Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/74

134 ment after the Restoration. Sir Patrick, however, was not only an admirer of the form of worship enjoined by that religious system, but a zealous maintainer of its pretensions to a divine right, as the only true church of Christ; and this, it is said, was what first inspired him with the feelings of a patriot. Having been sent to parliament in 1665, as representative of the county of Berwick, he soon distinguished himself by the opposition which he gave, along with the duke of Hamilton and others, to the headlong measures of the government. In 1673, the king sent a letter to parliament desiring a levy of soldiers and money to support them, and the duke of Lauderdale moved that it be referred to the lords of the articles, who were always at the beck of government. This proposal, though strictly in accordance with the custom of the Scottish parliament, was opposed by the duke of Hamilton, who asserted that the royal wishes ought to be considered by the whole assembled representatives of the nation. On Sir Patrick Hume expressing his concurrence with the duke, he was openly pointed out to parliament by Lauderdale, as a dangerous person. Hereupon, Sir Patrick said, "he hoped this was a free parliament, and it concerned all the members to be free in what concerned the nation." In the ensuing year, he was one of those who went with the duke of Hamilton to lay the grievances of the nation before the king, whose delusive answer to their application is well known. It was not possible that a person who maintained so free a spirit in such an age could long escape trouble. In 1675, having remonstrated against the measure for establishing garrisons to keep down the people, he was committed by the privy council to the tolbooth of Edinburgh, as "a factious person, and one who had done that which might usher in confusion." After suffering confinement for six months in Stirling castle, he was liberated through the intercession of friends, but not long after was again confined, and altogether suffered imprisonment for about two years. The order for his liberation, dated 17th April, 1679, states that " he had been imprisoned for reasons known to his majesty, and tending to secure the public peace;" and adds, "the occasions of suspicion and public jealousy being over, he is ordered to be liberate." To continue our memoir in the words of Mr George Crawfurd, who had received information from Sir Patrick's own mouth, " Finding after this that the ministers of state were most earnestly set on his destruction, and that he could not live in security at home, he went to England, and entered into a strict friendship with the duke of Momnouth, the earl of Shaftesbury, and the lord Russel, who was his near relation. With them he often met, and had many conferences on the state of Scotland, and what might be done there to secure the kingdom from popery and arbitrary power, in the event of a popish successor. But, as his lordship protested to me, there never passed among them the least intimation of any design against the king's life, or the duke of York's; that was what they all had an abhorrence of. But he said, he thought it was lawful for subjects, being under such pressures, to try how they might be relieved from them; and their design never went further."

Notwithstanding the pure intentions of this little band of patriots, the government, as is well known, was able to fasten upon them the charge of having conspired the deaths of the king and his brother ; and to this infamous accusation, lord Russell fell a victim in England, and Mr Baillie of Jerviswood, in Scotland. It was on the 24th of December, 1684, that the latter individual suffered; before that time, Sir Patrick Hume, though conscious of innocence, had gone into hiding, being justified in that step by a degree of personal infirmity, which unfitted him for enduring imprisonment The place selected for his concealment was the sepulchral vault of his family, underneath the parish