ary arrangements.
"The Fathers of the Church," answered a member very keenly, "have been
lately favoured with a new light. I have myself seen military
orders signed by the Most Reverend person who has suddenly become so
scrupulous. There was indeed one difference: those orders were for
dragooning Protestants, and the resolution before us is meant to protect
us from Papists." [302]

The arrival of Mackay's troops, and the determination of Gordon to
remain inactive, quelled the spirit of the Jacobites. They had indeed
one chance left. They might possibly, by joining with those Whigs who
were bent on an union with England, have postponed during a considerable
time the settlement of the government. A negotiation was actually opened
with this view, but was speedily broken off. For it soon appeared that
the party which was for James was really hostile to the union, and that
the party which was for the union was really hostile to James. As these
two parties had no object in common, the only effect of a coalition
between them must have been that one of them would have become the tool
of the other. The question of the union therefore was not raised, [303]
Some Jacobites retired to their country seats: others, though they
remained at Edinburgh, ceased to show themselves in the Parliament
House: many passed over to the winning side; and, when at length
the resolutions prepared by the Twenty Four were submitted to the
Convention, it appeared that the party which on the first day of the
session had rallied round Athol had dwindled away to nothing.

The resolutions had been framed, as far as possible, in conformity
with the example recently set at Westminster. In one important point,
however, it was absolutely necessary that the copy should deviate from
the original. The Estates of England had brought two charges against
James, his misgovernment and his flight, and had, by using the soft
word "Abdication," evaded, with some sacrifice of verbal precision,
the question whether subjects may lawfully depose a bad prince. That
question the Estates of Scotland could not evade. They could not pretend
that James had deserted his post. For he had never, since he came to
the throne, resided in Scotland. During many years that kingdom had been
ruled by sovereigns who dwelt in another land. The whole machinery of
the administration had been constructed on the supposition that the
King would be absent, and was therefore not necessarily deranged