after him shall have it for more than three years. One of his brothers settled in the province, but he never visited it himself. In this year we find him assisting the Laird of Swinton with his interest and purse at Edinburgh; thus answering practically and freely the apostolic expostulation (1 Cor. ix. 11.), by permitting Swinton to reap carnal things, who had sown spiritual things to his family.
The remainder of his life is not marked with many instances of public action. Much of it appears to have been passed in tranquillity, and in the bosom of his family; yet he occasionally undertook journeys to promote his private concerns, to serve his relations and neighbours, or to maintain the cause of his brethren in religious profession. He was in London in 1685, and had frequent access to King James II., who had all along evinced a warm friendship towards him. Barclay, on the other hand, thinking James sincere in his faith, and perhaps influenced a little by the flattery of a prince's favour, appears to have conceived a real regard for this misguided and imprudent monarch. Liberty of conscience having been conceded to the Friends on the accession of James II., Barclay exerted his influence to procure some parliamentary arrangement, by which they might be exempted from the harsh and ruinous prosecutions to which they were exposed, in consequence of their peculiar notions as to the exercise of the law. He was again in London, on this business, in 1686, on which occasion he visited the seven bishops, then confined in the Tower, for having refused to distribute in their respective dioceses the king's declaration for liberty of conscience, and for having represented to the king the grounds of their objection to the measure. The popular opinion was in favour of the bishops; yet the former severities of some of the episcopal order against dissenters, particularly against the Friends, occasioned some reflections on them. This having come to the knowledge of the imprisoned bishops, they declared that, "the Quakers had belied them, by reporting that they had been the death of some." Robert Barclay, being informed of this declaration, went to the Tower, and gave their lordships a well-substantiated account of some persons having been detained in prison till death, by order of bishops, though they had been apprized of the danger by physicians who were not Quakers. He, however, observed to the bishops, that it was by no means the intention of the Friends to publish such events, and thereby give the king, and their other adversaries, any advantage against them. Barclay was in London, for the last time, in the memorable year 1688. He visited James II., and being with him near a window, the king looked out, and observed that, "the wind was then fair for the prince of Orange to come over." Robert Barclay replied, "it was hard that no expedient could be found to satisfy the people." The king declared, "he would do any thing becoming a gentleman, except parting with liberty of conscience, which he never would whilst he lived." At that time Barclay took a final leave of the unfortunate king, for whose disasters he was much concerned, and with whom he had been several times engaged in serious discourse at that time.
Robert Barclay "laid down the body," says Andrew Jaffray, "in the holy and honourable truth, wherein he had served it about three and twenty years, upon the 3rd day of the eighth month, 1690, near the forty and second year of his age, at his own house of Urie, in Scotland, and it was laid in his own burial ground there, upon the 6th day of the same month, before many friends and other people." His character has been thus drawn by another of the amicable fraternity to which he belonged:—[1]
"He was distinguished by strong mental powers, particularly by great penetration, and a sound and accurate judgment His talents were much improved
- ↑ A short account of the Life and Writings of Robert Barclay, London, 1802.
