"the recording angel" has taken a note of their sufferings, and history, aided by tradition, has to some extent embalmed their names and given them to imperishable honour. Claverhouse wrote as follows from New Galloway a few weeks after the beginning of his raid: "The country hereabouts is in great dread. Upon our march yesterday most men were fled, not knowing against whom we designed. My humble opinion is, that it should be unlawful for the donators to compound with anybody for behoof of the rebel till once he have made his peace. For I would have all footing in this country taken from them that will stand out. And for securing the rents to the donators and the Crown, it is absolutely necessary there be a fixed garrison in Kenmure, instead of Dumfries; for without it, I am now fully convinced, we can never secure the peace of this country, nor hunt these rogues from their haunts.. I sent yesterday two parties in search of those men your lordship gave me a list of-one of them to a burial in the Glencairn, the other to the fair at Thornhill. Neither of them are yet returned: but Stenhouse tells me that the party at the burial miscarried; that he pointed out to them one of the men, and they took another for him, though I had chosen a man to command the party that was born thereabout. They shall not stay in this country, but I shall have them." At first Claverhouse occupied the mansion belonging to Sir John Dalrymple of Stair, and a humbler dwelling in Kirkcudbright possessed by Sir Robert Maxwell; he afterwards, as is indicated by the above letter, made Kenmure Castle his headquarters. "My Lady [Kenmure] told me," he said, in reporting to Queensberry on the subject, "if the King would bestow two or three hundred pounds to repair the house, she would be very well pleased his soldiers came to live in it." Accordingly, on the 1st of November, after Claverhouse had warned the noble owner of the Castle to "make it raid and void," he took up his residence there, and it became thenceforth the chief citadel of the infamous sheriffship exercised by him in Galloway and Nithsdale. His principal colleagues were Colonel James Douglas, brother of the Duke of Queensberry, Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, Sir Robert Dalziel, Sir Robert Laurie of Maxwelton, Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, Captain Inglis, and Captain Bruce; all of whom, by their activity and zeal against the Covenanters, proved that they were worthy of the persecuting commissions entrusted to them. It is right to add, however, that Colonel Douglas afterwards forsook his party, and served with distinction under William III.; and that he is said to have bitterly lamented the cruelties of which he had been the agent. CHAPTER XXXVII. ROMANIZING JAMES RENWICK BECOMES LEADER OF THE CAMERONIANS-THEY ARE PERSE- BEFORE giving any further particulars of the Persecution carried on by their means, we must notice briefly the career of one against whom much of its fury was directed, and who about this time came prominently forward as the leader of the Cameronians-James Renwick. Since the slaughter of Cameron in 1680, and the martyrdom of Cargill in the following year, the extreme party among the Presbyterians had been without a head -had no stated ministers, indeed, and were very imperfectly organized. Renwick, whilst quite a youth, adopted their views, and identified himself with their fortunes. When nineteen years of age, he witnessed the martyrdom of Cargill; which so stirred his whole moral nature, that he devoted himself heart and soul to the cause for which the aged martyr suffered. The Cameronian party, appreciating his fervour, piety, and talent, offered to send him to the University of Groningen, in Holland, to complete his training for the ministry—a proposal which he cheerfully accepted. Leaving his native village of Minnyhive, in Nithsdale, he proceeded to the university; and, after a six months' course of theological study, and being presbyterially ordained, he returned to the south of Scotland the accepted pastor, the recognized chief, of the wandering Covenanters. In a paper called the "Informatory Vindication," he explained the views and position of the United Societies; and in 1683 followed this up by the emission of a boldly defiant document styled "An Apologetical Declaration," in which they, after the manner of Richard Cameron's Sanquhar manifesto, abjured Charles Stuart as a cruel tyrant, and intimated their resolution to continue in the exercise of their Christian rights, and, if attacked, to repel force by force. of Whilst the publication of this paper nerved the courage of the Covenanters, it at the same time intensified the fury of their enemies. Before it was many weeks old, the Privy Council passed an Act ordaining that any person who owned, or would not disown it, was to be immediately put to death, though unarmed; the only qualifications to this exterminating edict being, that it was to be enforced by the military in presence two witnesses. On the 30th of December, 1684, a Government proclamation was issued having a still wider sweep-commanding, as it did, all the inhabitants of the country to swear that they abhorred, renounced, and disowned the Apologetical Declaration. The Abjuration Oath, thus first prescribed, soon acquired an infamous notoriety, and gave rise to much suffering in the west and south of Scotland, where it was ensnaringly tendered as the touchstone of loyalty to people of all ranks. Under Renwick's leadership, the witnesses for "God's covenanted work of Reformation" had their courage renewed and their faithfulness confirmed: field-preaching, which had been for a season given up, was revived; and though no conventicles were held on a very large scale, as in former years, the hills and valleys of Upper Nithsdale and Galloway became at times once more vocal with the song of praise ascending from bands of worshippers, who thus foiled, in these solitudes remote, "a tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws," and prepared, sword in hand, if need be, to act upon the bold menace expressed in their Declaration. A few illustrative details of the Persecution that set in แ : against them with redoubled fury, may now be given, the dates being chiefly 1684 and 1685, "wherein," says Patrick Walker, eighty-two of the Lord's suffering people were suddenly and cruelly murdered in desert places;" so that these two years came to be called emphatically "the killing time." First let us record a few more of Sheriff Graham's own achievements:"His commission at this time," says Dr. Simpson, "was to scour Nithsdale, from New Cumnock to Sanquhar, in quest of all disaffected persons, and to search every nook and ravine, and hunt unsparingly on both sides of the Nith. As it regarded the populace, no exemptions were to be made-the peasantry, man, woman, and children, were to be driven like a flock of sheep before the soldiers to a given place, and there to be interrogated, and treated every one as the commander should dictate." When Claverhouse, by such means as these, ferreted out his victims, he usually made short work with them. Take the Test, abjure the Covenants, agree to all the other conditions of abject mental slavery prescribed by the Privy Council, and safety, except in the case of old opposers of the Government, was secured; but let the dastardly terms be rejected, then Heaven might have mercy on such as heroically repudiated them, but Claverhouse and his troopers had none. On the 18th of December, 1684, he surprised six refugees wandering destitute on the banks of Dee, at Auchinday, in the parish of Girthon. Four of them, Robert Fergusson, John M'Michan, Robert Stewart (son to Major Stewart of Ardoch), and John Grierson, were, after brief warning, left lifeless on the sward. Three of the bodies were carried away by their friends and buried at Dalry, which so irritated Claverhouse, that the gory remains were disinterred by his orders, and lay exposed for several days, after which they were recommitted to the grave. The two other captives, William Hunter and Robert Smith, were carried to Kirkcudbright, condemned after the semblance of a trial, hanged, and then beheaded. In the same year, whilst three of the wanderers were returning from a conventicle held in the parish of Carsphairn, they were encountered by Graham and his men, and shot without ceremony. The martyrs -Joseph Wilson, John Jamieson, and John Humphrey-were buried in the neighbouring moorland of Crossgellioch; and |