deeply insulted.

It was at this time that the celebrated letters of Malachi
Malagrowther appeared. To the general sentiments contained in that
work, we subscribe without the slightest hesitation. Strong language
is usually to be deprecated, but there are seasons when no language
can be too strong. We think meanly of the man who can sit down to
round his periods, and prune his language, and reduce his feelings to
the level of cold mediocrity, when he knows that the best interests of
his country are at stake, and that he is her chosen champion. And
such, most assuredly, and beyond all comparison, was Sir Walter Scott.
He went into that conflict like a giant, in a manner that disdained
conventionalisms; he neither begged, nor prayed, nor conceded, but
took his firm ground on the chartered liberties of his country, and
spoke out in such manly and patriotic accents as Scotland has rarely
heard since the days of Fletcher and Belhaven. All honour be to his
memory! Were it for that good work alone, his name ought for ever to
be immortal.

In consequence, ministry were condescending enough to allow a
Parliamentary enquiry. Even that was not granted readily, as the
prevailing impression in the cabinet seemed to be, that Scottish
affairs were of too slight importance to occupy the time of the
Imperial Parliament. The old country might be dealt with summarily,
and left to remonstrate at its leisure. But the spirited resistance of
our representatives, and it is no less incumbent upon us to add, that
innate sense of justice in Englishmen, which will not suffer any one
to be condemned unheard, procured us the investigation, upon the issue
of which we were willing to rest our cause. The Scottish banking
system underwent the severest of all scrutinies before committees of
the Houses of Peers and of the Commons; and the following was the
nature of the reports.

The committee of the House of Commons, after recapitulating the
leading points which were brought out in evidence before them, came to
the following conclusions--which it is very important to bring before
the public now, as they refer not only to the deductions which the
committee had formed from the history of the past, but to the special
reasons which were to influence the legislature in future and
prospective change.

"Upon a review of the evidence tendered to your committee, and
forming their judgment upon that evidence, your committee _cannot
advise_ tha