Hall was intercepted at South Queensferry where Robert Middleton, the governor of Blackness Castle, tried to arrest him along with Donald Cargill.

An unsigned and probably unfinished work known as The Queensferry Paper was found on Hall which caused considerable disquiet when it was read by government supporters.

He was a son of Robert (locally called Hobbie) Hall, whose name stands in an old valuation roll of 1643 as proprietor of Haughhead, on the banks of the Kale Water, in the parish of Eckford in Lower Teviotdale.

Near the house is a flat stone inscribed with verses commemorating an encounter in 1620 between 'Hobbie' Hall and some neighbours who attempted to seize the land on behalf of a powerful landowner.

After the restoration of episcopacy by Charles II, Hall adhered to the presbyterian preachers, and became so obnoxious to the government that in 1665 he took refuge on the English side of the border, but within an easy riding distance of his estate.

He left his retreat to join the Covenanters, who were in arms at the Pentland Hills in 1666, and was arrested and imprisoned in Cessford Castle, two or three miles from his own home.

Its seclusion and proximity to the border hills, where refuge could easily be found in case of surprise by the dragoons, admirably adapted it for this purpose.

[2] Hall was one of four Covenanting elders who, at a council of war at Shawhead Muir, on 18 June 1679, were appointed, with Cargill, Douglas, King, and Barclay, to draw up a statement of Causes of the Lord's wrath against the Land.

News of the banned Covenanters being in the neighbourhood was given by the government sanctioned church ministers of the locality and reached Robert Middleton, the governor of Blackness Castle.