We can partly trace his progress and see his heroic achievements in some of his letters to the commander-in-chief, which have been preserved. 'On Tuesday was eight days, and Sunday,' he writes, in December, 1678, there were great field conventicles just by here, with great contempt of the regular clergy, 'who complain extremely when I tell them I have no orders to apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours.' In his next letter he narrates at length the great feat of having demolished a barn which had served for a meeting-house. In February following, he is happy to be able to report that he had seized a number of prisoners. His notice of one is illustrative of the man and the times. The third brigadier I sent to seek the 'wobster. He brought in his brother for him. Though he, may be, cannot preach as his brother, I doubt not but he is as well 'principled as he, therefore I thought it would be no great fault 'to give him the trouble to go with the rest.' The next day he writes, Mr. Welsh and others preach securely within twenty ' or thirty miles off, but we can do nothing for want of spies.' Shortly afterwards he reports that he had seized several persons suspected of attending the conventicles, and then adds, to account for his failure in capturing yet others among whom was a lady, There is almost nobody lays in their bed that 'knows themselves anyways guilty, within forty miles of us; and within a few days I shall be upon them three score of miles off, at one bout, for seizing on the others contained in 'the order.' Such was the commencement of the first campaign of this great cavalier of the Jacobites; but this was child's play compared with what was to follow.

6

As Claverhouse and his troops were specially commissioned and employed to put down conventicles, Mr. Napier thinks it necessary to say all he can in condemnation of these. He has devoted a long chapter to the subject, but, notwithstanding the great prolixity and virulence of his abuse, it is very difficult to understand what he would have us to believe. He says the Government required the people of Scotland to frequent the parish church, not in testimony of their faith, but as a proof of their peaceable disposition and submission to the law of the land; and hence obstinately to refuse to conform became a state crime, deserving the severest penalties. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Napier is himself a dissenter from the church established by law in his country-in fact an obstinate Nonconformist. Is this any reason why he should be regarded as wanting in submission to the law, and so fined, imprisoned, or shot? But in the case of the Presbyterians, he argues, it was not an innocent and conscientious Nonconformity.' We apprehend

that simple Nonconformity, if innocent in one case, must be innocent in another; if innocent in an Episcopalian must be innocent in a Presbyterian; and we think it impossible to read the history of those sad times without being convinced that though the Covenanters were fanatical, they were at least conscientious -perhaps only too sternly conscientious. But then they were traitors and firebrands who preached at these meetings-sowers of sedition, stirrers up of rebellion! The men who preached at these meetings were simply the three hundred parish ministers who had been driven from their parishes because they could not bring themselves to seek anew institution from the prelates who had been thrust upon them, and there is no proof whatever that they preached sedition. We may freely allow, however, that they would not preach such loyal doctrines on the hill-side as they would have done in the parish church. But Mr. Napier has the authority of the State proclamations of the time for declaring that these gatherings were the 'rendezvous of rebellion.' The only foundation for this widely trumpeted accusation is that after six or seven years of suffering, during which the Presbyterians saw their religious meetings dispersed by ruthless dragoons, their ministers compelled to skulk as outlaws among the hills, their best families ruined by exorbitant fines, hundreds of all classes imprisoned, banished, or hanged, they resolved to meet with arms in their hands to defend themselves in case of a surprise by the troops, which were constantly riding over mountain and moor in search of them. But it was only for defence that they armed themselves, or why seek the loneliest places for their meetings? why have so peaceably dispersed when their worship was done? why have only twice come into serious collision with the military, and that when they were attacked amid the marshes of Drumclog and Airsmoss? In truth all Mr. Napier's reasons against conventicles are as absurd as the concluding one, though not so comical. Such pro

miscuous meetings, he says, were a great attraction to the sex, more especially as ladies of distinction were placed on high chairs in front of the crowd, which, he gravely observes, were just towering thrones of female turbulence, folly and vanity.'

*

The month of May 1679 was made memorable by the murder of Archbishop Sharp. The act was applauded by the few whom oppression had made mad, but condemned by the great bulk of the Presbyterians, although they regarded the murdered man as the Judas of their church. On Sunday, the first of June, when Claverhouse was as usual scouring the moors in

* Vol. ii. p. 37.

search of conventicles, he suddenly came upon one, as he himself tells us, little to his advantage.' Worn out with his rapid flight from Drumclog, where he was shamefully beaten, the mortified hero sat down that night in Glasgow and wrote to his commander-in-chief how the rogues sent their women and children to the rear, kept the ground manfully with fusils and pitchforks, brought a cornet and captain quickly to the ground and many dragoons and guardsmen besides, ripped up the belly of his own sorrel horse so that his guts hung out half an ell; and yet,' says he, he carried me off a mile, which so discouraged our men that they sustained not the shock, but fell ' into disorder'-from which it would appear that Graham and his charger fled first, and that the others, beholding this, followed pell-mell. The Battle of Bothwell Bridge rapidly followed. Claverhouse was present at the head of his troop of horse-guards. He took no part in the fight, but endeavoured to wipe out the disgrace of Drumclog by sabering the fugitives, till ordered to desist from the butchery by the gentle Monmouth.

But Bothwell was not over when the fanatical rabble was dispersed and the slaughter stayed. Several large landed proprietors had been present in arms against the Government. Their estates must be confiscated. Four or five thousand men had got safely off from the field; they must be ferreted out in their homes or hiding-places and brought to justice. No better man for such work than Claverhouse could be found; and he was soon in the saddle again hunting down the fugitives from law, who were now almost as plentiful as moorfowl on the western moorlands. But in doing the work of the master whom he served, he did not forget himself. Lord Macaulay has charged him with being rapacious. Mr. Napier has vehemently denied it, but in making the denial he has furnished the proof. One of the largest estates confiscated was the barony of Freugh in Galloway. Claverhouse obtained a grant of it from the Crown. He had been long employed in levying fines; and the Lords of the Treasury complained to the King that they had never got any account of them. The King hinted the matter to him, and, like other guilty men, he denied he had a farthing to account for. Not content with what he had already obtained, two years afterwards he writes to Queensberry begging that he would speak to the Duke, and represent the thing to the Lords of the Treasury that he might have the gift of any that 'were not yet forfeited, that he could find probation against.' A monstrous proposition for a public servant to make-he was to seize upon the estate so soon as he found sufficient proof to

secure its forfeiture! An excellent spur to diligence! an admirable incentive to justice! And Graham was now not only a Captain of Horse, but Sheriff of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigton, the law being joined to the sword, that he might make short work with delinquents. He must have known that the people believed he was growing rich by their plunder, for we find him on one occasion endeavouring to persuade them that though the fines had been doubled, he did not wish to enrich himself by their crimes.' But the full price for which he had sold himself to despotism was not yet paid down. On the death of the Duke of Lauderdale, the ruin of his brother and heir was resolved on. He was accused of peculation as General of the Mint; and Claverhouse, forgetting former favours and friendship, and scenting the carrion from afar, was moving heaven and earth for a portion of the Lauderdale estates before any sentence of a court had been pronounced. He ultimately obtained Dudhope, which lay conveniently near his paternal estate, together with some valuable heritable jurisdictions connected with Dundee.

In the charter chest of the ducal house of Buccleugh and Queensberry Mr. Napier found a number of letters addressed by Claverhouse to the Duke of Queensberry, who succeeded to the chief place of power in Scotland after the downfall of Lauderdale. Upon the discovery of these he sets prodigious store. The recovery of the lost decades of Livy were nothing to it. Most of the letters are in truth worthless; they tell us nothing which we did not know before; but as Mr. Napier declares a hundred times that his hero is everywhere misrepresented by that low-minded Dominie,' brutal calumniator,' and 'idiot' Wodrow, who has been again repeated by the novelist Macaulay, we shall read his doings in 1679 by the light which he has himself let in on them.

The country hereabouts,' he writes, 'is in great dread. Upon our march yesterday, most men were fled, not knowing against whom we designed. The first thing I mean to do is to fall to work with all that have been in the rebellion, or accessory thereto, by giving men, money or arms; and next, resetters; and after that, field conventicles.' (Vol. ii. p. 260-1.) I can catch nobody, they are all so alarmed.' (P. 263.) On Sunday last there was about 300 people at Kirkcudbright Church, some that for seven years had never been seen there, so that I do expect that within a short time I could bring two parts of three to the church. But when I have done, that is all to no purpose; for we will be no sooner gone but in come their ministers, and all repent and fall back to their own ways.' Here in the shire I find the lairds all following the example of a late great man, and still a considerable heritor among them

[Lord Stair], which is to live regularly themselves, but have their houses constant haunts of rebels and intercommuned persons, and have their children baptised by the same, and then lay the blame on their wives; condemning them, and swearing they cannot help what is done in their absence. But I am resolved this jest shall pass no longer, as it is laughing and fooling the Government.' (P. 268.) I sent out a party with my [brother Dave?] three nights ago. The first night he took Drumbui, and one Inklellan, and that great villain McClorg, the smith at Minnigaff, that made all the Clikys, and after whom the forces have trotted so often. It cost me both pains and money to know how to find him. I am resolved to hang him.' (P. 270.) This country now is in perfect peace. All who were in the rebellion are either seized, gone out of the country, or treating their peace; and they have already so conformed, as to going to the church, that it is beyond my expectation. In Dumfries not only almost all the men are come, but the women have given obedience; and Irongray, Welsh's own parish, have for the most part conformed; and so it is over all the country.' (P. 273.) We are now come to read lists every Sunday after sermon of men and women, and we find few absent. I have examined every

man in the shire, and almost all the Stewartry of Galloway, and fixed such a guilt upon them, that they are absolutely in the King's reverence.'

After this we need not go either to Wodrow or Macaulay to learn the character of Claverhouse, and of the ruthless government which he served. What a melancholy picture do we get a glimpse of in these letters, and only a glimpse; whole districts fleeing from their houses on the approach of the man whose name is yet mentioned in the same places with such deep detestation, husbands resorting to the subterfuge of blaming their wives for having their children baptised by Presbyterian ministers, ultimately the majority of the people dragooned into a sulky attendance at the parish church, and the captain of the troop, at the end of the service, calling the roll and marking the absentees. Even Mr. Napier appears to feel that this was no great work for a hero to do, and that he must have cut a very ridiculous figure in doing it, but he consoles himself with the thought that the covenanted ladies, whom he had marched to church, could not but turn away their eyes from the parson to admire his smart uniform and handsome face! But for his zeal in this work, such as it was, he was made a colonel and a privy councillor, admitted to the confidential friendship of the King and the Duke of York, and enriched out of the wreck of the fortunes of Lauderdale by the house of Dudhope and the constabulary of Dundee.

The author of the Memorials frequently speaks of the humanity of his hero, and the following extracts from his letters