Maitland Club > Miscellany of the Maitland Club > Volume 3, Parts 1 and 2

448 BURNING OF AUCHTERARDER. 1716.
dency that brought me into this Country, and all hopes of effectuating
that at this time being taken from me I have been reduced much against
my inclination but by a cruell necessity to leave the Kingdom with as
many of my faithfull subjects as were desirous to follow me or I able to
carry with me, that so at least I might secure them from the utter des-
truction that threatens them since that was the only way left me to shew
them the regard I had for and sense I had of their unparaleld loyalty.
Among the manifold mortifications I have had in this unfortunat ex-
pedition, that of being forced to burn severall villages &c. as the only
expedient left me for the publick security, was not the smallest. It was
indeed forced upon me by the violence with which my rebellious subjects
acted against me, and what they, as the first authors of it, must be an-
swerable for, not I ; however 1 cannot think of leaving this Country
without making some provision to repair that loss. I have therefore
consigned to the Magistrates of the sum of
desiring and requiring you if not as an obedient subject, at least as a
lover of your Country, to take care that it be employd to the designd
use, that I may at least have the satisfaction of having been the destruc-
tion and ruin of none, at a time I came to free all. Whether you have
yet receivd my lettre or what effect it hath had upon you I am as yet
ignorant of, but what will now become of these unhappy Nations is but
too plaine.
I have neglected nothing to render them a free and prosperous people,
and I fear they will feel yet more than I the smart of preferring a foreign
yoak to that obedience they owd me, and what must those who have so
obstinatly resisted both my right and my clemency, have to answer for ?
but however things turn or Providence is pleased to dispose of events, I
shall never abandon my just Right nor the pursuite of it but with my
life, and beseech God so to turn at last the hearts of my subjects as that
they may enjoy peace and happiness by submitting to what their interest
and duty equally require of them. As for your own particular you