There is no certain account of Wallace having been present at the battle of Roslin:--if he was, it must have been only in a private capacity, he not being mentioned by any author as holding a command on that occasion. According to some, he was absent from the country at the time; but this, however, seems to be contradicted by the Scotichronicon, where it is said, that, _after_ the battle of Roslin, he went on board of a merchant vessel, and, with a few companions, again sailed for France. Henry, whose strong partiality would not have omitted so excellent an opportunity for aggrandizing his hero, had there been any authority in the narrative of Blair for so doing, passes over the circumstance in silence. This conduct in an author so strongly biassed in favour of the subject of his biography, is not only a proof of the absence of Wallace from the field of Roslin, but a strong argument in favour of the general accuracy of his own details. The laurels, therefore, that were gathered at Roslin, will fall to be divided between Sir Simon Frazer and the lord of Badenoch. That Wallace returned a second time to the court of France, is asserted in the most positive manner by the Minstrel, and is in part corroborated by the Scotichronicon. The particular periods of his history, however, which those visits occupied, it is rather difficult to ascertain. That the first occurred after the battle of Falkirk is without doubt; and the second immediately before, or soon after the affair of Roslin, is almost equally certain. As, in the first voyage, Wallace is said to have fallen in with and captured a French pirate, in the second, he is represented as having a similar rencounter with an Englishman of the same profession, who earned on his depredations principally against the Scottish vessels. Had the Minstrel’s work been one of pure fancy, this _sameness_ of incident, we presume, would not have occurred;--for the judgment of the poet would no doubt have suggested the propriety of a change of adventure. The English pirate, who is called John of Lyn, is first seen by the Scots, making his way out of the Humber, displaying a red sail, and a flag at his mast-head bearing three leopards courant, the well-known insignia of Edward. The Scottish merchants, who knew his ferocious disposition, were appalled at first; but encouraged by Wallace and his companions, they prepared themselves for action, by stuffing sheep-skins with wool, which appears to have been their cargo; and thus making a kind of defensive armour, to protect them against their better equipped assailants. On their refusing to surrender, the battle commenced by a heavy discharge from bows and cross-bows on the part of the English; and the Scots, who were not so well supplied with missiles, kept themselves as much as possible out of the way of the shot, till it was nearly expended;--when, laying their vessel along side of the enemy, Wallace and his companions threw