The execution of Captain Charteris (the last who suffered) was a source of melancholy regret to his friends, and of triumph to the ministers. He was a man of determined mind; but his health being much impaired by wounds which he had received, he had not firmness to resist the importunities of his friends, who, as a means of saving his life, as they thought, prevailed upon him to agree to make a public declaration of his errors. This unhappy man, accordingly, when on the scaffold, read a long speech, which had been prepared for him by the ministers, penned in a peculiarly mournful strain, in which he lamented his apostacy from the Covenant, and acknowledged “other things which he had vented to them (the ministers) in auricular confession.”[423] Yet, notwithstanding the expectations which he and his friends were led to entertain that his life would be spared, he had no sooner finished his speech than he was despatched.
FOOTNOTES:
[383] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 393.
[384] Memoirs, p. 351.
[385] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 405.
[386] See Appendix to Wishart’s Memoirs, p. 440.
[387] Gordon’s Continuation, p. 547, et seq.
[388] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 432.
[389] Gordon’s Continuation, p. 551.
[390] Appendix to Wishart’s Memoirs, p. 441.