Note 341 — Chapter X

Baillie's letters are full of this feeling, and must be reckoned fair evidence, since no man could be more bigoted to presbytery, or more bitter against the royalist party. I have somewhere seen Baillie praised for his mildness. His letters give no proof of it. Take the following specimens: "Mr. Maxwell of Ross has printed at Oxford so desperately malicious an invective against our assemblies and presbyteries, that, however I could hardly consent to the hanging of Canterbury or of any jesuit, yet I could give my sentence freely against that unhappy man's life."—ii. 99. "God has struck Coleman with death; he fell in an ague, and after three or four days expired. It is not good to stand in Christ's way."—P. 199.

Baillie's judgment of men was not more conspicuous than his moderation. "Vane and Cromwell are of horrible hot fancies to put all in confusion, but not of any deep reach. St. John and Pierrepont are more stayed, but not great heads."—P. 258. The drift of all his letters is, that every man who resisted the jus divinum of presbytery was knave or fool, if not both. They are, however, eminently serviceable as historical documents.