“After the Revolution some of the volumes and papers were delivered up to a son of the former Clerk, Mr Secretary Jhonston, who lent some of them to his cousin, Bishop Burnet, and others to Mr George Ridpath, who, about that time, undertook to write a history of Scottish affairs. Three volumes fell into the hands of a person whose grandfather had been the intimate friend of Sir Archibald Johnston, and had, like him, been executed as a traitor. This person was the Honourable and Reverend Archibald Campbell, grandson of the Marquis of Argyle, and son of Lord Neil Campbell. Mr Campbell was several years known as an Episcopalian Clergyman, and subsequently as one of the non-juring Bishops in Scotland. During the latter part of his life he resided chiefly in England, without being in communion with the Church of England, and without maintaining any intercourse with the Episcopalian body in Scotland, to which he had been originally attached. “About the year 1733, a correspondence was opened between him and Mr William Grant, Procurator and Clerk of the Church of Scotland (afterwards Lord Prestongrange), on the subject of the records in Mr Campbell’s possession. Mr Campbell offered to surrender these records on certain terms, which did not appear to Mr Grant to be reasonable or equitable. He demanded a large sum of money for the restitution of the volumes to which he never had acquired any right of property, and even this sum he would not accept till the Books had been published, as was proposed, under his superintendence, on the understanding that no member of the Church of Scotland was to be suffered to revise the sheets as they passed through the press. “It could scarcely be expected that these and other humiliating conditions would be acceded to without hesitation; and while the negotiation was still in progress, Mr Campbell, as he had sometimes threatened to do, took a step which was intended to put the Books for ever beyond the reach of the Church of Scotland, by entering into a deed of trust or covenant with the President and Fellows of Sion College, the terms of which do not appear to be accurately known to any member of the Church of Scotland, but the effect of which has undoubtedly been to detain these Records from their lawful owners for nearly a century past. “It is unnecessary to add, that the hardship is deeply felt by all the members of the Church of Scotland, who are aware of the importance of these Books, not merely as the only sure and satisfactory memorials of the course of Ecclesiastical affairs in the times immediately succeeding the Reformation, but also because they are capable of shedding additional light on a most interesting and instructive portion of our Civil history.