the administration of Cromwell; the restoration of Charles II.; these great movements were felt in Ulster, with various and opposite effects. Strangely enough, the entanglements of state policy were such, that while persecution raged in one part of the united kingdom, it would be relaxed in another, and Presbyterians could fly to Ulster, or retreat to Scotland, according to the emergency of the times.

Very soon after the restoration, to which the Presbyterians so largely and so blindly contributed, the need of an asylum was felt more urgently than ever. The persecution began in Ulster; during 1661-3, many ministers were deposed, and forced to retire to Scotland. But the tide presently changed; Claverhouse and his dragoons were sent upon the mistaken mission of converting the Scots to episcopacy, and from 1670 until the death of Charles in 1685, the Presbyterians worshipped in hidden places, and at the peril of their lives. Worn out by the unequal strife, many of the people sought a refuge; there happened to be, at this juncture, a comparative immunity in the Irish colony, and thither they escaped as best they could, some crossing the narrow sea in open boats.

SON.

Among the refugees of this era, was our ancestor, JOHN PATTERFrom what part of Scotland he went, or what was his age and family, are facts entirely lost to us. The name is common both in the highlands and the lower counties. It is reasonable to conjecture, that he was born not far from the year 1640, and took with him at least two sons. Whether he settled at Londonderry, is also uncertain; we only know, that there he and his sons were found, on a memorable occasion, as will shortly be related.

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The refuge from persecution was not of long continuance. year or two before the death of Charles II., the wrath of the tyrant was revisited upon poor Ulster; in consequence of which, in 1684, a project of emigration to America was entertained, though not carried into effect. One minister, harbinger of many others, came over about this time, in answer to an appeal from Maryland.

The accession of such a prince as James II. was an omen of aggravated troubles. After a few months of respite, the rigours of religious oppression were renewed; they fell alike upon church, and kirk, and meeting-house; and the question presented itself for a prompt reply, whether the united kingdom was to fall back

to a state of superstition and despotism. At such a crisis, involving the fate of civil and religious liberty, and the advance of knowledge and civilization, throughout the world, William of Orange accepted the invitation of British Protestants; an issue was taken, which no friend of truth or freedom could shrink from; emigration, or retreat, was now out of the question, and especially from Ireland; for on this narrow theatre, it was plainly ordered that the momentous question should be decided. The war, as to its most critical part, began with the renowned SIEGE OF DERRY; and, to have had ancestors on two sides of our house (Patterson and Ewing) among the besieged, is a sufficient apology for my dwelling, for a page or two, upon that interesting event.

Derry, or Londonderry, is one of the principal ports, and the most northern city, of Ireland. In the settlement of Ulster, this town, with the county in which it is situated, was taken up by the corporation of London, and thereafter it was called London-derry. James II. had nearly secured to himself the whole of Ireland; William was in England, and not in a condition to render speedy aid to the Ulster Protestants; and a detachment of James's army approached Londonderry, to garrison and secure that important post. The magistrates and principal citizens of the place, unresolved what to do, had nearly admitted this force within the walls, when a party of apprentice boys, supported by the main body of the people, boldly closed the gates in the very faces of the soldiers. By this decided movement the town was thrown upon its defence. Its reduction was of the utmost consequence, and the energy of the Irish army was bestowed upon the task. Week after week, the men of Derry, sustained by hope or desperation, valiantly repelled the besiegers. A tardy reinforcement from England appeared in the bay, but timid apprehension kept the fleet at a distance; and the brave townsmen were cruelly left to the continued and accumulated devastations of battle, and disease, and famine. In this dire extremity, their stores exhausted, and supplies withheld, they were forced to feed on loathsome vermin, and to seek sustenance from the very grass; and John Patterson must have realized how little he had gained by flight from his native land, when, in addition to his own sufferings, he found the lifeless body of a son, whose mouth filled with weeds, gave proof of his having

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undergone the most terrible of deaths. The father, and another son (we are not informed as to any others), survived this siege and famine. But the vivid impressions of youth were carried down to the grave; in the course of a long life after, Robert Patterson was nervously timid of the least waste of food; and when an old man, would take his grandchild, a namesake, on his knee, and instamp upon his boyish memory the dreadful details of the Siege of Derry.

But to return; after the siege had continued fifteen weeks, Gen. Kirk, ashamed or tired of so long delay, advanced to the rescue. The fleet came up the river; an iron chain, or a wooden raft, had been thrown across to obstruct the passage of the ships. Aided by a fair wind, the largest vessel was driven against the boom, to break a way through. The experiment was witnessed by thousands of anxious spectators on the tops of the houses. The effort failed; the ship rebounded, and by the force of the concussion was driven aground. The besieged gave up all for lost. But a discharge of the ship's artillery, in return for the fire from the enemy's fort, had the effect to set her immediately afloat again; another vigorous push was made; the boom gave way; the fleet passed amidst shouts of victory up to the quays, and on the same day, the last day of July, 1689, the Irish army abandoned the siege in a precipitate retreat. The deliverance of Derry was as momentous to the nation as it was to the city. A Protestant army was afterwards landed in Ulster; about a year after the raising of the siege, the decisive battle of Boyne-water (in which one of our ancestors distinguished himself, as will be stated under the Ewing head) overthrew the power of James, and established a Protestant prince and succession.

Robert Patterson, who must have been an ungrown lad in the

* Robert Patterson (fifth) has given me another incident, since the above was written. To arrest the hungry clamours of the children, when starvation was at its height, Mrs. Patterson would mix a few peas with a large quantity of ashes; and in the eager but tedious employment of the little ones, to hunt out the grains, the ingenious mother found the respite she aimed at.

† Grahame's Siege of Derry has been lately reprinted in this city. The subject has also afforded to "Charlotte Elizabeth" a theme for one of her popular stories. A society of descendants of the defenders of Derry, have an annual celebration of the event, to this day, in Dublin. The ancients starved, that they might dine.

time of the siege, lived to a good old age; I can say nothing more of him, except that he had a son, called after himself. This second Robert was born, as near as we can judge, about 1705. Marrying betimes a young woman whose first name was Jane, (her last is most likely irrecoverable,) he settled upon a leasehold farm near Hillsborough, in county Down, about fourteen miles south-west of Belfast; and raised a family of ten children. We may now begin to be somewhat more minute; although, as to a part of the family, our information is almost limited to a list of names. Four of them never left Ireland. The rest became Americans; the occasion will appear, as we enlarge upon the fourth child, the pioneer of the emigration.

Of Robert the second (we are obliged to number them royally, to avoid confusion) the common ancestor of many names to appear in this book, we should like to have a more particular account than is now attainable. A single anecdote of him, proving several interesting facts and characteristics, must here be related.

It may be somewhat in point to premise, that about the time of the birth of his fourth child (Robert) he made a change in church relationship, without changing any thing of religious faith or practice. The famous secession from the kirk of Scotland, of which Ralph Erskine was the leader, soon extended its principles and organization to the Presbyterians in Ireland. Without stopping to state what those principles were, we infer from them that the seceding church included many of the most pious, and all of those who were unfriendly to a state religion. Among them was our Robert Patterson; his American children, no longer Seceders where there is no ground of secession, may be satisfied with the ground he took. The undue rigidity of the sect (for they could hardly commune with other Presbyterians, still less with other Christians,) is chargeable upon the times, and perhaps upon Caledonian blood.

The incident just alluded to, was this. Every land-holder, no matter what was his religious connexion, was liable to be elected to the office of churchwarden, to serve in the Episcopal church; his alternative was to pay a penalty of five pounds; and it was not uncommon to select a Presbyterian, or (still better game) a stiff Seceder; not so much to obtain his services, as to get his money. To this unwelcome honour, or dilemma, Mr. Patterson was chosen. His own place and mode of worship were as dear as life to him;

but, on the other hand, the fine of five pounds (equal to twenty-four dollars), was more than he could spare. We derive from this an incidental proof that our ancestor, though a respectable man, was in straitened circumstances. But native shrewdness is a good committee of ways and means. The principal Sabbath-day's duty of a church-warden, was to take up the collection; and this was to be attended to at an early stage of divine service. The Seceder (to whom a liturgy was a dreadful thing) tarried somewhere about the church door, waiting for the nick of time; then walked forward, took the long-handled purse, and plied it up and down the aisles in most churchman-like order; returned the staff to its canonical place; and then, very quietly, but very expeditiously, made off for his own meeting-house, in time for an orthodox sermon; his office fulfilled, his conscience pacified, and five pounds saved.

We can say no more of Robert, and his wife Jane, until we have crossed over to the new world; for hither they came in their last days, and here they ended their lives. Their children come now to be noticed in order.

I. WILLIAM grew up, but died young, and unmarried. I could wish some larger remnant of him had been handed down, than a dying charge to his brothers-"not to follow his example in joining the Freemasons."

II. ISAAC has American descendants. His six children were Robert, William, Martha, Jane, Ann, and Elizabeth. William came over with his family in the summer of 1827, and settled in Philadelphia. He also had six children; Isaac, John, Robert, Martha Jane, William and Joseph. Isaac died while studying. divinity, in this city. Robert also died here, early in 1847. Martha Jane is the wife of William Frazier, also in Philadelphia. William is a minister of the gospel, and has been settled for a number of years, in the Presbyterian church of Poundridge, N. J. Joseph was formerly an assistant in classical instruction, in Doylestown Academy, afterwards in Mr. Engles's Seminary, in Philadelphia; he is now a salesman or clerk in the mercantile house of Mr. James Dunlap, in the same city.

III. JOHN had four children; Isaac, John, Rosanna and Jane. Of this moderate list we have no particulars.

V. We place JANE a little out of order, to keep together the four who did not emigrate. She was the wife of Robert Gibson, and