t distinguished of the
captives were chosen for examples to the rest, and three of them, the
Earl of Derby among the number, were sent forthwith to the block, where
they comported themselves as brave men should, and laid down their heads
right cheerfully.

The others were sent to prison, since it was manifestly impossible to
execute them all,--nor was Cromwell so bloodthirsty, now the rebellion
was broken utterly,--and some sixteen hundred of them were sentenced to
be transported to the colony of Virginia, which had long been a dumping
ground for convicts and felons and political scapegoats. Hither, then,
they came, in ships crowded to suffocation, and many dead upon the way
and thrown to the sharks for burial, but for some reason only one of the
ships stopped here, while the others went on to Barbados to discharge
their living freight. I more than suspect that Cromwell's agents soon
discovered the Commonwealth had few friends in Virginia, and feared the
effect of letting loose here so many of the Royalist soldiers. At any
rate, this one ship dropped anchor at Hampton, and its passengers, to the
number of about three hundred, were sold very cheaply to the neighboring
planters. I may as well say here that all of them were well treated by
their Cavalier masters, and many of them afterwards became the founders
of what are now the most prominent families in the colony.

Now one of those who had been sold in Virginia was the Thomas Stewart
whom I have already mentioned, and whom neither stinking jail nor crowded
transport had much affected. Doubtless, no matter what the surroundings,
he had only to close his eyes to see again before him the green hills
and plashing brooks of Kincardine, with his own home in the midst, and
the bonny wife waiting at the door, a boy on either side. Alas, it was
only thus he was ever to see them this side heaven. He was bought by a
man named Nicholas Spenser, who owned a plantation on the Potomac in
Westmoreland County, and there he worked, first as laborer and then as
overseer, for nigh upon ten years. His master treated him with great
kindness, and at the Restoration, having made tenfold his purchase money
by him, gave him back his freedom.

Despite the years and the hard work in the tobacco-fields, Stewart's
thoughts had often been with the wife and children he had left behind in
Scotland, and he prevailed upon Spenser to secure him passage in one of
his ships for London, where he arrived e