but for their crimson hue, no man could
have doubted to call a most foul murder. The King and his crew, Mr
Renwick, are, to the indubitable judgment of all just men, the causers
and the aggressors in the existing difference between his subjects and
him. In so far, therefore, if blame there be, it lieth not with us nor
in our cause.

"But, sir, not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited
freedom of religious worship, Charles Stuart and his abettors have
pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same,
with more animosity than they ever did any crime. I speak not to you, Mr
Renwick, of your own outcast condition,--perhaps you delight in the
perils of martyrdom; I speak not to those around us, who, in their
persons, their substance, and their families, have endured the torture,
poverty, and irremediable dishonour,--they may be meek and hallowed men,
willing to endure. But I call to mind what I am and was myself. I think
of my quiet home,--it is all ashes. I remember my brave first-born,--he
was slain at Bothwell-brigg. Why need I speak of my honest brother; the
waves of the ocean, commissioned by our persecutors, have triumphed over
him in the cold seas of the Orkneys; and as for my wife, what was she to
you? Ye cannot be greatly disturbed that she is in her grave. No, ye are
quiet, calm, and prudent persons; it would be a most indiscreet thing of
you, you who have suffered no wrong yourselves, to stir on her account;
and then how unreasonable I should be, were I to speak of two fair and
innocent maidens.--It is weak of me to weep, though they were my
daughters. O men and Christians, brothers, fathers! but ye are content
to bear with such wrongs, and I alone of all here may go to the gates of
the cities, and try to discover which of the martyred heads mouldering
there belongs to a son or a friend. Nor is it of any account whether the
bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of
malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave. To the dead all places are
alike; and to the slave what signifies who is master. Let us therefore
forget the past,--let us keep open the door of reconciliation,--smother
all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler.
We have our lives; we have been spared; the merciless blood-hounds have
not yet reached us. Let us therefore be humble and thankful, and cry to
Charles Stuart, O King live for ever!--for he has but cast us int