hand, it being an unspeakable impairment of the soveraintie, but I fear it
prosper not.'

His repugnance to anything savouring of revolutionary methods, combined
with his always candid recognition of merit, appears in his observation
when Sidney was executed.

[Sidenote: H.O. p. 110.]

He was a gallant man, yet had he been so misfortunat as ever to be on the
disloyal side, and seemed to have drunk in with his milk republican
principles.' In December 1684 Baillie of Jerviswood was prosecuted for
being art and part in a treasonable conspiracy in England, along with
Shaftesbury, Russell, and others. Lauder and Sir George Lockhart were
commanded on their allegiance to assist the King's Advocate in the
prosecution. The Court, after deliberating from midnight till three in the
morning, brought in a verdict finding 'his being art and part of the
conspiracy and design to rise in arms, and his concealing the same proven,'
He was hanged and quartered the same day. Fountainhall did not disapprove
of his condemnation. He says, 'he carried all this with much calmness and
composure of mind; only he complained the time they had given him to
prepare for death was too short, and huffed a little that he should be
esteemed guilty of any design against the life of the King or his brother,
of which he purged himself, as he hoped to find mercy, so also he denied
any purpose of subverting the monarchial government, only he had wished
that some grievances in the administration of our affairs might be
rectified and reformed; but seeing he purged not himself of the rest of his
libel, his silence as to these looked like a tacit confession and
acknowledgment thereof.'