imself the
fittest man to be at the head of the army; nor was he the only person
that thought so. Had it been left to the gentlemen of the army to choose
a general, Lord George would have carried it by vast odds against the
Duke of Perth." But there was still another pretext, which was insisted
upon as a reason less offensive to the Duke of Perth, whose gentle and
noble qualities had much endeared him even to those who did not wish to
see him chief in command; this was his religious persuasion. It was
argued that, at that time in England, Roman Catholics were excluded from
all employments, civil and military, by laws anterior to the Revolution;
it was contended that these laws, whether just or not, ought to be
complied with until they were repealed; and that a defiance of these
laws would confirm all that had been heard of old from the press and
from the pulpit, of the Prince's designs to subvert both Church and
State: neither could it be alleged in excuse for the young Prince, that
a superiority of genius or of experience had won this distinction, in
opposition to custom, for the Duke of Perth.

Whilst these murmurs distracted the camp, immediately after the
surrender of Carlisle, Lord George Murray resigned his commission of
Lieutenant-General, and informed the Prince that thenceforth he would
serve as a volunteer. Upon this step, Mr. Maxwell, who seems to have
known intimately the merits of the case, makes the following temperate
and beautiful reflection.[246] "It would be rash in me to pretend to
determine whether ambition, or zeal for the Prince's service, determined
Lord George to take this step; or, if both had a share in it, which was
predominant: it belongs to the Searcher of hearts to judge of an action
which might have proceeded from very different motives."

Under these circumstances, violent discussions took place in the army;
and the result was, the wise resolution on the part of a certain
officer, not improbably Mr. Maxwell himself, to represent the
consequences of these altercations to the Duke of Perth. The undertaking
was one of delicacy and difficulty; but the individual who undertook it
had not miscalculated the true gentlemanly humility, the real dignity
and disinterestedness, of the gallant man to whom he addressed himself.
The narrative goes on as follows:

"A gentleman who had been witness to such conversation, and dreaded
nothing so much as dissension in a cause which could never succeed but