Gratitude here obliges me to mention another name, which I must ever recollect with affectionate esteem. That is the name of Mr. John Millar, then professor of law, in the same University-a name too well known, in the literary and political world, to require encomium. To him I had the happiness of being introduced, rather as a friend than a student. And, by him was my attention first directed to jurisprudence, the principles of government, and the respective advantages and disadvantages of the different forms under which it may be constructed and administered.

What particular effects his instructions then had upon my mind, I cannot now pretend to say. This only I know, and this I acknowledge, that they, and a few books to which he directed my attention, produced a yet unaltered conviction that absolute monarchy is not the best possible governments, except in the hands of absolute perfection-that aristocracy. is, and ever must be, a bad government-that despotism, under the masque of limited monarchy, a mixed government, or a free state, is worse that any government, by facoritism, is worse still-and, that a government, of whatever description, the administration of which is entirely submitted to a faction, or sect-and, particularly, to upstarts and underlings of such faction

faction subject to the influence, and liable to the control, of spies, informers, and mercenary clerks in office, is worst of all.

In regard to a republic, or democracy, political theorists have presented nothing that could satisfy my mind. The states so called, whether ancient or modern, are sources of information equally unsatisfactory. In no two of them has the constitution been the same. Their fate is the only thing in which they have been ever similar. In fact, rational republicanism, as appears to me, has never had a fair trial. And, as the executive power, under every form of government, seems to be necessarily entrusted to an individual; while the right of legislation is inherent in, and inseparable from, the people, whether that might be exercised in mass, or by representation, the difference between a limited monarchy and a well constituted republic is rather in name than reality, provided the chief magistrate be elected by the state, and amenable to the laws, under which he derives his authority. Whether he be denominated emperor, king, duke, stadtholder, consul, or president, is a matter of no importance.

This last paragraph I have inserted, that my readers may be enabled to form some general idea of my political creed, and the princi

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ples on which they are to judge of my political conduct. Let me request that their judgment may be guided by it, and it alone.

Soon after my final return from college, I was prevailed upon, by the flattering solicitations of my early and venerated friend Mr. White, to become a candidate for the office of a preacher of the gospel, much sooner than I intended, or ought, to have done; and, after passing through the usual trials, was licensed in March 1767.

During the four succeeding years, the frequent excursions which I was obliged to make to vacant congregations, some of which were many miles distant, not only extended my connexions, but gave me access to many families of rank and respectability, in the counties of Down and Antrim, of whose kind attentions I shall ever cherish a pleasing and grateful remembrance.

Among these I have the honor of mentioning that of the late Alexander Stewart, Esq. father to the present earl of Londonderry, and grandfather to lord viscount Castlereagh. Him I mention particularly, not only in acknowledgment of many favors, which I owed to his kind attentions, but in expression of my sincere and unabated respect for his memory, as a man of polite and pleasing manners, a clear

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and comprehensive understanding, and principles truly liberal, both in politics and religion. It is true, he had no small share of ambition; but it was an ambition to raise his family to honor and influence, in his country, for his country's good. Would to God, such ambition had continued to glow in the breast of his family, and that it glowed there still!

In the year 1771, I was ordained to the charge of the congregation of Ballyhalbert, in the barony of Ardes, and county of Down; and became an husband and a farmer.

Thus become stationary, I devoted myself, almost entirely, to my parochial and domestic duties, or the studies connected with them, till the commencement of the unnatural, impolitic, and unprincipled, war with America. Having paid considerable attention to jurisprudence, in the course of my studies, and read Locke, Montesquieu, Puffendorff, &c. &c. my mind instantly revolted against the mad crusade and, while I regretted its folly, I execrated its wickedness. Feeling as I did, and detesting the meanness, as much as the immorality, of dissimulation, I never concealed either my ideas, or sentiments, on the subject. Hence, my

expressions gave great offence to all the dependants of government. The friends of the then secretary for the Northern department, who constituted a great portion of the landed inte

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rest of the county, were equally provoked to anger; and their anger was, afterwards, kindled into rage, by my preaching on the principles, object, tendency, and probable consequences of the war, on two days, appointed as fasts, during the contest. A general outcry was raised against me, in which those, who never heard me preach, were very loud; and those, who had never seen me, were louder still. Traitor," "Rebel," "Trumpetor of sedition," were levelled at my name, wherever a few of the "lives and fortune" men of the day got warm around their bottle; and all agreed that "I ought to be dd, as hanging was too good for me." In fact, if God, in his justice and mercy, had not been as deaf to their imprecations against me, as he was to their prayers for success in the war, I might have been dd to all eternity. However, I had my revenge in full. I published the two sermons, as they were preached, without the retractation, alteration, or addition, of a single word. They were read with avidity, found less pestilential than they had been represented, and, finally, justified, even in their conjectural parts by events and the issue of the struggle.

About this time (1778) a new object presented itself, which strengthened my conviction of the impolicy of the war, aggravated my feelings, and roused the feeble energies of my