ent sorts of goods, which took some time up before he got them all
sold off.

Mr. Mitchel, being now excluded from all mercy or favour from the
government, and having not yet laid down arms, and taking the
arch-bishop of St. Andrews to be the main instigator of all the
oppression and bloodshed of his faithful brethren, took up a resolution
_anno_ 1668, to dispatch him, and for that purpose, upon the 11th of
July, he waited the bishop's coming down in the afternoon to his coach,
at the head of black friar's wynd in Edinburgh, and with him was
Honeyman bishop of Orkney.----When the arch-bishop had entered, and
taken his seat in the coach, Mr. Mitchel stepped straight to the north
side of the coach, and discharged a pistol (loaded with three balls) in
at the door thereof; that moment Honeyman set his foot in the boot of
the coach, and reaching up his hand to step in, received the shot
designed for Sharp in the wrist of his hand, and the primate escaped.
Upon this, Mr. Mitchel crossed the street with much composure, till he
came to Niddry's wynd-head, where a man offered to stop him, to whom he
presented a pistol, upon which he let him go; he stepped down the wynd,
and up Steven Law's closs, went into a house, changed his cloaths, and
came straight to the street, as being the place where, indeed, he would
be least suspected. The cry arose, that a man was killed; upon which
some replied, It was only a bishop, and all was very soon calmed. Upon
Monday the 13, the council issued out a proclamation offering a reward
of five thousand merks to any that would discover the actor, and pardon
to accessories; but nothing more at that time ensued.

The managers, and those of the prelatical persuasion, made a mighty
noise and handle of this against the presbyterians, whereas this deed
was his only, without the knowledge or pre-concert of any, as he himself
in a letter declares; yea, with a design to bespatter the Presbyterian
church of Scotland, a most scurrilous pamphlet was published at London,
not only reflecting on our excellent reformers from popery, publishing
arrant lies anent Mr. Alexander Henderson, abusing Mr. David Dickson,
and breaking jests upon the remonstrators and presbyterians (as they
called them), but also, in a most malicious and groundless kind of
rhapsody, slandering Mr. Mitchel.

After this Mr. Mitchel shifted the best way he could, until the
beginning of the year 1674.; he was discovered by Sir William Sharp, t