Stewart's story, or stories, unquestionably rested on some foundation of truth, but on how much no man can tell. The accused, with the exception of Montrose, confessed to have talked with Stewart, but denied all knowledge of his hieroglyphics. Keir, indeed, owned to have been shown a paper by him containing some general propositions on public affairs which he understood to have been submitted to Charles by Lennox, and the King's answers. He gave a copy of it to Napier, but nothing seems to have been said either then or afterwards as to the author. Beyond this we cannot go. From this point of view Argyll and his faction were of course justified in regarding Montrose and his friends as conspirators. They were conspiring against Argyll, whom they believed to be the worst enemy of their country no less than of the King. Under his rule the Covenant had sunk to a mere faction, in which no honest patriot could any longer bear part or lot. They had persuaded themselves that salvation could come only by the King. He had promised all that a reasonable people could expect from him, and if he would hesitate no more nor go back again upon his word all would be well. While Argyll was carrying all before him, they could only work for their country's good in secret. So far they were undoubtedly conspirators. Napier would have been soon set free at an early stage of the proceedings. He was an old man, much respected and liked by all parties. But he would not accept a favour which would imply, he said, a tacit confession of his guilt. Whatever their crime might be, they all shared it equally. Montrose refused, always courteously but persistently refused, to answer any questions before the Committee. If he was guilty, he said, let him be brought to a public trial. He was declared contumacious, and an order issued to make search for further evidence of treason against him. His servants were examined, his houses ransacked, his cabinets broken open, and his private papers read; but only one document was found that could by any ingenuity be turned against him. This was a defence of the Cumbernauld Bond, written, he assured the Committee, for his own private satisfaction only, now that the Bond had been burned and the whole affair, as he had supposed, laid for ever to rest. The Covenanting historians have described it as an "infamous and scurvey libel, full of vain humanities, magnifying to the skies his own courses, and debasing to hell his opposites." But as they have omitted to allow posterity the means of determining the justice of their description, and as Montrose's public writings and speeches certainly do not justify it, we may conclude that party feeling had something to do with these tremendous epithets. The Covenanters had in truth a profound belief in the wisdom of the advice embodied at a later day in the well-known formula, _Give your judgment, but never give your reasons_. They burned the Bond, they burned its justification, and then they