*

in Westminster met, and bills of indictment for high treason, were prepared against Thomas Forster, commander-in-chief of the rebels in England, colonel Henry Oxburgh his director, brigadier M'Intosh, William Shaftoe, Robert Talbot, Charles Wogan, Thomas Hall, Richard Gascoigne, Alexander Menzies, James Menzies, and John Robertson. Copies of their indictments being given them, the court adjourned, allowing them a week to prepare their defences. The court met again on the fourteenth, but general Forster having broken out of Newgate on the night of the tenth, was by this time safely landed at Calais. The court, however, proceeded to the trial of those that remained, when brigadier M'Intosh, Mr. Gascoigne, &c. being arraigned, pled not guilty, and craving farther time to prepare their defences, were allowed three weeks. Instead of employing this time for defence, however, they employed it in devising the means of escape, and, on the night of the fourth of May, M'Intosh, with fifteen more of the prisoners, having knocked down the keepers, and forced the doors, made their way out of Newgate. A proclamation was immediately issued, offering, as in the case of Forster, one thousand pounds for the apprehension of M'Intosh, and five hundred for each of those that were along with him. Some of them mistaking their way in the streets, were apprehended before they got off, but none of the others were ever discovered.

On the seventh the court sat again, when fourteen more were arraigned, who also pled not guilty, and had time allowed them to prepare their defences. The same day, the court proceeded with the trial of colonel Henry Oxburgh, who was found guilty, and sentenced to be executed at Tyburn on the eleventh, which was done accordingly, and his head placed on Temple

66

This was Shaftoe of Bavington, and a justice of the peace for the county of Northumberland. He was brought into the rebellion chiefly by the instigation of his lady, being a gentleman of an easy temper." "I shall add a story of him," says Mr. Patten, "when in Newgate with Mr. John Hall, afterwards executed, which has something diverting in it. He says seriously to Mr. Hall, cousin Jack, I am thinking upon what is told us, that God will visit the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generations.' I am of opinion it is so with us, for your grandfather and my grandfather got most of their estates as sequestrators, and now we must lose them again for being rebels!" History of the Rebellion, p. 134.

says

bar. He was the principal agent of the rebels in England, being the leading one, of those employed by the party to travel over the country with intelligence to their friends, and to conduct the various negotiations that were thought to be necessary for their successful rising. "As to matters of conduct," Mr. Patten, “Mr. Forster, though he was called general, yet always submitted to the counsel of colonel Oxburgh, who was formerly a soldier, and had obtained a great reputation, though it is manifest in our case, that he either wanted conduct or courage, or perhaps both. He was better at his beads and prayers, than at his business as a soldier, and we all thought him fitter for a priest than a field officer. It must be owned he was

very devout in his religion, and that is all the good we can say of him; and that devotion," Patten tauntingly concludes, alluding to his execution, " he has since had great occasion for in another place."*

The same court sat again on the sixteenth, when John Hall of Otterburn, and Robert Talbot, Esqrs. were tried and found guilty; Mr. Gascoigne, and several others were also tried, and though the former made an able defence, they were all found guilty. On the eighteenth, seven were found guilty, four of them by their own confession, and three by the jury. These, however, were all reprieved, except Mr. Gascoigne, who was executed at Tyburn on the twenty-fifth.

The court appointed at Southwark, sat down on the tenth of April, and the grand jury of the county found true bills against eleven of the prisoners in the Marshalsea the same day. Copies of the indictment being furnished to the pannels, the court was adjourned from time to time, that they might have time to prepare their defences till the eighth day of May, on which day two were tried, and one found guilty. On the eleventh one was tried, and after an able and obstinate defence, found guilty. On the twelfth, five who had pled not guilty, retracted their plea, and threw themselves upon his majesty's clemency. Two were the same day acquitted, having proven most satisfactorily that they were forced into the rebellion contrary to their inclinations. On the thirtieth of June, two were tried

*Patten's History of the Rebellion, pp. 120, 121.

and found guilty, and on the fifth of July and succeeding days, ten more were convicted, which finished the business of this court.

The commission appointed at Westminster, met again, July the fourth, and on that and the subsequent days of the month, about thirty persons were brought to trial, the greater part of whom pled guilty. Among this number was Mr. Paul, the Cambridge clerk, who supplied to the rebels the place of Mr. Buxton, the Derbyshire clergyman, and left them only the day previous to their being invested in Preston by general Wills. This finished the business with regard to the trial of those rebels who had been taken in England.

In the meantime, the current of public business was rapidly receding into its usual and ordinary channels. The General Assembly of the church of Scotland was convened at Edinburgh, on the third of May, 1716, with all the usual formalities, John Duke of Rothes being commissioner, and the Rev. William Hamilton chosen moderator. His majesty in a most gracious letter to this assembly was pleased to say:-" The fresh proofs you have given us during the course of the late unhappy and unnatural rebellion, of your firm adherence to those principles on which the security of our government, and the happiness of our subjects do entirely depend, and the accounts we have from time to time received of your great care to infuse the same into the people under your charge, do engage us to return you our hearty thanks, and to renew to you the assurances we have formerly given you of our unalterable resolution to maintain the established government of the church of that part of our kingdom of Great Britain, in the full enjoyment of all just rights and privileges:"--" And, as we have nothing more in view than promoting true religion and piety, the restoring the peace and quiet of the country, that all our subjects may have it in their power to be happy under our administration, and be easy with regard both to their religious and civil concerns, your concurring on your parts to the carrying on of these laudable ends, and your answering these our just views, for the public tranquillity both of church and state, is what we earnestly recommend to you."*

• Letter to the General Assembly, 1716.

"We accept," say the assembly in return," with the greatest thankfulness your majesty's royal favour in continuing to countenance our assemblies, and the honour of your gracious letter to us. The notice your majesty is pleased to take of our behaviour upon occasion of the late unhappy and unnatural rebellion, as it greatly heightens our satisfaction in having been enabled by the divine assistance to exert ourselves in any way answerably to our duty to your majesty, so it puts us under new obligations to lay out ourselves as we have access to advance the interest of your majesty's government, upon the peace and prosperity whereof the preservation of our holy religion, and our own safety, under God, do entirely depend.

"That your majesty should have, in your great condescension, put so high an honour upon us as to give us thanks for doing what was our unquestionable duty and interest, is a proof of that distinguishing goodness which makes so bright a part of your majesty's princely character.

"We cannot sufficiently express the grateful sense we have of your majesty's goodness in giving us repeated assurances of your unalterable resolution to maintain the established government of our church in the full enjoyment of all just rights and privileges, which gives us full hopes that in due time we shall obtain redress of the grievances that we were brought under before your majesty came to the throne, and which were laid before your majesty by a memorial from the last General Assembly."

Perhaps it had been prudent in the assembly to have spoken a little more guardedly of his majesty's "great condescension," "distinguishing goodness," &c. &c. till he had attended to some of these grievances, and as far as lay in his power redressed them. Indeed, it is not easy to comprehend the meaning of so much panegyric when nothing at all had been done but what his majesty had come under a solemn oath to see observed-and, after reading the following paragraph, it would certainly require some little effort, for one who had not other means of being informed, to believe that their grievances had any existence, except as a form, which it was customary to employ once a year:-" Your majesty's having

nothing more in your view than the promoting of true religion and piety, and making all your people happy under your administration, leaves us utterly inexcusable should we not, on our part, concur, as we have access, for advancing those great and noble ends, since we are, in the great goodness of God, by a very peculiar providence, under the influence of a prince who is so great a pattern and encourager of piety and virtue. We should be wanting to the duty we owe to God and to the best of kings, if we did not endeavour, by our deportment, to answer the just expectations your majesty is pleased to have of our prudence and moderation in this assembly." Language a little less complimentary, even when addressed to a king, and a good king, might surely be used without impropriety by the ministers of Christ's independent and spiritual kingdom, assembled to administer the affairs of that kingdom in his name, and by his authority, as the great Head of the church, and under a civil constitution which recognizes their authority so to do, as formally and fully as it recognizes the authority and right of the monarch to reign. The following paragraph from the same letter is worthy of being transcribed, as containing an important historical fact, which, in our opinion, demonstrates, after all that has been said and written to the contrary, that the chevalier had but a slender hold of the affections of the Scotish people, even in the most remote and uncultivated corners of the country:-" We adore the blessed God who, in great mercy to us, hath brought your majesty to the throne, and appeared so gloriously in behalf of your just cause, giving you victory over your unprovoked and ungrateful enemies, and, to our amazement, blessed your councils and arms with such speedy success in restoring peace and tranquillity, that the remotest places and islands are represented in this assembly."

This assembly also, in addition to what is stated in the letter referred to above, voted a congratulatory address to his majesty on the suppression of the rebellion, which may be taken as a pretty fair statement of public feeling upon that memorable occasion:-" We, your majesty's most dutiful and

* Printed Acts of Assembly, 1716.