Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

THE LOYALL DISSUASIVE
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family, and from the tyme that your Lordship’s great and
illustrious father did us the justice as well as the honour to
espouse our interest,1 want only power and opportunity to he
so to your Lordship.
I doubt not but some surly Momus may object against me
that in this defence I have here and there dypt my pen in
vinegar and used my adversaries more harshly than was meet.
But I would have such to understand that it is excusable in
any to put on rough gloves who is to deal with bryars and
thorns. They were themselves the first agressors, and if they
have provoked us to publish some very undenyable truths, in
exchange of their false and impudent slanders they may know
without my help whom they have to thank for it. Self
defence is naturall and allowed both by the law of God and
man, and to stand to a base defence (all know) were to stand
to none at all.
Nor is it improbable either that some one may suggest that
this small tractate is too mean a present for one of your Lord-
ships character, as to which I am ready to plead guilty, and
freely own that in itself and for its bulk and outward appear¬
ance it may be justly reckoned so. But if the mind and
fortune of the author are jointly considered with the subject it
•defends, viz., the honour and loyalty of the Clanchattan, in
whom, as I hinted above, your Lordship has no small concern,
I hope they may not be altogether unacceptable to your
Lordship; tyme may come when I may have some other offering,
it may be better fitted and adapted to your Lordships
Quality.
But I lykewayes foresee that a third and nycer sort of
Criticks may object that in this discourse I seem to put too
great a value on the Chieffs, honoring them with such Titles
and Compellations as in their account is only due to Peerage,
not considering that for 1300 years together, the Chieffs of
Clanns were the only peers of the nation, the Proceres Regni,
as Buchanan, the monks of Pasly,2 and other authors calls
1 For active interest on the part of Earl Marischal, see Section IX.
* Buchanan frequently quotes the Black Book of Paisley. The book came
into the possession of President Spottiswood, and was carried to London by
^General Lambert. See note, infra, on Black Book of Paisley.