leniency when it is remembered that 1680 was the year of the Sanquhar Declaration and Airds Moss, and that the peroration of Mr Spence's protest would have done credit to Cuddy Headrigg's mother. "For these reasons specially, and many others I need not mention now, I, the said William Spence, protest against the sentence aforesaid, and disown the same, seeing the said inflicters have hereby proclaimed themselves to be the patrones and abettors of all the said corruptions, supplanters of the Gospel faction for Anti-christ, promoters of the powers of darkness, enemies to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and such from whom all good Christians ought to separate because of their maintaining and defending soul-murdering heresies, and in persecuting with the utmost violence and rigour any man who darr open his mouth for the truth of Christ. (_Sic Subscribitur_), Mr William Spence."[14] {201} Mr Spence as yet was only an ecclesiastical rebel, and instead of going over to the extreme Covenanters, made his way to Holland, where he joined the colony of Scotch refugees. Ultimately he attached himself to the Earl of Argyle as a kind of secretary, and conducted part of the correspondence between the Earl and the English plotters. He was in London in 1683, apparently on the Earl's business, when he was arrested and imprisoned for some months, but as he could not be efficiently examined in England, where torture was not legal, he was finally sent down to Scotland along with Carstares and other suspects in His Majesty's "Kitchin Yaucht," which did not go at a royal pace, for the journey to Leith took thirteen days. They arrived late at night on November 14th, having left London on the 1st, and were taken straight to the Tolbooth.[15] A week after, orders came from London that Mr Spence should be put to the torture, but for some reason or other he was left alone till the April of the following year, being evidently in irons all the time, his close connection with Argyle rendering his imprisonment {202} extra rigorous.[16] He was taken out of irons on the 25th of that month, but it was not till the 24th of July that he was ordered to appear before the Council and required to take an oath to answer all the questions put to him. He refused and protested, and was tortured in the boot, but, spite of the awful agony, remained "obstinate and disingenuous," whereupon the Privy Council "resolved to use all methods necessary to bring the said Mr William Spence to a true and ingenuous confession, and for expiscating the truth in so important a matter, do recommend to General Dalziel forthwith to call for the said Mr William Spence from the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and to cause such of His Majesty's forces, officers, and soldiers, as shall be found most trusty, to watch the said Mr William Spence by turns, and not to suffer him to sleep by night or by day, and for that end to use all effectual means for keeping him awake."[17] The "effectual means" were