Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/122

 moment for a public example to terrify its opponents. Baillie only said, "My lords, the time is short, the sentence is sharp, but I thank my God who hath made me as fit to die as you are to live." On returning to the prison he experienced what Wodrow describes as "a wonderful rapture of joy, from the assurance he had, that in a few hours he should be inconceivably happy."

Mr Baillie was attended to the scaffold by his faithful and affectionate sister. He had prepared an address to the people; but knowing that he might be prevented from delivering it, he had previously given it to his friends in writing. It is said that the government afterwards offered to give up his body for burial, if his friends would agree to suppress this document. They appear to have rejected the proposition. The unfortunate gentleman was so weak that he required to be assisted in mounting the ladder: he betrayed, however, no symptom of moral weakness. Just before being consigned to his fate, he said, in the self-accusing spirit of true excellence, "My faint zeal for the protestant religion has brought me to this end." His sister-in-law, with the stern virtue of her family, waited to the last.

"Thus," says Bishop Burnet, "a learned and worthy gentleman, after twenty months' hard usage, was brought to death, in a way so full in all the steps of it of the spirit and practice of the courts of Inquisition, that one is tempted to think that the methods taken in it were suggested by one well studied, if not practised, in them. The only excuse that ever was pretended for this infamous prosecution was, that they were sure he was guilty; and that the whole secret of the negotiation between the two kingdoms was intrusted to him; and that, since he would not discover it, all methods might be taken to destroy him. Not considering what a precedent they made on this occasion, by which, if they were once possessed of an ill opinion of a man, they were to spare neither artifice nor violence, but to hunt him down by any means."

Dr Owen has testified in a strong manner to the great abilities of the Scottish Sydney. Writing to a Scottish friend, he said, "You have truly men of great spirits among you; there is, for a gentleman, Mr Baillie of Jerviswood, a person of the greatest abilities I ever almost met with."

Mr Baillie's family was completely ruined by his forfeiture. He left a son, George Baillie, who, after his execution, was obliged to take refuge in Holland, whence he afterwards returned with the Prince of Orange, by whom he was restored to his estates. The wife of this gentleman was Miss Grizel Hume, daughter of Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, a fellow-patriot of Mr Robert Baillie. The occasion of their meeting was very remarkable. Miss Grizel, when a very young girl, was sent by her father from the country, to endeavour to convey a letter to Mr Baillie in prison, and bring back what intelligence she could. She succeeded in this difficult enterprise; and having at the same time met with Mr Baillie's son, the intimacy and friendship was formed, which was afterwards completed by their marriage.  , M.D. a distinguished modern physician and anatomist, was the son of the Rev. James Baillie, D.D. Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. He was born October 27, 1761, in the manse of Shotts, of which parish his father was then minister. The father of Dr Matthew Baillie was supposed to be descended from the family of Baillie of Jerviswood, so noted in the history of Scottish freedom; his mother was a sister of the two celebrated anatomists, Dr William and Mr John Hunter; and one of his two sisters was Miss Joanna