Men of Scotland, was there ever anything like this? Can the remembrance of such atrocities ever be obliterated? Can century upon century, as they slowly roll on their course, ever place these events, and this event in particular, beyond the range of your interest? We read with horror of the scaffold and the guillotine; but what immediate death could equal in atrocity their protracted sufferings? Friends have they, indeed, within these walls, but they cannot, or but seldom, and at great risk, obtain an entrance. Many are disposed to supply the houseless prisoner with couch and covering, but they only supply additional means of debauchery to the ruffian soldiery. The chambers of the _many dead_ are defiled and rendered pestilential by the presence of the _many living_. Death, in ordinary circumstances, is a boon to this. Winter approaching--(nay, has arrived)--the sleety shower plashing over the Castle--the whirling drifts, eddying about, amongst, and beneath the tombstones--the wild, long, endless night, to which succeeds no dawn of comfort--no warm chamber--no invigorating and cheering meal. Oh, honest and fearless shades, tell us all! how did you stand it? How was it that you did not sell your remaining strength as dearly as possible?--that you did not rush like tigers upon your guards, and perish whilst rending them with your teeth and nails? But ye are silent as becomes ye; so I must apply to honest John Govan's MS. "This is now the sixth week that I have dwelt in this dreary place. Oh, happy they who lie beneath! they are covered, and feel not our privations, and pains, and sufferings; and yet freedom and home is offered to us, and accepted by many. God forgive them, if it be His will!--but John Govan will never accept his liberty on such terms. His mother's shade would rise up in judgment. Shall I take their infamous oaths, or subscribe their no less infamous bonds? Shall I swear that the Bishop's death is murder, and that the resistance of an oppressed and persecuted people is rebellion? Shall I 'bind, oblige, and enact myself,' that I shall not hereafter take up arms in so good a cause? No! I will sooner perish, inch by inch; I will sooner suffer the tortures of the boot, and the final cruel judgment of the maiden. Men are yet unborn that will bless us--a whole people, happy in a pure religion and a free government, will adore the memory of the most humble son of the Covenant; they will build and erect pillars and monuments to our memory; they will count, anxiously count, kindred with us; they will record and register our deeds and our sufferings; and, when this world, with all its interests, shall have ceased to exist, we shall be in everlasting remembrance." Thus reasoned, and thus were supported, these men, who set at defiance threats, and entreaties, and insidious reasonings; who valued the approbation of their own consciences above every other; who feared their God, and had no other fear.