9. When they arrived at London, the skipper who received them at Leith, was to carry them no further. The skipper who was to receive them there, and carry them to Virginia, came to see them, they being represented to him as thieves, robbers, and evil-doers; but when he found they were all grave Christian men, banished for Presbyterian principles, he said he would sail the sea with none such. In this confusion: that the one skipper would not receive them, and the other would keep them no longer, being expensive to maintain them they were all set at liberty. Some reported that both skippers got compliments from friends at London; however, it is certain they were all set free without any imposition of bonds or oaths; and friends at London, and on their way homewards, through England shewed much kindness unto them. 10. That dismal day, June 22d. 1679, at Bothwel-bridge, that the Lord’s people fell, and fled before the enemy, he was forty miles distant, near the border, and kept himself retired until the middle of the day, that some friends said to him, ‘Sir, the people are waiting for sermon.’ He said, ‘Let the people go to their prayers; for me, I neither can nor will preach any this day; for our friends are fallen, and fled before the enemy at Hamilton; and they are hanging and hashing them down, and their blood is running like water!’ 11. After this, he was preaching in Galloway: in the forenoon he prayed earnestly for the prisoners taken at and about Bothwel; but in the afternoon, when he began to pray for them, he halted and said, ‘Our friends at Edinburgh, the prisoners, have done something to save their lives that shall not do with them, for the sea-billows shall be many of their winding-sheets; and the few of them that escape, shall not be useful to God in their generation.’ Which was sadly verified thereafter. That which the greatest part of these prisoners did, was the taking of that bond, commonly called the Black Bond, after Bothwel, wherein they acknowledged their appearance in arms, for the defence of the gospel and their own lives, to be rebellion; and engaged themselves never to make any more opposition: upon the doing of which, these perfidious enemies promised them life and liberty. This with the cursed and subtile arguments and advices of ministers, who went into the New Yard, where they were prisoners, particularly Mr. Hugh Kennedy, Mr. William Crighton, Mr. Edward Jamieson, and Mr. George Johnston; these took their turn in the yard where the prisoners were, together with a letter that was sent from that Erastian meeting of ministers, met at Edinburgh in August 1679, for the acceptance of a third indulgence, with a cautionary bond. Notwithstanding of the enemies’ promise, and the unhappy advice of ministers not indulged, after they were ensnared in this foul compliance, they banished 255, whereof 205 perished in the Orkney-sea. This foul step, as some of them told, both in their life, and when