length of years was it attempted to compel the Scotch to change
their religion: horse, foot, artillery, and armed Prebendaries,
were sent out after the Presbyterian parsons and their
congregations. The Percevals of those days called for blood: this
call is never made in vain, and blood was shed; but, to the
astonishment and horror of the Percevals of those days, they could
not introduce the book of Common Prayer, nor prevent that
metaphysical people from going to heaven their true way, instead of
our true way. With a little oatmeal for food, and a little sulphur
for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with the one hand, and
holding his Calvinistical creed in the other, Sawney ran away to his
flinty hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened
to his sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing
melancholy of the tallest thistles. But Sawney brought up his
unbreeched offspring in a cordial hatred of his oppressors; and
Scotland was as much a part of the weakness of England then as
Ireland is at this moment. The true and the only remedy was
applied; the Scotch were suffered to worship God after their own
tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, or privation. No lightning
descended from heaven: the country was not ruined; the world is not
yet come to an end; the dignitaries who foretold all these
consequences are utterly forgotten, and Scotland has ever since been
an increasing source of strength to Great Britain. In the six
hundredth year of our empire over Ireland we are making laws to
transport a man if he is found out of his house after eight o'clock
at night. That this is necessary I know too well; but tell me why
it is necessary. It is not necessary in Greece, where the Turks are
masters.

Are you aware that there is at this moment a universal clamour