The circumstances out of which this great conflict originated may be thus briefly detailed. The continued infraction of the laws by a systematic indifference to every principle of legality, the violation of the liberties of the people, the brutal cruelty and senseless obstinacy, the persistent determination to deprive the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches of their rights and privileges, and to restore the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, which characterized the proceedings of James II. during his short and most unhappy reign, completely alienated the affections of his subjects, and eventually led the best and greatest men of the country to seek the aid of the Prince of Orange, afterwards William III., against the tyranny and oppression to which they were subjected. The flight of the King, and the successful accomplishment, and glorious results of the Revolution of 1688, speedily followed that movement, and the stable and permanent advantages, and constitutional reforms, that subsequently had their origin in the Bill of Rights, were thus secured to us. While experiencing those manifold benefits, and realizing the blessed results of the solid guarantees for the maintenance and extension of their liberties, that sprung out of the expulsion of James II., and when there were numbers of living men, who had not only been witnesses, but were also victims of his oppression and misrule, it is passing strange that such a feeling should have existed among any considerable body of the people as could have rendered possible the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and have enlisted in favour of the Stuarts, and enrolled among their enthusiastic adherents, many men of high position, and extensive territorial possessions. But, though at the period of the outbreak of 1715, only 27 years had elapsed, and not more than 57 years had passed, when the Rebellion of 1745 occurred, since the Revolution, the resentment, the sense of wrong, and the many painful impressions produced on the public mind by the occurrences of James II.’s fated and luckless reign, though not wholly effaced, had unquestionably been very considerably subdued and obliterated. The sons and grandsons of the brave and devoted Cavaliers, who fought and bled for their King in the bloody fields of Naseby and Worcester, and who sacrificed wealth and life in the royalist cause, clung tenaciously to the recollections associated with those unhappy days, and still sympathised with the fallen fortunes of the Stuarts.