otland, and the box and letters were seen no more.
They have been since lost, and the discovery, which comparison of
writing might have made, is now no longer possible. Hume has, however,
endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but "his account,"
says our author, "is contradicted, almost in every sentence, by the
records, which, it appears, he has himself perused."

In the next part, the authenticity of the letters is examined; and it
seems to be proved, beyond contradiction, that the French letters,
supposed to have been written by Mary, are translated from the Scotch
copy, and, if originals, which it was so much the interest of such
numbers to preserve, are wanting, it is much more likely that they never
existed, than that they have been lost.

The arguments used by Dr. Robertson, to prove the genuineness of the
letters, are next examined. Robertson makes use, principally, of what he
calls the _internal evidence_, which, amounting, at most, to conjecture,
is opposed by conjecture equally probable.

In examining the confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, this
new apologist of Mary seems to gain ground upon her accuser. Paris is
mentioned, in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the
rest of Bothwell's servants were executed, clearing the queen in the
last moment, Paris, instead of suffering his trial, with the rest, at
Edinburgh, was conveyed to St. Andrew's, where Murray was absolute; put
into a dungeon of Murray's citadel; and, two years after, condemned by
Murray himself, nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a
confession in his name, without the regular testifications, was sent to
Cecil, at what exact time, nobody can tell.

Of this confession, Leslie, bishop of Ross, openly denied the
genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppressed by Elizabeth;
and another historian of that time declares, that Paris died without any
confession; and the confession itself was never shown to Mary, or to
Mary's commissioners. The author makes this reflection:

"From the violent presumptions that arise from their carrying this poor
ignorant stranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary seat of justice; their
keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not
producing him, with their other evidences, so as he might have been
publickly questioned; the positive and direct testimony of the author of
Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with
the p