ng next,
slyly pinched me in the elbow; all which spoke plainer than elocution,
that those present were accorded with me in opinion; and I gave inward
thanks that such a braird of renewed courage and zeal was beginning to
kithe among us.

CHAPTER LXXXIX

Besides Mr Warner, many other ministers, who had taken refuge in foreign
countries, were called home, and it began openly to be talked that King
James would to a surety be set aside, on account of his malversations in
the kingly office in England, and the even-down course he was pursuing
there, as in Scotland, to abolish all property that the subjects had in
the ancient laws and charters of the realm. But the thing came to no
definite head till that jesuit-contrived device for cutting out the
protestant heirs to the crown was brought to maturity, by palming a
man-child upon the nation as the lawful son of the Tyrant and his
papistical wife.

In the meantime, I had not been idle in disseminating throughout the
land, by the means of the Cameronians, a faithful account of what Mr
Warner had related of the pious character and presbyterian dispositions
of the Prince of Orange; and through a correspondence that I opened with
Thomas Ardmillan, Mynheer Bentinck was kept so informed of the growing
affection for his master in Scotland, as soon emboldened the Prince,
with what he heard of the inclinations of the English people, to prepare
a great host and navy for the deliverance of the kingdoms. In the midst
of these human means and stratagems, the bright right hand of Providence
was shiningly visible; for, by the news of the Prince's preparations, it
smote the councils of King James with confusion and a fatal distraction.

Though he had so alienated the Scottish lieges, that none but the basest
of men among us acknowledged his authority, yet he summoned all his
forces into England, leaving his power to be upheld here by those only
who were vile enough to wish for the continuance of slavery. Thus was
the way cleared for the advent of the deliverer; and the faithful nobles
and gentry of Scotland, as the army was removed, came flocking into
Edinburgh, and the Privy Council, which had been so little slack in any
crime, durst not molest them, though the purpose of their being there
was a treason which the members could not but all well know. Every
thing, in a word, was now moving onward to a great event; all in the
land was as when the thaw comes, and the ice is breaking,