PREFACE.

THROUGH the kindness of the late MR. BAILLIE of Mellerstain, I am enabled to present the Club with the following Letters, containing the correspondence of his ancestor, GEORGE BAILLIE of Jerviswood, with the Earl of Roxburgh and Secretary Johnstone.

Although these Letters are chiefly occupied with the petty intrigues of the different factions in Scotland, in their struggle for office and power, and particularly during the feeble administration of Lord Tweeddale and the Squadrone, who were displaced to make way for Argyll and Queensberry, they still possess some interest, as being written during the violent contention between the Parliaments of England and Scotland that preceded the Union of the Kingdoms, and during the progress of the Union itself. They exhibit, too, the undisguised sentiments of the most eminent persons of that Party, with regard to whom Burnet, in writing of the Union, thus expresses himself:-" But that which advanced the

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design most effectually, and without which it could not have "succeeded, was, that a considerable number of noblemen and gentlemen, who were in no engagements with the Court, (on "the contrary, they had been disobliged and turned out of great "posts, and some very lately,) declared for it. These kept them

"selves very close and united, and seemed to have no other inte"rest but that of their country, and were for that reason called the Squadrone.

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The publication of Lady Murray's Memoirs renders any further account of her father, Baillie of Jerviswood, unnecessary. He is universally admitted to have been a man of vigorous talent and uncompromising principle, and to have obtained a commanding influence over the conduct of his party; and Lockhart, who certainly was not disposed to flatter one of his "rebellious race," describes him as "of a profound solid judgment, and by far the most significant man of his party, to whom he was a kind of Dictator.”

MR. JAMES JOHNSTONE, better known as Secretary Johnstone, was a younger son of Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warristoun, who fell a victim at the Restoration to the personal resentment of Charles the Second. He was educated in Holland, and through Bishop Burnet's interest was appointed to attend Mr. Sidney on his mission to mature the Revolution in England. Upon King William's accession, Mr. Johnstone was employed as Envoy to Berlin, from whence he was recalled to receive the appointment of Secretary of State for Scotland, which he held till the year 1696, when, in consequence of the discussions that arose on the Darien enterprise, and through the ill offices of Mr. Carstairs, he incurred the King's displeasure, and was dismissed from his post. From this time he remained unemployed till the year 1704, when, on the formation of Tweeddale's Administration, he received the valuable

* For the sequel of this passage vide Burnet's History of his own Times, vol. v. page 280, octavo edition 1823.

+ Wodrow's History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.

Burnet's mother was a sister of Warristoun's. The Bishop and the Secretary were therefore first cousins.

appointment of Lord Register, an office that had formerly been held by his father, whose acceptance of it from Cromwell, formed one of the heads of the indictment under which he was put to death. In the following year he was again dismissed at the instigation of Argyll, as the prelude to a total change in the ministry, and to Queensberry's return to power.* He is described as a person of learning and virtue, perfectly sincere, but "hot and eager, too soon possessed with jealousy, and too vehement in all he proposed." And Macky, who gives his character at length, says that he was the first man to teach the Commons of Scotland to know their own strength, and to cast off their dependence upon the Nobility. He appears, more than any man of his day, to have incurred the hatred of the Cavaliers; and Lockhart cannot name him with ordinary civility.

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JOHN EARL OF ROXBURGH was more fortunate in obtaining the esteem of all parties; nor can even Lockhart withhold the following testimony to his talents and accomplishments:-" He made "his first appearance in the world to the general satisfaction of all 66 men. He was a man of good sense, improven by so much reading and learning, that perhaps he was the best accomplished young man of quality in Europe, and had so charming a way of expressing his thoughts, that he pleased even those 'gainst whom " he spoke." And Sir David Dalrymple dwells with enthusiasm upon his "consummate merit, the elegance of his manners, his fine parts, greatness of soul, and all the endearing qualities which go "into the composition of a great man." He had been one of the Secretaries of State during Tweeddale's Administration, and on the ratification of the Union was created Duke of Roxburgh. As a representative Peer in the British House of Lords, he took an

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* Carstairs's State Papers.

active part in the politics of the day, and in the succeeding reign was employed in several important posts.

It has been a good deal the fashion to assert that the Union was brought about by money sent from England to purchase the votes of our Nobility and Representatives, and that the paltry sum of eight thousand pounds had been sufficient to corrupt the Parliament of Scotland. Mr. Malcolm Laing, in an uncharitable note, has taken some pains to fix this reproach of venality upon the Squadrone Party. It is not impossible that means may have been afforded to the leaders of the Squadrone, by which they might secure the support of some needy dependents; but that they themselves, men of distinguished rank, fortune, and honour, and who had shrunk from no sacrifice of ease or fortune in maintaining their principles, should have been influenced by the sordid motives imputed to them, always appeared to me utterly incredible. These letters of the Earl of Roxburgh and Mr. Baillie afford the best evidence of the purity of their conduct, and prove that, though abundantly zealous for the interest of their party, and not disposed to be over scrupulous as to the means of securing its ascendancy, their co-operation in promoting the Union proceeded from a sincere conviction that it tended to the peace and prosperity of their country, and that it interposed the most effectual barrier against the return of the exiled Royal Family. There is a long letter from the Earl of Roxburghe, dated from Bath, on the 28th of November 1705, containing his views on this subject, at a time when his party was on the worst terms with the Court, and when he himself systematically avoided all intercourse with the English Ministry, whose real intentions respecting Scotland were still doubtful. Nor can it afford any ground to impeach their honour, that after the completion of the Union, the important services of the Squadrone should have been requited by the

advancement of Roxburgh in the Peerage, and by some show of favour and confidence towards others of the party, who were well received at Court, or admitted to the Privy Council in Scotland.

Most of Johnstone's Letters, and all those of Roxburgh, are written in cypher, which will account for some awkwardness of expression that occasionally appears in them. They are so much injured by damp and decay, as to be in many places illegible. Baillie's Letters are copies in his own hand, before they had been put in cypher.

It may be necessary to mention, that the Squadrone is always designated under the name of the New Party, to distinguish it from the Old Revolution, or Court Party, from which it had separated.

OCTOBER M.DCCC.XLII.

MINTO.