their favourite teachers than the
butchery of Cardinal Beatoun and of Archbishop Sharpe; we may well
wonder that a man who had shed the blood of the saints like water should
have been able to walk the High Street in safety during a single
day. The enemy whom Dundee had most reason to fear was a youth of
distinguished courage and abilities named William Cleland. Cleland had,
when little more than sixteen years old, borne arms in that insurrection
which had been put down at Bothwell Bridge. He had since disgusted some
virulent fanatics by his humanity and moderation. But with the great
body of Presbyterians his name stood high. For with the strict morality
and ardent zeal of a Puritan he united some accomplishments of which few
Puritans could boast. His manners were polished, and his literary and
scientific attainments respectable. He was a linguist, mathematician,
and a poet. It is true that his hymns, odes, ballads, and Hudibrastic
satires are of very little intrinsic value; but, when it is considered
that he was a mere boy when most of them were written, it must be
admitted that they show considerable vigour of mind. He was now at
Edinburgh: his influence among the West Country Whigs assembled there
was great: he hated Dundee with deadly hatred, and was believed to be
meditating some act of violence, [294]

On the fifteenth of March Dundee received information that some of the
Covenanters had bound themselves together to slay him and Sir George
Mackenzie, whose eloquence and learning, long prostituted to the service
of tyranny, had made him more odious to the Presbyterians than any
other man of the gown. Dundee applied to Hamilton for protection, and
Hamilton advised him to bring the matter under the consideration of the
Convention at the next sitting, [295]

Before that sitting, a person named Crane arrived from France, with a
letter addressed by the fugitive King to the Estates. The letter was
sealed: the bearer, strange to say, was not furnished with a copy for
the information of the heads of the Jacobite party; nor did he bring any
message, written or verbal, to either of James's agents. Balcarras and
Dundee were mortified by finding that so little confidence was reposed
in them, and were harassed by painful doubts touching the contents of
the document on which so much depended. They were willing, however, to
hope for the best. King James could not, situated as he was, be so ill
advised as to act in direct opposit