Some reviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and some for being a Scotchman, which he was.

His defenders fought his battle gallantly.

"Grant," they said, "that it is possible to find, amidst an immense mass of eloquent and learned matter published in defence of the Protestant religion and of the English Constitution, a paragraph which, though well intended, was not well considered, is that error of an unguarded minute to outweigh the services of more than twenty years?
If one House of Commons, by a very small majority, censured a little tract of which his Lordship was the author, let it be remembered that another House of Commons unanimously voted thanks to him for a work of very different magnitude and importance, the History of the Reformation.

And, as to what is said about his birthplace, is there not already ill humour enough in Scotland?
Has not the failure of that unhappy expedition to Darien raised a sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughout that kingdom?
Every wise and honest man is desirous to soothe the angry passions of our neighbours.

And shall we, just at this moment, exasperate those passions by proclaiming that to be born on the north of the Tweed is a disqualification for all honourable trust ?" The ministerial members would gladly have permitted the motion to be withdrawn.