confidence in the breast of our fovereign, or to a want of inclination in our fellowfubjects of England to fhare their priviJeges with us, we may spare no pains, by efforts of duty to the one, and vigorous appeals to the candour of the other, to remove those bars to our national union and happiness; but if we owe it to the folly and prefumption of narrow-minded men, who pretend to lead factions in the ftate, that they may be made to stand forth, and we may know where to point our indignation and our fcorn, and where the weight of an injured people fhould fall, when the follies or miscarriages, the errors or the crimes of fuch men fhall bring their reputations, their honours, or their pretenfions to power in queftion with the public. Edin. Cour. Jan. 13.

To the publisher.

Read, in your Wednesday's paper, a letter, which deferves, and I hope has gained the attention of every lover of his country. The writer of it, whoever he is, fupports no feigned character of patriotifm: His heart feels every word he writes, and he throws with violence into the breafts of other men, a brand from that fire which burns in his own.

Never was there a nation upon earth, whofe fituation was more alarming, and more exafperating to a generous mind, than that of Scotland now is, and has been, fince the militia-bill [xxii. 513.] was rejected. The warm and fertile imagination of Fletcher, chafed with oppofition in the union-parliament, and heated with zeal for his native country, figured many cafes of violation and injury, that, in confequence of an union, might happen to the smaller ftate: but his imagination, bold and unconfined as it was, could not feign any thing like the reality that we have beheld and fuffered.

The people of England stand at this moment armed and difciplined to defend their country, rouzed and elevated with a consciousnels of their own condition; while we crawl under them, difarmed, difpirited, a defenceless prey, not to an enemy who comes with fleets and armies, but to a pirate, or privateer, who cruifes with a fingle veffel. Yet we do not feem to be in the leaft uneafy at our difgrace-, ful and deplorable condition.

If our ancestors had not been caft in a different mould from their defcendents, la fierte Ecoffoife," the Scottish pride," would not have been a proverb over all

Europe, to the honour of our forefathers, and the reproach of their abject posterity.

Fain would I make fome excuse for our lukewarmness, and find out fome plaufible reafon to account for our tameness and fubmiflion; but I can think of none. Some people fatisfy themselves with fuppofing, that if the English militia is continued, the militia for Scotland will certainly follow. I am not fure whether it will or not but fure I am, that it is the duty, the indifpenfable duty, of every member of a free state, to demand for himself and his countrymen the privileges of freedom.

We have been once refufed, let us afk again, and repeat for ever (till it is granted) our juft request. The bill for the Englih militia was rejected more than once: but did the advocates for it defpond, defpair, and fubmit? No; they perfifted, they increased the vehemence and peremptoriness of their demand, till their adverfaries durft no longer deny what was fo boldly claimed. What hinders us from doing the fame? Nothing but our own bafenefs.

'Tis faid with a fneer in the metropolis of G. Britain, That the zeal of the Scots for a militia is much abated, fince the great proportion given to that country in the new levies. If that is the true reafon of the prefent languor, the fymptom is mortal, and there is an end of the public in this part of the island. Those very men, who, for the fake of commiflions to their relations, now abandon the militia, will, from the fame motive, their own intereft, abandon, and betray every right and privilege of their country.

But I do not incline to push this argument; it leads to horrible confequences, and raifes fpeares before their time.

I fee Defpotifm ftriding over G. Britain; he musters his janifaries; their counte nances are cruel; they rejoice in the work of vengeance, in bereaving the fouth of that liberty, which the north had loft.

There is another fuppofition made use of as a pretence for inactivity, and it is this: That the attempt is vain; that the English have confpired against us, and determined to keep this country in a state of inferiority and fubjection. This is the excufe of the fluggard, who fays to himfelf, There is a lion in the way. We know very well by whofe influence the Scottish militia-bill was rejected; by the influence of those minifters, who fo long, and fo ftrenuoufly oppofed the English militia, and, though, forced to yield to the

torrent

wed; our men torn from us by violence, and fent abroad, where they are fcattered as leaves in the autumn, never to be gathered again; our women reduced to the neceffity of cultivating the ground, and by being expofed to the inclemency of the feafons, funburnt, haggard, and lean. I appeal to the inhabitants of the cultivated parts of Scotland, if there is one word of truth in all this. From the Grampian mountains to the Cheviot hills, where is the fpot where women are obliged to neglect their proper exercises, and perform the labours of the men? Let any one look into our churches or markets, the ufual rendez vous of our commons, and fay, whether our country appears to be in a depopulated state. The farmers indeed complain of the scarcity of men-fervants, and of the high wages they are obliged to give them; but, fure, it would be a grofs mistake, to refolve this entirely into the numbers gone abroad. We might, with equal propriety, align it as the reafon of the fcarcity of women-fervants, were we not fatisfied, that not one fingle regiment of Amazons has been raifed, and fent from Scotland, fince the commencement of the prefent war. This fcarcity both of the one and the other may be eafily accounted for, from the aftonishing increafe of our manufactures; in carrying on of which, they find encouragement, greater than what the ufual profits of agriculture can poffibly afford. We are indeed a poor people, poor in comparison of our opulent neighbours in England; but rich we certainly are, in respect of what we were, when firft incorporated with that wealthy nation; and did we carefully pursue the meature pointed out to us by the British parliament, we fhould foon become rich and powerful, and rife above every species of contempt.

Nor is the author of the letter more candid or more compofed in the picture he gives us of the treatment our country has received from that auguft aflembly, the parliament of G. Britain, which, he fays, has informed us, not in mere words, or petulant farcafms, not in terms of jefting and raillery, but in terms of law and acts of parliament, That we are an inferior class of men, not fit to be intrusted with the privileges of British subjects, nor fit to maintain the honour of our country. Had any act of parliament pafled of late in thefe terms, I fhould not have been furprised to fee the spirit of our nation, ever but too jealous of its honour, rouzed to the high

est degree of indignation and resentment : but as this is an event I have not observed to happen, I must conclude, that these terms are his own, and not the terms of law. And how any British fubject dare prefume to pervert the intention of an act of parliament, and clothe it with expreffions equally invidious and falfe, is an affurance, which none but a thoughtless paflionate man would be guilty of. Since we became one kingdom with England, we have been always used by them with the utmost tenderness and affection. It is not the low fcurrility which Scotsmen fometimes meet with on the Thames, from the boorish watermen, that is to be regarded. What has not the government done to bury invidious diftinctions, and to make us a truly free, and profperous, and happy people? I fay invidious distinctions; for it must be allowed, they have distinguilhed us in many particulars very much to our advantage; the distinctions they have made between themfelves and us have been, for the most part, greatly in our favour. Witnefs the land and malt tax: not to mention the poors rates, a tax we have only heard of, a burden under which the English in general groan [xi. 70. 132.]. Befides, as the riches, ftrength, and populousness of the united kingdoms, depend upon manufactures, trade and commerce, has not the government done every thing to promote thefe in our country? What laws have they not made? what encouragement have they not given us? Is there a port upon the occean open to them, and fhut to us? Are not the bounties and drawbacks upon exportation meant for our benefit as well as theirs? and do we not share in the pe cuniary encouragements granted by act of parliament for promoting the whale and herring fifhings? Has not the law alio provided the equivalent-money to be employed for advancing trade and manu factures in Scotland? And, after an unprovoked rebellion, which cost the English nation fo much money to extinguish, when one would have naturally thought the produce of the forfeited estates would have pafied into the English treasury, was not money fent down from thence, to pay off the feveral incumbrances, and the yearly rents appointed to be employed in pro moting fisheries and manufactures in the highlands and iflands [xiv. 161.] of Scotland? By thefe, and fuch laws as thefe, has the British legislature put us in the way of being rich. But as industry and

flavery

Jan.1762.

flavery are abfolutely incompatible, from that fame friendly fource have we been made to taste the fweets of liberty; inferior jurifdictions have been abolished [ix. 333, 65.], ward-holding laws put an end to; the cottager is as free as his mafter, the vaffal as independent as his lord. Our perfons, our properties, our reputations are fecured to us by laws, wife, determinate, and well known; nor are thefe facred poffeffions any longer at the mercy of a petty tyrant or infolent mafter. And what, pray, would we have more? Is there any thing in all this that can lead us to think that we are the objects of the contempt of the English, or that they really mean to opprefs us? But, fays the angry writer, they have embodi ed a militia, and put arms in their hands, and will not allow us the fame method of defence: A mighty indignity this furely, and only to be refented with blood and wounds! Let us however lay afide our national pride and paflion for a moment, and confider this matter with coolnets and impartiality. Senfible that agriculture, trade, and manufactures, in this country, are but in their infant ftate; how cruel would it have been in the British parliament, to have called off from those branches of business 6 or 7000 of our best hands, by the want of whofe labour, e very day they were learning the ufe of arms, the nation must have suffered the lots of 300 1. Sterling? But this is not all: for though thefe 6000 men, by being engaged in ufeful bufinefs from their youth, may have acquired the habits of industry and application; yet having learned from their parents in their childhood the martial atchievements of their ancestors, the traditional hiflory whereef is commonly handed down from father to fon, especially in families in the north parts of Scotland, fentiments of war and fighting are early impreffed upon their minds; which impreflions, ftifled for a time, by an affiduous application to buines, revive with uncommon force, fo foon as arms are put into their hands; and as they are to continue in the poffeffion of them at stated times for the course of three years, during that period the martial fpirit will acquire a strength fufficient to withdraw the heart and attention from the more neceffary labours of life. This not being the cafe with Englishmen, was certainly one good reafon for not ex. tending the burthenfome militia act to Scotland.

VOL. XXIV.

13

We have ftill more reafon to thank the

British parliament for their kind partiality to us, when we confider, that though they had faddled us with a national militia, it could not have answered the purpoles of a national defence. The booo men who were firft railed, would naturally contract fuch an habit of idleness during their three years fervice, that it is not to be imagined they would easily prevail upon themfelves to return to their former occupations, but would rather offer themfelves to be hired by those whose turn it fhould next be to take the field; and as the law allows of such a substitution, those engaged in more lucrative employments would readily take the benefit of it: and thus, inftead of difciplining the whole body of the people, 6 or 7000 men would be the highest number that would at any one time understand the use of arms in Scotland; who living scattered in the different and most diftant parishes of it, could not be drawn together to any one place in less than fix or eight weeks; and, confidering the extent of our fea-coafts, could be of no manner of use in protecting the country from the attacks of pirates, or in giving check to an invading enemy.

Befides, when we call to mind the circumstances which attended the execution of the militia-act in England, what oppofition it met with, what mutinies it created, what blood fled it was the occafion of, and how that in fome counties they have not been able to make it effectual to this day [xxi. 385.], we may easily conceive the formidable notions they entertain of it: and fhall we wantonly wish to bring upon ourselves a burthen, which our ftronger and more powerful neighbours have, by fad experience, found themfelves not able to bear? fhall we, like the abject mean-fpirited Cappadocians of old, run back to flavery and chains, and refufe to be free?

I fhall only take notice of one thing further, which I apprehend lies at the bottom of all this noife and uproar, viz. That the English have given a negative to a Scots militia, from a perfuafion that our people are Jacobites, and difaffected to the prefent government. If they really are of this opinion, nothing can be more natural, nothing can be more agreeable to common fenfe, than the measure they have taken to prevent their enemies having it in their power to hurt them; the Jacobites themfelves would have defpifed the weakness and folly of acting o

C

therwise.