There is, besides, a natural feeling of loyalty, which, though it may be evanescent, hardly fails to be kindled in the breasts of the populace, at the sight of their native sovereign. The Scots, though they frequently were far from being contented with the measures pursued by their monarchs, have been always celebrated for their attachment to their persons. Mary, on her first landing, became aware of this truth. As soon as it was known that she intended returning from all the splendours of France, to the more homely comforts of the land of her birth, the people, flattered by the preference she was about to show them, abated somewhat of their previous asperity. They were the more pleased, that she came to them, not as the Queen of France, who might have regarded Scotland as only a province of her empire, but as their own exclusive and independent sovereign. They recollected that she had been at the disposal of the Estates of the country, from the time she was seven days old, and they almost felt as if she had been a child of their own rearing. They knew, also, that she had made a narrow escape in crossing the seas; and the confidence she evidently placed in them, by casting anchor in Leith Roads, with only two galleys, did not pass unnoticed. But she had arrived sooner than was expected; for, so little were they aware of her intended motions, that when her two ships were first observed in the Frith, from the Castle of Edinburgh, no suspicion was entertained that they carried the Queen and her suite. It was not, till a royal salute was fired in the Roads, that her arrival was positively known, and that the people began to flock in crowds to the shore.