retract, and threatened that, if not allowed to do so, they would themselves take the Covenant. While Hamilton was arguing with them a deputation from the Covenanters was announced. They came to protest against the declaration. When they had been heard, Hamilton, excusing himself to his colleagues, withdrew with them into another room where he addressed them in these remarkable words: "My Lords and Gentlemen, I spoke to you before those Lords of the Council as the King's Commissioner; now there being none present but yourselves, I speak to you as a kindly Scotsman. If you go on with courage and resolution you will carry what you please, but if you faint and give ground in the least you are undone--a word is enough to wise men." The authority for this monstrous speech rests on two of the deputation, who heard it and repeated it in identical terms within four-and-twenty hours of its being spoken. One of these was Montrose himself, the other was his colleague, the minister Cant. They told it separately to Bishop Guthrie, then a minister at Stirling, in whose Memoirs it may be read. The Bishop adds that the incident created an uneasy feeling in Montrose's mind that Hamilton was playing both sides false in order to advance those designs on the crown of Scotland of which he had been, it will be remembered, already accused, and which many at least of his own countrymen still believed him to entertain. He told Guthrie that he should form no rash conclusions, but that meantime he should keep his eyes open and look carefully to his own steps.