102 FAMOUS SCOTS 



to his opinions gave the journal a tone naturally impos- 

 sible to an ordinary party paper. The great mass of 

 the readers of The Witness were of course Liberals, yet 

 he strenuously contended against making it an organ of 

 any political party. Part of the prospectus ran ' The 

 Witness will not espouse the cause of any of the 

 political parties which now agitate and divide the 

 country. Public measures, however, will be weighed 

 as they present themselves, in an impartial spirit, 

 and with care proportioned to their importance.' He 

 had noticed, he said, the Church of Scotland for a time 

 converted by Conservatism into a mine against the 

 Whigs, and he was determined that no 'tool-making 

 politician ' should again convert it to a party weapon. 

 It was to remain the organ of ' the Free Church people 

 against Whig, Tory, Radical, and Chartist.' So careful 

 was he of the good name of the paper that he 'often 

 retained communications beside him for weeks and 

 months, until some circumstance occurred that enabled 

 him to determine regarding their real value.' Chalmers 

 read the paper to the last with approval, and this was a 

 source of joy and support to Miller. Nothing but such 

 a wise supervision could have piloted The Witness 

 through the abuse and the inventions of the Tory organs. 

 When the Edinburgh Advertiser, of June 13, 1848, 

 could try to improve on that rhetorical flight of Barrere, 

 characteristically fathered by its author on ' an ancient 

 author,' about the tree of liberty being watered by the 

 blood of tyrants, by an assertion that The Witness had 



