Small replied that, after doing his best to bring Clerk and Macdonald to trial, his character had been blackened by Lockhart before the jury, as having pursued the accused for private reasons of malice. As an officer and a gentleman, believing in his heart that the accused were guilty (which they undoubtedly were), he had resented the license of Lockhart. Small was found guilty of contempt, bound over to keep the peace, and obliged to apologise. Meanwhile General Bland, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, justified Ensign Small in a letter to the English Ministry. Lockhart, the General denounces as a ‘famous foul-mouthed Jacobite advocate.’ He had ‘concerted’ his abuse of the Ensign in court ‘with his Jacobite fraternity.’ The Ensign had very properly ‘taken him by the nose, and called him a scoundrell. He took it quietly.’ If Lockhart is not warned, his bones will be broken. The General has used his influence with the judges to secure easy terms for the loyal Ensign.[103] The docile judges, ‘the Fifteen,’ had accepted evidence extorted by military violence in what was really a political case, that of Fassifern. But it is clear that the jury, in the case of the Sergeant’s murder, had resented such intimidation, as denounced by Lockhart, and this resentment, rather than the ghost story, probably procured the acquittal of two undeniable robbers and murderers, Terig, or Clerk, and Macdonald.[104] Another curious instance of the methods of Government occurs in the case of James Mohr. It was generally suspected that Government connived at his escape from Edinburgh Castle in the disguise of a cobbler (November 16, 1752). The Government, however, broke the lieutenants of the guard, deprived the sergeant of his stripes, and whipped the porter. But we find a remarkable letter of General Churchill’s,[105] saying that ‘James Mohr had been taken up on the abduction charge,’ and was extremely anxious to make disclosures. That his recent behaviour cannot allow him to be believed unless he is allowed to suppose ‘his life is at stake.’ That ‘should your Grace think proper to employ him, the great difficulty is to bring about his liberation without raising a suspicion of the Cause, _nor can it be so effectually done as by giveing private orders to a Party of the Troops employed in escorting him to favour his escape_.’ If this suggestion was acted on later, if James was allowed to escape from Edinburgh Castle that he might become a spy, as he did, the lieutenants, the sergeant, and the porter were very scurvily treated. The game of justice was not played with much scrupulousness by the English Government. IX A GENTLEMAN OF KNOYDART