Enormous as the oppression and injustice which desolated the south and west of Scotland had been, the people had remained quiet. They had seen their civil and religious liberties swept away, the ministers they loved scattered, and hirelings they detested settled in their stead. They had groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannous enactments, the insolence of lordly prelacy, and the licentiousness of military exaction, and yet had abstained from any acts of rebellion. But their patient endurance only encouraged the perpetration of new mischief, and their unexampled loyalty was abused as the occasion of fresh aggression. For, notwithstanding all that has been said about the disloyalty, faction, and refractory spirit of the Scottish covenanters, they were men of thorough monarchical principles, and possessed a more than ordinary reverence and attachment for their royal family, under circumstances that would have justified resistance long before they had recourse to the last remedy. Affairs, however, had now reached that crisis in which their duty to their God and their duty to their king were placed in opposition, and as Christians no choice was left. To have deserted the assembling of themselves together for religious worship and edification, because their rulers forbade it, would have been to acknowledge a regal power over the conscience which neither Scripture nor nature allows; and as yet no disturbances had occurred at any of those meetings, which were peaceably conducted at a distance from places that could reasonably give offence—in the open air, on hills, and in woods, and sometimes under the covert of night, where the ordinances of the Lord were administered in the way of his appointment, and the word of his gospel preached in simplicity and truth. They therefore continued; and, in spite of the tyrannical edicts of their rulers, like the Israelites of old, did not only meet but multiply. John Welsh, minister of Irongray, from the first betook himself to the fields, and, with his co-presbyter Mr Gabriel Semple, laboured constantly within the bounds of his presbytery, officiating alternately in Corsack-wood and the surrounding country, frequently acting as decoys to their persecutors, one of them being actively engaged in preaching, while the curates with their beagles were in full scent after the other in an opposite direction. For upwards of a year, Mr Welsh is asserted to have “preached at least once every week in the parish of Irongray.” Afterwards he extended his labours to the sheriffdom of Ayr; and on Galston moor and various other places, held large conventicles, where he baptized many children. Gabriel Semple was not less zealous. He held large “unlawful assemblages” at Achmannock, Labrochhill, besides many others, not only in the sheriffdom of Ayr, but in Nithsdale, and within the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Mr John Blackadder ofttimes convened great numbers of the parish of Glencairn and the neighbouring parishes, sometimes to the number of a thousand. Mr Alexander Peden—who had been expelled from New Glenluce, and was especially obnoxious for his exertions and popularity in the west—held meetings under cloud of night and in the winter season; these being now rendered imperative, as the increased diligence of the archbishop and his military satellites forbade more open assemblages. Encouraged by their example, many others ventured to the high places of the field; and their united active endeavours promised to supply, in the districts of Galloway, shire of Ayr, and stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in some degree, the want of a regular Presbyterian ministry.

Mr. Welsh baptizing children anno 1665
Vide page [133]
Edinr. Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder to the Queen, 1842.

The council, now entirely under the direction of the primate, on the 25th of January 1666, promulgated another thundering proclamation, in which, reiterating their falsehoods, and re-asserting “that conventicles, and unwarrantable meetings, and conventions, under pretence and colour of religion and exercise thereof, being the ordinary seminaries of separation and rebellion, are altogether unlawful,” they denounced the eminent servants of God mentioned before, who were said to convene, armed with swords and pistols, and some of them to ride in disguise up and down the country in gray clothes, together with Mr John Crookshanks, who avowedly kept by him “that book called Buchanan De Jure Regni, which he had translated out of Latin into English;” and John Osburn in Keir, who acted as officer for giving notice to the people of these unlawful meetings; and in regard they were latent and kept themselves out of the way that they might not be apprehended, and had no certain dwelling-place. They were charged at the market-crosses of Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, and Edinburgh, and at the shore and pier of Leith, “to compear personally before the council to answer to the premises,” which was, in other words, to surrender themselves and be silenced, or sent to join their brethren in exile.

A little before this the cause of the sufferers had been advocated in “An Apologetical Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithful Ministers and Professors of the Church of Scotland, since August 1660,” attributed to John Brown, late minister of Wamphrey, and one of the banished—a performance written in a style of elegance superior to many of the publications of that day, and with a force of argument that defied reply, and which was peculiarly galling to the managers, as it convicted them of the most flagrant apostacy. The facts were too recent to admit of denial, while the cause which the persecuted suffered for defending, continued the same, as when it had been pronounced by their persecutors themselves the cause of their king, their country, and their God! An exposure more complete was never perhaps exhibited to the world; and the sting was the more tormenting, because it was true. The council felt it, and answered it in a becoming manner by another proclamation, in the beginning of February, ordering it to be burned by the hands of the common hangman, “to vindicate,” as they said, “the honour of this kingdom, and to witness and declare, that such principles and tenets as are contained in the said pamphlet, are detested and abhorred by them. With certification, that whosoever should retain any copies in their possession, should be liable in the sum of two thousand pounds, Scots money, to be exacted without any favour or defalcation; and whoever should contribute to disperse it, were declared liable to the punishment due the venders of seditious libels!” And still more strongly to mark their sense of its merit, on the very day this proclamation was issued, before the book had been declared seditious, or keeping it in possession a crime, the venerable relict of James Guthrie and her daughter were brought before the council, and because they refused to give any information respecting the author, they were sentenced to banishment to Zetland, and to be confined there during pleasure. But the sentence which, it is likely, clerical vengeance had dictated, was, upon a petition from the gentlewomen, referred to the Commissioner, and by him remitted.

Winter gave some short respite to the Presbyterians, who as yet were suffered, without much interruption, to attend their conventicles amid the inclemencies of the weather; but, with the return of spring, Sir James Turner was dispatched to commence his third campaign. Formerly, Kirkcudbright and Galloway had been the principal seat of his operations, now they stretched over Nithsdale; nor was his circuit more extended than were his severities increased. The exactions in his former expeditions had been chiefly confined to the common people, now they were imposed upon the gentlemen of the country; and the curates, attended by files of soldiers, fined at their discretion all whom they considered inimical, and of such sums as they judged proper. The landlord was compelled to pay if his wife, children, servants, or tenantry, were not regular church-goers. The tenant was mulcted when his landlord withdrew from public worship—if the curate’s services deserved the name—nor did it avail him, although both himself and his family were as punctual as the parson. The aged and the sick, the poor, the widow, and the fatherless—all were compelled to liquidate the church-fines; and even the beggar was forced to lay down his pittance to satisfy the unhallowed demand. From mere wantonness, the ruffian soldiery would eject from their dwellings the non-compliants—driving husband from wife, and wife from husband—snatch the meat from their children to give it to their dogs—then quarter in their houses till they had wasted their substance, and finish by committing to the flames what they could not otherwise destroy. Thus many respectable families, reduced to utter indigence, were scattered over the country, not only robbed of their property, but deprived of the means of procuring subsistence. Complaints were useless or worse—they were either disregarded, or answered by additional outrage.

The following instances will give some faint idea of the nature of these visitations. John Nielson of Corsack was a proprietor to a considerable extent in the parish of Partan in Galloway—a gentleman of undoubted loyalty, whose only crime was non-conformity. When Sir James Turner came into that county last year, he was instantly delated by the curate for non-attendance—aggravated, however, by his having shown hospitality to Mr Welsh—fined an hundred pounds Scots, and sent prisoner to Kirkcudbright, besides having four, six, or ten troopers quartered on him constantly, from the beginning of March to the end of May, to each of whom he paid half-a-crown per day, in addition to their board and what they might abuse. This year, for the same offence, he had six soldiers quartered upon him from March to the middle of June, when he was forced to leave his house and wander without any certain dwelling-place, while the villanous banditti demolished his household stuff, and rioted upon his provisions. When these were exhausted, they turned his lady and children out of doors, and forced his tenants to bring them sheep, lambs, oatmeal, and malt, till they also were nearly ruined, and then they drove the whole of the black cattle upon the estate to Glasgow and sold them!

Mr Blackadder being under hiding, the Bishop of Galloway ordered Turner to apprehend him. His second son, then a boy of ten years old, has left the following artless and affecting account of Sir James’ visit to the manse:—

“About this time, winter 1666, Turner and his party of soldiers from Galloway came to search for my father, who had gone to Edinburgh to seek about where he might live in safety. These rascally ruffians besett our house round about two o’clock in the morning, then gave the cry—‘Damned Whigs open the door,’ upon which we all got up, young and old, excepting my sister, with the nurse and the child at her breast. When they came in, the fire was gone out: they roared out again, ‘Light a candle immediately, and on with a fire quickly, or els we’l roast nurse, and bairn, and all, in the fire, and mak a braw bleeze.’ When the candle was lighted, they drew out their swords, and went to the stools, and chairs, and clove them down to mak the fire withall; and they made me hold the candle to them, trembling all along, and fearing every moment to be thrown quick into the fire. Then they went to search the house for my father, running their swords down through the beds and bedclothes; and among the rest, they came where my sister was, then a child, and as yet fast asleep, and with their swords, stabbed down through the bed where she was lying, crying, ‘Come out rebell dogs.’ They made narrow search for him in all corners of the house, ransacking presses, chests, and flesh-stands. Then they went and threw down all his books from the press upon the floor, and caused poor me hold the candle all this while, till they had examined his books; and all they thought Whiggish, as they termed it—and brave judges they were!—they put into a great horse-creel and took away, among which were a number of written sermons and printed pamphlets. Then they ordered one of their fellow-ruffians to climb up into the hen-baulks where the cocks and hens were, and as they came to one, threw about its neck, and then down on the floor we’t, and so on, till they had destroyed them all. Then they went to the meat-ambry and took out what was there; then to the meal and beef barrels, and left little or nothing there. All this I was an eyewitness to, trembling and shivering all the while, having nothing but my short shirt on me. So soon as I was relieved of my office, I begins to think, if possible, of my making my escape, rather than to be burned quick as I thought and they threatened. I goes to the door, where there was a sentry on every side standing with their swords drawn—for watches were set round to prevent escape. I approached nearer and nearer by small degrees, making as if I were playing myself. At last I gets out there, making still as if I were playing, till I came to the gate of the house; then, with all the little speed I had—looking behind me now and then to see if they were pursuing after me—I run the length of half-a-mile in the dark night, naked to the shirt. I got to a neighbouring toune, called the Brigend of Monnihyvie, when, thinking to creep into some house to save my life, I found all the doors shut and the people sleeping; upon which I went to the cross of the toune, and got up to the uppermost step of it, and there I sat me down and fell fast asleep till the morning. Between five and six a door opens and an old woman comes out, and seeing a white thing upon the cross comes near it; and when she found it was a little boy, cries out, ‘Jesus save us, what art thou?’ ‘With that I awaked and answered, I am Mr Blackadder’s son.’ ‘O, my puir bairn, what brought thee here.’ I answeres, ‘there’s a hantle of fearful men wi’ red coats has burnt all our house, my brother, and sister, and all the family.’ ‘O, puir thing,’ says she, ‘come in and lye down in my warm bed’—which I did, and it was the sweetest bed I ever met with.”

After this the whole family was dispersed. “We all behoved,” continues the narrator, “to scatter; one neighbour laird in the parish taking one child, and another. I was sent to a place about a mile off, called the Peel-toune, who afterwards, likewise, were quite ruined and all taken from them—the poor mither begging but one lamb for meat to the bairns, but could not get it. The meat they were not able to eat they destroyed, threw down the butter-kirns, and hashed down the cheese with their swords among the horses’ feet.”