claiming, ‘Pooh! pooh! hunt a weary partridge? Fye, for shame!’ Probably this clemency may have arisen from the fact that the temper of people, and especially in London, was at that time such that any attempt to reimprison so noted a sufferer for protestantism might have caused considerable embarrassment to the government. Fountainhall expressly says that the persecution that Argyll suffered for being a protestant caused more pity than his oppression of his creditors and non-payment of his own and his father's debts caused hatred. As has been said, the moment the court was triumphant over the whigs Argyll evidently thought it unwise to reckon any longer upon its forbearance. In 1682 he was supposed to be in Switzerland, but Lord Granard, to whom he had many years before been of great assistance, received a message from him in London, and held a meeting with him, on account of which he was accused of complicity in his crimes (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. 213 b). In June 1683, when Baillie of Jerviswood and others were taken on account of the Rye House plot, letters of Argyll's were found among their papers, in a cipher which at first baffled detection (ib. 6th Rep. 315). They were sent to Scotland, and the countess was summoned in December 1683 to decipher them. She, however, replied that she had burnt the only key she had. Both she and Lorne, however, admitted that they were in Argyll's writing (ib. 7th Rep. 377 b). The cipher was, however, at length read by Spence, Argyll's private secretary (Wodrow, iv. 97), and, according to Law (Mem. p. 251), by two experts, George Campbell and Gray of Crigie. Gray certainly deciphered the papers by his independent effort, and received 100l. Argyll, it appears, expostulated with the other conspirators upon their rejection of his proposals, viz. that he should be provided with 30,000l. and 1,000 English horse. They, however, offered 10,000l. with 600 or 700 horse, the money to be paid by the beginning of July, and Argyll was then to go at once to Scotland and begin the revolt. He gave an account of the standing forces, militia, and heritors of Scotland, who would be obliged to appear for the king, to the number of 50,000. Half of them, he said, would not fight. He represented too that his party needed only money and arms; and he desired Major Holmes to communicate fully with his messenger from Holland (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. 364 a, b, 377 a). Holmes was himself taken and examined on 28 June 1683, and from his replies it would seem that Argyll was in London. In October Preston wrote from Paris, informing Halifax that Argyll had his agents in France, and added his belief that he had, after consultation with his friends in Holland, gone back to Scotland (ib. 7th Rep. 342, 396–8). On 28 and 29 June 1684 William Spence was examined before the privy council, but he said nothing to Argyll's discredit (ib. 6th Rep. 633 b). In July he was sent to Scotland, where he was put to the torture; but no more was learnt from him then. He appears from Fountainhall's ‘Hist. Notices’ to have read the cipher on 22 Aug. In September 1684 Argyll's charter chest and family papers were found concealed in a tenant's house in Argyllshire, a further stroke towards the extinction of the family (Law, p. 304).
While in Holland Argyll appears to have devoted himself to private religious exercises and preparations for the death that he anticipated, and he refused to have any connection with Shaftesbury. He speedily, however, became involved in the cabals which took place under Monmouth upon the death of Charles. He came from Friesland to Rotterdam upon the news (Douglas), and was present at a meeting of Scotchmen in Amsterdam on 17 April 1685, at which an immediate invasion of Scotland was determined on, and himself appointed captain-general. He was among those who insisted that Monmouth should engage never to declare himself king. He carried on his preparations with great secrecy, and, furnished with 10,000l. by a rich English widow in Amsterdam, possibly the Mrs. Smith before referred to, supplemented by 1,000l. from Locke (Burnet, p. 629), he collected arms as if for a trader of Venice. He sailed from the Vlie on 1 or 2 May 1685 with about three hundred men in three small ships, well provisioned, accompanied by Patrick Hume, Cochran, a few more Scots, and the Englishmen Ayloffe and Rumbold. They anchored at Cariston in Orkney on 6 May, where unluckily his secretary Spence—apparently the one formerly mentioned, though this is doubtful—went ashore, was seized by the bishop, and the design discovered.
Argyll immediately sailed by the inside of the western islands to the coast of his own country, but was compelled by contrary winds to go to the Sound of Mull. At Tobermory he was delayed three days, and then with three hundred men whom he picked up there he went across to Kintyre, the stronghold then, as always, of the extreme covenanting party. At Campbeltown Argyll issued his declaration which had been drawn up by Stuart in Holland. In this declaration he intimates that James had caused the death of Charles, that Monmouth was the rightful heir, and that by him he had been restored to title and estates. He had previously sent his son Charles to raise his former vassals, who now held of the king;
