that he was guilty, but saw not how to proceed against him.  Wherefore, after he had said his prayers, and carabines presented to shoot him, I offered to him that, if he would make an ingenuous confession, and make a discovery that might be of any importance for the King’s service, I should delay putting him to death, and plead for him.  Upon which he confessed that he was at that attack of Newmills, and that he had come straight to this house of his uncle’s on Sunday morning.  In the time he was making this confession the soldiers found out a house in the hill, under ground, that could hold a dozen of men, and there were swords and pistols in it; and this fellow declared that they belonged to his uncle, and that he had lurked in that place ever since Bothwell, where he was in arms....  He also gives account of those who gave any assistance to his uncle; and we have seized thereupon the goodman of the uppermost Ploughlands, and another tenant about a mile below that is fled upon it....  I have acquitted myself when I have told your Grace the case.  He has been but a month or two with his halbert; and if your Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him; for I, having no commission of justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the Lieutenant-General, to be disposed of as he pleases."[55]

It is singular that neither Wodrow nor Walker makes any mention of this nephew, whose presence on that day, taken in connection with his share in the affair at Newmills,[56] puts the uncle in rather a different light.  There happen also to be one or two affairs known about this John Brown which are worth noting.  For instance, his name is found on a list of proscribed rebels and resetters of rebels, appended to a royal proclamation of May 5th, 1684, which will naturally account for his “having been a long time upon his hiding in the hills,” as Wodrow ingenuously confesses.  In other words, this Brown was an outlaw and a marked man.  He was by profession a carrier—­“the Christian carrier,” his friends called him, for the fervour and eloquence of his preaching, which was remarkable even in a neighbourhood where the gift of tongues was not uncommon.  A carrier is an extremely useful channel of communication; and, in fact, there can be really no doubt that Brown had been for some time engaged in practices which the most iniquitous Government in the world could hardly be blamed for thinking inconvenient.  It has been suggested that Claverhouse was at that time especially on the watch to intercept all communication between Argyle and Monmouth, and that Brown was employed in carrying intelligence between the rebel camps.  Macaulay refuses this suggestion.  He points out with perfect truth that both Argyle and Monmouth were at that time in Holland.  But when he goes on to say that there was no insurrection in any part of our island, he goes rather too far.  The western shires of Scotland had been in a state of insurrection ever since the Pentland rising, if there be any meaning