Immediately on leaving college he joined the army of the Covenanters, and was present at the Battle of Drumclog, where, says Robert Wodrow, some attributed to Cleland the manoeuvre which led to the victory.
He escaped to Holland, but in 1685 was again in Scotland in connection with the abortive invasion led by Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll.
[1] He was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Cameronian regiment raised from the Marquess' tenantry and a minority of the western Covenanters who consented to serve under William II.
His poems have small literary merit, and are written, not in pure Lowland Scots, but in English.
The longest and most important of them are the mock poems On the Expedition of the Highland Host who came to destroy the western shires in winter 1678 and On the clergie when they met to consult about taking the Test in the year 1681.