Soon after Barclay's return, his aged father sickened, and died on the 12th of October. His son published a very full account of his last days, which seem to have been full of heavenly calm and restful faith. The old soldier, after a youth of adventures and a manhood of perils and persecutions, "fell asleep," says his son, "like a lamb." The feelings that first won him to Quakerism were strong to the last. To the doctor who attended him he said, "It is the _life_ of righteousness that we bear witness to, and not an empty profession." To the Friends who gathered round his dying-bed, he said, "How precious is the love of God among his children, and their love to one another! My love is with you--I leave it among you." As the end drew near, he exclaimed, "Now the time comes! Praises, praises to the Lord! Let now thy servant depart in peace." And so he crossed the river. Again in 1687 Robert Barclay visited London, travelling with Viscount and Lady Arbuthnot, the latter as a daughter of the Earl of Sunderland being a distant cousin of his own. The Scotch Quakers had previously met in Aberdeen, and had drawn up in their General Meeting an address of acknowledgment to the king on his recent Declaration of Indulgence; this Robert Barclay presented. A similar one, prepared by this London Yearly Meeting of 1687 and presented to the king by William Penn, has been already mentioned. On this occasion, Barclay visited the seven bishops who were in the Tower for refusing to circulate this very Declaration. They had declared that the Quakers had belied them by reporting that they had been the death of some of them. Probably Barclay felt not only that the charge, which certainly had been made, must be sustained for the credit of his brethren, but what was more important, that the bishops were now in a position better to understand the Quaker pleas for liberty of conscience. So he produced to them unquestionable proof that some Friends had been kept in gaol until they died, even after trustworthy physicians had warned their persecutors that death must be the result of their longer detention. However, he assured them that they would not publish the damaging facts, lest it should furnish a handle to their enemies.