at Irville, and he had been in at Glasgow, as was his yearly custom,
to settle his accounts, and to buy a hogshead of tobacco, with sugar
and other spiceries; and being in Glasgow, Thomas was told by the
merchant of a great rise in tobacco, that had happened by reason of
the contumacity of the plantations, and it was thought that blood
would be spilt before things were ended, for that the King and
Parliament were in a great passion with them. But as Charles
Malcolm, in the king's ship, was the only one belonging to the
parish that was likely to be art and part in the business, we were
in a manner little troubled at the time with this first gasp of the
monster of war, who, for our sins, was ordained to swallow up and
devour so many of our fellow-subjects, before he was bound again in
the chains of mercy and peace.

I had, in the meantime, written a letter to the Lord Eaglesham, to
get Charles Malcolm out of the clutches of the pressgang in the man-
of-war; and about a month after, his lordship sent me an answer,
wherein was enclosed a letter from the captain of the ship, saying,
that Charles Malcolm was so good a man that he was reluctant to part
with him, and that Charles himself was well contented to remain
aboard. Anent which, his lordship said to me, that he had written
back to the captain to make a midshipman of Charles, and that he
would take him under his own protection, which was great joy on two
accounts to us all, especially to his mother; first, to hear that
Charles was a good man, although in years still but a youth; and,
secondly, that my lord had, of his own free-will, taken him under
the wing of his patronage.

But the sweet of this world is never to be enjoyed without some of
the sour. The coal bark between Irville and Belfast, in which