It opens with the murder of the curate of Carsphairn on the night between the 11th and the 12th of December. The victim was Mr Peter Peirson. The worst of the unsubstantiated charges brought against him by Wodrow, who, whilst professing to abhor and detest the crime, is nevertheless at great pains to find extenuating circumstances in the ‘unwarrantable provocations this ill man gave,’ amount to this, that he was a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe; that he was very blustering and bold, and used openly to provoke the poor people by saying in public companies, ‘He feared none of the Whigs, nor anything else but rats and mice’; that he was openly a favourer of popery, and not only defended the doctrine of purgatory, but also declared openly that Papists were much better subjects than Presbyterians; that he was a notorious informer and instigator of all the violent measures resorted to in that part of the country; and that he kept a number of fire-arms loaded in his chamber—a precautionary measure for which justification might be found in the fact that the curate lived at the manse alone, without so much as a servant with him. Towards the end of the year 1684, a number of the ‘wanderers’ who were hiding in the neighbourhood ‘entered into a concert with an express proviso of doing no harm to Mr Peirson’s person, to meet together and essay to force him to give a written declaration that he would forbear instigating their enemies and other violent courses, and deter him from them in time to come, still expressly declaring they would do him no bodily harm.’ In view of the sequel, even as it is narrated by Wodrow himself, it would be superfluous to discuss the veracity of the whole statement as to the innocent ‘concert,’ and still more so to inquire into the sincerity of the alleged declaration. It may, however, be incidentally recalled that the murderers of Archbishop Sharp were asserted by Covenanting apologists to have come together for the harmless purpose of intimidating the obnoxious Carmichael, or as it was still more mildly expressed, of scaring him from his cruel courses, when chance threw the prelate in their way.