344 The Swintons of that Ilk, by A. Campbell Swinton. 



in converting to these opinions Colonel Barclay, the father of the 

 well-known Robert Barclay, author of the work entitled 

 "Apology for the true Christian Divinity as the same is held 

 forth and preached by the People called in scorn Quakers." 



The Register of Marriages of the Society of Friends, kept at 

 the Central Office, in Houndsditch, London, records the marriage 

 in 1671, "the 3d day of the 6th month" of "John Swinton, late 

 of Swinton, in Scotland," to Frances White, of Newington 

 Butts. In another copy of the same Register she is designed 

 "Widdow;" and it appears from the family writs that her 

 maiden name was Hancock, her brother being John Hancock, of 

 Wallieford, in the county of East Lothian. Of this marriage 

 there was no family. John Swinton died at Borthwick, in 1679. 

 The editor of Jaff ray's Diary, already referred to, has preserved 

 what he calls "two precious documents;" one being Swinton's 

 dying testimony " that the contemned people called Quakers are 

 a blessed people ;" the other a similar testimony by his widow to 

 the fact that her " dearly beloved husband laid down his outward 

 man in peace.'' In favour of the lady there exists a Deed of 

 gift by Charles II., dated 16th June, 1680, granting a yearly 

 pension of £104 sterling to her and Swinton's two children, 

 Alexander and Isaac. In September of the same year she con- 

 tracted a third marriage with a Dutchman, named Arent Son- 

 mons, who seems to have been the owner of considerable pro- 

 perty in New Jersey.* 



XXI. Alexander Swinton, the Quaker's eldest son, did not 

 long survive his father, to whose religious tenets he early showed 

 a disinclination. Sir Walter Scottf relates how, rising one morn- 

 ing, he could scarcely be prevailed on to assume the plain suit of 

 grey cloth with a slouched hat without loop or button, which had 

 by his father's directions been substituted for the laced scarlet 



wrath upon them untill there be no remedy which will be speedily accom- 

 plished if they repent not, but still go on in the execution of their late cruel 

 edicts." This piece is in verse, quarto, London, 1664. In the Library of 

 the Friend's Institute in Bishopgate Street, where these tracts are preserved, 

 there is also one entitled " Innocence further cleared and the spirit of Alex- 

 ander, the Coppersmith, further ditected." This piece is by Penn, with an 

 addition by Swinton appended to it, but without a separate title. 



* Douglas (Baronage, p. 131) erroneously represents Frances Hancock as 

 the widow of Sonmons when Swinton married her. 

 t Tales of a Grandfather. 



