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his favourite exercise of liunting, nor of courage on many trying 

 occasions ; when the Scottish nobles restrained his person, and the 

 ferocious Bothwell assaulted him in his chamber ; when he repeat- 

 edly marched against the Popish lords, defeated them in the field, 

 and took their castles; in his gallant and spirited expedition to 

 Norway, in a tempestuous season, in quest of his betrothed bride ; 

 in the insurrection at Edinburgh in 1596 ; nor, lastly, at the hour 

 of death, when being told that he could not live, he said, " I am 

 satisfied," and applied himself to devotion ; and at last, closed his 

 eyes with his own hand. It seldom falls to the lot of our kings to 

 take the field in person, or to display their prowess in battle ; and I 

 set little value on that species of heroism, which aims at glory by 

 other mens' exploits, wages war to the impoverishment of their 

 dominions, and arrays the vanity of kings in borrowed plumes. 

 James might have indulged a passion for war, without any personal 

 hazard. It ill becomes us, who have hardly more than once, since 

 his time, enjoyed peace at home and abroad for ten successive years, 

 and are even now only reposing after a war of unprecedented du- 

 ration, to impute a pacific disposition to James as a fault. One 

 peaceful reign in two hundred years may be endured without com. 

 plaint. 



Our wisest politicians have questioned the policy of involving 

 these countries in continental quarrels; and are generally agreed in 

 condemning religious wars ; yet James is blamed for not making 

 common cause with the Huguenots, by military operations against 

 their king, in direct opposition to his own principle and interest, 

 and contenting himself with friendly intercession ; and for declining 

 to send a British army into the heart of Europe to compel the em- 

 peror and other great potentates, combined under the ban of the 

 empire, to admit a Protestant in the room of a Catholic to the 



