red vows, tamely submitted to the tyranny of the royal
brothers, and Presbyterian ministers remained silent under an infamous
indulgence, it devolved upon a few despised and persecuted
covenanters,--the Society people,--to lift up and hold aloft the torch
of freedom; and by their faithful testimonies and declarations uttered
in fields and on scaffolds, and more still, by their blood freely shed
to confirm their righteous cause, to sow broadcast the principles of
genuine liberty. These, after lying buried in the earth for a time,
sprung up vigorously, and bore fruit, when the perfidious race of the
Stuarts was driven ignominiously from the throne; and, at the
Revolution, some of the fundamental truths for which the martyrs of the
covenant contended, became ascendant and triumphant.[3]

In the _Queensferry Paper_, penned by Cargill, in a rough draft, and
found on the person of Henry Hall of Haughhead, when he was taken, the
heroic sufferers expressly disowned the authority of Charles II. and his
government. The terms employed, it has been remarked, very much resemble
those used by the English nation when they rejected the Government of
James II., and transferred the crown to William and Mary.

"We reject the king and those associate with him in government from
being our king and rulers, being no more bound to them. They have
altered and destroyed the Lord's established religion,--overturned the
fundamental and established laws of the kingdom--taken away altogether
Christ's church government, and changed the civil government of this
land, which was by a king and free parliament, into tyranny." The
conclusion expresses sentiments worthy of the most distinguished
patriots, and that are fit to be taken as the watchward of struggling
freemen all over the world. "We bind and oblige ourselves to defend
ourselves and one another in our worshipping of God, in our natural,
civil and divine rights and liberties, till we shall overcome, or send
them down under debate to posterity--_that they may begin where we
end_."

The grand principle of the rejection of tyrannical power was boldly
proclaimed by Cargill, in preaching to thousands of Conventicle hearers,
and was prominently held forth in his last testimony:--"As to the cause
of my suffering," said he, "the chief is, not acknowledging the present
authority, as it is established in the supremacy and explanatory act.
This is the magistracy I have rejected--that which is invested wit