an old friend--a thing which the volunteers soon discerned, and
respected me accordingly.

But the soldiering zeal being spontaneous among all ranks, and
breaking forth into ablaze without any pre-ordered method, some of
the magistrates were disconcerted, and wist not what to do. I'll no
take it upon me to say that they were altogether guided by a desire
to have a finger in the pie, either in the shape of the honours of
command or the profits of contract. This, however, is certain, that
they either felt or feigned a great alarm and consternation at
seeing such a vast military power in civil hands, over which they
had no natural control; and, as was said, independent of the crown
and parliament. Another thing there could be no doubt of: in the
frame of this fear they remonstrated with the government, and
counselled the ministers to throw a wet blanket on the ardour of the
volunteering, which, it is well known, was very readily done; for
the ministers, on seeing such a pressing forward to join the banners
of the kingdom, had a dread and regard to the old leaven of
Jacobinism, and put a limitation on the number of the armed men that
were to be allowed to rise in every place--a most ill-advised
prudence, as was made manifest by what happened among us, of which I
will now rehearse the particulars, and the part I had in it myself.

As soon as it was understood among the commonality that the French
were determined to subdue and make a conquest of Britain, as they
had done of all the rest of Europe, holding the noses of every
continental king and potentate to the grindstone, there was a
prodigious stir and motion in all the hearts and pulses of Scotland,
and no where in a more vehement degree than in Gudetown. But, for
some reason or an other which I could never dive into the bottom of,