year 1736, to escape out of your public prison; | your own private interest and safety. A

harboured him afterwards in your own house; then charged him with messages, and assurances of fidelity, to the Pretender; and to procure for you a commission of lieutenant-general, and a mock title of honour, from that pretended prince.

If any thing could surpass this treachery, it is the association, which your lordship, toge ther with six other persons, signed and sealed, and sent to Rome and Paris, by Drummond of Bochaldie, in the beginning of 1740. The substance of this was, to assure the Pretender, whom you always called your lawful king, of your readiness to appear openly in arms for his service; and to solicit an invasion from France against your native country, to support this desperate design.

French invasion had been long solicited; a French force was depended on, to secure you against the just vengeance of your native country; and the failure of that damped your hopes, and produced your expressions of disappointment. However, such was your zeal, that, in this rash enterprize, your lordship joined; not indeed personally (this you often excused, complaining of your infirmities), but by sending, or rather forcing out your clan; and committing every other species of the blackest treason, which the Articles of Impeachment have charged upon you,

Permit me to stop here a little, and lament the condition of part of this united kingdom; happily united in interests both civil and religious; happily united under the same gracious monarch, and the same public policy. And yet the common people, in some of the remote

It should seem, by the evidence, that the foreign enemies of Britain were less forward in this measure to disturb her, than her degene-northern counties, are still kept in such a state

rate, unnatural sons. Whether that reluctance proceeded from a distrust of so false a set of men, or from a conviction, that the body of this great people was not to be shaken in their loyalty to a king, who possesses the throne by the most rightful title, and governs them in justice and mercy, according to their laws and constitution; in either case they were in the right. What dependence could the court of France have on a few abandoned traitors? What hopes could they entertain, that a general infatuation would, on the sudden, seize and delude a brave, a free, and a happy people, to seek their own slavery and ruin?

From this time till the year 1743, the conspiracy lingered in its progress, though great efforts appear to have been made to render it more extensive, and more formidable. Then it happened, as it always has happened, that when France saw such an enterprize, whether successful or not, might be made a convenient engine of her own politics, that court set about an invasion in earnest. Great preparations were made, and ready at Dunkirk; but the providence of God disappointed them. To be capable of proving transactions of this kind by strict evidence in the forms of law, is not common, nor, in the nature of the thing, ordinarily to be expected. But this the vigilance of the Commons has effectually done, to the conviction of all well-intentioned persons, and to the shame and confusion of those wh who, though they believed, and perhaps knew it themselves, were industrious to propagate a pernicious incredulity in others.

Thus the Commons have traced and brought down the series of the conspiracy to the remarkable æra of July, 1745, when the eldest son of the Pretender landed in Moidart, unsupported by any foreign troops, unattended, and almost alone.

The appearing rashness of this attempt gave rise to some apprehensions, some misgivings, in the breasts of your lordship, and your fellow-conspirators, proceeding from a concern, not for the king, or for your country, but for

of bondage to certain of their fellow-subjects, who, contrary to all law, and every true principle of government, have erected themselves into petty tyrants over them, as to be liable to be compelled into rebellion against their lawful sovereign, under the peril of fire and sword. Astonishing it is, that such a dangerous error in government, such a remain of barbarism, should have subsisted so long in any quarter of this civilized, well-governed island. But, since such is the misfortune, let it be accounted one good fruit of this inquiry, that it has appeared in this solemn manner. The knowledge of the disease shews the way to the cure; and it calls aloud for a remedy.

This usurped power was audaciously made use of over your clan. It is true, your lordship's activity in exerting it rose and fell, in proportion to the appearances of the good or bad success of the Pretender's cause; but, after the advantage gained by the rebels at Preston-Pans, which you vainly called, "A victory not to be paralleled in history," you thought it time to throw off the mask; and, with less caution, to espouse a party, which, you then hoped, might be espoused with impunity.

I forbear to enumerate the many overt acts of your treason. It would be tedious to this assembly, who have heard them so much better from the witnesses, and from the recapitulation of the managers. It would be grievous to your lordship, if your heart is, by this time, touched with any remorse for your guilt. But one thing I cannot help observing upon, the excuse you expressly made for this traitorous conduct, even after you were taken prisoner; to which you have this day artfully endeavoured to give a different turn. Being asked, how you could act such a part against a government, from which you had received many favours? Your lordship's answer was, "That it was in revenge to the ministry, for their ill usage of you, in taking away your commission of captain of an independent company of Highlanders." An excuse almost as false as it was profligate. False, because some of your treasonable practices were committed whilst you were possessed of that very commission. Profligate it was, in the highest degree. Is allegiance no duty? Are oaths to his majesty, and his government, no obligation upon the conscience? Is loyalty to our lawful

Revolution, whereby every Papist, or person marrying a Papist, is absolutely excluded from inheriting to this crown, will, in future times, be a solid security for our posterity, not only against the groundless and presumptuous claim of an abjured Pretender, and his descendants, but also to prevent this kingdom from becoming

sovereign, and the love of our country, to de-province to some of the great Popish powers,

pend on the enjoyment of extraordinary favours and emoluments, which no man has a right to; which can, in the nature of things, be enjoyed but by a few; and are in the pleasure of all governments to confer or deny? A person actuated by, and avowing, such principles as these, must be lost to all sense of virtue, and of shame, and of every natural, as well as civil, sanction of society.

Sorry, very sorry I am, to see this last reflection so strongly verified by the proofs against your lordship. It has appeared, that you used your paternal influence over your eldest son, a youth not above the age of nineteen, to compel him to go into the rebellion; and afterwards unnaturally endeavoured to cast the crime and reproach of it upon him. If this be true, it is an impiety which makes one tremble. It is the celebrated saying of a wise writer of antiquity, and shews his perfect knowledge of human nature, "That the love of our country includes all other social affections:" For we see, when that is gone, even the tenderest of all affections, the parental, may be extinguished with it.

I have said these things, not with a view to aggravate your lordship's crimes, but, as becomes this place, and this occasion, to rouse your mind, which, there is reason to fear, may have been too much hardened, to a just deep sense of your unhappy and dreadful situation.

Were I to attempt this from topics of re ligion, I should be at a loss, whether to apply to you as a Protestant or a Papist. Your open profession, your solemn oaths, and public actions, speak on one side: But, if I am to believe the evidence, your private discourse and declaration's testify on the other. I will apply no suppositions on this head particularly to your lordship; but from hence I would draw an instructive lesson, which well deserves the serious attention of this whole nation, of what important consequence it is, to preserve not only the name and outward form of the Protestant religion amongst us, but the real uniform belief and practice of it. Indifference to all religion prepares men for the external profession of any; and what may not that lead to? Give me leave to affirm, before this great as sembly, that even abstracted from religious considerations, the Protestant religion ought to be held in the highest reverence, as the surest barrier of our civil constitution: Ecclesiastical usurpation seldom fails to end in civil tyranny. The present happy settlement of the crown is, in truth, and not in name only, the Protestant Succession. And the inviolable preservation of that wise and fundamental law, made since the

who have so long watched for the destruction of our liberties.

But, to return to your lordship: Suffer me to exhort you with great earnestness, and in great charity, to deliberate serious'y upon your own case, and to deal impartially with your own conscience. If, according to the evidence given at this bar, you have led a life of craft, dissimulation, and perfidy, consider how that scene has closed; what desolation you have thereby endeavoured to bring upon your country; how fatally it has ended for yourself. Consider, that the sentence which I am obliged to pronounce, may soon send you to a tribunal, where no disguise or artifice can avail you.

The sentence of the law is, and this High Court doth adjudge:

That you, Simon lord Lovat, return to the ' prison of the Tower, from whence you came; 'from thence you must be drawn to the place ' of execution; when you come there, you 'must be hanged by the neck, but not till you 'are dead; for you must be cut down alive; 'then your bowels must be taken out, and 'burnt before your face; then your head must 'be severed from your body, and your body 'divided into four quarters; and these must be

at the king's disposal. And God Almighty ' be merciful to your soul!*

Lord Lovat. My lords, I hope your lordships will not take it amiss, that I should let

* "There is perhaps no instance in which the difference between our law in its solemn denunciations and in actual practice is more remarkable than in the crime of High Treason. Although the sentence uniformly pronounced by the judge, is one which it is never intended should be executed, it is still suffered to remain a part of our law. It remains a just subject of reproach to us by foreigners, and answering among ourselves no other purpose than at a very awful moment to distract the reason, and terrifytheimagination of each miserable convict, by an enumeration of horrible barbarities, which with judicial and religious solemnity he is told that he is to undergo. He is to be drawn to the place of execution, and there to be hanged, but not till he is dead; he is to be cut down and his entrails taken out and burned while he is yet alive; his head is then to be cut off, and his body to be divided into four quarters, and to be at the king's disposal. Here there is no discretion reposed in the judges, they are bound to pronounce this cruel and disgusting sentence, and all discretion is transferred to the executioner. He is allowed, if he thinks fit, to defeat the inyou know, though it be in a very barbarous | And I have reason so to do; for when he was

language, both the affection I had for his late majesty, and the service I did for him and his family. And I must say, I have for that the testimony of one of the king's evidence, that I declared my affection to his present majesty:

tention of the law, by suffering the criminal remain suspended till be is dead, he may, f such be his pleasure, omit the embowelling altother, and it is to the humanity of the hangman that it is left to temper the savage severity of the law. That humanity however, has not been always exerted; there are few instances,' says Mr. Just. Blackstone, Comm. vol. 4, p. 377, ' and those accidental or by ' negligence, of persons being embowelled till previously deprived of sensation by strangling. There are few instances, but there are some. It depends therefore not on the aggravation to be found in the guilt of the offender, but on accident or on the neglect of the man who executes the sentence, whether severe tortures shall constitute part of the punishment. Nor in truth has it always been through accident or negligence that those tortures have been endured. It should seem that in ancient times the sentence was usually executed in all its rigour: it has been so at no very remote period, no further indeed back than the rebellion of 1745: and recourse will probably again be had to these severities, if the violence and bitterness of civil dissensions and intestine wars should ever again unhappily rage in this country, and be attended with the same effect as they have produced in past times and among other nations, that of kindling every latent spark of revenge and cruelty existing in the human breast." Appendix to sir S. Romilly's Observations on Criminal Law, note F.

See the accounts of the execution of Babington and others, vol. 1, pp. 1158 et seq.; of general Harrison, vol. 5, p. 1237; of Mr. Townley, p. 351, of this volume; and of Catherine Hayes, who, in the year 1726, was burned alive for petit treason, as mentioned by Foster, Crown Law, p. 336.

In Walcot's Case, the terms of the judgment were "quod per collum suspendatur et vivens ad terram prosternatur et quod secreta membra ejus amputentur et interiora sua extra ventrem suum capiantur et in ignean ponantur et ibidem comburantur:" and the judgment was reversed 'for want of the words 'ipso vivente.' See vol. 9, pp. 560 et seq.

And for more respecting this matter, see in vol. 24 of the Parliamentary Debates, sir Sa'muel Romilly's Speech in the House of Commons, on February 17th, 1813.

In treating of the different sorts of punishment in Scotland, Mr. Hume, Commentaries, Trial for Crimes, ch. 17, vol. 2, p. 362, says:

"The first and highest is the punishment of death. Which in later times, has always been inflicted in one way, that of hanging by

regent of these kingdoms, and his father was in Hanover, he was so good as to give me a Noli Prosequi for the great laird of Mac Intosh that was at the battle of Preston: And when I complained of the hardships the duke

the neck on a gibbet, without any aggravation of bodily suffering; farther than that in cases of cruel and atrocious murder, it has sometimes been ordered to strike off the right hand before suspension; and that in cases of treason, a female offender perishes by fire, and a man is executed with many additional circumstances of indignity and horror; which, however, his majesty may and usually does remit. [In the Case, (see it in this Collection) of Robert Watt, tried in August and September 1794, his majesty ordered all these circumstances to be remitted; and directed, that in lieu of them, the head should be severed from the body, when lifeless, and be held up in view of the people.] But formerly various ways of execution seem to have been used. For all high and atrocious crimes, and more especially for murder, and in the case of habitual thieves and depredators, the ordinary course was by beheading; and in two instances of aggravated murder, that of John Dickson of Belchester, April 30th 1591, who murdered his father, and that of Robert Weir, June 26th 1604, who murdered Kincaid of Warrieston, at the instigation of his spouse, we had adopted the French way of breaking alive on the wheel. [The doom orders him to be broken alive upon a row or wheel, and to remain exposed upon it for twenty-four hours, and the row, with the body, to be afterwards set up between Leith and Edinburgh, by the place where the murder was done. There is this entry respecting it in the diary of Robert Birrell; "The 16th of Junii, Robert Weir broken on ane cart wheel, with ane coulter of ane pleuche, in the hands of the hangman, for murdering of the guidman of Warriston, whilk he did 2d Julii 160."] In cases of heresy and witchcraft, the inevitable doom was, to be burned quick; and sometimes the like was ordered on conviction of bestiality, or incest: or at least, the abhorred offender was appointed to be worried at a stake, and the body to be burned to ashes. There are a few instances also of execution by drowning; as in the case of Helen Faa, a gypsey, and ten females more of the same tribe, January 29th 1624; in the Case too of George Sinclair, August 2d 1628, for incest committed with two sisters; and of James Mitchel, March 1st 1675, for bestiality. At Edinburgh this sort of doom seems ordinarily to have been carried into effect, in the loch (as we call it) on the north of that city.

"With respect to the disposal of the dead body, this, in cases of murder, is, by statute 25th George 2d, c. 37, appointed to be, by delivery of the body to a surgeon for dissection, unless the Court shall order it to be hung in chains. Of which way of exposure I find an

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