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PRINTED FOR JOHN ROBERTSON, 132. HIGH STREET;

SOLD BY BRASH & REID, AND J. SMITH & SON GLASGOW ; R. MATHIE, KILMARNOCK;
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME & BROWN; J. BUTTERWORTH;
RIDGWAYS, AND ANDERSON & CHASE, LONDON.

1817.

ENTERED IN STATIONERS HALL.

Abernethy & Walker, Printers.

i

ADVERTISEMENT.

In presenting to the Public a Report of the recent State Trials in Scotland, the Publisher does not feel that it is necessary for him to explain at any length the motives which led to the design of this Publication. If the execution be at all accurate and faithful, the deep interest universally and naturally excited by the proceedings will sufficiently account for the appearance of this Work.

It is now several years since any trials of the same description have occurred in this part of the Island; and this circumstance, together with the intrinsic and permanent importance of the matters at issue, has created a general feeling of impatience for a detail of the whole proceedings, which the Publisher would have sooner gratified, had he found this compatible with the accuracy of the Report. But when the extent of the proceedings,-the number of the witnesses examined, and the unusual length of the pleadings of Counsel are considered, no one can be surprised that the Reporter, in spite of his best exertions, should have felt himself occasionally embarrassed by the variety and perplexity of his materials. He can state with entire confidence, that the delay of publication has been anxiously, and he trusts successfully, turned to the improvement of

the Report in the qualities essential to such a Work, and for which alone it can claim any merit. He has some reason, therefore, to believe, that, in the shape in which the Report now appears, it may stand a comparison with other publications of a similar nature, and, while it satisfies the reasonable curiosity of the Public upon the subject of the late State Trials, may perhaps afford also the means of correcting misrepresentations which are so apt to occur in any case in which the feelings are deeply interested, and the fugitive impressions of the me mory are alone consulted.

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