‘This way of proceeding, my lord, will seem verey abrupte and inconsiderat to you; but I laye my count with the severest censer you or may malicious enemies can or will saye of me. So, not to be tedious, all I have to speak is this: I think you most absurd to [have] bought the lands of Spott from Mr Murray without my consent, which you shall never have now; and I hope to be poseser of Spott hous when you are att the divel; and believe me, my childrin’s curse and mine will be a greater moth in your estate than all your ladey and your misirable wretchedness can make up and pray [pay]. ‘This is no letter of my lord Bell Heavins, and tho you saye, in spite of the divell, you’le buy it befor this time twell month, you may come to repent it; but thats non of my bisnes. I shall only saye this, you are basely impertinent to thrust me away in a hurrey from my houss at Whitsunday, when I designed not [Sidenote: 1703.] to go till Martinmis: and I wish the ghosts of all the witches that ever was about Spott may haunt you, and make you the unfortountest man that ever lived, that you may see you was in the wrong in makeing aney such bargain without the consent of your mortal enemy, CLARA MURRAY.’[335] [Sidenote: JULY 1.] The country was at this time in a state of incandescent madness regarding its nationality, and the public feeling found expression through the medium of parliament. By its order, there was this day burned at the Cross of Edinburgh, by the hangman, a book entitled _Historia Anglo-Scotica_, by James Drake, ‘containing many false and injurious reflections upon the sovereignty and independency of this nation.’ In August 1705, when the passion was even at a greater height, the same fate was awarded by the legislature to a book, entitled _The Superiority and Direct Dominion of the Imperial Crown of England over the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland_; also to a pamphlet, called _The Scots Patriot Unmasked_, both being the production of William Atwood. On the same day that the latter order was given, the parliament decreed the extraordinary sum of £4800 (Scots?) to Mr James Anderson, for a book he had published, _A Historical Essay shewing that the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland is Imperial and Independent_. Nor was this all, for at the same time it was ordered that ‘Mr James Hodges, who hath in his writings served this nation,’ should have a similar reward.[336] [Sidenote: SEP. 3.]