ror enough to
understand their meaning, or at least to comprehend the spirit of the
sentiment which my grandfather thought they conveyed.

I cannot help thinking, sir, that if there had been any truth in my
grandfather's story, some Scottish member would, on the late occasion,
have informed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, in virtue of this
Treaty, it was no sufficient reason for innovating upon the private
rights of Scotsmen in a most tender and delicate point, merely that
the Right Honourable Gentleman saw no reason why the same law should
not be current through the whole of his Majesty's dominions; and that,
on the contrary, it was incumbent upon him to go a step further, and
to show that the alteration proposed _was_ for the EVIDENT UTILITY _of
the subjects within Scotland_,--a proposition disavowed by the Right
Honourable Gentleman's candid admission, as well as by that of the
Prime Minister, and contradicted in every circumstance by the actual
state of the case.

Methinks, sir, our 'Chosen Five and Forty,' supposing they had bound
themselves to Ministers by such oaths of silence and obedience as are
taken by Carthusian friars, must have had free-will and speech to
express their sentiments, had they been possessed of so irrefragable
an argument in such a case of extremity. The sight of a father's life
in danger is said to have restored the power of language to the dumb;
and truly, the necessary defence of the rights of our native country
is not, or at least ought not to be, a less animating motive. Lord
Lauderdale almost alone interfered, and procured, to his infinite
honour, a delay of six months in the extension of this act,--a sort of
reprieve from the southern _jougs_,--by which we may have some chance
of profiting, if, during the interval, we can show ourselves true
Scotsmen, by some better proof than merely by being 'wise behind the
hand.'

In the first place, sir, I would have this old Treaty searched for,
and should it be found to be still existing, I think it decides the
question. For, how can it be possible that it should be for the
'evident utility' of Scotland to alter her laws of private right, to
the total subversion of a system under which she is admitted to have
flourished for a century, and which has never within North Britain
been attended with the inconveniences charged against it in the sister
country, where, by the way, it never existed? Even if the old
parchment should be voted obsol