ng, when I might promise myself more success
in reasoning upon the subject, than while you remained in town,
where the spirit of the place, the people you converse with, the
things you hear and see, all unite to inflame your passions and
confound your understanding. But since it has, beyond my intention,
engaged you to explain your sentiments at large, and to call upon
you to give my opinion, and since I suppose your arguments contain
all that can be said by those of the party who would be thought to
judge coolly and act reasonably at this juncture, I shall, with the
freedom and openness of a friend, consider them as they lye before
me in yours; and if I am forced to exceed the limits of a letter,
you may blame yourself, who drew me in. You tell me you are ready to
believe; I agree in opinion with you, that as matters are come to
this length, it's now greatly to the interest of Scotland to wish
success to the undertaking, and that nothing but the improbability
of success should hinder every Scotsman to join in it. This tho' a
verrie material point, you take for granted without assigning a
single reason; but as I know it is one of their delusive arguments,
now much in use where you are, and the chief engine of the party to
seduce well-meaning men to concur in the ruin of the constitution
and their country, I shall give you what I apprehend you must mean
by it in the most favourable light it will bear; and then from an
impartial stating of the fact as it truely stands, leave yourself to
judge how far an honest man, a wise one, and a lover of his country,
can justify either to himself or the worlde, his being of this
opinion. The meaning of your argument I take to be this: that by the
unaccountable success of the enterprize and the tame submission of
the people in general, if the scheme misgive all Scotland becomes
involved in the guilt, and may expect the outmost severitys this
Government and the people of England can afflict them with; but on
the other hand, should the undertaking be crowned with success, as
Scotesmen have the merit of it, they must become the peculiar
favourites of the family they have raised to the throne, and reap
all the advantages they can promise themselves from a grateful and
generous prince. I hope I have done justice to your argument, allow
me allso to do just