According to family tradition he lived among Arabs and came to England in early life as a refugee from religious persecution.(BNCI)
A good example of this is provided by the reaction provoked by the influx of the Palatines, fleeing religious persecution in Germany, and the Whig ministry's decision to allow them the benefit of naturalisation in 1709. (BNCI)
It was an appalling time of tyranny and religious persecution in which all classes of Scottish society, but mostly the ministers and farmers, and mainly in Ayrshire and Galloway, took the lead in resisting the final efforts of the Monarchy to install Episcopacy, many paying with their lives for adherence to their faith. (BNCI)