ants; and, after acting as his
solicitor, attended him to the last. But Lord Lovat felt deeply the
circumstance of his having been convicted by his own servants: "It is
shocking," he observed, "to human nature. I believe that they will carry
about with them a sting that will accompany them to their grave; yet I
wish them no evil."

He prayed daily, and fervently; and expressed unbounded confidence in
the Divine mercy. "So, my dear child," he thus wrote to his son, "do not
be in the least concerned for me; for I bless God I have strong reasons
to hope that when it is God's will to call me out of this world, it will
be by his mercy, and the suffering of my Saviour, Jesus Christ, to enjoy
everlasting happiness in the other world. I wish this may be yours."
After he had penned this remarkable letter, he asked a gentleman who was
in his room how he liked the letter? The reply was, "I like it very
well; it is a very good letter." "I think," answered Lord Lovat, "it is
a Christian letter."[255]

In this last extremity of his singular fortunes, the wife, whom he had
so cruelly treated, forgetful of every thing but her Christian duty,
wrote to him, and offered to repair immediately to London, and to go to
him in the Tower, if he desired it. But Lord Lovat returned an answer,
in which, for the first time, he adopted the language of conjugal
kindness to Lady Lovat, and refused the generous proposal, worthy of the
disinterestedness of woman's nature. He declared that he could not take
advantage of it, after all that had occurred.[256]

Meantime, an application was made in favour of Lovat by a Mr. Painter,
of St. John's College, Oxford, in the form of three letters, one of
which was addressed to the King, another to Lord Chesterfield, a third
to Henry Pelham. The courage of the intercession can scarcely be
appreciated in the present day; in that melancholy period, the slightest
word uttered in behalf of the Insurgents, brought on the interceder the
imputation of secret Jacobitism, a suspicion which even President Forbes
incurred. The petitions for mercy were worded fearlessly; "In a word,"
thus concludes that which was addressed to the King, "bid Lovat live;
punish the vile traytor with life; but let me die; let me bow down my
head to the block, and receive without fear the friendly blow, which, I
verily believe, will only separate the soul from its body and miseries
together."[257] In his letter to Lord Chesterfield the Oxonian r