cause with him, and who were naturally enough his advisers.
Among these were Lord Grey of Wark, and Ferguson; though the latter
afterwards denied his having had much intercourse with the duke, and the
former, in his "Narrative," insinuates that he rather dissuaded than
pressed the invasion.

But if Monmouth was inclined to delay, Argyle seems, on the other hand,
to have been impatient in the extreme to bring matters to a crisis, and
was of course anxious that the attempt upon England should be made in co-
operation with his upon Scotland. Ralph, an historian of great acuteness
as well as diligence, but who falls sometimes into the common error of
judging too much from the event, seems to think this impatience wholly
unaccountable; but Argyle may have had many motives which are now unknown
to us. He may not improbably have foreseen that the friendly terms upon
which James and the Prince of Orange affected at least to be, one with
the other, might make his stay in the United Provinces impracticable, and
that, if obliged to seek another asylum, not only he might have been
deprived, in some measure, of the resources which he derived from his
connections at Amsterdam, but that the very circumstance of his having
been publicly discountenanced by the Prince of Orange and the
states-general, might discredit his enterprise. His eagerness for action
may possibly have proceeded from the most laudable motives, his
sensibility to the horrors which his countrymen were daily and hourly
suffering, and his ardour to relieve them. The dreadful state of
Scotland, while it affords so honourable an explanation of his
impatience, seems to account also, in a great measure, for his acting
against the common notions of prudence, in making his attack without any
previous concert with those whom he expected to join him there. That
this was his view of the matter is plain, as we are informed by Burnet
that he depended not only on an army of his own clan and vassals, but
that he took it for granted that the western and southern counties would
all at once come about him, when he had gathered a good force together in
his own country; and surely such an expectation, when we reflect upon the
situation of those counties, was by no means unreasonable.

Argyle's counsel, backed by Lord Grey and the rest of Monmouth's
advisers, and opposed by none except Fletcher of Saltoun, to whom some
add Captain Matthews, prevailed, and it was agreed to invade imm