POST SCRIPT,

Addreffed to the PUBLIC.

MR.

R. Hume, in the laft edition of his Hiftory of England, has made the following attack upon the Inquirer *.

"I believe" (fays the Hiftorian) " there "is no reader of common fenfe, who does cr not fee, from the narrative in the text, "that the author means to fay, that Queen

Mary refuses constantly to answer before

* Hume's Hiftory, quarto edition, 1770, vol. v. p. 152. Note, p. 533.

"the English commiffioners, but offers

only to answer in person, before Q. Eli"zabeth in perfon, contrary to her prac"tice during the whole course of the con"ference, till the moment the evidence of "her being an accomplice in her husband's "murther is unexpectedly produced. It "is true, the author having repeated four

or five times an account of this demand "of being admitted to Elizabeth's pre"fence, and having expreffed his opi"nion, that, as it had been refufed from "the beginning, even before the com

mencement of the conferences, fhe did

not expect it would now be complied "with; thought it impoffible his mean❝ing could be misunderstood (as indeed "it was impoffible), and not being will"ing to tire his reader with continual re"petitions, he mentions in a paffage or

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two, fimply, that she had refused to

"make any answer. I believe also, there " is no reader of common fenfe who per"ufes

"ufes Anderfon or Goodall's collections, "and does not fee, that, agreeably to this "narrative, Q. Mary infifts unalterably "and ftrenuously on not continuing to "answer before the English commiffion

ers, but infists to be heard in person, by Q. Elizabeth in perfon; though once or "twice, by way of bravade, fhe fays

fimply, that fhe will anfwer and refute "her enemies, without inferting this con"dition, which still is understood.

But

"there is a person that has wrote an Enquiry biftorical and critical into the evidence

against Mary Queen of Scots, and has at"tempted to refute the foregoing narra❝tive. He quotes a fingle paffage of the "narrative, in which Mary is faid fimply to refuse answering; and then a fingle

paffage from Goodall, in which the boasts fimply that she will anfwer; and he very

civilly and almoft directly calls the au"thor a lyar, on account of this pre"tended contradiction. That whole En

"quiry, from beginning to end, is com"pofed of fuch fcandalous artifices; and from

this infance, the reader may judge of the "candour, fair dealing, veracity, and good manners of the Enquirer."

This is a very heavy impeachment against the Inquirer, and delivered in terms very inconfiftent with Mr. Hume's complaint upon the head of incivility and good manners, or with that treatment which one gentleman ought to expect from another. If the Inquirer has, in these refpects, been deficient to Mr. Hume (of which he is not at all fenfible), that gentleman has now very amply retorted upon him. Who could have fufpected the cool Philofopher to be fo converfant in terms of the groffeft and moft illiberal abuse?

This fmall Effay took its rife from notes which the author, in the course of his reading, had made, with no other view

than

than for his own amufement, and to enable him to form a judgment of a point which he had confidered as a hiftorical problem. When he was induced to put these strictures into their prefent form, and to allow them to be made public, he was fenfible of the difficult tafk he had undertaken. To canvafs a difputed point, which perhaps, even at this day, with some narrow minds, involved a notion of partyfpirit, was not his greatest embarraffment. He found himself obliged to examine, with freedom, the opinion of authors of weighty authority; of living authors. He imagined he faw fufficient reasons to differ widely in fentiment from these authors; to believe, that even a writer, generally unqueftioned in candour, might, in the ardour of fupporting a favourite and popular fide of a queftion, have shut his eyes against the light. Here was the Inquirer's difficulty. The love of truth demanded,

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