TO THE PROTESTANTS OF SCOTLAND.

LETTER I.

"I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed : How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?"-JER, ii. 21.

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In name you are a numerous body, by liberal supplies of money, the but when the duties are contemplated rearing in the Popish College of May. which that name imposes, those en- nooth of men destined to extend the titled to it will be found to be few. dominion of Popery, and favouring Deduct the false, the faint-hearted, the progressive establishment, in all and the erring, those blinded by in the dependencies of the empire, of terest, or by a presumptuous vanity that system of superstitious intoler. founded on ignorance, and it will be ance, ignorance, and servitude to obvious that your cause is generally priestly domination, which form the deserted. The population of our pillars of the Romish supremacy over country has increased, but the dissemi. men and nations. nation of your principles has not The most singular · circumstance been proportionally enlarged. The attending the present state of the influence you once possessed over the British empire is, that it is by your government and national counsels, aid--by the aid of Scotland and of has passed to others-formerly your Scotsmen—that supreme power has concealed adversaries, but who now been attained and held for years by find it unnecessary to disguise their a Popish faction-and that Popery is triumphant hostility. You have now now advancing fast to permanent Popery invading you in every quarter, dominion over the land. Ay, this and in every form. One-third of the has occurred by the aid of the religious European population of the British Presbyterians of Scotland—or at empire (Ireland), have for years been least of Scotsmen who style themplaced directly and avowedly under selves, and for aught I know do, in some Popish patronage and domination. delusive sense, imagine that they are, Not only are the superstitious cere- Presbyterian and Calvinistic monial and monastic establishments of Protestants. By them, combining Popery paraded and rendered familiar with the Popish priesthood of Ireland, to our eyes, but in all the colonies of the powers of the British monarchy the empire, Popery has of late been have been vested in men whose tenure favoured, patronised, and elevated to of office and emolument

has depended dominion over the Protestant popula- on their subserviency to Popery. Thus tion. The serpent is gliding around, by your aid the poisoned cup is held and entangling us in its folds, rearing to our lips, and the viper is fostered aloft its head; and its progress has which was trodden down by our been rapid. It has, during some past fathers, whom a severe experience had years, held, directly or indirectly, the reared up into a race of wiser and seat of power and official emolument better men, in an age of more disaround the British throne; and they cernment and more unyielding integwho resist its poison, must prepare to rity. At political elections, questions renew the strife, whatever form it have been put to the candidate about may assume, in which their fathers various matters.

Would he give contended, and to renew the sacrifice boundless admission to foreign corn of personal and private interest to would he extend the political suffrage which they submitted. firm pha- --would he vote for the ballot to lanx of Papists, patronising men desti- protect you in your cowardice, as if a tute of sound principles, has given to cowardly people could be a free those men an ascendency in the state. people? But in our great cities and For that patronage, payment has been counties, which of you has enquired made by a government acting in sub- whether a candidate professed true serviency to the Popish priesthood Protestant principles, and had detergiving countenance to the merciless mined to support them against the persecution of all Protestant clergy hostility of Popery, whether open or and people in Ireland—and fostering, insidious ?

NO. CCLXXXVI, VOL. XLVI.

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Under the last princes of the Stuart Protestant Scotsmen with Papists of name, the danger was great, but still elections made under the Reform Act it was only the royal person that of William IV. Assuredly this result formed the stay and strength of the was not foreseen in Scotland. On the Romish priesthood; whereas now, the contrary, one of the reasons assigned sanctuary of safety, the very citadel for the outcry in favour of the Reform of freedom, the Commons' House of Bill, was the apparent disregard with Parliament, has been won, and for which our petitions were treated in years has been occupied, by the enemy. 1828, when the King's Ministers gave I doubt not that all the factions acting way to the persevering urgency with there have committed errors. I which men calling themselves Whigs speak not generally of their merits; had for thirty years pleaded the cause but one of them rallies round the

of Popery: An opinion, thereupon, Protestant banner, supports every widely gained credit in Scotland, that measure calculated for its protection, the House of Commons neither had and resists every effort made against any sympathy with the opinions of it. Their opponents persist in propa- the people, nor consisted of persons gating the miserable delusion, that possessed of political or historical Popery is merely a harmless system knowledge, or sound Protestant prinof speculative religious faith. Refusing ciples of religion and liberty; and that to look into its dangerous character, a more popular system of election they have held office by consenting to would fill that house with wiser and do the work of the Popish priesthood, better men. Countenanced by such an who in return support them by the argument, the popular ambition bevotes of their delegates, combined became irresistibly inflamed, and held with the votes of Scotsmen elected by odious all by whom it was opposed. the popular voice. Yes, you-Church. You became greedy of privilege, but going men of Scotland, and you, Dis- which of you reflected deeply on the senters of whatever name- -Seceders, duties and the high responsibility that Anti-burghers, Burghers, Baptists, privilege imposes. If, when told that Synod of Relief, Independents, Volun. your votes would send adherents of taries--all pretended Protestants, like Popery into Parliament—that you the inhabitants of Jerusalem when would act as enemies of religion and doomed to destruction, ye contend liberty, and so violate the most sacred against each other, while the common rules of duty as Protestants-each of enemy is demolishing or undermining you would presumptuously have retortall your bulwarks. You sent, and have ed, “ Is thy servant a dog that he should persisted in sending, to the national do this thing ?" Yet, like Hazael, you councils men ignorant of the practical committed the act ; and thus the first value of the Protestant faith as a pro- effect of the Reform Bill was, that it tection to the morals, prosperity, in- brought guilt into the bowels of the telligence, and liberties of a nation. land. The public crime no longer lay For place and profit they have sacri- with the nobles and the gentry. You, ficed those interests for which our the mass of householders in great fathers banished the nearest branch of towns, and village proprietors in the the hereditary line of their ancient country, became the known and princes. Could James II. (VII. of effectual enemies of the Protestant Scotland) now look up from his grave faith, and of the liberties of your in a foreign land, he might well ask country. For what Popish nation why he was expelled from the British has ever enjoyed liberty ? Where has throne. A prince was lent to us by liberty endured, or even existed, beyond the Protestant people of Holland, and the limits of a Protestant country? thereafter a successor was called from We have seen an ardent people (the Hanover because he was a Protestant. French) bravely contend for it-shed This character of Protestant formed his for it their blood like water-slay one title, and forms that of his successor monarch and banish another ; but all to the British throne. But it is a title in vain. They were Papists or they which Papists must regard with abhor- were infidels ; and hence the same rence, and which cannot be safe, and is physical events that in Protestant not safe, under Popish domination. Britain produced ages of prosperity, And this state of things is the result liberty, and glory, served only among of a combination of Scotsmen-of Papists and Infidels to drown their dear-bought liberties in torrents of propose to state what I regard as the blood, and compel them to take refuge true nature of Popery-what our once more under a master.

fathers did to protect us against itI am aware of your excuse. You and how the bulwarks which they gave your votes to the men who reared have, by the criminal ignorance favoured the acquisition of privilege and dereliction of duty on the part of by you. But did they do so for your their posterity, been suffered to fall into sake. With unutterable contempt for decay, and the foe to enter by unreyour silly vanity, they called you wise, paired and unguarded breaches in liberal, enlightened, superior to every every quarter. Their example will old prejudice, liable to no delusion point out our duty. It is very proand what followed ? Having risen on bable that what I write may have your necks to power, they set an ex- little success or effect. That will be ample of greed of money never before your misfortune and not mine, ye witnessed among European statesmen. nominal Protestants of Scotland. Relying on your want of discernment, This world is not mine, and I claim they sold

you

to Popery to retain pay. no right to rule it, intellectually or In no one instance did they give prefer. Otherwise. Enough for me to havo ment beyond the narrow circle of their attempted to perform my own duty, own faction. With or without even leaving the result to the Power to à pretext of merit, their associate was whom all belongs. Yet, I have some promoted, and rarely had he other hope for my country. The tombs of merit than that of adherence to the the martyrs in Ayrshire have at length venal faction. Even the national not testified in vain. The inhabitants government has, in such hands, sunk of its fields, and towns, and villages, into contempt over the land, because have recently done their duty, and I neithergraced by talents nor supported trust that, independent of my aid, by virtue.

the day is dawning over the land. It may be that, on account of bene. Still you must not expect that I am fits thanklessly enjoyed, or prodigally to address you in the style of those wasted or neglected, the Lord of all who have with flattery obtained the is about to withdraw the singular suffrages you have abused. I frankly patronage which has so long been say, that in my estimation never was bestowed on our favoured land. But there a people led away from truth the government of this world is ad- and duty, by pretexts so utterly conministered on a principle of mercy, and temptible as those which have imposed before final ruin is inflicted oppor. for years on Scotsmen. I state, as a tunity for repentance is given. In ready example, the names by which deserting the cause for which our many of you have designated yourfathers contended, and the privileges selves; viz., Whigs and Reformers: which a beneficent Providencegranted the result of whose triumph has been to their prayers, their efforts, and their a sliding backward and downward sufferings, a great crime has been into Popery! But what and who committed ; but, on detecting the is a Whig ? fallacies and the moral weaknesses by The name Whig, borrowed from us which we have been misled, a final and by the English, was originally applied fatal lapse may yet, perhaps, be avoided. in derision to the persecuted adheIf ten righteous persons could have rents of the Covenant, by which the saved a guilty city, I cannot forget Scottish people bound themselves to that in every city and in every county support the Protestant faith. These of Scotland, there have been many

dis. men held not their lives dear to them cerning persons of every station whom in comparison of fidelity to their the blind subserviency to Popery never engagement. Gradually their indoreached, and againsť whom the bitter mitable spirit converted a contempthings I have to write are not directed. tuous epithet into an honourable I sincerely trust that the dangerous er designation. When the royal Papists, ror into which the Protestants of Scot. Charles and James II. (or VII.,) atland have recently fallen, has been the tempted to train or lead them back to result of not understanding clearly Popery, by imposing a system of what Popery truly is, and its sure ten- forms and ceremonial like that of the dency to undermine and ultimately to English prelacy, who for a brief period destroy the worth, liberty, and pros. had seemed accessible to Popery, the perity of nations. In this hope, 1 Scottish Whigs discerned the snare,

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and encountered tortures and death tending in favour of a sect that resists rather than yield one step to their the liberty of the press, that dare not Popish enemy. They at length held even trust their followers to read the the crown of Scotland to be forfeited Bible ; and wherever they attain to by the arbitrary attempt, and tendered power subdue all men by confiscation, it to William and Mary, and ultimately tortures, and slaughter, into subserassented to the succession of the house viency to their ambitious priesthood, of Hanover, because they were Pro- these men-deriding the fidelity of testants, and on the unalterable con- George III. to his coronation oathdition of adherence to the Protestant so far ventured to rely on the blind. faith. These Scottish Whigs were ness and credulity of their countryopposed by the Jacobites, who excited men, as to assume the name of Whigs. two rebellions against the Protestant The thing at first must have seemed house of Hanover. But the Whigs strange and foolish; but during forty of Scotland remained true to their years they continued in speeches, religion and liberties. The Whigs books, pamphlets, reviews, to plead of Glasgow, then a small city, raised the cause of Popery and to call themin 1745 two regiments to support the selves Whigs, thereby impeaching the Protestant cause, and to resist the title to his throne of our Protestant restoration of that ferocious Popish King (he not being the first in the tyranny under which so many of their hereditary line), and reproaching our fathers had become martyrs.

ers' as criminal, becaus they New times arrived. The Papists of refused to yield up their religion and Ireland extorted from a weak admini, liberties to the dominion of Rome. stration, during the war with our Strange as it will hereafter appear in colonies, the privilege of voting in history, the nation, with incredible the election of members of the Par- gullibility, swallowed the delusion. liament of Ireland. Then came the The royal title to the throne was disunion of the Parliaments of Britain regarded, and the sufferings which and Ireland. The Popish priest- our fathers endured, and the noble hood of Ireland thereby obtained strife in which they persisted, were the power, by the votes of their super- forgotten by a new generation destistitious followers, of electing at least tute of historical knowledge. Cold, forty, and perhaps a hundred members indifferent, or infidel in religionof the British House of Commons. acquainted only with the literature of Still Papists could not lawfully sit in newspapers, reviews, and novel writhat house; but the Romish priesthood ters-many of the younger nobles and sent delegates thither, elected to sup- gentry learned, gradually, to take on port their ambitious views, and they trust the pretext that the Whigs of never ceased to urge their followers their day were the Whigs of 1688 ; to insist for the repeal of that last and that the name of Whigs, assumed safeguard of the royal title of the with such incredible effrontery by the house of Hanover and of the Prostes- supporters of Popery, was, in utter tant faith.

To that urgency they blindness, adopted as a symbol of obtained fatal aid. From whom and brotherhood with these men by you, from whence did that aid proceed? Protestants of Scotland! Absurdly Attend to the fact, for it is of deep saying you are Whigs-you in mul. importance.

titudes united with the supporters of A band of ambitious men in Eng- Popery as your allies. You paraded land (of whom I will have more to say under and around their banners, imahereafter) attempted to climb to sun gining them friends of freedom while preme power by allying themselves they were only greedy to handle pubwith the Irish Papists, whereby their lic money ; and for that price were numbers in the House of Commons willing to enter into alliance with were enlarged. They pleaded for Pa- Popery, and all the slavery and brutal pists—the slaves of a domineering ignorance by which its domination in priesthood and of Rome-as if they every country has been attended. were freemen deprived of liberty on Now that this truth is broadly stated, account of their piety. Under this ye supporters of Popery in Scotland, pretext, Fox and others, while contend- call yourselves Whigs if you will, but ing that political power ought to be presume no longer, with gross hypogiven to Papists, impudently ventured crisy, to say that you are Protestants. to call themselves Whigs. While con. You have also called yourselves Re

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formers. Truly, a beautiful reforma- who perished on the scaffold or fought tion you have produced ! You have at Sheriff-Muir, and of that Cassillis delivered over a whole people (Ireland) whose signature authenticated our for years to the dominion of Popery, first copy of the Westminster Conand have brought your country back- fession. ward nearly three centuries towards Meanwhile, to Scotsmen who have that gulfofsuperstition, ignorance, and assumed the name of Whigs, and at infidelity. You have succeeded in the same time have given their votes obliging the successors of the Whigs to the patrons of Popery and infidelity, of 1688 to desert a name which you I say, without hesitation, you have have so vilely polluted, and to style been miserably misled into gross inconthemselves Conservatives of the prin- sistency by the mere sound of a name, ciples of that Revolution.

OR you uttered your own condemnaThe old English Whigs called those tion-you thereby became hypocrites men Tories whom they accused of in religion-enemies of the house of leaning towards Popery and high Hanover, and enemies of the liberties prerogative. They refuted the first and the improvement of mankind. of these accusations by joining the I can only trust and hope that you Whigs, or rather, along with the Eng- have been acting under that temporary lish Prelacy, by taking the lead in but most strange delusion which, in effecting the Revolution of 1688; but, 1828, so extensively diffused blindness for a time, they continued to regret over the nation. England has recovered. the violation thereby produced of the Wellington, Peel, Graham, Stanleyhereditary line of succession to the all men of intelligence and upright princrown, and hence the secular Tories ciple-have every where recovered. Is regarded with favour the Scottish Ja Scotland to continue dishonoured, and cobites.

its inhabitants regarded as fallen Such has of late been the strange from the high name they once posabsurdity of Scotsmen, that while so sessed, as an enlightened people of many of the Campbells, Kennedys, trustworthy Protestant character ? and Hamiltons, who persist in patro. From the sacred remains deposited in nising Popery, are styled and support their Greyfriars' churchyard, a fearful ed by you as Whigs, you oppose, as voice of reproach ascends against the Tories, the old Whig Presbyterian men of Edinburgh ; and to you, more families, the steadfast supporters of especially, men of Dundee, Perth, and the house of Hanover and the Revolu- Fife, of Stirling, and Glasgow, once tion of 1688, such as Lockhart, Scott, the chosen seats of the Protestant ReDouglas, Hope, Ramsay, and thou- formation, are addressed the words sands of others, who, at this day, prefixed to this letter ; look back to adhere to the faith of those Argyles them, ponder them well!

LETTER II.

The author of Christianity sent they became intolerably corrupt and forth to instruct mankind a few pri- tyrannical and how their strength vate persons to whom he had taught was shaken bỳ a schism, whereby his doctrines, and whom he directed some nations, under the name of Proto submit themselves to the civil testants, were relieved from their do. power and magistracy of their own and minion, while they retained their other countries. I have no intention power over other nations, and are to trace historically the progress by now striving, with much apparent sucwhich, in the west of Europe, the suc- cess, to resume it over all. I propose cessors of these first teachers became merely to state what the system of united into a compact and powerful Popery actually is, as it has practibody, under a prince or chief-acquir- cally existed and received the solemn ed in many countries a large propor- sanction of the great General Assemtion of the landed property, and a bly of the leaders of the body, styled title to a tenth of the produce of the the Council of Trent. remainder-how they gradually as.

In considering what Popery is, sumed a superiority over all kings, mankind must be divided into two princes, nobles, and legislators how classes : First, the mass of the popų.