VIII. 1683. was convicted of treason for conversing with te- BOOK nants involved in the guilt of rebellion. They had remained for two years unmolested, neither prosecuted nor intercommuned, but the judicial presumptions on which he was condenined, were strung together in a manner that exhibits a curious specimen of the logic and inventive subtlety of an iniquitous court. As every good subject was bound to discover those whom he suspected of treason, it was treason to converse with a suspected person, however innocent he might prove. But a person once engaged in a rebellion, must be presumed to incur the suspicion of the neighbourhood. The suspicion of the whole neighbourhood must be known to each individual in it. But it was proved that the persons with whom Blackwood had conversed, had been concerned in rebellion, and presumed, as the sole ground of his conviction, that their treason could not have escaped his notice, nor have failed to excite his suspicion. His execution was frequently respited, as his attainder sufficed to establish a lucrative precedent for a new and a comprehensive crime 48. A proclamation Its exten was issued against all who had ever harboured or communed with rebels: circuit courts of justiciary were appointed for their trial and condemnation as traitors; and this inquisition was to subsist for 48 Burnet, 243, Fount. Dec. i. 213. Burnet calls him Wier, he or his father having married the heiress of Wier of Blackwood, and assumed that name. Nisbet's Heraldry. sive conse quences. BOOK three years, when an indemnity was promised; but an immediate absolution was conferred on such VIII. 1683. Conspiracy in England. as accepted the test. The proclamation, since Alva's persecutions in the Netherlands, the most atrocious perhaps which the world had yet seen, comprehended twenty thousand who had held a promiscuous intercourse with rebels, and who were reduced to the cruel alternative of perjury or treason. In the succeeding circuits it was strictly executed in every article, nor did the ministry dissemble their wishes, that the people might be compelled by its rigour to abandon the kingdom; but the people flocked to the test, as they did to church; protesting that they received it against their conscience, to avoid destruction to themselves 49. Wearied, however, with the tyranny which they had long endured, and terrified at the prospect of the severer tyranny for which they were reserved, the presbyterians were disposed to yield to the design, and to abandon a kingdom where none were safe. The wealthy, alarmed at Blackwood's attainder, prepared to settle or to sell their estates. A scheme concerted during Lauderdale's oppression was revived, to establish a 49 Fount. Dec. Burnet, ii. 345. "When Dundonald re"gretted the devastation of the west by the highlanders, Lau"derdale replied, that it were better the country bore windle "straws and sand larks than boor rebels to the king. This, "though not fond of quoting his authority, they now repeat"ed to the king." Fount. Mem. MS. VIII. 1683. colony in America, and to transport themselves BOOK and their followers to its unpeopled wilds. Thirtysix noblemen and gentlemen entered into the association, and their agents contracted with the patentees of South Carolina for an extensive settlement, where their freedom, their religion, and their name, might be preserved 5o. The scheme was encouraged by James, who preferred a desolate country to a disaffected people. But the exclusionists in England, alarmed at the approaching danger of the duke's succession, had projected on the sudden illness of Charles, an early insurrection in the event of his death. After the retreat and death of Shaftesbury, Russel and Sidney renewed the communication with the discontented city, exasperated at the loss of its chartered privileges; and they invited the Scots to co-operate, while the plan of insurrection extended through England. Men about to abandon their country from oppression, were prepared for the most desperate enterprize to preserve it. Under the pretext of the American expedition or purchase, lord Melvile, sir John Cochran of Ochiltree, Baillie of Jerviswood, Monro, sir John Campbell of Cesnock, and sir George his son, were invited and repaired to London, to consult with Monmouth and the council of six. A treaty was opened by means of Carstairs, a clergyman, with Argyle and the Scottish exiles in Holland. Ten thousand pounds were se Wodrow, ii. 230. VIII. 1683. BOOK demanded for the purchase of arms, with which Argyle undertook to begin an insurrection in the west of Scotland. The earl of Tarras, Monmouth's brother-in-law, was instigated to take arms with his friends on the borders, as soon as the first signal of revolt was sounded in England. Nothing, however, was yet determined nor properly matured. Money was not provided for Argyle, nor were the Scottish conspirators satisfied with the dilatory caution of their English confederates, whom they regarded as a disjointed cabal, fit only to debate, but incapable of an insurrection, which was daily deferred. While they sent to restrain the impetuosity of their countrymen, the determined, unless greater vigour were immedi, ately adopted, to separate from the confederacy, and to consult for themselves 51. Discovery of the Rye An insurrection entrusted to so many, and dehouse plot. layed so long, could not remain concealed. A separate plot, upon which the subordinate conspi rators had discoursed, but concerted nothing, was first detected, to assassinate the king and his brother at the Ryehouse, on their return from Newmarket; and the virtuous Russel, the heroical Sidney, suffered for a conspiracy of which they were ignorant. The Scottish conspirators were implicated in the discovery; and Argyle's letters, which perplexed the most skilful decypherers, Sprat's Account of the Ryehouse Plot, 26. 647. Carstair's State Papers, 10. 14. VIII. 1683. were intercepted. Melvile and Cochran escaped BOOK to Holland: Ferguson, the celebrated plotter, was traced to Edinburgh; but when the gates were shut to prevent his escape, he found a secure asylum in the common gaol; the place which was least likely to be suspected or searched. The rest were secured, and remanded to Scotland to bę tortured or condemned. But the Scottish conspi rators had acted with more circumspection than the English, though impatient of their delays; and from the evidence of Holmes and Shephard, nothing but hearsay reports had transpired. To extort a discovery of their guilt, Gordon of Earlston, attainted in his absence, and intercepted with credentials from the Cameronians to their friends abroad, was ordered by Charles to be tortured after a sentence of death; but at the sight of the instruments of torture, instant madness was produced by his horror and despair 52. Cesnock's But in state offences, nothing more than the 1684. forms of justice was observed in Scotland, and trial. even from these the justiciary court was impatient to recede. Sir Hugh Campbell of Cesnock, an old and venerable gentleman, was first arraigned. As there was no proof of his participation in the conspiracy, he was accused of abetting the insurrection at Bothwell, by reprimanding or exhorting the deserters to return, His defence, that he was 52 Dalrymple's Mem. i. 57. Wodrow, ii. 311. Fount. Dec. i. 245. |