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Updated: May 18, 2025
The policy of the minister was neither sanguinary nor revengeful: his favourite maxim was rather to appease the minds of the discontented by lenity, than to have recourse to violent measures; to be content with losing nothing by the war, without being at the expense of gaining any advantage from the enemy; to suffer his character to be very severely handled, provided he could amass much wealth, and to spin out the minority to the greatest possible extent.
Representations were made to the king against these enormities. * Burnet, p 202. * Burnet, p. 213 This lenity of the king's came too late to remedy the disorders. The people, inflamed with bigotry, and irritated by ill usage, rose in arms. They were instigated by Guthry, Semple, and other preachers.
A base populace, exalted above their superiors; hypocrites, exercising iniquity under the visor of religion: these circumstances promised not much liberty or lenity to the people; and these were now found united in the same usurped and illegal administration.
However originating in policy, the lenity he might have been induced to have shown, all idea of the kind was chased from his mind by the unfortunate action of the prisoner.
A hierarchy, moderate in its acquisitions of power and riches, may safely grant a toleration to sectaries; and the more it softens the zeal of innovators by lenity and liberty, the more securely will it possess those advantages which the legal establishments bestow upon it.
The humane judge, who participated in my feelings, after having given them a suitable admonition, and called their attention to my disinterested kindness, telling them they were entirely indebted to my humanity for the lenity he should shew them, and having paid me a most gratifying compliment, dismissed them with the punishment of a fine of a shilling each, which I immediately paid for them.
By this general indulgence, which has even in a great measure continued in all subsequent acts of the same kind, the lenity of the parliament may be sometimes misapplied, inasmuch as insolvency is often criminal, arising from profligacy and extravagance, which deserve to be severely punished.
Finally "the votes of the Lords prevailed against the ministers"; the Queen was allowed her Mass, but Lethington, a minister of the Queen, did not consult a foreigner as to the rights of her subjects against her creed. The lenity of Lord James was of sudden growth. At Stirling he and Argyll had gallantly caused the priests to leave the choir "with broken heads and bloody ears," the Queen weeping.
Some important points were not touched upon; others were passed over in vague and general terms. The Hungarians, helpless as a babe, had nothing to do but to submit, whatever the terms might be. They were surprised at the unprecedented lenity of the conqueror, and the treaty of peace and subjection was signed in January, 1711.
But no assumption could be farther from the facts of the case than that the effect of lenity has been to increase the sum of Indian outrage. There is no scintilla of evidence to show that any savage tribe has been incited by the forbearance of the government to increased depredations.
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