Mr. Welch was transported to Ayr in the year 1590, and there he continued till he was banished, there he had a very hard beginning, but a good ending; for when he came first to the town, the country was so wicked, and the hatred of godliness so great, that there could not be found one in all the town, that would let him a house to dwell in, so he was constrained to accommodate himself in the best he might, in a part of a gentleman’s house for a time, the gentleman’s name was John Stewart, he was an eminent Christian, and a great assistant of Mr. Welch. And when he had first taken up his residence in that town, the place was so divided into factions, and filled with bloody conflicts, a man could hardly walk the streets with safety; wherefore Mr. Welch made it his first undertaking to remove the bloody quarrelings, but he found it a very difficult work; yet such was his earnestness to pursue his design, that many times he would rush betwixt two parties of men fighting, even in the midst of blood and wounds. His manner was, after he had ended a skirmish amongst his neighbours, and reconciled these bitter enemies, to cause them to cover a table upon the street, and there brought the enemies together, and begining with prayer he persuaded them to protest themselves friends, and then to eat and drink together, then last of all, he ended the work with singing a psalm: after the rude people began to observe his example, and listen to his heavenly doctrine, he came quickly to that respect amongst them that he became not only a necessary counsellor, without whose counsel they would do nothing, but an example to imitate, and so he buried the bloody quarrels. He gave himself wholly to ministerial exercises, he preached once every day, he prayed the third part of his time, was unwearied in his studies, and for a proof of this, it was found among his papers, that he had abridged Suarez’s metaphysics, when they came first to his hand, even when he was well stricken in years. By all which, it appears, that he has not only been a man of great diligence but also of a strong and robust natural constitution, otherwise he had never endured the fatigue.