In this resolution he was encouraged by the nonjuring divines who attended him in his cell.

It was probably by their influence that he was induced to deliver to the Sheriffs on the scaffold a declaration which he had transcribed and signed, but had not, it is to be hoped, composed or attentively considered.

In this paper he was made to complain of the unfairness of a trial which he had himself in public acknowledged to have been eminently fair.

He was also made to aver, on the word of a dying man, that he knew nothing of the papers which had been found upon him.

Unfortunately his declaration, when inspected, proved to be in the same handwriting with one of the most important of those papers.