In what dark corner, then, this
strange production was generated, our author may endeavour to find out,
if he can.
"As to his second assertion, that it was regularly and judicially given
in, and, therefore, ought to have been canvassed, by Mary during the
conferences; we have already seen, that this, likewise, is not fact: the
conferences broke up in February, 1569: Nicholas Hubert was not hanged
till August thereafter, and his dying confession, as Mr. Hume calls it,
is only dated the 10th of that month. How, then, can this gentleman
gravely tell us, that this confession was judicially given in, and ought
to have been, at that very time, canvassed by queen Mary and her
commissioners? Such positive assertions, apparently contrary to fact,
are unworthy the character of an historian, and may, very justly, render
his decision, with respect to evidences of a higher nature, very
dubious. In answer, then, to Mr. Hume: As the queen's accusers did not
choose to produce this material witness, Paris, whom they had alive and
in their hands, nor any declaration or confession, from him, at the
critical and proper time for having it canvassed by the queen, I
apprehend our author's conclusion may fairly be used against himself;
that it is in vain, at present, to support the improbabilities and
absurdities in a confession, taken in a clandestine way, nobody knows
how, and produced, after Paris's death, by nobody knows whom, and, from
every appearance, destitute of every formality, requisite and common to
such sort of evidence: for these reasons, I am under no sort of
hesitation to give sentence against Nicholas Hubert's confession, as a
gross imposture and forgery.
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