He had been one of the Commissioners who had tendered the Crown and administered the oath to the new Sovereigns.

In parliamentary ability and eloquence he had no superior among his countrymen, except the new Lord Advocate.

The Secretaryship was, not indeed in dignity, but in real power, the highest office in the Scottish government; and this office was the reward to which Montgomery thought himself entitled.

But the Episcopalians and the moderate Presbyterians dreaded him as a man of extreme opinions and of bitter spirit.

He had been a chief of the Covenanters: he had been prosecuted at one time for holding conventicles, and at another time for harbouring rebels: he had been fined: he had been imprisoned: he had been almost driven to take refuge from his enemies beyond the Atlantic in the infant settlement of New Jersey.