sack at a tavern a good way off, and pretending likewise some errand for another soldier, sent him also out of the way; there being now none left to guard the prisoners but the jailor and the third soldier, captain Irvin leaped over the hatch door, and as the jailor leaped after, my father knocked him down with his cudgel. While this was doing, Mr Stuart tripped up the soldier's heels, and immediately leaped over the hatch. They both mounted, Stuart on the horse behind my father, and Irvin on the spare one, and in a few minutes came up with their companions at the gate, before the main guard could arrive, although it was kept within twenty yards of the jail-door. I should have observed, that as soon as captain Irvin and his friend got over the hatch, my father and his comrades put a couple of broadswords into their hands, which they had concealed under their cloaks, and at the same time drawing their own, were all six determined to force their way against any who offered to obstruct them in their passage; but the dispatch was so sudden, that they got clear out of the gate before the least opposition could be made. They were no sooner gone, than the town was alarmed; Coote, the governor, got out of his bed, and ran into the streets in his shirt, to know what the hubbub meant, and was in a great rage at the accident. The adventurers met the governor's groom coming back with his master's horses from watering; they seized the horses, and got safe to sir Robert Stuart's, about four miles off, without losing one drop of blood in this hazardous enterprise. This gallant person (if I may so presume to call my father) had above twenty children by his wife Anne Maxwell, of the family of the earl of Niddisdale, of whom I was the eldest; they all died young except myself, three other boys, and two girls, who lived to be men and women. My second brother I took care to have educated at Glasgow; but he was drowned at two and twenty years old, in a storm, on his return to Ireland. The other two died captains abroad, in the service of king William. I was born on the eighth day of May 1648, at Castle Fin, in the county of Donegal. I made some small progress in learning at the school of Dungannon; but when I was eighteen years old, I very inconsiderately married Mrs Elizabeth Delgarno, my school-master's daughter, by whom I have had thir. teen children, who all died young, except two daughters, married to two brothers, James and Charles Young, of the county of Tyrone. Having been so very young when I married, I could think of no other course to advance my fortune than by getting into the army. Captain Irvin, often mentioned already, had a brother, who was a physician in Edinburgh, to whom he wrote in my favour, desiring he would recommend me to the marquis of Athol, and others, then at the head of affairs in Scotland; this was in the year 1674. There were then but one troop of horse guards (whereof the marquis was colonel) and one regiment of foot-guards, commanded by the earl of Linlithgow, in that kingdom; and they consisted chiefly of gentlemen. Dr Irvin, physician to the horse-guards, accordingly presented me to the marquis of Athol, requesting that I might be received into his troop. His lordship, pretending there was no vacancy, was, by the doctor, threatened, in a free jesting manner, with a dose of poison, instead of physic, the first time he should want his skill: "Weel, weel then," quoth the marquis, "what is your friend's name?"- "Deel tak' me," answered the doctor, "gin I ken." Whereupon I was called in to write my name in the roll. I was then ordered to repair to the troop at Stirling, with directions to lieutenant-colonel Cockburn, the commanding officer, to put me into which of the four squadrons, whereof the troops consisted, he thought fit. He thereupon placed me in his own, and appointed me my quarters. Soon after this, the conventicles growing numerous in the west, several parties were drawn out to suppress them; among whom I never failed to make one, in hopes thereby to be taken notice of by my commanders, for I had nothing to recommend me except my activity, diligence, and courage, being a stranger and born out of that kingdom. My first action, after having been taken into the guards, was, with a dozen gentlemen more, to go in quest of Mas David Williamson, a noted covenanter; since made more famous in the book called the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence." I had been assured, that this Williamson did much frequent the house of my lady Cherrytree, within ten miles of Edinburgh; but when I arrived first with my party about the house, the lady well knowing our errand, put Williamson to bed to her daughter, disguised in a woman's night-dress. When the troopers went to search in the young lady's room, her mother pretended that she was not well; and Williamson so managed the matter, that when the daughter raised herself a little in the bed, to let the troopers see her, they did not discover him, and so went off disappointed. But the young lady proved with child; and Williamson, to take off the scandal, married her in some time after. This Williamson married five or six wives successively, and was alive in the reign of queen Anne; at which time I saw him preaching in one of the kirks at Edinburgh. It is said that king Charles the second, hearing of Williamson's behaviour in lady Cherrytree's house, wished to see the man that discovered so much vigour while his troopers were in search of him; and in a merry way declared, that when he was in the royal oak he could not have kissed the bonniest lass in Christendom. Some time after this, Thomas Dalziel, general of The begonal the forces in Scotland, an excellent soldier, who had been taken prisoner at the famous battle of Worcester, and sent prisoner to the Tower; escaping from thence into Muscovy, was made general to the czar; and returning home, after the restoration, was preferred by the king to be general of the forces in Scotland, in which post he continued till his death, which happened a little before the revolution. This general commanded fifty of the foot-guards, with an ensign, to accompany me and follow my directions in the pursuit of a notorious rebel, one Adam Stobo, a farmer in Fife, near Colross. This fellow had gone through the west, endeavouring to stir up sedition in the people by his great skill in canting and praying. There had been several parties sent out after him, before I and my men undertook the business, but they could never discover him. We reached Colross at night, where I directed the ensign, and all the men, to secure three or four rebels who were in the place, while I, with two or three of the soldiers to assist me, went to Stobo's house, about a mile and a half from Colross, by break of day, for fear some of his friends might give him notice. Before I got to the house, I observed a kiln in the way, which I ordered to be searched, because I found there a heap of straw in the passage up to the kiln-pot. There I found Stobo lurking, and carried him to Colross, although his daughter offered me a hundred dollars to let him go. We returned immediately to the general at Edinburgh, with Stobo and the prisoners taken by the ensign at Colross. They continued awhile in confinement, but Stobo, at his trial, found friends enough to save his life, and was only banished; yet he returned home a year after, and proved as troublesome and seditious as ever, till at the fight of Bothwell bridge, it was thought he was killed, for he was never heard of afterwards. During the time I was in the guards, about two years after the affair of Mas David Williamson at the lady Cherrytree's, I was quartered with a party at Bathgate, which is a small village, twelve miles from Edinburgh. One Sunday morning, by break of day, I and my comrade, a gallant Highland gentleman of the name of Grant, went out disguised in grey coats and bonnets, in search after some conventicle. We travelled on foot eight or ten miles into the wild mountains, where we spied three fellows on the top of a hill, whom we conjectured to stand there as spies, to give intelligence of a conventicle, when any of the king's troopers should happen to come that way. There they stood, with long poles in their hands, till I and my friend came pretty near, and then they turned to go down the hill. When we observed this, we took a little compass, and came up with them on the other side; whereupon they stood still, leaning on their poles. Then I bounced forward upon one of them, and suddenly snatching the pole out of his hand, asked him why he carried such a pole on the Lord's day? and at the same time knocked him down with it. My comrade immediately seized on the second, and laid him flat by a grip of his hair; but the third took to his heels, and ran down the hill. However, having left my friend to guard the two former, I overtook the last, and felled him likewise; but the place being steep, the violence with which I ran carried me a good way down the hill before I could recover myself, after the stroke I had given, and by the time could get up again to the place where he lay, the rogue had got on his feet, and was fumbling for a side pistol that hung at his belt under his upper coat; which as soon as I observed, I fetched him to the ground a second time with the pole, and seized on his pistol; then leading him up to the other two, I desired my friend to examine their pockets, and see whether they carried any powder or ball, but we found none. We then led our prisoners down the hill, at the foot of which there was a bog, and on the other side |