After the requisite number of ladies and gentlemen had licked the scheme into some sort of shape in private, they held a meeting in the Assembly-Rooms in George-Street, on the 24th of September, 1819, at which his Grace of Athol presided; and divers other persons, equally loyal, and almost equally tasteful and wise, gave their assistance. The time was well-chosen. It was in the very depth of those political clouds which, arising immediately from the sufferings of the people, and remotely, as was supposed, from the wasteful expenditure and unaccommodating pride of the Administration, were threatening to burst upon both ends of the island. The object, as set forth in the resolutions of that meeting, was threefold:--First, the erection of a monument to commemorate the great naval and military achievements of the British arms, during the late glorious and eventful war; secondly, in order to testify the gratitude of the projectors to the Almighty, they were to connect a church with the monument of the achievements, and endow two ministers to officiate therein; and thirdly, they were to set apart a certain number of the seats in this church for the benefit of pious strangers visiting the Athens. All which being settled, they set about a subscription for raising the funds. In those days, however, they were by no means such adepts in political arithmetic as they have since become, through the labours of Joseph Hume and others; and though they had their purses, they were neither so full nor so easily opened as their loyal intentions. As that moment, the monument to the achievements, the church, and the two ministers, would have cost them more than a hundred thousand pounds; and thus the monument, besides its more avowed and desired objects would have been the monument of all the disposeable cash of the whole of the Tories of Scotland,--a sepulture and a remembrance of which, they were not altogether so fond. Wherefore, finding that the subscriptions amongst themselves were in danger of becoming the monument of the project, they applied to the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk. That venerable constellation of churchmen, after grave deliberation, declared that the thing was “a most suitable and appropriate expression of gratitude to the Lord of Hosts,” and forthwith recommended a general address from the one thousand and one parish pulpits of the Kirk, for the purpose of obtaining collections and subscriptions from the one thousand and one parishes. But the parsons were not over hearty in the cause, and the people were less so; and thus the whole sum produced did not much exceed a hundred pounds--about two shillings for the prayers and pleading of each minister.