d delicate management. The cry of the blood shed more than
three years before in Glencoe had at length made itself heard. Towards
the close of the year 1693, the reports, which had at first been
contemptuously derided as factious calumnies, began to be generally
thought deserving of serious attention. Many people little disposed to
place confidence in any thing that came forth from the secret presses of
the Jacobites owned that, for the honour of the government, some inquiry
ought to be instituted. The amiable Mary had been much shocked by what
she heard. William had, at her request, empowered the Duke of Hamilton
and several other Scotchmen of note to investigate the whole matter.
But the Duke died; his colleagues were slack in the performance of their
duty; and the King, who knew little and cared little about Scotland,
forgot to urge them. [594]

It now appeared that the government would have done wisely as well as
rightly by anticipating the wishes of the country. The horrible story
repeated by the nonjurors pertinaciously, confidently, and with so
many circumstances as almost enforced belief, had at length roused all
Scotland. The sensibility of a people eminently patriotic was galled by
the taunts of southern pamphleteers, who asked whether there was on the
north of the Tweed, no law, no justice, no humanity, no spirit to demand
redress even for the foulest wrongs. Each of the two extreme parties,
which were diametrically opposed to each other in general politics, was
impelled by a peculiar feeling to call for inquiry. The Jacobites were
delighted by the prospect of being able to make out a case which would
bring discredit on the usurper, and which might be set off against the
many offences imputed by the Whigs to Claverhouse and Mackenzie. The
zealous Presbyterians were not less delighted at the prospect of being
able to ruin the Master of Stair. They had never forgotten or forgiven
the service which he had rendered to the House of Stuart in the time of
the persecution. They knew that, though he had cordially concurred in
the political revolution which had freed them from the hated dynasty, he
had seen with displeasure that ecclesiastical revolution which was, in
their view, even more important. They knew that church government was
with him merely an affair of State, and that, looking at it as an affair
of State, he preferred the episcopal to the synodical model. They could
not without uneasiness see so adroit and