"We have already discoursed of the motives that induced me to take arms against the Prince now in possession of the throne, when you did me the honour of a visit three days since in my prison here; I shall therefore wave that point, and lament my unhappiness for joining in the rest of the lords in pleading guilty, in the hopes of that mercy, which the Generals Wills and Carpenter will do us the justice to say was promised us by both of them. Mr. Piggot and Mr. Eyres, the two lawyers employed by us, advised us to this plea, the avoiding of which might have given us further time for looking after the concerns of another life, though it had ended in the same sentence of losing this which we now lie under. Thanks be to the Divine Majesty, to whose infinite mercy as King of Kings, I recommend myself in hopes of forgiveness, tho' it shall be my fate to fail of it here on earth. Had the House of Commons thought fit to have received our petition with the same candour as yours has done, and recommended us to the Prince, we might have entertained some hopes of life; but the answer from St. James's is such as to make us have little or no thoughts of it. "Under these dismal apprehensions, then, of approaching dissolution, which, I thank my God for his holy guidance, I have made due preparation for, give me leave to tell you, that howsoever I have been censured on account of the family of the Gordons, which I am an unhappy branch of, that I have ever lived and will die in the profession of the Protestant religion, and that I abhor all king-killing doctrines that are taught by the church of Rome as dangerous and absurd. And though I have joined with some that have taken arms, of that persuasion, no other motive but that of exercising to the person called the Pretender, whom I firmly believe to be the son of the late King James the Second, and in defence of whose title I am now going to be a sacrifice, has induced me to it. Your Lordship will remember the papers I have left with you, and deliver them to my son. They may be of use to his future conduct in life, when these eyes of mine are closed in death, which I could have wished might have stolen upon me in the ordinary course of nature, and not by the hand of the executioner. But as my blessed Saviour and Redeemer suffered an ignominious and cruel death, and the Son of God, made flesh, did not disdain to have his feet nailed to the Cross for the sins of the world; so may I, poor miserable sinner, as far as human nature will allow, patiently bear with the hands of violence, that I expect suddenly to be stretched out against me.