"MY LORD,--As I am told that Dr. Robertson has wrote a few remarks, which he communicated to your lordship, as our common answer about the affair of Queen Mary, and has endeavoured to show you that it was contempt and not inability, which kept him from making a public reply; I thought it would not be amiss for me to imitate his example; and I did not indeed know a properer person, nor a more equal judge than your lordship, to whom I could submit the cause. For if, on the one hand, your lordship's regard to the memory of that princess might give you a bias to that side, I know, that the ancient and constant friendship, with which your lordship has always honoured me, both in public and private, would give you a strong bias on my side; and there was a good chance for your remaining neutral and impartial between these motives. "I shall confine my apology to the account which I have given of the conference at Hampton court, as this is indeed the chief point, in which the answerer has thought proper to find fault with me. "There are several places, in which I mention Mary's refusal to give any reply to Murray's charge, and have commonly said, that she annexed as a condition, her being admitted to Queen Elizabeth's presence; as in page 496, line 20; page 501, line 12, line 21.[253:1] I have not said that this condition was an unreasonable one, (the words which the answerer puts in my mouth,) but only that it was such a one as she did not expect to be granted; and that because Queen Elizabeth had formerly refused it, before any positive proofs of Mary's guilt were produced, merely from the general rumour and opinion, which were unfavourable to her. Having thus clearly expressed myself on this head, when I have occasion afterwards, in the course of the narration, to mention the matter, I say once or twice simply, that Mary refused to give any answer, without expressing the condition annexed by her. My reasons were, that the position was sufficiently qualified by the preceding narration; and because a refusal, grounded on a condition which the person does not expect to be gratified, and which is accordingly denied, is certainly equivalent to a simple and absolute refusal.