In the year ninety-two, when the French Revolution was lowing to the lumhead, and the pulpit and the press were beating the drum and sounding the trumpet to rally the champions and the adversaries of Reform, I, with that brave confidence in myself which has been so often a staff in my hand in the perils of tribulation, could do no less than become one of the friends of the people.

Though time and riper knowledge have abated my veneration for the undertakings of our society, I yet must confess, even while I look back on some of them with a risible eye, that there was a pleasure in the phantasies of our sederunts which I doubt if wiser parliamenting often furnishes. For my own part, though I never either seconded the project for the partition of the Duke's property, or advocated the right to overthrow Kings, I cannot deny that I had queer thoughts as to how my small stature would look in senatorial garments, especially when at every new meeting of the society I spoke better and better, and was thought by many to be in a fair way of becoming a finished orator.—But the hopes of man are perishable!

We had opened a connection with the Corresponding Society of London, and a bright vista shone before us. The day, in the opinion of all, was at hand, when our heretofore obscure names would be emblazoned on the monuments of renown, with those of the ancient worthies and Solons of old. But as the fulness of time drew near, when, as we deemed, the millennium was, by our own achievement, to come to pass, I was seized with occasional misgivings, and could not believe it had ever been ordained that a wee coomy thing of a nailer like me was to shine amidst the stars of the nations.

One morning, as I was under this dismay and shadow of a cloud, I was roused by a clap of thunder. Out came a warrant from Edinburgh, whereby seventeen of us were marched, in two and two, and an odd one, as prisoners, to answer for high treason before the Lords.