Nevertheless, the authorities, notably the Lord Advocate, Robert Dundas, took alarm; and on 2nd January 1793 Thomas Muir was brought before the deputy-sheriff of Midlothian. Muir was a man of highly interesting personality. The son of a Glasgow tradesman, he had shown marked abilities at school and at the University, whence, owing to his advanced opinions, he was forced to migrate to Edinburgh. There, in his twenty-seventh year, he soon became a leader of the Scottish Reformers, his sincerity, eloquence, and enthusiasm everywhere arousing keen interest. Had his good sense been equal to his abilities, he might have gone far; but events soon showed him to be tactless and headstrong. He went far beyond the rest of the delegates assembled at Edinburgh, namely, in bringing forward, despite the reluctance of the Convention, an Address from the Society of United Irishmen in Dublin. Their conduct much alarmed the authorities at Dublin Castle, who adopted stringent precautions. Muir should therefore have seen, what his colleagues did see, that any plan of co-operation was certain to irritate Government. Nevertheless he persisted in bringing before the Convention the Irish Address, which strongly pointed out the need of common action in the struggle for Reform and urged both peoples to persevere "until we have planted the flag of freedom on the summit, and are at once victorious and secure." Further, the authorities accused Muir of circulating Paine's writings and other pamphlets, including "A Dialogue between the Governors and the Governed," which contained such sentences as these: "The law is the general will--a new order." "Nations cannot revolt; tyrants are the only rebels." "We will live without tyrants, without impostors (priests)."[288] The writings were probably seditious in their tendency;[289] but the evidence that he circulated them was of the flimsiest character.[290]