And yet you are the man who are to "vindicate the credit of your country!" When I read this, I laughed aloud. Poor old Scotland! I saw her reviled and misrepresented by _Blackwood's_ troop of statists, and her agriculture exhibited as in a _dwining_ condition. And I saw you, fire in your eye, and in "your nostril beautiful disdain," sallying forth, armed _cap-à-pie_, a devoted and gallant chevalier, to do vengeance on the enemies of your native land. And methought I heard you exclaim in a heroical ecstasy--"I will vindicate the credit of my country!" My dear sir, you may be ambitious to live in Caledonian story as the champion of Scotland; but it is more probable that you may be only recollected as the Don Quixotte of Baldoon. Dr Johnson tells us of a patriotic butcher, who was haunted with the idea that his country was on its last legs, and whose continual exclamation was--"My heart bleeds for my country!" 'Tis said that the butcher grew fat, and the country yet exists. _Blackwood's_ statistics were expressly put forward as embodying the average produce for a term of years of the average soil in the different districts selected for illustration, and farmed according to the best modes. Extraordinary and exceptional produce and profits were properly avoided, as well as extraordinary failures or losses in crops; and surely the average was high enough, if we may infer anything from the reports of the _Times'_ own commissioner, to convince our friends on the south side of the Border that our agriculture was not absolutely in a decaying condition; and therefore I am constrained to believe that you are misinformed regarding this "impression." And even if it were otherwise, and, supposing that _Blackwood_ had injured your country, should you not have modestly asked whether you were the man fit to avenge your country's wrongs? There is another most singular delusion in which you seem to be immersed. You fancy that the surpassingly able and striking article in _Blackwood_, which has excited a deeper and more general sensation in the kingdom than perhaps any article that ever appeared in any British periodical, has been got up solely and exclusively for the purpose of refuting and overthrowing your pamphlet! "And finally, the Editor of _Blackwood's Magazine_, backed by the whole influence of the Protectionist party in Scotland, has brought up a heavy troop of yeomanry to extinguish the opinions I advanced, by an overwhelming exhibition of authority. Acknowledging the compliment implied in the necessity for this array, I think my readers will now feel that it is not the advocate, but the cause, which is inextinguishable," (p. 30.) The whole Protectionist party, you fancy, have entered into a wicked league to expose you! Nor is this all. Plainly, your idea is that the Editor of _Blackwood_, and his learned ally, the author of _The Book of the Farm_, were afraid to encounter you; and, conscious of their weakness, that they summoned