Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/180



David, the grandfather of the Apologist, from neglect of some part of his ancestor's advice, was reduced to such difficulties as to be obliged to sell the estate of Mathers, after it had been between two and three hundred years in the family, as also the more ancient inheritance, which had been the property of the family from its first settlement in Scotland in the days of King David I. His son, David, the father of the Apologist, was consequently obliged to seek his fortune as a volunteer in the Scottish brigades in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. This gentleman, like many others of his countrymen and fellow-soldiers, returned home on the breaking out of the religious troubles in Scotland, and received the command of a troop of horse. Having joined the army raised by the Duke of Hamilton in 1648 for the relief of Charles I., he was subsequently deprived of his command, at the instance of Oliver Cromwell; and he never afterwards appeared in any military transactions. During the protectorate, he was several times sent as a representative from Scotland to Cromwell's parliaments, and, in this capacity, is said to have uniformly exerted himself to repress the ambitious designs of the Protector. After the restoration, David Barclay was committed prisoner to Edinburgh Castle, upon some groundless charge of hostility to the government. He was soon after liberated, through the interest of the Earl of Middleton, with whom he had served in the civil war. But during this imprisonment, a change of the highest importance both to himself and his son, had come over his mind. In the same prison was confined the celebrated Laird of Swinton, who, after figuring under the protectorate as a lord of session, and a zealous instrument for the support of Cromwell's interest in Scotland, had, during a short residence in England before the Restoration, adopted the principles of Quakerism, then recently promulgated for the first time by George Fox, and was now more anxious to gain proselytes to that body than to defend his life against the prosecution meditated against him. When this extraordinary person was placed on trial before parliament, he might have easily eluded justice by pleading that the parliamentary attainder upon which he was now charged, had become null by the rescissory act. But he scorned to take advantage of any plea suggested by worldly lawyers. He answered, in the spirit of his sect, that when he committed the crimes laid to his charge, he was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity, but that God having since called him to the light, he saw and acknowledged his past errors, and did not refuse to pay the forfeit of them, even though in their judgment this should extend to his life. His speech was, though modest, so majestic, and, though expressive of the most perfect patience, so