10 Anniversary Address. 



It is pleasant to meet with this trait of grateful generosity 

 in a character usually painted in such dark colours as that 

 of Lauderdale ; it confirms the observation that, no one is 

 so faultless as not to exhibit some failing, nor any so black 

 as not to possess a redeeming point. But something more 

 than this may be urged in favour of Lauderdale. He is 

 chiefly known by the description given of him by his own 

 countrymen, who remembering that in early life he had 

 embraced the Covenant, and that afterwards he had become 

 the willing and even zealous instrument of Charles II. in 

 forcing episcopacy on his Scottish subjects, have held him 

 responsible for all the cruelties perpetrated in that endeavour. 

 But it must be borne in mind that he was warmly attached 

 to the royal cause, that he risked life and fortune to uphold 

 it, and that the severities of the Puritans provoked, in some 

 degree, the excesses which followed the Restoration. In 

 describing him recent historians rely almost entirely on Burnet, 

 a personal enemy, who does not attempt to conceal his 

 dislike ; " He was the coldest friend and the violentest 

 enemy," are his words, " I ever knew ; I felt it too much not 

 to know it; "* and then he brings together an assemblage of 

 traits, many of them inconsistent with each other. Hume,f 

 Macintosh, £ and Macaulay, § follow the Bishop implicitly, 

 using even his very words. Without desiring to extenuate 

 his harsh administration of Scottish affairs in execution of 

 his royal master's policy, it should not be forgotten that he 

 counselled toleration in the first instance, persuading Charles 

 to discontinue the military occupation of the country and to 

 maintain Presbyterianism.|| When commanded to pursue an 

 opposite course, he obeyed unflinchingly. The rigorous and 

 even cruel measures of repression which signalized his adminis- 

 tration, repugnant as they are to modern ideas of humanity 

 and toleration, were too much in conformity with the spirit of 

 the times in which he lived. 



* Own Times, 1 , 101, fol. 

 t Wist. VII , 460. VIII.. 53, 54., 8vo., 1789. 

 J Hist. VII., 31, 306., Lard. Cyc. 

 § Hist. !.. 222, 281., ed. 1859. 

 H Hume, VII., 364, 366. 



