ther Wodrow nor Walker, nor any
writer on that side, has charged Claverhouse with exceeding the law.
They cry out against the cruelty of the deed, but on its unlawfulness
they are silent. We must suppose, therefore, that Hislop's case was the
case of John Brown: he had refused the oath, and was therefore liable to
death. But we cannot suppose that if Claverhouse had stood firm he could
not have saved the lad's life. It is absurd to believe that at the head
of his own soldiers, with another captain of the same way of thinking by
him, such a man as Claverhouse was not strong enough to carry his own
will against one who had not even the powers of an ordinary justice of
the peace. We must, therefore, conclude that he was unwilling at that
time to run the risk of further disgrace by any charge of unreasonable
leniency to rebels. Like Pilate, he was willing to let the prisoner go;
but, like Pilate again, he preferred his own convenience, and the
prisoner was put to death.

On Defoe's list of victims murdered, as he calls it, by Claverhouse's
own hand is the name of Graham of Galloway. The young man, he says,
being pursued by the dragoons, had taken refuge in his mother's house;
but being driven out thence was overtaken by Claverhouse and shot dead
with a pistol, though he offered to surrender and begged hard for his
life. Shield so words his version of the story as to make it doubtful
whether the shot was fired by Claverhouse himself. In the "Cloud of
Witnesses" it is not even made certain that Claverhouse was present. At
the close of the year in which this alleged murder was committed Sir
John Dalrymple brought his action against Claverhouse. It is not likely
that so shrewd a lawyer would have overlooked such a chance as this, a
case of murder committed in his own country; for murder it would
certainly have been, were Defoe's story true. In 1682 military
executions had not been sanctioned by law; and for a soldier to shoot a
man offering to surrender would have been as clear a case of murder as
was the butchery on Magus Moor. Yet throughout Dalrymple's indictment is
no hint of any such offence. Claverhouse is accused of oppression by
excessive fines and illegal quartering of troops, of malversation, and
so forth; but of taking man's life unlawfully there is no single word.

Another of Defoe's victims is Matthew Mekellwrath. Claverhouse, he says,
riding through Camonel in Carrick, saw a man run across the street in
front of