‘In the time he was making this confession, the soldiers found out a house in a hill, under ground, that could hold a dozen of men, and there were swords and pistols in it; and this fellow declared that they belonged to his uncle, and that he had lurked in that place ever since Bothwell, where he was in arms. He confessed that he had a halbert, and told who gave it him about a month ago, and we have the fellow prisoner. He gave an account of the names of the most part who were there. They were not above sixty, and they were all Galston and Newmills men, save a few out of Straven parish. He gave also an account of a conventicle kept by Renwick at the back of Cairntable, where there were thirteen score of men in arms, mustered and exercised, of which number he was with his halbert. He tells us of another conventicle, about three months ago, kept near Loudon hill; and gives account of the persons who were at both, and what children were baptized; particularly that at Cairntable, which was about the time that Lieutenants Murray and Creichton let them escape. He also gives account of those who gave any assistance to his uncle; and we have seized thereupon the goodman of the upmost Ploughlands; and another tenant, about a mile below that, is fled upon it. ‘I doubt not, if we had time to stay, good use might be made of his confession. I have acquitted myself, when I have told your Grace the case. He has been a month or two with his halbert; and if your Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him. For I, having no commission of Justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the Lieutenant-General, to be disposed of as he pleases.’ Such a report is not that of a man anxious to urge excuses for an action which he felt in his conscience to be unjustifiable. Nor can there be any doubt that, from his point of view, Claverhouse had done nothing but what a soldier’s duty required of him. Immediately after the proclamation of Renwick’s manifesto, and the subsequent murder of the two guardsmen at Swyne Abbey, it had been enacted that ‘Any person who owns or will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath, whether they have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being always done in the presence of two witnesses, and the person or persons having commission to that effect.’