And yet notwithstanding of an Indemnity October 2 1688 alledged as ample as Absolute Power could make it tho not expresly excluded they were detained Prisoners until the Report of his Highness the Prince of Orange now King of Brittain his prevailing and fear of his Victorious Arms did move them not to keep any longer any that might be evidences and Witnesses of their Arbitrary cruelty As the same reason also it seems did constrain them to take down and bury the heads of those they murdered for fear lest these monuments of their cruelty standing might occasion the Question to be moved by whom and for what they were set up Than which nothing shall be more confounding to them when inquisition shall be made for blood Thus these Enemies of the Country the encroaching Privy Council and the Prelates in special now universally contemned since the Toleration were going on in their Designs to enslave the Nation and to prevent and suppress all Essayes to retrive or revive any hopes of recovering any Liberty Multiplying their searches not only for us but for any that were suspected to favour their present Majesties Cause and undertaking so soon as it began to be surmised here and laying up in irons and closs prison some Gentlemen upon suspicion of their being privy to it And as soon as they had certain intelligence of King William his great and generous Resolutions in order to the Restauration and Preservation of Religion Laws and Liberties in these three Kingdoms They made such vigorous preparations for opposition and issued out such virulent Proclamations inveighing against his Highness under such severities of certifications requiring all from 60 to 16 to concur under their displayed Banner for Arbitrary Government as if they had feared an Invasion from Turks or Tartars Yet in the mean time tho there were suspicions then and discoveries since of an intended Popish Massacre they disarmed the Western Shires and sent Orders to the Officers of Forces especially imploying such as were professedly Popish to go through the Country and take all their Armes leaving them nothing to defend themselves withal and causing the People to swear that they had no other Armes than such as they got And in their march meeting with some of our number they threatned to shoot them presently if they would not own King Iames pray for him and for confusion to all his Enemies which they refusing at first were appointed to be shot and had their faces covered with Napkins and with great difficulty escaped by complying By the former Summary and abridged Abstract and compendious Deduction of our many and manifold Grievances the Truth whereof can be evidenced by many demonstrative Evidences it may appear what have been our sufferiugs since that fatal Revolution anno 1660 from the Popish Prelatical and Malignant Party and what have been their Attempts Machins and Methods to overturn our Religion Laws and Liberties and subject us to meer Arbitrary and Absolute Tyrannie At least what have been their capital Devices whereby they have ruined and sought to raze us And what have been the principal causes and kinds of our Sufferings in their prosecuting the same The particular Relation of which so far as can be collected is intended GOD willing afterwards in due season to be published Only here it may not be inconvenient to subjoyn by way of specimen a short Recapitulation in bulk of some instances of our several kinds of Sufferings with a touch at some of the most principal Instruments thereof in the five Western Shires First For Fines and other Exorbitant and Illegal Exactions of Money the particular summs cannot be here enumerated but their vastness when together calculate may be easily collected by the scraps already gathered of some poor Families of Farmers Cottars Servants c. and many of these omitted or not known which would very considerably augment the summ in some few Shires viz. Clidsdale Renfrew Air Galloway Nithsdale and Annandale only for but a few years to wit since Bothwel bridge insurrection amounting to above 288000. pounds Scots Money Besides the many honest Families which have been casten out of their houses harassed and spoiled of their All Some of their houses being thrown down some Burnt some shut up their goods and moveables seized upon their Crop and Cattel also disposed of at the will of their Persecuters in the forementioned Shires amounting to above 200 of all which we have a particular account in readiness to instruct The immediate Authors Actors and Instruments of these oppressions were principally the Curates instigating the Privy Council which impowered the Forces and Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Country to prey upon the poor People All cannot be here expressed but some of the most noted in the Western Shires shall be named who were the greatest Persecuters and Oppressors by Finings and other Exactions Of Officers of the Forces Col. Dowglas now Liev Gen. Dowglas Brother to the Duke of Queensberry exacted above 2000 Pounds Scots Money in Galloway Nithsdale Shire of Aire and other Places Liev. Gen. Drumond besides the Forefaultries of Gentlemen did also exact moneys of the poor in the Shire of Air. The Earl of Lithgow and his Souldiers spoiled much in Galloway The Earl of Airly and his Troup in the same Shire The Lord Balearras a great Oppressor in Galloway besides all the Robberies he committed in Fife Graham of Claverhouse afterwards Viscount of Dundee with his Brother and subaltern Officers in Galloway Nithsdale and Anandale exacted by Fines and otherwise above 13500 pounds Scots money Col Buchan a most violent persecuter in Galloway and Shire of Air by Robberies took from the People upwards of 4000 pounds Scots Major Cockburn a great oppressor in Galloway Major White in Clidsdale and shire of Air exacted by Fines and otherwise above 2500. p Scots Major Balfour now called Liev Col Balfour a great persecuter and Oppressor in Clidsdale Captain Strauchan with his Troup oppressed and spoiled much in Galloway other places Captain Inglis with his Troup did dispossess many Families and got much spoil in Galloway shire of Air and Clidsdale Captain Dowglas in Galloway committed much outrage and spoil Captain Dalzel harassed much in Anandale Captain Bruce in Nithsdale Meldrum in Clidsdale in several Inroads uplifted from poor Families upwards of 2300 Pounds besides the vast summes he exacted in Mers and Tiviotdale with the Earle of Hume Ker of Gradown Laird of Hayning and Blindlee and in Tweddale with the Laird of Possa all great Persecuters Liv. Winram in Galloway a very vigilant Persecuter and Spoyler Liev. Barns also in the same Shire took much Spoyl Liev. Iohn Living stoun a most violent Persecuter and Exacter Liev. Lauder in the Shire of Air a most outragious Persecuter and Oppressor Bonshaw a Borderer a High-way Man afterwards an Officer of Dragoons robbed much from the poor People in Clidsdale Duncan Grant a Creple with a Tree Leg a very outragious Persecuter exacted in Clidsdale from
shall be called to cognosce upon them of the pernicious Errors of Popery Socinianisme and Arminianisme maintained by many of them Abominable Adulteries committed by others of them the Profanity Sensuality and Debauchery Oppression and Persecution of Godliness and good Men chargeable on the generallity of them and Perjury in breach of Covenant and Schismatical intrusion without consent of the Church owned of all of them and Ungodliness by them transfused over all the Land as could not but make them detested of all as the greatest stain to be suffered in a Reformed Church Upon the back of this by the instigation of the Prelates who scorned to be and one no not by Iulian the Apostate in surpressing Religion they proceeded to poyson all the Seminaries of Learning Ordaining in Act. 9. Sess. 2. Parl. 1. Carol. 2. That none be Masters in any University except they both take the Oath of Supremacy and submit to and own Prelacy or be so much as a Pedagogue to Children without the Prelates Licence By which course Honest and Learned Men were brought to considerable Straits and Sufferings and Ungodly and Unsound Masters had access and encouragement to corrupt the Youth with perverse and Malignant Principles to the great and observable Detriment and Decrement of Religion Learning Sobriety and Morality in the Nation The next Contrivance was to corrupt all the Fountains of Judicature And for this End it was enacted Act 5. Sess. 2. Parl. 1. Carol. 2. That all Persons in any publick Trust or Office whatsoever should subscribe the Declaration renouncing and abjuring the Covenants And that not only under the Certified penalty of Forefaulting the Priviledges of Magistrates But also of all the Priviledges of Merchandizing Trading and others belonging to a Burgess Act 3. Sess. 3. Parl 1. Carol. 2. Whereby Perjury was made the chief and indispensable Qualification and Conditio sine qua non of all that were capable of Exercising any power in Church or State contrate to known Laws yet unrepealed which make them that are guilty of Perjury incapable of being intrusted with any publick Administration in the Kingdom The Parliaments thus corrupted and instigated by the Bishops and Curates Establish wicked Laws pressing Conformity And in the very first of them made such a streach beyond all bounds of Charity Justice Reason or Humanity that they made all Addresses to God or Man remonstrating such Grievances and reflecting on such proceedings to be Criminal Declaring Petitions to be Seditious And discharging all Writing Printing Remonstrating Praying or Preaching shewing any dislike of the Kings Absolute Prerogative and Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastick or of the Government of the Church by Bishops Act 2. Sess. 2. Par. 1. Carol. 2. And Act 4 ibid. They not only prohibited any to Preach in publick or so much as in Families without the Prelates Licences but Discharged all Private Meetings in Houses for Religious Exercise of such as could not in Conscience give their Countenance to the Curats Service in Churches Then in the 3 Sess. Act. 2. They Declare that all Non conformed Ministers that shall presume to Exercise their Ministry shall be punished as Seditious Persons And Require of all in acknowledgement of and Complyance with his Majesties Government Ecclesiastical that they give their concurrence and countenance to the Curates and attend their Meetings for Worship Ordaining that whosoever shall withdraw shall incur each Nobleman Gentleman or Heretor the loss of a fourth part of their Years rent every Yeoman the loss of a fourth or under of his Moveables each Burgess the loss of his Burge-ship with the fourth of his Moveables with a reference to the Council for farther punishment and more effectual Execution Which the Council very vigorously Prosecuted in emitting most rigorous Proclamations after that Some requiring all to keep their Parioch Churches under the pain of 20. shil toties quoties Some discharging all Preaching Praying or Hearing in Families where three or some more then the Domesticks were found as unlawful Conventicles Others Certifying that all such Meetings not Authorised shall be punished by Pecunial and Corporal pains at the Arbittement of the Council Other Commanding all Masters of Families Heretors Landlords and Magistrates of Burghs ro cause their Servants Dependents Tennents Taxmen Cottars and all under their Charge to submit and conform to the Curates their Ministry For putting these Laws in Execution the King erected a High Commission Court consisting of some Prelates Noblemen Magistrates of Burghs and some Souldiers impowered by vertue of his Prerogative Royal and Supremacy to suspend deprive and Excommunicat As also to punish by Fining Confining and Incarcerating all keepers of Conventicles and all Non Conformists A Hotch-potch mongrel Monster of a Judicatory Authorized by the Prerogative against the Laws of GOD and Man meddling with Causes and Censures Ecclesiastick and Civil most Illegal and Arbitrary both for its Constitution and Procedure Whereby persons brought before them were made to answer super inquirendis contrare to express standing Law Ioc. 6. Parl. 10. Act. 13. Anno. 1585. without either Libel or Accuser or admitting Legal Defences except they take the Oaths and sentenced with Stigmatizing Scourging Banishment Deportation and Slaverie to Barbados c. By orders from this Court especially from the Prelates whose country sides were in a great measure Depopulate for Non-conformity by Souldiers Sometimes besetting the Churches where honest Ministers were not yet ejected and forcing all within to pay fines Sometimes going to the Curates Churches and Amerciating all the Absents in such fines as they pleased Sometimes by force driving all to Church beating wounding and binding the Reousants Sometimes exacting exorbitant fines by Plunder to the Harassing and making Havock of whole Country sides sparing sometimes Complyers no more then Recusants And punishing Husbands for their Wives Parents for their Children Yea doubling and tripling the same exactions after payment yet compelling them sometimes to subscribe an acknowledgement that the Captain had used them civilly and discreetly Then after all Apprehending Imprisoning Scourging some Stigmatizing others and sending them to Forreign parts that would not for all this conform Hereupon being outwearied with intollerable oppressions a small party of Dissenters were partly compelled and party by a surprise of Providence engaged to run together for their own defence at Pentland Anno 1666. Where after the defeat The Prisoners that were taken upon Quarter and solemn parol to have their life spared were treacherously given up to be Condemned the very manner of their Execution being first determined and described before Arraigment and cruelly hanged their Heads being set up at Edinburgh Glasgow Air Dumsreis and at Hamiltoun Turks would have blushed to have seen the like Among the rest one eminent Minister Mr. Hugh Mckail for having but a Sword tho not present at the Fight was first cruelly tortured with the Iron boots and afterwards execute to the death At their Executions Drums were beat that they
Curats and Indulged Ministers which were afterwards by Act 11. Sess. 3. Parl. 2. laid upon all who shall keep their Children Unbaptized for Thirty dayes together Act 9. Imposing intolerable Fines on all that shall three Sabbath dayes together withdraw themselves from their own Paroch Churches Act 9. Sess 3. Declaring all Ordinations of Ministers since the Year 1661. which have not been by Bishops to be Null and Invalid and that they are no Ministers that are otherwise Ordained encroaching hereby on the most Intrinsick and formally Ecclesiastick Powers of the Officers of Christs Kingdom These wicked Acts were followed with cruel Executions whereby many were made to endure such Havock as harder could not be found in the Reign of Caligula or Nero both in their own Houses in Prisons and at Sea in Deportations Hereafter thinking the ordinary Forces not cruel enough in executing these enacted Mischiefs they brought from the wild Highlands a Host of 10 or 11000 Barbarous Savages and poured them in upon the Westeren Shires all peaceable at the time none so much as moving a Finger against them on design as would seem utterly to lay them desolate with Orders to press a Bond of Conformity wherein every Subscriber was bound for himself and all under him to frequent the Paroch Church and never go to House or Field Meetings nor reset any that went to them but to informe against pursue and deliver up all outed Preachers to Judgement Many Houses and Families were then left desolate the Inhabitants being made to flee in the Winter Season many left their Cattel and in seeking to recover them lost their Lives Yet the Innocent Country was made to pay for all this Service and hire them to do more by paying the imposed Cess enacted and exacted professedly by the Act of the Convention of Estates holden by Lauderdale anno 1678. to raise and maintain more Forces and to maintain the Supremacy as now Asserted and Established and to suppress Field Meetings called Rendezvouses of Rebelion And for the same Causes and to suppress the Propagation of the Principles then suffered for continued by Act 3. Parl. 3. held by the DUKE of York Commissioner And by Act 12. Parl. 1. Iac. 7. holden by Queensberry continued and prorogued during all the Terms of his Lifetime which because of the Illegality of its imposition the nature of its Exaction being an Obedience to a wicked Law a help to the Ungodly to make Havock of the Church a hire to the Souldiers to destroy what remained of Religion and Liberty and because of its ends so expresly Declared in the Narratives of the Acts to suppress the persecuted Gospel and destroy its Followers many Presbyterians durst not justify by Obedience in paying the required Moyetie but chose rather to suffer joyfully the spoyling of their Goods and all the force and fury they could exert against them Whereby many tho' poor yet honest and honestly provided Families were laid waste and exposed to the Miseries of uncertain Wanderings At length upon occasion of Graham of Claverhouse his assaulting a meeting near Loudoun-hill carrying about with him a Minister and several Countrey men bound as Beasts and getting a repulse in the rancounter with the meeting Another Insurrection for our Lives Liberties and Religion was undertaken and discomfited at Bothwel-bridge anno 1679 and at the defeat several hundreds were killed on the Field and 10. or 1100. were taken Prisoners stript and carried to Edinburgh where after two of our Ministers were martyred for that Appearance Mr. Iohn King and Mr. Iohn Kid And after the rest of the Prisoners were kept several weeks in a Church yard without a covert either from cold or heat in the open Air a bond was tendered seeming to offer Life and Liberty on terms that clearly condemned the cause never to rise in Arms against the King on any pretence whatsoever c. Which many took and the rest of us that refused and even many that did take it were sent away in a Ship bound for America between 2 and 300 in all who were all murdered in the Ship being shut up under the hatches when it split upon a Rock in the North of Scotland excepting 50 some of which are yet alive to give this account After this the grand Design of subverting and utter everting our Reformation tho' from the beginning of this Fatal Catastrophe projected and by all the forementioned Methods prosecuted hitherto was more and more discovered and beyond all denial demonstrated that nothing less was intended then the gradual introduction of Popery and Slavery and that by all the ordinat Iesuitical Rules observed in the seduction of Churches into the Roman Tyrannie The chiefest of which have alwayes been to foment all Quarrels among Protestants and to strengthen the Party readiest to comply to make and execme rigorous Laws against the most tenacious and to load the Protestant Opinions that are more obnoxious with all odious constructions Accordingly in the first place to propagate Defection and promote Division a Proclamation was emitted anno 1679 inveighing against and resolutely interdicting all Field-meetings and granting Liberty to Preach in Houses upon terms of a cautionary Bond binding and oblieging the People for their Ministers living peaceably and in Order thereto to present him before his Majesties Privy Council when they should be called so to do And in caise of falizie in not presenting him to be lyable to the sum of 6000 merks Yet excluding all these Ministers who were suspect to have been at that insurrection of Bothwel And all those who should afterwards be admitted by Non conformed Ministers Whereby those that durst not comply were exceedingly divided and more easily destroyed For their Courts of cruel Inquisition went by Circuit through the Country pressing the Bond of Peace denying the Principle and renouncing the Priviledge of Defensive Arms And taking up Portuous Rolls of all that were suspect to have been at Bothwel insurrection whereof they reputed all to be convict who being summoned did not appear or were delated by Oath super inquirendis to have been seen or heard to be in Armes or did not go to the Kings Camp about that time Whereby not only upon the account of that Appearance were many executed to the Death by packing bloody Juries and Assises as might conduce and be for their murdering ends besides more than can be reckoned that were kept to perish in Prisons or Deportations to Banishment But many Gentlemen and others were Indyted Imprisoned and some condemned to Death others Forefaulted or Fyned above the value of their Estates for having seen or spoken with some of those called Rebels or because they did not discover or apprehend them even when they did not and could not know whether they were called or counted Rebels or not And some poor People when they could not be reached any way for this insurrection at Bothwell nor any other overt Act or Transgression against even
unto followed Such as had not served the Enemy in destroying nor engaged by Oaths and Tests to destroy the cause now to be sought for and defended But that they should be well affected of approven Fidelity and of a sober conversation Having also declared That the cause they were called to appear for was the service of the Kings Majesty in the defence of the Nation Recoverie and preservation of the Protestant Religion and in particular the work of Reformation in Scotland in opposition to Popery Prelacy and Arbitrary Power in all its Branches and Steps until the Government of Church and State be brought to their Lustre and Integrity established in the best and purest times Upon these terms we offered to compleat two or three more Regiments if it had been accepted But before we offered to be Souldiers we had first made an offer to be Subjects And because we did not look upon our selves as Subjects to the Late King who treated us as Enemies We made therefore a voluntary Tender of our Subjection in a peculiar Petition by our selves which we purposed to have given in to the Meeting of Estates at their first sitting down We shewed it to several Honourable Members but by their Advice it was delayed until the Meeting prevented the purpose of it by Proclaiming the King and Queen The Tenor whereof here Follows TO THE MEETING of ESTATES Of the Kingdom of SCOTLAND THE NOBLEMEN BARONS and BVRGESSES Lawfully Called and Chosen now Assembled at Edinburgh for Establishing the Government Restoring and Securing the True Religion Laws and Liberties of the said Kingdom The Humble PETITION of the poor People who have Suffered Grievous Persecution for their Revolt from and disowning the Authority of James the VII Pleading for the devolving the Government upon the Prince of Orange now King of England SHEWETH THat the sad effects of the Late Arbitrary and Tyrannical Course of Government which these Nations and we in a special manner have been groaning under these years past From which to Relieve them the Most Serene and Illustrious Prince of Orange was induced by the Propitious Conduct of a very Glorious Providence to Undertake this Noble and Heroick Enterprise And for Redressing which This Honourable Convention is Called and Conveened Together with the revived hopes since His Highness Auspicious Arrival that all honnest men have begun to conceive and entertain of getting their Grievances freely Represented and Redressed The denyal whereof these several years hath been to us and many others a Grievance very grievous Have necessitate incited invited and encouraged us among others tho of the meanest Figure and lowest Interest in this great Affair Yet as persons pressed to declare and oppressed for declaring their Consciences Sentiments and Resentments of the Late abused Government to take the Boldness now to open our hearts to this Great and Honourable Meeting And with all humility as becomes to Represent to Your Honours That as we conceive we wanted not Right and Reason upon Consciencious Grounds to decline the Illegally extorted and Arbitrarly imposed acknowledgement of our Allegiance unto Iames the VII Whose Authority we could never own because of his Illegal Investiture without taking or being in Capacity to take the Oath of Coronation while addicted to Poperie contrare to the Laws of God and Man because of his Advancing the Prerogative unto an Illimited and most Despotical Absolutness which all were required to obey without Reserve And because of his Arbitrary abusing it to the undermining and overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties and intended Introduction of Poperie and Slaverie at the opened gap of the Prelatical Hierarchy Erastian Supremacy and the Late vastly extended Toleration And because we could not own it our Sufferings have been very great known to this and other Nations and we are confident will not now be condemned by any that have espoused the Cause and have been honoured to concur in the Enterprise of Rescuing these Nations from the Unsupportable Yoke of the Late Popish Domination upon the same or equivalent grounds on which we durst not own it So we prostrate ourselves yet sorrowing under the smart of our still bleeding wounds at your Honours Feet who have a Call a Capacity and we hope a good mind to cure them And offer this our Petition enforced by all the formerly felt presently seen and for the future feared Effects and Efforts of this Throne of Iniquity and the mischief thereby framed into Law and practised or projected against all Law by the Cry of the Blood of our murdered Brethren by the slavery of the banished free born Subjects of this Realm by all the miseries that many forefeited disinhereted harassed and wasted honest Families have been redacted to their Estates and Lives being at the mercy of incensed Souldiers for adhering unto the Ancient Covenanted Establishments of Religion and Liberty And by all the Arguments of Justice Necessity and Mercy that ever could conciliate Commiseration among Men of Wisdom Piety and Vertue humbly Beseeching Requesting and Craving of your H Now when GOD hath given you this opportunity to Act for His Glory the good of the Church and Nation your own Honour and the Happiness of Posterity Now when this Kingdom the Neighbouring and all other Nations of Europe have their Eyes upon you expecting you will acquit your selves like the Representatives of a free Nation in redeeming it from Slaverie otherwise ineluctable following the Noble footsteps of your Renowned Ancestors and the present Precedent and Pattern of this Honourable Convention and Parliament now sitting in England That you will proceed without any farther Procrastinations alwayes especially now Dangerous when Papists and other Malignant Enemies are openly attempting to raise a Rebellion against the State to declare the late Iniquous Government dissolved the Crown Vacant and Iames VII whom we never have and resolve with many Thousands never again to owne to have really Forfeited and rightly to be deprived of all Right and Title he could ever pretend thereunto And to provide that it may never be in the Power of any succeeding Governour for the time to come to aspire unto or arrive at such a Capacity of Tyrannizing Moreover since Anarchy and Tyranny are equally to be detested and the Nation cannot subsist without a Righteous Governour and none can have a nearer Right nor fitter Qualifications than his Illustrious Highness whom the Most High hath signally Owned and Honoured to be our deliveror from Popery end Slavery We Cry and Crave that King William now of England may be Chosen and Proclaimed King of Scotland and that the Regal Authority be devolved upon him with such necessary Provisions Limitations and Conditions of Compact as may give Iust and Legal Securities of the Peace and Purity of our Religion Stability of our Laws priviledges of Parliaments and Subjects Liberties Civil and Ecclesiastick and make our Subjection both a clear Duty and a comfortable Happiness And because Kings are but Men mortal mutable and