The Ancestrji of Francis Gallon 27 



of Galton's 16 great -great-great-grandparents on the paternal side (see 

 p. 10), we find that 11, possibly 13, were early members of the 

 Society of Friends. Another, Sir Ewen Cameron, is famous as one 

 of the last of the Highland chieftains, a man who summoned his clan 

 and fought at its head (see Plate XXI). It is at first sight strange 

 to find him marrying a daughter of the Quaker David Barclay, the 

 sister Jean of the Apologist Robert Barclay. But the Quakers were 

 never opposed to the Stuarts in the way the Puritans were. Robert 

 Barclay himself was a direct descendant of the Stuarts in more 

 than one line (see Pedigree Plate B). At the instigation of George 

 Fox, Barclay appealed to James II, to check the persecution of the 

 Quakers, and his kinship to the Stuarts gave him easy access to the 

 King. He believed in James' zeal for liberty of conscience being 

 sincere ; and in his Vindication of 1689 he says : " I love King James 

 and wish him well." But as a Quaker he was a man of peace, who 

 preached obedience to every established government and unlike his 

 brother-in-law Cameron of Lochiel took no part in the Jacobite move- 

 ments. His influence with Lochiel was probably great, and in 1688 

 Lochiel accompanied Barclay to London that the latter might use his 

 influence with the King to settle a dispute between Gordons and 

 Camerons. Barclay's mother was Catherine Gordon. Of Robert Barclay 

 himself we must all acknowledge that he will ever remain one of the 

 great masters of the English tongue. He formulated as a scholar and 

 a rhetorician the doctrines of the Society of Friends in a way that was 

 impossible for the uncultured George Fox. We may not agree with the 

 doctrine of immediate revelation as it was developed in the Apology ; 

 that the inward testimony of the spirit in each man telleth him of the 

 true will of God is a teaching which had led the Anabaptists to terrible 

 catastrophe, but held in check by such quietism as we find in the 

 mediaeval mystics and in the early Quakers it has done little harm and 

 much good. Above all it led directly, since the inward spirit alone 

 dictates religious knowledge and there is no formal creed or recognised 

 outward authority, to the doctrine of universal toleration. We do not 

 all realise how much we owe to the Quakers, and not least to Robert 

 Barclay, for proclaiming this great doctrine, and, what is more, ulti- 

 mately establishing it by their passive but stubborn resistance. Papist, 

 Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, Anglican had not got as far as Robert 



Barclay when he wrote : 



i— 2 



