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contrivance, worthy of a persecuting church. The moderator of this assembly, was principal Carstares, and it was the last he lived to see. He was struck with an apoplectic fit, in the month of August, which greatly impaired his faculties, and carried him off on the twenty-eighth day of December, when he had nearly completed his sixty-sixth year.

In Scotland, principal Carstares was certainly the most important man of his day, and of all the characters who figured in that busy period, there is no one, whom it is so difficult to appreciate. He has left no written memorials, whereby we might estimate the extent of his acquirements, or the particular leaning of his opinions; and from the peculiarity of his situation, holding no office of state, but enjoying the particular friendship and confidence of king William, being always about him, and having his ear, either by night or by day,† it is difficult to determine,

*Acts of Assembly, 1715.

Of that free intercourse Mr. Carstares enjoyed with king William, and the great confidence his majesty reposed in him, we have a remarkable instance recorded in his life, written by Dr. M'Cormick, minister of Prestonpans: -After the Scotish parliament in the year 1693 had passed an act requiring every person in public office to take the oath of allegiance, and sign the assurance, which, by the rotten and bloody remnant, instruments of the former tyranny, who had unfortunately still a share in the government, was immediately improved to ruin the presbyterians, by imposing it on the ministers of the church, as a qualification for their sacred office, which no honest presbyterian they well knew would do. The privy council had the power of dispensing with the oath where they saw reason for so doing; but so far were they from indulging the presbyterian ministers in this way, that they recommended it to his majesty to impose it upon every member before allowing him to take his seat in the assembly, which his majesty, with no little reluctance, had allowed to be indicted in the following year. Instructions to this effect were accordingly transmitted to lord Carmichael, the commissioner, to that assembly. When his lordship communicated these orders to some of the clergy, whom he met at Edinburgh, he found them obstinately determined to refuse compliance, and they assured him, that if the measure was persisted in, it would kindle a flame over the nation, which it would not be in the power of those who had given his majesty this pernicious counsel to extinguish. Lord Carmichael was a presbyterian, and of course sincerely attached to his majesty, and aware that the dissolution of this assembly would not only be fatal to the church of Scotland, but to the interests of his majesty in that kingdom, sent a flying packet to the king representing the difficulty of the case, and requesting further instructions. Some of the ministers of the

how far he was, or was not, consulted, with regard to the affairs either of the church or the state-what his advice really was, or how much of it was acted upon. From the almost innumerable letters addressed to him, by the chief actors of all parties, it appears to have been their opinion, that his advice was always asked, and but rarely dissented from. Presbyterians who admit this, will have some difficulty in freeing him from the charge of having made defective, if not false representations of Scotish

church of Scotland, sent up a memorial at the same time to Mr. Carstares, and requesting his good offices on the occasion.

The flying packet arrived at Kensington on a forenoon when Mr. Carstares was not there, and his majesty, who was as fond of stretching prerogative where he could do it safely, as any Stuart who had preceded him, with the advice of the trimming lord Stair and the infamous lord Tarbat, both of whom concurred in representing the obstinacy of the clergy as rebellion against his majesty, renewed his instructions to the commissioner, and sent off the flying packet without a moment's loss of time. Mr. Carstares having arrived at this critical moment, immediately inquired what was the nature of the despatches his majesty had sent off for Scotland, and, on learning their contents, went directly, and in his majesty's name, required the messenger, who was just setting off, to deliver them up to him. It was now late at night, and, as he knew there was no time to be lost, he ran to his majesty's apartment, where he found his majesty was gone to bed. Having informed the lord in waiting that his business was of the last importance, and that he must see the king, he was admitted into his chamber, where he found him fast asleep. Turning aside the curtain, and falling down upon his knees, he gently awoke his majesty, who, astonished to see him at that hour in such a place and such a posture, inquired eagerly what was the matter? I am come, he replied, to ask my life! And is it possible, said the king, that you have been guilty of a crime that deserves death? Mr. Carstares acknowledged he had, and, drawing the packet from his pocket, presented the despatches he had brought back. And have you indeed, said the king, presumed to countermand my orders, at the same time gathering up his brows into a severe frown? Mr. Carstares only begged to be heard for a few moments, when he would be ready to submit to any punishment his majesty should think proper to inflict. His majesty heard him with great attention, and when he had done gave him the despatches to read, and desired him to throw them into the fire. He then bade him draw up instructions to the commissioner in what terms he pleased, and they should be instantly signed. Mr. Carstares then wrote to the commissioner, that it was his majesty's pleasure to dispense with putting the oaths to the ministers; his majesty signed it, and the messenger, with all the haste he could make, arrived in Edinburgh with the joyful tidings, only on the morning of the day in which the assembly was to meet. Vide Life of Mr. William Carstares, pp. 57-61..

affairs; and, as an adviser, of having been guided more commonly by the dictates of a crooked and worldly policy, than by plain christian simplicity. That he was presbyterian in his principles there can be no doubt, but there can be as little, that he was one rather of the modern than the ancient school. He appears to have been perplexed with an idea, common to almost all statesmen, that the free and legitimate exercise of ecclesiastic authority, had a natural and necessary tendency, to encroach upon that, which is purely civil, and that there was danger in allowing christians the full enjoyment of that liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free, and hence, probably, arose his system of management in church courts, and his tenderness of what, by an abuse of language, is called the rights of patrons, which has been unhappily imitated and improved upon by every succeeding leader in the Scotish church. He was a sincere friend to learning, and exerted himself successfully, in procuring from queen Anne and her ministry, a very seasonable gift to the Scotish universities, out of the bishops' rents. That portion allotted to the university of Edinburgh, was committed to his distribution, and he expended it—a rare instance of disinterestedness-without retaining one farthing for himself, an example which none of the heads of the other universities chose to follow. He had also formed a plan for accommodating the youth belonging to the dissenters in England, at the college of Edinburgh, which, while it would have been a national benefit, would have greatly promoted the interests of the college. It was intended to raise the necessary means by subscription, and considerable sums were actually subscribed, but the death of the principal, put an end to the project.

As a preacher, he is represented by his biographer Dr. M'Cormick, to have been so popular, that the magistrates of Edinburgh, in order to enjoy the benefit of his talents in that way, erected a new charge for him, which he accepted, after he had been installed into the principalship of the university. That his talents were good we see no ground to question; that there was abundance of room for a new charge in Edinburgh we do not dispute, and that properly qualified persons for the office of the ministry were at that time scarce

is certain; but we have no doubt, that, like almost every reduplication of office among churchmen since, the whole was a political job, calculated to ensure the grateful constancy of Mr. Carstares, and to bring him more fully into contact with his brethren, whose zeal he was expected to regulate according to the thermometer of the court, and whose public measures he was now to direct in that limited circle which the state had marked out.

In private life his character appears to have been in the highest degree amiable. He was certainly pious, though— from having breathed so long the atmosphere of a court, and been so long and so deeply involved in matters merely political-in a moderate degree. His humanity was exemplary, and his charity often far beyond what his limited means could justify. That he possessed great firmness of nerve, is evident from the appearance he made in the thumbikins before the Scotish council, in the case of Jerviswood. temper was at the same time sweet and placid; and, from the manner in which he submitted to the perpetually renewed importunities of the irritable, envious, inconstant, and venal herd of politicians, who at that time were struggling to obtain the rule and the emoluments of their unhappy country, his patience must have been without bounds.*

His

But, to return to our history, though the good disposition of the Scotish church was greatly against the progress of the Jacobite preparations, they were still carrying them forward with considerable vigour, and sometimes almost openly; and there was upon their side such an array of papists and high church protestants, that concealment seemed to be no longer thought necessary. Throughout the south of Scotland horses, saddles, shoes, &c. &c. evidently intended for the equipment of cavalry, were purchased at high prices, in great number and in large quantity, while the chieftains in the Highlands were importing arms with so little precaution that three boxes of them fell into the hands of the magistrates of Glasgow, through the vigilance of the lord provost. A quantity of

* State Papers, and Letters addressed to William Carstares, &c. &c.

arms also, about the same time, fell into the hands of Sir Robert Pollock, governor of Inverlochy.

While the Jacobites were thus organizing the enemies of the public peace in Scotland, and the rabble of high churchmen spreading anarchy and confusion over England, their agents were straining every nerve to arouse and to invigorate the enemies of the nation abroad. Their success, however, was not by any means equal to what they had anticipated. The earl of Stair was now ambassador at the court of France, and his great abilities were at this time of singular service to his country. Louis XIV. was now in his dotage, the heir apparent was a minor, and the duke of Orleans the principal object of adulation at the French court. With Orleans, Stair lived in close intimacy, and somehow contrived to find out every movement that was made on the part of James among that people, accounts of which he failed not to transmit to his own government, as well as to remonstrate with theirs against whatever appeared to threaten an infringement of existing treaties.* Nor did all the rioting and plotting at home produce the effects expected from them. Both houses of parliament, far from being intimidated by these ebulitions of popular frenzy, proceeded with their deliberations in the most determinate manner, censuring or impeaching all who had been active in promoting the measures followed in the latter part of the queen's reign. While they were deeply engaged in this business, and had just passed the act which put an end to the system of outrage which had been the disgrace and the plague of the kingdom for such a length of time, on the twentieth of July, his majesty informed both houses of parliament, that he had certain information, that the chevalier, aided and encouraged by a restless faction in this country, was actively employed in preparations for invading it from abroad; "and in these circumstances thinks it proper to ask their assistance, and makes no doubt, but they will so far consult their own security, as not to leave the nation under a rebellion actually begun at home, and

Smollet's History of England.

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