T Parish of Melrose, John Young and Andrew Cook. Parish of Castletoun, William Scot, John Pringle, Alexander Parish of Ashkirk, William Herd. Parish of Baudon [i.e., Bowden], Andrew Newbigging. Parish of Sudon [i.e., Southdean], James Couston, William * Parish of Hobkirk, John Oliver. HESE seven following were sentenced and banished to West Flanders, who departed the kingdom, March 4, 1684: Thomas Jackson, George Jackson, James Forrest elder, James Forrest younger, John Coline, James Gourlay, [in Wodrow, Dennis Gilcreif.] Gillies [Wodrow says the above-named were before the Committee for Public Affairs, and in their joint testimony they relate that the Chancellor, after a long speech charging them with rebellious principles, declared they were banished to West Flanders, never to return under pain of death. In their testimony they vindicate themselves from the charge of disloyalty and rebellion, and profess their attachment to the Scriptures, Confession, and Covenants, against Popery, Prelacy, etc. John Coline has a separate testimony of his own, in which he gives the reason why he could not say "God save the king." He asked the committee to let him know the meaning of the words, and they told it signified an owning of his person, and government, and laws, and present actings. This, he says, satisfied him that he was right in refusing to utter them.-ED.] म |FTERWARDS were banished to Carolina thirty, who were transported in James Gibson's ship, called sometime Bailie Gibson in Glasgow, of whom it is observed, that in God's righteous judgment he was cast away in Carolina Bay, when he commanded in the "Rising Sun." They received their sentence, July 17, 1684. The names of such as subscribed the joint testimony are these: Matthew Machan, James M'Clintock, John Gibson, Gavin Black, John Paton, William Inglis, John Young, John Galt, John Edwards, Thomas Marshal, George Smith, William Smith, Robert Urie, John Buchanan, Thomas Brice, John Simon, Hugh Simon, William Simon, Archibald Cunningham, John Alexander, John Marshal. [In May 27, 1684, the Council passed an act, granting prisoners to Walter Gibson, merchant in Glasgow, to be by him transported to America. On June 19, Sir William Paterson reported to the Council that twenty-two prisoners are in the tolbooth of Glasgow; and they are ordered to be transported in Walter Gibson's ship. Many, if not all of these, seem to have been shipped along with the twenty-one subscribers to the joint testimony against the king's supremacy and the renouncing of the Covenants above mentioned. The ship was commanded by Walter Gibson's brother, James, a person well known in Scotland at the time of the publication of the "Cloud of Witnesses" as the commander of the "Rising Sun," a ship of sixty guns, and the chief ship in the second squadron sent out to the ill-fated Darien settlement. When the settlement broke up, the "Rising Sun" returned homewards, and had reached as far as the Gulf of Florida, when a violent storm carried away the masts, shattered the boats, and compelled them, with the help of a jury mast, to make for Carolina. In ten days they reached Charleston, and lay at anchor until their guns were taken out so as to get over the bar, when a hurricane arose, and the ship and all on board perished, September 3, 1700. Captain Gibson behaved with extreme harshness to the prisoners on the voyage. Their daily allowance of water was a mutchkin (less than an English pint), and an ounce and a-quarter of salt beef; and during the voyage they experienced all the horrors of what was known in the next century as the middle passage.-ED.] T THEREAFTER in July 19, 1684, John Mathieson, John Crighton, James M'Gachen, John M'Chesnie, James Baird, were banished to New Jersey in America. [Wodrow's date is June 19, 1684. "He says: At Edinburgh the Lords, by sentence, appoint James M'Gachen in Dalry, John Crighton in Kirkpatrick, John Mathieson in Closeburn, John M'Chesnie in Spittle, libelled for reset and converse with rebels, found guilty by their confession judicially adhered to, to be transported to the plantations." John Mathieson survived the Revolution of 1688, returned home, and died Oct. 1, 1709. He wrote a testimony some years before his death, when he was under sore sickness and in expectation of his approaching end. John Calderwood of Clanfin published it in 1806 in his "Collection of Dying Testimonies," a volume now very John Mathieson, like not a few of the Presbyterians some years after the Revolution, inveighs in strong terms against William III., possibly because he was ignorant of the difficulties the king had to contend against--difficulties that Burnet in his history unconsciously shows might well have baffled even a more courageous spirit than the Prince of Orange. Mathieson's testimony had been seen by Lord Macaulay, who calls it one of the most curious of the many curious papers written by the Covenanters of that period; but he makes the most of its intemperate language against King William, and forgets that such language was a characteristic of the age. The first part of his testimony, in which he records his sufferings, is not without its interest, and no doubt might be parallelled by the experience of many of the sufferers of that time. He says: "I am a poor man, and seemingly about to of misery; and I may say with old Jacob, 'The days of the years of my life have been few and evil, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in their pilgrimage" (Gen. xlvii. 9). step out of this vale "As to my education, I was brought up with those that cared not much for religion or the things that accompany salvation, if they got me seen [i.e., cared for] as to back and belly, but the Lord, who knew well what He had to do with me, inclined my heart to better things from my youth, and at length brought me to the knowledge of His way, by converse with some good neighbours, such as Thomas Corsbie, etc. So, being married, I left off hearing the curates, and withdrew from them, which afterwards brought on my persecution; but not being fixed and stable-as the generality of the country was -in bearing testimony against the then defections; until I became acquainted with some of these who were declared rebels, and then I was [i.e., got] to understand matters better, and be as they were in judgment and practice. But this I observed, that I never went out of His way (though I then did it ignorantly), but I met with chastisement of one sort or other from the Lord to bring me back again to Him. "And when it pleased His holy majesty to bring me to a wandering and suffering lot for Him, wonderful was His loving kindness unto me, and strange were the warnings He gave me at several times before I was apprehended, which I forbear to relate. But at length, being apprehended on the Lord's day at my own house by a party of the bloody dragoons whom Closeburn had sent for by Doeg John Kilpatrick in Bredgeburgh Head, I was, by his command, sent to prison in Dumfries, where, after continuing for a season, I was carried from that to Edinburgh with some others, and there sentenced, by a party of the bloody Council, to Carolina, in America. "When I was on the sea, and there, or in my way going, which was nineteen weeks from our entering into the ship until we set our foot on shore and came to land again, I endured a sore fight of affliction from the enemy of my salvation, but the Lord helped me to resist that evil one. . . We suffered great straits while on shipboard, and on shore also, by him and his who carried us captives to that land, yet the Lord was with me and was exceeding kind to me in that strange land. Their cruelty to us was because we would not consent to our own selling or slavery; for then we were miserably beaten, and I especially received nine great blows upon my back very sore, by one of his sea-fellows, so that for some days I could not lift my head higher nor my breast; which strokes or blows I looked upon to be the beginning of all my bodily pains and diseases that have been upon me since that time until now. "But soon after, by a remarkable providence, getting free from these bloody butchers, from Carolina we sailed to Virginia, in which voyage we suffered a long and dangerous storm, and great hunger. From Virginia we went into Pennsylvania, where I was near unto death by a great weighty sickness. From Pennsylvania we went to East Jersey, where we met with the rest of our banished brethren; and from thence we went into New England. But being sorely grieved with the miscarriages of some of our friends there, I left New England, and returned to East Jersey, whereafter soon I fell sick; and during which sickness I was kindly entertained and taken care of by the man and his wife in whose house I lay, and with whom I had bound myself. For, albeit we had escaped from them that had brought us over, and could not work to them, yet we behoved to work for something to bring us back again. From thence I came to New York on my journey homeward, where I agreed with a shipmaster to bring me to London. "During my abode or being in that strange land, the Lord helped me twice or thrice to covenant with Him, but on these terms, that He would carry me and my burden both, and save His noble truth from being wronged by me; still confessing and acknowledging unto Him that I could keep neither word nor writ unless He kept me and it both. And so, on His own terms, I took Him for my king, priest, and prophet. After my first covenanting with Him in these lands, I wan [i.e., got] to such a clearness of my interest and salvation, that the very thoughts of it made me often to leap for joy in the midst of all my sorrows, sore travail, and labour, I had in these lands. And when alone, which was often, I was readily best in my case, for I was grieved with the vain and wicked conversation of the inhabitants of the land. And, now, what shall I say to the commendation of my kind Lord and Master Christ? For many and wonderful were His loving kindnesses unto me in all my travels in that land, even to me, one of the silliest [i.e., frailest] things that ever He sent such an errand; so that, as it passes my memory to relate, I think truly, it would seem incredible to many to believe when they heard them told, even what He hath done for poor insignificant unworthy me, during my abode in these lands; which, betwixt being taken from my own house, and my returning home, was something more than three years. "But for all that, my heart was still at home with the poor suffering remnant in Scotland. For though fire and sword had been in one end of it, I could have been content to have been in the other end of it. So, from New York coming to London, and from thence soon after I arrived in Scotland. So then at length being safe there, and restored to my friends and relations, I clave to and joined with that party after whom while in my banishment I had so great a desire, and continued with them all alongst, hearing with much delight the Gospel then faithfully preached, yea, powerfully preached as occasion offered, by that shining light Mr James Renwick." Dr Simpson, in his "Gleanings among the Mountains," tells a touching story of his reception in his own house on his return home. When he entered the house, his wife was busy preparing dinner for the reapers. She did not recognise him, but took him for a traveller, who had come in to rest himself. She pressed him to take some refreshment, which he did, when she went out to the field with a portion for the reapers. As she went out, he rose, and followed her at a respectful distance. She turned round, and fancying he had not been satisfied with her hospitality, said to the bystanders, “The man wants a second dinner." The words drew the eyes of the reapers on him, when one of his sons whispers to his mother, "If my father be alive, it is him." She turned round, looked into the stranger's face for a moment, and then ran to his embrace, crying out, "My husband!" John Mathieson died October 1, 1709. His remains lie in the churchyard of Closeburn.-ED.] |