404

Proceedings against Professor Mylne, on the Charge of Sedition.

readily afford them all official aids and facilities, in bringing to light the authors of such foul and dangerous aspersions, and in guarding themselves as far as possible from their probable and most injurious

consequences.

And while the Faculty deeply feel the alarming nature of this charge, they regard themselves as warranted to complain of the manner in which the precognition respecting it has been conducted. As a matter of mere decorum it might have been expected, that the magistrate charged with an inquiry so serious and unprecedented, would have commenced his functions by waiting on the head of the University, explaining to him the nature of his unpleasant mission, and receiving his opinion as to the manner of fulfilling it with the least possible degree of publicity and scandal. Instead of which he made his first appearance in the courts of the College, attended by the Procurator Fiscal; questioned the College servants, and upon the information obtained from them proceeded to examine Professors, and others not professors; among whom were ladies, members or inmates of Professors' families. The matter of course speedily became the common topic of conversation in the city; and the Faculty were cruelly subjected to a variety of unpleasant comments, which a mode of procedure somewhat less summary would have enabled them to escape.

Thus exposed as the Faculty now are to public misrepresentation and obloquy, they are at the same time at a loss to know what they should do, to repair in some measure the injury they have already sustained, and to meet and repel the further injury they may be still exposed to. In the mean time, they beg leave to apply to your lordship for information on some points, about which, in consequence of the silence of the sheriff' with respect to them, they remain wholly ignorant. They request to be informed of the real nature and extent of the charge against their chaplain, by which the highest interests of the University may be so deeply affected; they request to know, in so far as may be consistent with your lordship's official duty, upon what information or authority this charge and the consequent procedure have been rested; and they request, (if not improper) that Mr. Mylne should be furnished with copies of the declarations made by the persons examined in the precognition.

Having accidentally heard that the advocate was on that day at his place of residence, near Glasgow, but that he was very speedily to remove from it for London, the Faculty was extremely desirous that the above two papers should be submitted to his lordship's consideration before he

should leave the country. They were
accordingly transmitted to him by ex-
press, and the most satisfactory re-
sults were willingly anticipated. The
substance of other declarations be-
sides mine, had, by this time, become
pretty well known in the College;
and it was generally understood, that
the whole precognition had not brought
forward a single testimony that could
furnish ground even for a plausible
surmise, that the slightest crime or
criminal intention was imputable to
me; and, on the other hand, it was
also understood, that the whole evi-
dence tended to prove my perfect
guiltlessness, and to show that the
suspicions entertained against me had
been founded on nothing but the most
absurd and unnatural misrepresenta-
tions. The Faculty therefore conceiv-
ing that the precognition must have
been by that time in the hands of his
lordship, and that consequently the
injury that had been done to me must
have been as distinctly perceived and
as indignantly felt by him, as it was
by themselves, indulged the assurance
that his reply to their communica-
tions would contain an impression of
generous and unqualified satisfaction
in the result of the inquiry, and a
frank promise of all the assistance
which his official duties would permit
him to give them in their endeavours
to detect the malignant informer. The
letters, however, which we received
from his lordship were far from in-
suring these apparently reasonable ex-
pectations. The first is dated from
Killermont, 4th April.

Killermont, April 4th, 1815.
To the Rev. Principal Taylor.
SIR,

I am honoured with your letter of yesterday's date, signed in name and by appointment of the Faculty of Glasgow College, respecting a precognition stated to have been taken by the Sheriff of the county, within which the College is situa ted. That letter has been transmitted to me by Professor Mylne, along (alongst) with a letter from him, and a statement by him, of the substance of a declaration as emitted by him when examined by the Sheriff of Lanarkshire.

fore me, but if such a precognition shall No such precognition has been laid bebe laid before me as his Majesty's Advocate for Scotland, you and every member of your learned body may be assured, that I shall consider it with the greatest attention and deliberation. I need searee add, that however great my attachment is, as,

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Proceedings against Professor Mylne, on the Charge of Sedition.

communicated to all the members of the Faculty, and a meeting will be held without delay, to take them under deliberation, and to consider what further measures may now be adviseable. In the mean time considering how deeply both my feelings and my interests have been or may be affected, by the very ash proceedings that have already been adopted; your lordship cannot be surprised that I should express my

(if the Faculty of Glasgow College wish
me to do so) I shall cause a copy to be
transmitted to them on hearing from you
in London.

I have the honour, &c. &c.
(Signed)

AR. COLQUHOUN.

The Revd. the Principal of the
College of Glasgow.

On his arrival in London his lord

regret and disappointment, to find that in ship wrote me the following note:

neither of these letters, any encouragement is given me to expect a compliance with those requests which the Faculty have made to your lordship; namely, that so far as is consistent with your public duty, you would inform them of the nature and extent of the charge made against me, and of the authority on which that charge is rested, and that I should be furnished with a copy of the declarations made by myself, and others who were examined in the precognition.

Perhaps it may be your lordship's intention still to favour us with these communications, so important to the steps which the Faculty or myself may find it proper to take, in order to obviate the effects of those calumnies with which I have been loaded. This I am inclined to hope for from your saying in your last letter that "the heinous charges which your letter supposes to have been preferred against Mr. Mylne do not appear to have been made." At the same time, my Lord, I acknowledge I am at a loss to reconcile the proceedings that have already been instituted with the supposition that I have not been charged, at least, with sedition, and if with sedition, and that accompanied with the circumstances which the whole tendency of the examinations seems to iufer, then it follows that I must also be chargeable with that impiety and profanity, the imputation of which has filled my colleagues and myself with so natural and just indig

nation.

I presume that in my short letter, accompanying the College papers, I expressed to your lordship my concurrence in the requests they made. If I have not, I beg leave now earnestly to state them to your lordship.

Anxiously hoping for your favourable answer, I have the honour to be, &c. JAMES MYLNE. To the Right Hon. Lord Advocate of Scotland, London.

The Advocate had by this time left Scotland, and on his way to London he wrote the following letter :— Darlington, April 7th, 1815.

SIR,

Of the opinion which I have formed and shall commit to writing, respecting the precognition and proceedings referred to in my letter of the 5th from Edinburgh,

SIR,

London, April 11th, 1815.

I have received an extract of the minutes of the Faculty of Glasgow College, dated the 3rd April, inclosed in a letter from you of the 7th of this month. In answer to it,

beg leave to refer you to my letter of the 7th to the Principal of your University, as I only wait for his reply to cause a copy of my opinion to be transmitted, which will explain the nature of the investigation, and of the proceedings to which reference has been made, and will I trust free your mind from that anxiety which has been so much felt by you.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,

AR. COLQUHOUN.
Professor Mylne, College, Glasgow.

On the 11th the Faculty met, and, as appears from the records, "further deliberated on the Advocate's letters; and he having, in his letter dated the 7th, offered to furnish the Faculty with a copy of his opinion on the precognition, which had been lately taken, if they should wish to see it; the Faculty, before proceeding_furhis lordship for a copy of his opinion; ther in the matter, agree to apply to and, at the same time, renew the requests which are contained in their first letter, as far as he shall think proper to answer them."

A copy of this minute was transmitted to the Advocate, from whom the Faculty on the 21st received the following opinion:

(COPY.)

London, 11th April, 1815.

I have considered with great attention a precognition lately taken by the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and the proceedings connected therewith, in so far as I have received information concerning them, and ceive it to be my duty to give my opinion as the case is of a peculiar nature, I confully, and to cause a copy of it to be transmitted to the Faculty of Glasgow College.

A petition appears to have been presented by the Procurator Fiscal of the Sheriff Court of Lanarkshire, to the Sheriff of that county, stating, that he had

spectful, and with every attention to the feelings and convenience of those who were examined.

The incidents which occurred in the College Chapel on the 26th March, and which appear to have occasioned the petition and precognition, were certainly of an unfortunate nature, although originating in no improper motive. The account of them I take from Professor Mylue's declaration. On the morning of that Sunday before he went into Chapel, he had heard the news which had arrived from France, namely, the entry of Buonaparte into Paris, and the flight of the legitimate sovereign of that country from his capital; he alluded in his prayer, as appears, to those recent events, and in the course of that part of his prayer he prayed that the governments of Europe, by the wisdom and justice of their administration, might every where engage the attachment and fidelity of their subjects, and that the subjects every where might distinguish themselves by the corresponding virtues of loyalty and patriotism. Prior to the prayer the service began with some verses at the beginning of the 107th psalm, read to the congregation in the usual manner by the clergyman, which appear descriptive of satisfaction at the fate of those who had been in a desert place, and who had come from north, south, east, and west, and gone to a city to abide therein. The service was closed by Professor Mylne reading the 5th and other verses of the 26th scriptural translation, beginning with the words, pre

received information, that on Sunday the 26th March, Mr. James Mylne, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, and Chaplain thereof, did, in the course of divine service, introduce certain allusions relative to the very recent overthrow of the legitimate government of France, with which the government of this country is at present in a state of amity; and as the opinions and allusions which are said to have been so made, tend to create impressions upon the public, or individuals prejudical to the prosperity and interests of the government and inhabitants of this country, the petitioner has thought it his duty to make the present application for an inquiry into the circumstances above-mentioned, and therefore praying to grant warrant to cite and precognosce such witnesses as he may condescend on. The prayer of the petition was granted by the Sheriff, by a deliverance in the usual form, on the 30th of March, and on the 30th and 31st of that month several persons, who had attended divine service in the College Chapel on the 26th, were examined, besides Professor Mylne, who, as the Sheriff informed me, was examined in his own house, the place selected by himself, and was permitted to dictate his declaration. The other individuals were examined in places most suitable for their accommodation; no person was apprehended or brought into court by a summons given by officers of court; but in order to act in a respectful and delicate manner no publicity that could be avoided was given to the investigation. The cognition was afterwards laid before his Majesty's Advocate, who had previously received a communication from the Faculty of Glasgow College, which set forth that Professor Mylne had been suspected, probably accused, of the crime of sedition, if not of high treason, of a blasphemous perversion of Holy Scripture, and of having implicitly applied to Buonaparte, language solely appropriated by Revelation to the Saviour of the World. The representation of the Faculty also complained of the Sheriff, as having conducted his official proceedings in an indecorous and improper manner, and so as to give to them unnecessary publicity and scandal.

On considering the precognition and whole proceedings, I am of opinion that po crime has been committed by Professor Mylne, and that no criminal intention can justly be imputed to him, but while I am warranted by the circumstances appearing from the precognition, in exculpating that gentleman from crime or criminal intention, I feel it my duty to state, that I do not acquiesce in the censure which has been passed on the Sheriff of the county, who, in so far as I have had access to know, has discharged his duty to the publie in a manner perfectly decorous and re

"Behold he comes, your Leader comes, "With might and honour crown'd."

That there was no allusion meant by the assemblage of these incidental occurrences, to what had just passed in France, I am convinced, but the coincidence was unfortunate. There was no necessity for the 107th psalm being read or sung on that day, either by selecting it or by not passing over it, and I must here observe, with a reference to the communication from the Faculty of Glasgow College, that psalms, the words or impressions of which may be applied to events, which are the subject of national or public fasts, or thanksgivings, are occasionally given out to be sung in churches, by devout and pious clergymen, without any idea being entertained that there is a blasphemous perversion of them, although in their true scriptural sense they are applicable solely to very different events or persons.

The prayer not only in the above passage, but in the whole of it, in its general sentiments and in Mr. Mylne's view of it was free from blame, but with reference to the investigation which has taken place, the events at that moment fresh in the re collection of the audience cannot be forgotten. It had just been announced that

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Proceedings against Professor Mylne, on the Charge of Sedition.

the mild Sovereign of France, who had
distinguished his government by the wis
dom and equity of his administration had
been dethroned by that class of his sub-
jects who had arms in their hands; and
that the armed subjects of France had only
exhibited attachment to Buonaparte, whom
with professions of loyalty and patriotism
they had again placed ou that throne which
Britain and her allies had compelled him
to abandon. When I say that some of the
expressions in the prayer were not hap-
pily chosen, I do not mean to impute
blame, or evil intention to Professor Mylne.
I see no ground to presume that his allu-
sions in the pulpit to the political events
of the day were culpable, or that he was
aware they could be liable to misconcep-
tion or misconstruction; and I am also
satisfied, that his selection of the psalm
and scriptural translation was no way con-
nected with the recent intelligence from
France. This testimony to the rectitude
of Professor Mylne's conduct on the 26th
March, I conceive it to be my duty to give
plainly and decidedly, and I regret that
the circumstances to which I have already
alluded, proceeding I believe from acci-
dent merely, should have led to and ren-
dered a precognition necessary. I shall
only add, that had a different state of mat-
ters existed, I would not have shrunk from
any responsibility on my part, and that
the circumstance of a violation of law hav-
ing been committed within the walls of a
college, in a place of public worship where
the young and inexperienced form part of
the audience, would only have operated
with me as an additional reason for mak-
ing it the subject of criminal prosecution.
(Signed)
AR. COLQUHOUN.

On the 22nd I transmitted to his lordship the following letter, with which I shall at present close my communications:

Glasgow College, 21st April, 1815. To the Right Hon. Lord Advocate, &c. &c.

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's opinion on the late precognition here, has just been put into my bands, and I have perused it with deep and respectful attention.

It certainly gives me satisfaction to find, that after considering the evidence presented to your lordship, you fully acquit me of all crime or criminal intention in the matters to which the precognition refers. I may, however, be permitted to say, that the satisfaction which I feel is not that of relief from any anxiety about the result of the investigation into my conduct; as your lordship, in your letter of the 11th, seems to hint. I was too thoroughly convinced of the utter ground lessness of the charges against me, to entertain any apprehension that the inquiry

would terminate otherwise, than in the disgrace of those by whom these charges had been preferred. And I must further say, that my satisfaction would have been more complete, if your lordship's impression of what you are pleased to call, the unfortunate nature of the incidents of the 26th March, had been somewhat different from that which your letter indicates. Even after carefully weighing your lordship's observations, intended to show that the interpretation put upon the psalms then sung, was not a very unnatural one, I cannot consider my choice of them as what can properly be called an unfortunate inident. For I think that I could not be. forehand have imagined so absurd a misconstruction of them to be possible, without calculating upon a greater degree of perversity or malignity in my hearers, than ordinary hearers could be supposed to possess. It was indeed an unfortunate incident, that in the audience there happened to be one or two individuals, whose fancy enabled them to see certain imagi. nary coincidences, between the psalms of the day and the afflicting intelligence of the day-coincidences which had not entered into the mind of any other of the congregation; and which, it is imagined, will not appear very palpable, even after your lordship's exposition of the most offensive of the lines. The fact, I believe to be this, (and I am persuaded the precognition, if carefully and candidly examined, will show it to be the fact,) that one of these individuals, in a moment of thoughtless levity, and I am quite certain without the slightest feeling of evil intention towards me, had suggested to the other the idea of such a coincidence. The

fancy thus taken up gradually swelled into magnitude by the gossip to which it gave rise; and at last, after a progress of how many steps I will not take upon me to determine, it came into the possession of some one, who, with incredible folly, it upon him to convey it to the law offiif not with unpardonable malignity, took cers of the country, with all the solemnity of a grave and serious charge against me.

Your lordship must have found from the declarations, that besides those to whom I refer, no others ever imagined improper allusions in my psalms or improper language in my prayers: and the Sheriff cold have informed you, if he has not done it, that when four days after the 26th, on Thursday, the 30th of March, he intimated to my colleague, Dr. Meikleham, that I was charged with such a glaring impropriety, the intimation was received with an astonishment that plainly shewed the information then given, of my misconduct, to be altogether new to him; and consequently shewed that the impression had never been taken up by the congregation, and had even been abandoned by