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Transactions. 115 
reading of Laud’s liturgy the General Assembly declared 
Episcopacy to be abolished, and in 1638 a National Covenant 
was signed with great enthusiasm throughout every parish in 
Scotland. So unanimous was this feeling in the parish of 
Troqueer in favour of the covenant that in 1640 the captain of 
its War Committee sent in the following report :—“ Lancelot 
Grier of Dalskarthe, captain of the parochin of Troqueer, declares 
no cold or un-Covenanters within his bounds, except the 
Maxwells of Kirkconnell and the Herrieses of Mabie.” This 
was an ancestor of the family called Grierson of Lag. 
In 1653, when the Rev. Mr Blackader was ordained minister 
of the parish, he found that the teinds were claimed by the Ear] 
of Nithsdale, as appears from the following letter of the Countess 
to Sir George Maxwell of Pollock, published in “ Memoirs of the 
Pollock family ” :— 
Srr,—Since I cannot have the happiness to see you in this 
countrie, I must importune you by letters as one in whose wisdom 
and affection to myself and my son Tremain most confident. My 
husband had a tack of the tenths of the Church of Troquere in 
Galloway from the College of Glasgow, whereof they be as yet 
some years’ standing ; and now, as I am informed, Mr John 
Blackader, present minister of the said church, is putting in to 
have the said tenth in his own hand. ‘Therefore, I earnestly 
entreat, as you wish the good of my son, you will stop his pro- 
ceedings herein, since my son is now for many years by-past in 
possession and willing to continue in pay for the said tenths as his 
predecessors hath been, and if anything else shall be requisite he 
shall submit to you therein. Thus, not doubting of your good- 
will, I rest as ever, 
Your faithful friend to serve you, 
E. NItIsDAt. 
This 16 of February, 1654. 
This letter, dated the year after Mr Blackader’s unanimous 
induction, was the beginning of many troubles, as detailed in his 
published memoirs. 
Soon after the Restoration, in 1660, a Royal edict ordered all 
parish ministers who had been ordained since 1649 to remove out 
of the bounds of their Presbytery ; so, putting his children into 
“cadgers’ creels ” on either side of a horse, he went to Glencairn, 
where he held open-air conventicles among the hills. 
The following is a vivid account of his last visit to Troqueer, 
