Life and diary of Lieut. Col. J. Blackader

CHAP. II. THE CAMERONIANS. ' 37
preted. Strangers, ignorant of what they suffered,
and mistaking the principles on which they acted, be-
lieved them to he those traitors, rebels and murderers
which their enemies represented them. Better info/.v
mation would have refuted and dispelled many of thtf;*»
calumnies. Men of candour and humanity, who know
their history, will be more disposed to pity, than to
censure them. They will treat their foibles with
leniency, and throw a veil of charitable construction
even over their extravagances. They will see in those
indiscretions or crimes of which they were guilty, only
the natural result, or rather the unavoidable conse-
quences of their treatment. They will find their ob-
stinacy to be an honest, but inflexible adherence to
what they believed to be the imprescriptible rights of
all free-born citizens. They will attribute their re-
jection of authority, to the abuse of it, on the part of
their rulers, and not to any factious dislike of royalty,
or a turbulent impatience of order and subordination.
They disclaimed the taking of arms, for any other
purpose, but that of self-defence ; and not until the
rigour of government had compelled them to adopt
that last and desperate resource. They did not dis-
own the king, until they were persuaded he had for-
feited his claim to their allegiance, by perfidiously
violating every solemn and constitutional stipulation.
He had assumed a prerogative inconsistent with the
safety and freedom of the people, and subversive, both
of their natural and civil rights.
They did not openly announce their revolt from
government, until they were provoked and exasperated
to a degree of madness, by its oppressive exactions and
brutal inhumanities. The law, by placing their lives