And now, my dear fellow-subjects, you cannot be at a loss to apprehend the reason of my appearance on this occasion, and of the death I am to suffer. For when our brave and natural-born Prince (a Prince endued with every virtue proper to grace a throne, and a stranger to every vice that high life is most subject to, in a word a Prince adorn'd with every quality that could attract the hearts of a wise people or make a nation [Sidenote: _fol._ 24.] happy) generously hazarded his own valuable person to relieve us from slavery and to retrieve his father's crown; and every steady patriot who had courage to resolve to conquer or suffer in the way of duty, according to the will of God, join'd his royal standard; thither many, to whom I was attach'd by relation, friendship and several other ties, dutyfully resorted, and kindly invited and earnestly importun'd me to attend them as their priest, while they were laudably engaged in their king and country's cause; which agreeably to my now profess'd principles I readily consented to, as I plainly foresaw that I could not discharge my function with more safety in that congregation to which I have a spiritual and peculiar relation where part of the Prince's forces always lay, than in going along with my worthy friends in their glorious expedition. And here I must declare that while I accompanied my brave [Sidenote: _fol._ 25.] countrymen in their noble enterprise I saw a decency and order maintained amongst them, equal if not superiour to any regular disciplin'd force. And if any hardship or severity was committed I am fully persuaded it was unknown to, and very cross to the inclination of their merciful and royal leader. And in particular I do believe that the destruction of St. Ninian's[23] was merely by accident and without any order from his royal highness. And this is the more evident since the person who had the fatal occasion of it lost his own life in the conflagration. But it was maliciously represented and put in the worst light to vindicate the malicious procedure of the Usurper's forces; whose conduct let it be compar'd with that of our King's army and then you may form as ready and just a judgment of the true and pretended father of the country, as Solomon by a like experiment did of the true and pretended mother of the child. [23] See fuller references to this incident of the war at f. 155. According, however, to detailed accounts from the other side, it was deliberately done, and caused the death of several of the poorer townspeople, who were allured into the church in the hope of getting stores the rebels could not carry away.--_Scots' Magazine_, 1746, p. 221.