Mr BROWN's Answer.

I HAVE read those letters and also the three treatises which are come over for an answer; all which are more than answered in the History but it seems the Lord will not suffer that to come to their sight, for all that was sent home is destroyed, can tell you,

as I hear. Whereupon I think we are called to silence, for the Lord will do his work another way.

This Preface must be helped in some things. Our greatest troubles about church government with K. J. did not commence with the tulchan bishops, but began, you know, an. 1596, before which time these tulchans were gone and evanished. Mention must be made in it of the Lord's honouring our Church with suffering on that account before all the Churches of Christ. Some words in the end must be changed. Vale. You mention Mr Fleming's letter, but I have not seen it.*

* We learn from Wodrow, that his father-in-law, Mr Patrick Warner, (see before, p. 256,) was active in promoting the printing of Calderwood's History. "Towards the end of February this year, [1682,] when living peaceably in the house of his mother-in-law, [Mr William Guthrie's widow,] at Edinburgh, a party of the Guards,-commanded by Major Johnstoun, -took him out of his bed, ransacked the whole house, and took away upwards of twenty copies of Calderwood's History, lately printed, mostly upon his charges, with some hundreds of the Second Book of Discipline, lately printed, and several other valuable books, out of his closet, with a considerable number of more valuable manuscripts, some of them his, but mostly belonging to his mother-in-law, Mrs Guthrie, which had been her husband's. The books and manuscripts were taken to the Council-house to be looked over, but were never restored.-Having engaged in the print ing of that useful book, Calderwood's History, and lent a great deal of money to help it on, he was obliged to take for his payment some hundreds of the books in quires; and, besides his loss of the bound copies at Edinburgh, those which were unbound, by his frequent removes, were many of them put in disorder and confusion, and so on the matter lost to him, and many of them seized, which, after he had redeemed, were sometimes taken a second time. At a very moderate computation, his loss was upwards of an hundred pounds sterling. Meanwhile, there is neither act of Parliament or Council against that book, neither did the committee before whom he appeared blame him for having so many of them as were seized; and yet they would not order them back to him when desired."-(WODROW, ii. 250,

No. VII.

[MS. in Bibl. Jurid. Edin. XLIII. Rob. III. 3. 16.]

Letter from the King to the Council, liberating
Mr WILLIAM VEITCH.*

CHARLES, R.

Right trusty, &c. we greet you well. Mr William Veitch having been forfaulted by a sentence of our Justice Court, as being accessory to the rebellion in the year 1666, was lately taken in Northumberland, and was by our order, sent prisoner to Edinburgh, there to be pursued by our advocat for that his accession; and whereas it is now humbly represented unto us that the said Mr William Veitch was not actually present at the fight on Pentland-hills, and that having retired tymously from the

• The other documents respecting Mr Veitch's trial are printed in Wodrow. The following notice concerning his father was omitted in its proper place :—“ There is an old man, Mr John Veitch, minister of Roberton ; they [the committee of the Remonstrant or Protesting Synod of Glasgow] sent two or three ministers of their number to hear him preach. On their report, they pronounced a sentence of deposition on him, as insufficient. Our Synod appointed some to join with the true Presbytery of Lanark, which met the week thereafter-with the unanimous consent of the people of Roberton, strengthened the minister, and appointed a helper to be settled there in an orderly way." (Baillie to Spang, July 19, 1654: Baillie's Letters, ii. 374.) This explains what has been stated respecting Mr Blackie in a former note. (See before, p. 54.)

In an Act of Parliament, anno 1598, for paying the King's debts, among the sums owing by Thomas Fowllis, goldsmith, and Robert Jowsie, burgess in Edinburgh, (his Majesty's bankers or furnishers,) the first item is, "To James Veitch, in Dalkeyt, 661li. 13s. 4d." Mr Veitch, in his Memoirs, (p. 4,) mentions that the estate of his ancestors was in the neighbourhood of Dalkeith, so that the person here referred to was perhaps his grandfather.

rebells, he did, ever since, live peaceably in this our kingdom of England. And we being graciously desirous to encourage those that repent for their accessions to such rebellious courses, have therefore ordained, and do hereby authorize and require you, to sett the said Mr William Veitch at liberty, he always enacting himself to remove forth of that our ancient kingdom of Scotland, and not to return into the same. This our letter being his security untill he shall again return into that our kingdom, in which case this our warrant is hereby declared ineffectual. And so we bid you heartily farewell. Given at our court of Windsor Castle, the 17th day of July, 1679, and of our reigne the 31 year. By his Majesties command,

[Record of the Diocesan Synod of St Andrews.]

Representation of the Archbishop and Clergy of St Andrews, to the Privy Council.

St Andrews, April 29, 1674.

THE Lord Archbishop and brethren of the Privy Conference, considering the increase of the many disorders under which the Church, particularly in this diocess, does sadly labour, judged that a representation of the evill of these disorders to the Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council, by the mediation of Lord Archbishop, would be the most efficient mean for the cure of them.-Of late, some persons of implacable enmity against the order and peace of this church, (the roughness and rancour of whose spirit does contemn all the lenities that are used for the smoothing and sweeting of it,) have presumed to abuse the mercy and indulgence of our sovereign, unto the acting of als high insolences against the worship and public service of God, his ministers who serve at his altar, and the discipline he has instituted, as ever have been suffered by any who have lived under the direction of good and wholesome laws

and the bounty and mercy of so gracious a prince. We humbly intreat your grace to present this our complaint unto the Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council, that they may move for the redress of these evils which press us so sore. These iniquities and abuses are specially these following:-1. The growth and increase of Popery, by the diligence and boldness of traffiquing papists, to the seducing ignorant and unstable people unto idolatry and superstition, together with the defection of some into quakerism. 2. The open and almost avowed contempt that is cast upon the public and solemn worship of God, by deserting the public assemblies of the church established by law for the service of God, not only through a simple and negative secession from the communion of this church, but also by a frequent and open assembling by multitudes in the fields and private houses, in a direct and stated opposition unto the lawful assemblies of this church. It is also aggravated by several disorderly clandestine marriages, like as by the impudent and wilful refusal of delinquents to submit unto the just censures of this church, for scandalous miscarriages, condemned by the word of God and laws of this kingdom, by the licentiousness of persons openly profane, which may be, and are, encouraged by this example, by the unheard-of intrusion into, and invading the pulpits of the godly and orderly ministers of this church, and by the barbarous profanation of places dedicate to the service of God. 3. The open and ordinary profanation of the Lord's day by persons who, pretending necessary dispatch of business, do cause great disturbance in the several parishes through which the common road lieth, by threating and forcing hirers of horse, boatmen, and other people, to serve their worldly lusts and designs. As also by the travelling of multitudes of people on the Lord's day, to conventicles at a great distance.

This being the sad posture and state of affaris that this church is in, we could no longer forbear craving the assistance which the law of God does allow us, and the benevolence and fatherly care of our gracious Sovereign does invite and command us to call for, as often as we stand in need; and do hereby, and by your Grace's mediation and earnest intercession, beg that the Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council would be pleased to examine the truth of the particulars above-mentioned, and proceed accordingly against the course and torrent of these abuses, as they in wisdom judge most convenient, to remove the danger that the Protestant religion is in

of being, as it were, a deluge of error, schism, profanity, and atheism, and to vindicate the authority and honour of our ministry from the fury and barbarity of those whose actings declare them implacable toward our persons, and irreconcileable unto the peace and order of this church, that we may be succoured in our stations so to behave in all the conduct of our affairs as it may never repent his Majesty or their Lordships of the favour and protection they have graciously granted unto us and the afflicted church whereof we are ministers and members.

St Andrews, Sept. 2. 1680.

THE Archbishop and Synod being deeply sensible of the great discontentment the orderly and orthodox ministers labour under by reason of the many vagrant conventicle preachers and others that in certain places of this diocese, especiallie in Fife, doe keep weeklie preachings in their houses, to the great disturbance of the peace and unity of the congregations where they reside, and the next adjacent; therefore its thought fit that the moderators of the several Presbyteries should give in to the clerk of the Synod a list of the names of all such, whether iterant or settled, that his Grace may make use thereof as he shall find expedient.

It being complained that in several places so many withdraw from the church and refuse to be examined, so that the ministers of these parishes are doubtful whether they shall administer the sacrament of the Eucharist; its appointed that it shall be given to those who are desirous of the saine, though they be but a few.*

* Great complaints are made at this period by the clergy in all parts of the country, that religious ordinances are ill attended, and that the public collections have fallen off, "many persons giving but one copper doyt at their offering." For two or three years before the Restoration, the collection at the communion in the parish of St Andrews, amounted to £200 annually. In 1661, it was £147, 1s. 6d. ; and in 1663, it fell to £83, 1s. 6d. The following exhibits a state of the collections at the communion (including Saturday, Sabbath, and Monday,) in the neighbouring parish of Dennino, before the Restoration, after it, and after the Revolution :