A. "I am not bound to be my own accuser.

"I am not,” said one of them, "to desire you; but only say upon your honest word, that you were not there?

A. "I am not bound to satisfy you; but prove what you have to say against me, and especially you, till I come before my accusers. 'Well,' said he, 'I am one of them.' Then I answered, 'I was there.' Q. "How came you to rise in arms against the king?

A. "Because he has broken the Covenant of the Lord my God. "Was the Prelate's death murder?

A. "No, it was not murder.

Q. "Was Hackston's death murder?
A. "That it was, indeed.

Q. "How dare you own the Covenant, seeing the king gave orders to burn it by the hand of the hangman?

A. "Yes, I dare own it; for although ye should escape the hand of men for so doing, yet ye shall all pay for it, ere all be done, and to purpose. As for me, I would not do it for the whole earth.

"Then I was interrogated by other two, who asked some frivolous questions which I baffled to silence.

"Then I was brought in before the bloody crew.

"What now, sir, "said they, " Do ye own the king's authority? A. "I own all things that the precious Word of God owns in less or more, and all faithful magistrates.

Q. "But do you not own King Charles also?

A. "I dare not for a world; because it is perjury; for he has unkinged himself in a high degree, and that in doing all things contrary to the Word of God, and Confession of Faith, and Catechisms Larger and Shorter.

Q. "Know ye to whom ye are speaking?

A "I know I am before men.

"But," said one of them, "ye are speaking to the Chancellor and members of Council, sir.

"But," said I, "I have told you already that he has unkinged himself, and so have you degraded yourselves from being princes. Q. "If the king were here, what would you say, sir?

A. "I know how I ought to speak to the king if he were king. 'Sir,' is ordinarily said to him, and so to let you know that I am no Quaker, or erroneous in anything, but a pure Presbyterian, and of a Gospel apostolic spirit, I call you 'sirs,' because ye are noblemen by birth, but not because ye are my judges.

Ọ. "Will ve not say, God bless the king's majesty?

A. "I dare not bless them whom God hath rejected: 'If any man bring another doctrine than ye have received, bid him not Godspeed, nor receive him into your house,' 2 John 10; and Ps. xvi., near the beginning, says David, 'Their drink-offerings will I not offer, nor take up their very names in my lips' (viz., them that hasten after other gods), and therefore I dare not pray for him.

Q. "And will ye not pray for him?

A. "If he belongs to the election of grace, he has a part of my prayers. And also, if he were a king that had kept Covenant with God, I would give him a double share, and make mention of his name; but he is an apostate.

"So, my friends, they looked still one to another at every question and answer.

Q. "How old are you, sir?

A "I am fifty-one years.

Q. "How dare you own the Covenants, seeing we have burnt them by the hand of the hangman ?

A. "I dare own them upon all perils whatsoever to the utmost of my power, all the days of my life." And with that they smiled and laughed one to another, and to me, and said, 'My days were near an end.' I said, 'I am now in your power, but if ye take my blood, ye shall take innocent blood upon yourselves, as in Jer. xxvi. 14, 15, "As for me, I am in your hand; do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you; but know for certain, that if ye put me to death ye shall bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and on this city and the inhabitants thereof.' And as for me, if ye take my blood, it is as innocent blood as ever ye did take, for I did never wrong any man to this day.

A. "I went aye to the Church where I could get any faithful minister to go to: but for your Prelates' kirks, and Baal's priests, I never heard any of them, nor ever intend to do, if I were to live an hundred years.

"But (said they) ye shall not live long now, sir. How do ye prove by the Scripture what you say against Prelates?

A. "By many Scriptures, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors; but it shall not be so among you but he that is greatest among you, shall be the servant of all;' not like your glutton,

Epicurean, belly-god Prelates, who are riding in coaches in great pomp.' But they would not suffer me to speak more, nor cite more places, but asked several questions which I have not got memory of; only this word I said, concerning the tyrant, "He was brought home by Mr Livingstone and others, and put in a nobler estate than any king in the whole world, crowned a covenanted king with the eternal God to be for him, and to carry on His work and cause, he and all the people; which if he had continued in, he would have been the greatest king in all lands and nations in the world, and would have been a terror to all the kings in Europe; but now he hath made himself base, and a reproach to all the nations, so have all you; and another reason why I dare not own him nor you either is, because he and you have robbed Christ of His crown, although it be not in your power to do it."

"They bade take me away to the iron house, and put on the irons on me, which they did on both my hands, that I could write none that day, till I got a mean to put them off the one hand.

"Then on Tuesday they called me before them again, being the 19th day of this instant.

Q. "What say ye the day [i.e., to-day]? Do you adhere to all ye said yesterday?

A. "I adhere to all and haill [i.e., whole] upon all perils what

somever.

Q. "Do ye approve of Bothwell Bridge?

A. "Yes, I do.

Q. "Do you go to the kirk at Peebles?

A. "No, nor never intend to go there, nor no place else which pertains to the perjured Prelates.

Q. "Do you own the Covenants ?

A. "I adhere to every point of them, because they are in short an obligation to the whole sum of Scripture, as the sum of the law is 'to love the Lord our God with all our soul, and heart, and mind, and with our whole strength, and our neighbour as ourselves:' so it is the whole duty which the Lord requires of me and all men.

Q. "And how do you reject the king, seeing the Scripture commands you to obey him?

A. "Because the coronation sermon, and the coronation itself do openly declare, that the people make a king, and not the king a people, and that he was received home, and crowned for no other thing nor end, but to maintain that interest to the utmost of his

power; and no longer to be owned as king, than he did own that wherefore he was crowned; so that we were freely loosed from him, as soon as he played his base pranks, in taking the malignants by the hand, and murdering a prince and a prophet, viz., Argyle, who set the crown upon his head, and Mr Guthrie, who was a godly reformer in our land." Next I said, "What thought they of Mr Douglas, who preached and gave him all his injunctions at Scone? "They said to me, He should have been hanged for his pains. "But I said, God would be about [i.e., deal] with them all for rejecting the Word of the Lord in these directions.

Q. "How do ye disown him, seeing the most part both of ministers and professors do pray for him.

A. "Because the General Assembly at the West Kirk disowned him altogether, till he made a declaration of humiliation for his own sins and his father's. And the Parliament being then sitting at Edinburgh did ratify the Assembly's act, and disowned him till he should do that, which accordingly he did, and so we are loosed freely.

Q. "Do ye own Airsmoss, Sanquhar, Rutherglen, and Lanark Declarations?

A. "Yes, I do; because they are agreeable to the Covenants and work of Reformation." And many more questions they asked, which I cannot now particularly remember, but I told them in general that I was against Popery, Prelacy, malignancy and profanity, and all that is against sound doctrine, discipline, worship and government; and all errors whatsomever, which are contrary to sound Presbyterian doctrine, be what they will; for there is none other right, but erroneous, how fair a face soever they have, which shall be found not agreeable to the Apostle's doctrine.

"And then they read something of which I had said, and questioned if I would subscribe what I had said. I answered, No.

Q. "Can ye write? Yes, I can write. But I said, I would not do it at all.

Then do it, said they :

"Now, my friends, I say, these are a part of my interrogations. Again, I was brought before the Justiciary (as they call themselves), on the 20th of this instant, and interrogated thus :

Q. "What, now, sir, what think ye of yourself the day?

A. "I praise my God I am the same I was.

Q. "What think ye of what ye said yesterday before the Chancellor and the Council?

A. "I hold all, and decline nothing: No, not one ace.

Q. "Were ye at Bothwell Bridge?

A. "Yes, that I was.

Q. "Had ye arms?

A. "Yes, that I had.

"One of them said, 'God help you,' And I said, 'I wot [i.e., know] not if ye can pray for yourself.' But, said he, 'I wish you better nor [i.e., than] ye do yourself.' But I said, No; for ye would have me disown my great Lord, the King of Zion, and obey men, yea, base men, whose breath is in their nostrils, who give out laws and commandments contrary to His.

Q.

"How dare ye rise in arms against the king?

A. "It is better to obey God than man, and he is an enemy to God.

Q. "Would ye rise yet in arms for the Covenants against the king's laws, if ye had the occasion?

A. "Yes, that I would, say the contrary who will, upon all peril. Q. "What think ye of yourself in spoiling the country of horse and arms, sir?

A. "Sir, I had not the worth of a spur whang [i.e., thong or strap] of any man's, but was mounted of horse and arms of my own.

Q. "Where have ye been all this time?

A. "Sometimes here and there, in England and Scotland.

Q.

"Whom have ye conversed with?

A. "I was about my business, being a merchant.

They said, Ye have been about another business; for ye are

found to be a fugitive and a vagabond.

A. "I have been a merchant from my youth.

Q. "But where had ye your chamber in this town?

A. "I had none these several years.

Q. "Where quarter ye in this town?

A. "I have not been much in it these seven or eight years.

e. "But where were ye the night and the last night before the execution?

A. "I was not in town; I came but in at the port [¿.e., gate] just when the first was cast over.

"Then they looked one to another, and whispered together. But they would fain have had me wronging my landlords in all the parts of the country, and in all burghs; but glory to my Lord, I have wronged none yet, nor yet hope to do, for it was aye my care, and prayer to God earnestly, that I might wrong no man, and that I