"MY LORD,--As I am told that Dr. Robertson has wrote a few remarks, which he communicated to your lordship, as our common answer about the affair of Queen Mary, and has endeavoured to show you that it was contempt and not inability, which kept him from making a public reply; I thought it would not be amiss for me to imitate his example; and I did not indeed know a properer person, nor a more equal judge than your lordship, to whom I could submit the cause. For if, on the one hand, your lordship's regard to the memory of that princess might give you a bias to that side, I know, that the ancient and constant friendship, with which your lordship has always honoured me, both in public and private, would give you a strong bias on my side; and there was a good chance for your remaining neutral and impartial between these motives.
"I shall confine my apology to the account which I have given of the conference at Hampton court, as this is indeed the chief point, in which the answerer has thought proper to find fault with me.
"There are several places, in which I mention Mary's refusal to give any reply to Murray's charge, and have commonly said, that she annexed as a condition, her being admitted to Queen Elizabeth's presence; as in page 496, line 20; page 501, line 12, line 21.[253:1] I have not said that this condition was an unreasonable one, (the words which the answerer puts in my mouth,) but only that it was such a one as she did not expect to be granted; and that because Queen Elizabeth had formerly refused it, before any positive proofs of Mary's guilt were produced, merely from the general rumour and opinion, which were unfavourable to her. Having thus clearly expressed myself on this head, when I have occasion afterwards, in the course of the narration, to mention the matter, I say once or twice simply, that Mary refused to give any answer, without expressing the condition annexed by her. My reasons were, that the position was sufficiently qualified by the preceding narration; and because a refusal, grounded on a condition which the person does not expect to be gratified, and which is accordingly denied, is certainly equivalent to a simple and absolute refusal.
"That your lordship may judge of the unfairness of the answerer, he picks out this simple and unqualified expression of mine, and omits the others, which explain it to the readers of the meanest capacity; and he opposes it by a passage cited with equal unfairness from Mr. Goodall's appendix. He quotes a long passage from Goodall, p. 308, in which Queen Mary demands copies of her letters, and offers positively to give an answer without mentioning any conditions; and this detached passage he opposes to the detached passage from me, in which I assert that she absolutely refused to answer. He desires that this express contradiction between my narration and the records may be remarked. But, in the first place, the condition of being admitted to Queen Elizabeth, though not mentioned in that paper, is not relinquished, and it is even clearly implied; because Mary there refers to a former letter, which we find in Goodall, p. 283, line 2, from the bottom, page 289, line 13, and where it is positively insisted on. Secondly, we have in Goodall, page 184, Queen Mary's commission to break up the conference, if that condition be not granted. Thirdly, Queen Elizabeth understands her meaning very well, as indeed it was very plain, and offers to her copies of the letters, if she will promise to answer without any condition; see Goodall, page 311, line 3, and this offer is not accepted of. Fourthly, in the very last paper of all, which closes the whole, the Bishop of Ross still insists on that condition; Goodall, page 390 about the middle.