Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/193

 on 1 June 1837, having many years previously communicated a paper ‘On the Elasticity of the Lungs’ (Phil. Trans. cx. 29–44). Carson's other writings are: 
 * 1) ‘Reasons for colonizing the Island of Newfoundland,’ 8vo, 1813.
 * 2) ‘A Letter to the Members of Parliament on the Address of the Inhabitants of Newfoundland to the Prince Regent,’ 8vo, 1813.
 * 3) ‘An Enquiry into the Causes of the Motion of the Blood,’ 8vo, Liverpool, 1815 (second and enlarged edition under the title of ‘An Inquiry into the Causes of Respiration,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1833).
 * 4) ‘A New Method of slaughtering Animals for Human Food,’ 8vo, London, 1839.

CARSTARES, WILLIAM (1649–1715), Scottish statesman and divine, was the eldest of nine children of John Carstares, minister of Cathcart, near Glasgow, where William was born on 11 Feb. 1649, and Janet Mure of Glanderston, a branch of the Mures of Caldwell. His father, who had been at the battle of Dunbar, where he was taken prisoner by Cromwell, was exchanged soon after for a prisoner in the hands of General Leslie, and became conspicuous for his zealous preaching in Glasgow ‘against the times,’ which, in spite of the presbyterian clergy, had declared themselves in Scotland, as in England, for Cromwell. ‘Let the Lord own him for His’ is the first notice of William Carstares's existence in a letter from his father to his sister-in-law, Katherine Wood, a few days after the birth of his first-born. He was sent when young to board with Sinclair, the minister of Ormiston in East Lothian, a scholar of repute, in whose family Latin was spoken. In 1663 he entered the college of Edinburgh, where he studied with credit under William Paterson, then regent, and afterwards clerk of the privy council, and graduated in 1667. His father—an ardent Remonstrant, as the party was called which insisted on the acceptance of the covenant and extirpation of prelacy as well as popery by Charles II against the resolutioners, who were content with the recognition of the presbyterian polity—took part in the rising at Rullion Green for which he was forfeited. He had to protect himself by keeping out of the way, hiding probably in the highlands, perhaps in Holland, but the traces of his life are obscure. To Holland, at all events, the safest refuge from the persecution which Scotland suffered, he sent his son. ‘William Carstares, Scoto-Britannus,’ appears in the ‘Students' Album’ at Utrecht in 1669, and he was still there in March 1672. He studied Hebrew under Leusden, and divinity under Witsius, and was probably ordained in the Dutch church, though the record of his ordination has not been preserved. In Holland he was introduced by the pensionary Fagel to William of Orange, already on the look-out for the ablest instruments to further his designs in Britain. In 1672 he went to London, and two years later, in a letter to his sister Sarah, after expressing disappointment that he had been forced to be so expensive to his parents by his study there, expresses the hope that ‘it may be at least in providence I may have some door opened whereby I may be in a capacity to do some little service in my generation, and not always be insignificant in my station; but, alas, what service can I do, in what will God accept from me who have lived for so many years in the world and yet for no end.’ His ambition was cut short by his arrest and examination before Lauderdale on no desperate charge, probably on the suspicion that he had a share in distributing a pamphlet entitled ‘An Accompt of Scotland's Grievances by reason of the D. of Lauderdale's Ministrie,’ and his connection with the exiles in Holland. Though nothing was proved, his answers were deemed unsatisfactory, and he was sent to Scotland, where he was kept prisoner in Edinburgh Castle without trial for five years. There is a pretty anecdote that a boy of twelve, son of the governor, whose good-will he gained by telling him stories, supplied him with paper, pens, and ink, and carried his letters. He is said to have solaced his captivity by reading the ‘History of De Thou.’ At last, in August 1679, when Monmouth and James were trying to conciliate the Scotch by clemency, he was released. During the next few years he seems to have lived chiefly in England, but made a visit to Ireland in 1680. On 6 June 1682 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Kekewich of Trehawk in Cornwall. In 1682 and, after a visit to England, again in 1683 he returned to Utrecht, leaving his wife in England. His movements at this time are difficult to trace with accuracy, as was natural, for he was actively engaged in the plots then rife, of which Holland was the centre. He went by the name of ‘Mr. Red’ in the cipher correspondence of the plotters, but though cognisant of the Rye House plot it did not meet his approval. It was the bolder scheme for a general rising in England and Scotland, of which Shaftesbury, Russell, and Argyll were the leaders, in which he acted as agent. At this time he appears to have visited Scotland, where his brother-in-law, Dunlop, was preparing to escape from the troubles of the times by