of state, as no application from my congregation, had been made to presbytery, complaining of my absence, or charging me with guilt. Their only application was, to be supplied with preachers, each lord's day, for whose services they punctually paid. While the presbytery, therefore, reported my confinement, they wisely and candidly left the cause of that confinement even unhinted at. They acted on the knowledge that every man is, and ought to be, deemed innocent till convicted of crime; that conviction should rest on evidence; that no evidence to convict me of any crime had ever been pro duced; that, if it had they were not competent to judge, pronounce sentence, or inflict punishment, in cases of treason or sedition; that these powers were vested in government alone, in whose hands I then was, and whose willingness to detect treason, and punish traitors, could not be doubted. But, not so the general synod. Under what influence, or on what authority, they judged and wrote, I do not say; but, be these what they might, they unequivocally, and without reserve, assign the causes of my confinement. Their minute, in their newly adopted Tyburn phraseology, runs thus: "It appears" (viz. from the reports of the several presbyteries) "that of the comparatively small number, who have been implicated in treasonable and seditious practices, two only, one a member, the other a probationer, have been executed; two are still

in confinement; some have expressed their sincere contrition: others are no longer connected with the synod; and the remainder have, either voluntarily, or by permission of government; removed from the kingdom."

How much of this synodical minute may be totally useless, as inapplicable to the purposes either of correction by ecclesiastical discipline, or restraint by the terrors of the law, I leave its authors and the world to judge. How delicate, how just, how consistent with the character of servants of a god of mercy, and ministers of a religion of love, to charge bre thren unconvicted, untried, unaccused by any public functionary; nay denied trial, which they ehallenged, in order not to remove the suspicion, but expose the pretext, under which they were suffering the severest of punishments, as involving, the ruin of their families, every man may judge, and all who think will judge. That all the persons alluded to in the preceding minute are unequivocally represented as having been actually "implicated in treasonable and seditious practices," must be obvious to every eye; that the two then in confinement, of which I was one; were included in the number, cannot be denied, that I had neither been convicted, tried, or in any official manner charged with treason or sedition, is beyond a doubt; nay, I hope, I have proved, that neither grounds of conviction,

trial

trial, or criminal charge, could be procured against me. Yet, my rev. fathers and brethren have asserted my guilt, as "implicated in treason and sedition." Now, what is the plain English of this assertion, as addressed to the government of the country? Is it not, your spies and your informers, who swarm over the land as locusts, not to devour the tender shoots of vegetating rebellion; but, pampered by your bounty, to destroy the innocent, have blinded your eyes and perverted your judgments. You see not the real traitors, and you sleep over your instruments of torture and of death. Our unworthy brother Dickson and his associates are feasting at the expence of his majesty and the state, while their bodies should have been rotting in the earth, or suspended on gibbets, as sport for the winds, or food for birds of prey. To us "IT APPEARS that they were implicated in treasonable and seditious practices," and, on our apparitions and visions, we assert it as fact, and, by our conduct, will maintain it."

Had this disclosure been made to the representative of majesty, the minister of the day, the privy council, or any proper officer or in court; and had it been followed up by substantial evidence, too much honor could not have been done to the authors. But, alas: this was

not the case. However unqualified the terms,

Kk 2

in

in which the charge of sedition and treason is laid on my shoulders, the record of synod acknowledges that it had no other foundation than the presbyterian reports then made; the only one of which, wherein my name is mentioned, and which I have already quoted, contains no such charge. However true, therefore, the charge, in itself, may have been, that it is found in, or appears from, the report of the presbytery of Bangor, or any other report given in to the synod, is not truc. The presbytery merely states, "that I had been a state-prisoner from June 1798, and, in June 1799, was such at Fort George." My having been implicated in seditious and treasonable practices must, therefore have been a gratuitous assumption of some bold commentator, or visionary hierophant, who can discover meanings never intended, and in reveries, dreams, and visions, contemplate as realities what never had existence. On the supposition that there might be a few such commentators and seers in the synod of Ulster, I was willing to conclude, that, through inadvertency, or the respect commonly paid to such, it had been taken for granted that the words" state prisoners" necessarily implied "crimes against the state;" and consequently, that, I, being a state-prisoner, must have been "implicated in treasonable and seditious practices." This conclusion, however, I was obliged to abandon, from a regard to my fathers,

and

and brethren, as commentators on, and expounders of, words more sacred than any report of the Bangor presbytery. For were this admitted, malice might suggest that, on the same principles, they might be supposed capable of being betrayed by inadvertence, seduced by designing knaves, overawed by imperious rulers, or influenced by hopes or fears, to adinit that the most dignified character ever exhibited to mortal eye had actually beeu implicated in the treasonable, seditious, blasphemous, and dæmoniacal practices, of which he was accused by suborned informers, and, for the imputation of which, he was maliciously, barbarously, and insultingly put to death. This is more than supposition. The very fact has been realized. And, what has once taken place may certainly take place again, in the same or similar circum

stances.

Be this as it may, that the synod did judge rashly, and express themselves unguardedly in 1799, I positively assert. Nay, I assert, even farther, that, had they been in possession of all the information ever pretended to be obtained against me, notwithstanding all the exertions which were made, powers strained, boons granted, and terrors displayed, in order to procure it, their language would have been unwarranted, and unwarrantable. Magin does not even mention my name, before the day on which I

was