erious cast, and though you encountered them
with spirit and commendable resolution, I, with your uncle, should
wish to see your abilities conspicuous on another theatre." The same
gentleman, in his next letter (June 3), congratulates Scott on having
"seen _his name in the newspaper_," namely, as counsel for another
Roxburghshire laird, by designation _Bedrule_. Such, no doubt, was
Abbotrule's "other theatre."

Scott spent the long vacation of this year chiefly in Roxburghshire,
but again visited Keir, Cambusmore, and others of his friends in
Perthshire, and came to Edinburgh, early in September, to be present
at the trials of Watt and Downie, on a charge of high treason. Watt
seems to have tendered his services to Government as a spy upon the
Society of the Friends of the People in Edinburgh, but ultimately,
considering himself as underpaid, to have embraced, to their wildest
extent, the schemes he had become acquainted with in the course of
this worthy occupation; and he, and one Downie, a mechanic, were now
arraigned as having taken a prominent part in the organizing of a plot
for a general rising in Edinburgh, to seize the Castle, the Bank, the
persons of the Judges, and proclaim a Provisional Republican
Government; all which was supposed to have been arranged in concert
with the Hardies, Thelwalls, Holcrofts, and so forth, who were a few
weeks later brought to trial in London for an alleged conspiracy to
"summon delegates to a National Convention, with a view to subvert the
Government, and levy war upon the King." The English prisoners were
acquitted, but Watt and Downie were not so fortunate. Scott writes as
follows to his aunt, Miss Christian Rutherford, then at Ashestiel, in
Selkirkshire:--

ADVOCATES' {p.206} LIBRARY, 5th September, 1794.

My dear Miss Christy will perceive, from the date of this
epistle, that I have accomplished my purpose of coming to town to
be present at the trial of the Edinburgh traitors. I arrived here
on Monday evening from Kelso, and was present at Watt's trial on
Wednesday, which displayed to the public the most atrocious and
deliberate plan of villainy which has occurred, perhaps, in the
annals of Great Britain. I refer you for particulars to the
papers, and shall only add, that the equivocations and perjury of
the witnesses (most of them being accomplices in what they called
the _great plan_) set the abilities of Mr. Anstruth