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not amount to a full proof; so the ministers, being afraid that a jury might not be so easy as they expected, ordered Carstairs's confession to be read in Court; not as an evidence, (for that had been promised him should not be done,) but as that which would fully satisfy the jury, and dispose them to believe the witnesses. So Baillie was hurried on to a trial. And upon the evidence he was found guilty, and condemned to be executed that same day; so afraid they were lest death should be too quick for them. very little disturbed at all this; his languishing in so solitary a manner made death a very acceptable deliverance to him. He in his last speech shewed, that in several particulars the witnesses had wronged him. He still denied all knowledge of any design against the King's life, or the Duke's; and denied any plot against the Government. He thought it was lawful for subjects, being under such pressures, to try how they might be relieved from them; and their design never went further: But he would enter into no parti

culars. Thus a learned and worthy gentleman, after twenty months' hard usage, was brought to such a death, in a way so full, in all the steps of it, of the spirit and practice of the courts of Inquisition, that one is tempted to think, that the methods taken in it were suggested by one well studied, if not practised in them. The only excuse that was ever pretended for this infamous prosecution was, that they were sure he was guilty; and that the whole secret of the negotiation between the two kingdoms was trusted to him; and that since he would not discover it, all methods might be taken to destroy him considering what a precedent they made on this occasion, by which, if men were once possessed of an ill opinion of a man, they were to spare neither artifice nor violence, but to hunt him down by any means."-It will surely be admitted, that the practice of torture, as a mode, either of detection or conviction, is the consummation of injustice and tyranny.

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NOTE 7. p. 18. l. 142.
A people doom'd, &c.

By the tyrannous and bloody laws that were passed between the year 1661, and the evermemorable year of the blessed Revolution, the whole inhabitants of extensive districts in the Lowlands of Scotland might be said to have lived under sentence of death.

NOTE 8. p. 18. 1. 143.

Old men, and youths and simple maids. "ONE morning, between five and six hours, John Brown, having performed the worship of God in his family, was going with a spade in his hand, to make ready some peat-ground. The mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and there examined him; who, though he was a man of a stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and solidly; which made Claverhouse

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to examine those whom he had taken to be his guide through the muirs, if they had heard him preach? They answered, "No, no, he was never a preacher." He said, "If he has never preached, meikle he has prayed in his time.” He said to John, "Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die." When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times one time that he stopped him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, "I gave you time to pray, and ye are begun to preach;" he turned about upon his knees, and said, "Sir, you know neither the nature of praying nor preaching, that calls this preaching :” then continued without confusion. When ended, Claverhouse said, "Take good night of your wife and children." His wife standing by with her child in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and another child of his first wife's, he came to her, and said, "Now, Marion, the day is come that I told you would come, when I

spake first to you of marrying me." She said, "Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you." Then he said, "This is all I desire, I have no more to do but die." He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased and promised blessings to be multiplied upon them, and his blessing. Claverhouse ordered six men to shoot him the most part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground. Claverhouse said to his wife, "What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?" She said, "I thought ever much of him, and now as much as ever." He said, "It were justice to lay thee beside him." She said, "If ye were permitted, I doubt not but your cruelty would go that length ; but how will ye make answer for this morning's work?" He said, "To man I can be answerable; and for God, I will take him in mine own hand." Claverhouse mounted his horse, and marched, and left her, with the corpse of her dead husband lying there. She set the bairn on the ground, and tied up his head, and

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