Tories alike were amused and instructed by his conversation, in which he did not fail to present the worst features of Presbytery.[110] The _Vindication_, the greater part of which was probably written at Oxford, was a serious attempt to show that the Executive Government in Scotland had not been guilty of oppression and cruelty, that no one had suffered on account of his religion, that the Presbyterians were merely rebels, and that the laws which had been made against them were not only necessary, but had never been harshly administered. He did not live to publish this pamphlet himself, but after his death it was printed by Dr. Alexander Monro, who had lately been deprived of the place of Principal of the University of Edinburgh. Coming from the pen of a well-known member of the late Government, who had, for a number of years, been the first law officer of the Crown in the country about which he was writing, the _Vindication_ had great weight in England. Monro also published a tract of his own, defending himself against charges made by the commissioners who had been appointed to visit the Scottish universities, and “purge” them of all professors who would not swear allegiance to William and Mary.[111] The effect of this work, and others upon the same subject, was to raise a feeling of contempt for the state of learning in Scotland, and to cause Englishmen to believe that, under the Presbyterian system, literature and science were doomed. Other pamphlets were published giving an account of the proceedings in the General Assembly and in the Parliament connected with the establishment of the Church.[112] These, certainly, contain materials of great historical value; but they do not even pretend to be impartial, and were written to excite sympathy with the ejected Episcopal ministers and dislike to their successors.