than himself, and had been sent
to Harroby to cover the siege. Upon this, Lord George, who thought he
was entitled to know what had passed in the trenches, complained, but
received no satisfactory answer: and thus aggrieved, and, as he
conceived, insulted, he sent that letter to the Prince, which has justly
been censured as making an invidious distinction between the young
Chevalier and his father.[87]

These acts of indiscretion and intemperance were followed by another
proceeding still less worthy of the soldier and the man of honour: Lord
George Murray indeed lowered himself, when, at the same time that he
wrote to the Prince, he set on foot a petition praying Charles that he
would dismiss all Roman Catholics from his councils. This was aimed at
the Duke of Perth and Sir Thomas Sheridan; nor can we assign to it any
better motive than that it was intended to re-instate Lord George Murray
in the command. Some allowance may, nevertheless, be made for the
prejudices of a Presbyterian, acting on the determined and overbearing
nature of a high-spirited man. But the vital principles of our Christian
faith tend to soften animosities, to humble pride, and to accord to
others the same intention to act rightly as that of which we ourselves
are prone to boast. A sincere, a truly pious member of the Christian
church cannot be an intolerant partizan of certain modes of faith.
There dwells within his breast a deeper sentiment than that which is
inspired by the worldly and sublunary distinctions of sect. And Lord
George Murray, seeing his young and blameless rival, the Duke of Perth,
brave, honourable, and moderate, had shown greater zeal for true
religion had he not availed himself of an unworthy plea to base upon it
an invidious and covert insinuation.

He was reproved by the magnanimity of the man whom he desired to remove
from the Prince's councils. Although the Duke of Perth did not profess
to acquiesce in the opinion that it was unreasonable that he should have
the chief command, although he did not pretend to acknowledge the
justice of the claim, he nobly gave up, for the sake of a Prince whom he
loved, the superiority to Lord George Murray. His conduct on this
occasion recalls the generous sentiments of the knight and soldier in
ancient times; unhappily it failed in producing that unanimity which it
was intended to effect. The rancour between Lord George Murray and the
Secretary still remained, although it did not break ou