OF THE RISE, PROGRESS AND PERSECUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS, IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND, BY JOHN BARCLAY. "We have heard with our ears, O God! our fathers have told us, what "Great have been the mercies of our God! for which, future generations Ury PHILADELPHIA: NATHAN KITE- 50 NORTH FOURTH STREET. Joseph and William Kite, Printers. INTRODUCTION. [IN the English edition of this work, it was preceded by the Diary of Alexander Jaffray, one of the earliest members of the Society of Friends in Scotland, and terminating a short time previous to his becoming one of that people. This note will serve to explain the references which occur to that diary.-AM. ED.] My design in the present publication, had its origin in the following circumstances.-The Diary breaks off ab. ruptly, and only a short time before Alexander Jaffray, together with a number of his intimate associates settled in the profession of the Friends. It was to be regretted, that the narrator had not carried forward his account as far as this interesting period in his experience, or rather perhaps that such account had not been spared to us. On examining, however, more closely into the MS. Chronicle, which has been before mentioned as being discovered at Ury,* and which treats of the Rise and Progress of the people called Quakers in the north of Scotland, this loss appears to be in some measure compensated, by a regular and connected detail of their history, expressly collected for the use of posterity. For although, in the course of it, no large portion has allusion to our worthy Diarist himself; yet 1 found, that, not only in these parts but in every other, is held up to view, a glowing exemplification of many of those very themes of meditation and sentiment, upon which he had so largely dwelt. And besides this, on looking into the records kept by the Monthly Meeting of Friends at Aberdeen, a remarkable fact appeared, namely, that the Author of the Diary himself, only a year before his own decease, was the first to set his hand to the work of preparing this ancient document; and that, after that event, * The author had previously mentioned that, while on a visit at the residence of Robert Barclay, he discovered in one corner of his Library the manuscript" Account of the Rise, Progress, and Persecutions of the people called Quakers in the north of Scotland," which furnished the materials for the following work.-Am. ED. his son Andrew in particular, together with "the Apologist" and others, became a chief contributor. These things thus coming to my knowledge and to my charge, perhaps it was not very unnatural for me to conclude, such memorials of the just were not designed to be buried in oblivion; but were equally calculated for the service of the present, as for generations that had gone before. Neither could I, in reference to them, divest myself of the feeling of a trust consigned to me, (however unworthy,) for this end, namely, to bear them forth, as a testimony, to the church and to the world. The religious Society of Friends has ever had a high sense of the obligation there is, to treasure up and to proclaim such evidences of the faithfulness of the Most High in his dealings with his children; and they have ever considered themselves as subjects and witnesses of his redeeming mercy and all-sufficient grace in Jesus Christ. In confirmation of this position, may be brought forward the language of William Penn at the beginning of his Preface to Robert Barclay's Works. "Our blessed Lord having effectually gathered and fed his people by his disciples in this generation, it is a duty we owe to God and ourselves, as well as to them, that we gather up the remainder of their testimonies of love and service, that so nothing be lost." The foregoing being the acknowledged ground-work of the ensuing Memoirs, it may be added, that various original and other sources have been consulted in the present compilation. Besse, in forming his "Collection of the Sufferings of Friends," 1753, evidently had access to a copy of the above record; and Gough, in his History, 1790, takes his chief authority from Besse; but both these accounts of the affairs of the Society in Scotland are defective and incorrect. In the arrangement of the materials for the present division of this volume, very little liberty of composition has been indulged in; so that the reader is here furnished with a faithful, and in many places almost a literal transcript of events, oftentimes expressed in nearly the words of the eye-witnesses. So far, then, as applies to the correctness of the details themselves, and even the mode of stating them, I consider myself divested of responsibility; at the same time, the Society of Friends, as a body, are not committed by the reflections interspersed among those |