On Wednesday they were again brought to Westminster Hall, to receive sentence; and being asked what they had to say, Lord Kilmarnock, with a very fine voice, read a very fine speech, confessing the extent of his crime, but offering his principles as some alleviation, having his eldest son (his second unluckily with him), in the Duke’s army, fighting for the liberties of his country at Culloden, where his unhappy father was in arms to destroy them.  He insisted much on his tenderness to the English prisoners, which some deny, and say that he was the man who proposed their being put to death, when General Stapleton urged that he was come to fight, but not to butcher; and that if they acted any such barbarity, he would leave them with all his men.  He very artfully mentioned Van Hoey’s letter, and said how much he would scorn to owe his life to such intercession.[1] Lord Cromartie spoke much shorter, and so low, that he was not heard but by those who sat very near him; but they prefer his speech to the other.  He mentioned his misfortune in having drawn in his eldest son, who is prisoner with him; and concluded with saying, “If no part of this bitter cup must pass from me, not mine, O God, but thy will be done!” If he had pleaded not guilty, there was ready to be produced against him a paper signed with his own hand, for putting the English prisoners to death.

[Footnote 1:  In a subsequent letter Walpole attributes Lord Kilmarnock’s complicity in the rebellion partly to the influence of his mother, the Countess of Errol, and partly to his extreme poverty.  He says:  “I don’t know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court protests that he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey’s Gate; ‘and,’ says he, ’he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner.’  He was certainly so poor, that in one of his wife’s intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings.”  One cannot help remembering, Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit.  And afterwards, in relating his execution, he mentions a report that the Duke of Cumberland charging him (certainly on misinformation) with having promoted the adoption of “a resolution taken the day before the battle of Culloden” to put the English prisoners to death, “decided this unhappy man’s fate” by preventing his obtaining a pardon.]

Lord Leicester went up to the Duke of Newcastle, and said, “I never heard so great an orator as Lord Kilmarnock? if I was your grace I would pardon him, and make him paymaster."[1]

[Footnote 1:  “I would make him paymaster.” The paymaster at this time was Mr. Pitt.]