show.

On Wednesday they were again brought to Westminster Hall, to receive
sentence; and being asked what they had to say, Lord Kilmarnock, with a
very fine voice, read a very fine speech, confessing the extent of his
crime, but offering his principles as some alleviation, having his
eldest son (his second unluckily with him), in the Duke's army,
_fighting for the liberties of his country at Culloden, where his
unhappy father was in arms to destroy them_. He insisted much on his
tenderness to the English prisoners, which some deny, and say that he
was the man who proposed their being put to death, when General
Stapleton urged that _he_ was come to fight, but not to butcher; and
that if they acted any such barbarity, he would leave them with all his
men. He very artfully mentioned Van Hoey's letter, and said how much he
would scorn to owe his life to such intercession.[1] Lord Cromartie
spoke much shorter, and so low, that he was not heard but by those who
sat very near him; but they prefer his speech to the other. He mentioned
his misfortune in having drawn in his eldest son, who is prisoner with
him; and concluded with saying, "If no part of this bitter cup must pass
from me, not mine, O God, but thy will be done!" If he had pleaded _not
guilty_, there was ready to be produced against him a paper signed with
his own hand, for putting the English prisoners to death.

[Footnote 1: In a subsequent letter Walpole attributes Lord Kilmarnock's
complicity in the rebellion partly to the influence of his mother, the
Countess of Errol, and partly to his extreme poverty. He says: "I don't
know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court protests that
he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's
Gate; 'and,' says he, 'he would often have been glad if I would have
taken him home to dinner.' He was certainly so poor, that in one of his