History of the life and death of John, Earl of Gowrie

JOHN, EARL OF GOWRIE. %27
he would not find the Earl reading such a book on
the intervening Sabbath.
I make no doubt that the archbishop wrote ac-
cording as his memory served him at the time.
But it is to the last degree improbable, that the
Earl, if he had then any treasonable design in view,
would have spoken in the manner which he did to
Mr. Cowper. At whatever time it was, when he had
the conversation, he seems to have expressed his
opinion freely as on a general subject in history,
and his having done so, should rather be consider-
ed as an argument, that he was harbouring in his
mind no design which needed to be concealed. If
it had been thought of importance to serve the
cause of the King, Mr. Cowper would have been
brought forward to give an account of the conver-
sation, but no public notice was taken of it.
Lord Hailes, in his pamphlet on the Gowrie
Conspiracy*, conjectures that the book which the
Earl was reading, was the Latin translation of Ma-
chiavel's Discourses on the sixth chapter of the
third book of Livy ; and that, because of the ex-
planation which Machiavel gave of his intentions
* Page 56.