EIR ROBERT S1BBALD. 
47 
influence at court, pressing the king to illegal 
and unaccountable undertakings, and opposing 
the taking of the allegiance, which I was bound 
to by oaths. Upon which considerations, I 
repented of my rashness, and resolved to come 
home, and return to the church I was born in.” 
And being too ill to travel by land, he set sail 
for Leith, and after a passage of eight days, 
arrived safe. “ When I was come home, I 
wrote to the Chancellor my resolution, and 
declared it to some who visited me. And I 
went no more to the Popish service, but removed 
to the country, and went to church. And 
in September following, I was received by the 
Bishop of Edinburgh, (upon my acknowledg- 
ment of my rashness,) in his house, and took 
the sacrament, according to the way of the 
Church of England, and kept constantly my 
parish church.” 
There is always a suspicion as to the purity of 
the motives of any sudden political or religious 
conversion that takes place under circumstances 
favourable to the worldly interests of the conver- 
ted ; and it must be confessed, that, in Sibbald’s 
case, these suspicions might very justly be re- 
garded at the time in the most unfavourable 
point of view. But in looking back calmly and 
dispassionately in the present day, to his own 
narrative, there is no reason to doubt his integrity, 
or the sincerity of his convictions, at the moment 
