despatches, and had employed a messenger whohad very dexterously managed to be caught. It is howeverquite certain that Melfort, after the publication of these papers,continued to stand as high as ever in the favour of James. Itcan therefore hardly be doubted that, in those passages whichshocked even the zealous supporters of hereditary right, theSecretary merely expressed with fidelity the feelings and inten-tions of his master.** Hamilton, by virtue of the powers which

* Balcarraa’a Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland.

** There is among the Nairno Papers in the Bodleian Library a curiousMS. entitled “Journal do co qui s’est pnssd on Irlnndc depuis Parrivdc de saMajostd.” In this journal there are notes and corrections in English andFroncli; the English in the handwriting of James, the Fronch in the hand-writing of Molfort. The letters intercepted by Hamilton arc mentioned,

CHAP

XIII.

16BU.