How Dr. Cameron’s death affected both parties, in London, is best illustrated by a well-known and picturesque incident recorded by Boswell. Soon after the execution, Hogarth was visiting Richardson, the author of ‘Clarissa Harlowe.’ ‘And being a warm partisan of George II., he observed to Richardson that certainly there must have been some very unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this particular case which had induced the King to approve of an execution for rebellion so long after the time when it was committed, as this had the appearance of putting a man to death in cold blood, and was very unlike his Majesty’s usual clemency. While he was talking, he perceived a person standing at a window of the room shaking his head, and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner. He concluded that he was an idiot whom his relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a very good man. To his great surprise, however, this figure stalked forward to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the argument, and burst out into an invective against George II., as one who, upon all occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous, mentioning many instances. In short, he displayed such a power of eloquence that Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and actually imagined that the idiot had been at the moment inspired. Hogarth and Johnson were not made known to each other at this interview.’ [Sidenote: _CAMERON’S CASE._] Neither Hogarth nor Johnson knew the real facts of this case. Cameron played a desperate game and lost his stake. Scott, in the Introduction to Redgauntlet,’ declares that whether the execution of Cameron was political or otherwise, it might have been justified upon reasons of a public nature had the king’s Ministry thought proper to do so. Cameron had not visited Scotland solely on private affairs. ‘It was not considered prudent by the English Ministry to let it be generally known that he came to inquire about a considerable sum of money which had been remitted from France to the friends of the exiled family.’ He had also, as Scott points out, a commission to confer with Macpherson of Cluny who, from 1746 to 1756, was the representative or chief agent of the ‘rightful King,’ an office which he carried on under circumstances of personal misery and peril. Cameron and Macpherson were to gather together the scattered embers of disaffection. The former, being captured, paid the forfeit which was legally due. ‘The ministers, however,’ says Scott, ‘thought it proper to leave Dr. Cameron’s new schemes in concealment, lest, by divulging them, they had indicated the channel of communication which, as is now well known, they possessed to all the plots of Charles Edward. But it was equally ill-advised and ungenerous to sacrifice the character of the King to the policy of the administration. Both points might have been gained by sparing the life of Dr. Cameron, after conviction, and limiting his punishment