venanters in
the shire of Ayr; and he was so heartened by their representations of
the spirit among them, that he urged, and overcame the Earl, to let him
make a trial on that coast before waiting till the Highlanders were
roused. Accordingly, with the three ships and the men they had brought
from Holland, he went toward Largs, famed in old time for a great battle
fought there; but, on arriving opposite to the shore, he found it
guarded by the powers and forces of the government, in so much, that he
was fain to direct his course farther up the river; and weighing anchor
sailed for Greenock.

It happened at this juncture, after conferring with several of weight
among the Cameronians, that I went to Greenock for the purpose of taking
shipping for any place where I was likely to find Argyle, in order to
represent to him, that, unless there was a clear account of what he and
others with him proposed to do, he could expect no cooperation from the
societies; and I reached the town just as the three ships were coming in
sight.

I had not well alighted from my horse at Dugal M'Vicar the smith's
public,--the best house it is in the town, and slated. It stands beside
an oak-tree on the open shore, below the Mansion-house-brae, above the
place where the mariners boil their tar-pots. As I was saying, I had not
well alighted there, when a squadron of certain time-serving and
prelatic-inclined inheritors of the shire of Renfrew, under the command
of Houston of that Ilk, came galloping to the town as if they would have
devoured Argyle, host, and ships and all; and they rode straight to the
minister's glebe, where, behind the kirk-yard dyke, they set themselves
in battle array with drawn swords, the vessels having in the meanwhile
come to anchor fornent the kirk.

Like the men of the town I went to be an onlooker, at a distance, of
what might ensue; and a sore heart it was to me, to see and to hear that
the Greenock folk stood so much in dread of their superior, Sir John
Shaw, that they durst not, for fear of his black-hole, venture to say
that day whether they were papists, prelates, or presbyterians, he
himself not being in the way to direct them.

Shortly after the ships had cast anchor, Major Fullarton, with a party
of some ten or twelve men, landed at the burn-foot, near the kirk, and
having shown a signal for parley, Houston and his men went to him, and
began to chafe and chide him for invading the country.

"We are no inva