88 FAMOUS SCOTS 



insidious and political designs. The lawyer who was 

 afterwards to sit on the bench as Lord President Boyle, 

 rose and said : ' The people meet under the pretext of 

 spreading Christianity among the heathen. Observe, 

 sir, they are affiliated, they have a common object, they 

 correspond with each other, they look for assistance 

 from foreign countries, in the very language of many of 

 the seditious societies. Already, it is to be marked, 

 they have a common fund. Where is the security that 

 the money of this fund will not, as the reverend 

 Principal [Hill of St. Andrews] said, be used for very 

 different purposes ? And as for those Missionary 

 Societies, I do aver that, since it is to be apprehended 

 that their funds may be in time, nay, certainly will be, 

 turned against the Constitution, so it is the bounden 

 duty of this House to give the overtures recommending 

 them our most serious disapprobation, and our im- 

 mediate, most decisive opposition.' The legal mind is 

 not often remarkable for profundity, but the fine 

 violation of reasoning in the * nay, certainly will be,' is 

 just on a par with Jonathan Tawse's c clean perversion 

 of the constitutional law/ which we have seen before. 

 The detection of treason, too, lurking in the ap- 

 parently harmless missions fairly rivals Serjeant Buzfuz 

 in Pickwick, with his exposure of the danger under- 

 lying the 'chops and tomato sauce' of the de- 

 fendant. Such had been the unhappy legacy of 

 Robertson. Such was the legal spirit infused from 

 the bar to the bench that was to act in decisions 



