dying, lay heavy upon them all their days; and that these unhappy arguments and advices of ministers, prevailed more with them than the enemies’ promise of life and liberty. In August 1679, fifteen of the Bothwel-prisoners got indictments of death. Mr. Edward Jamieson, a worthy Presbyterian minister, as Mr. Woodrow calls him, was sent from that Erastian meeting of ministers into the Tolbooth to these fifteen, who urged the lawfulness of taken the bond to save their lives; and the refusal of it would be a reflection to religion, and the cause they had appeared for, and a throwing away their lives, for which their friends would not be able to vindicate them. He prevailed with thirteen of them, which soured in the stomachs of some of those thirteen, and lay heavy upon them both in their life and death. The prisoners taken at and about the time of Bothwel, were reckoned about fifteen hundred. The faithful Mr. John Blackader did write to these prisoners, dissuading them from that foul compliance; and some worthy persons of these prisoners, whom he wrote to, said to me with tears, that they slighted his advice, and swallowed the unhappy advices of these ministers who were making peace with the enemies of God, and followed their foul steps, for which they would go mourning to their graves. I heard the same Mr. Blackader preach his last public sermon before falling into the enemies’ hands in the night-time in the fields, in the parish of Livingstone, upon the side of the Muir, at New-house, on the 23d. of March, after Bothwel, where he lectured upon Micah iv. from the 9th. verse, where he asserted, That the nearer the delivery, our pains and showers would come thicker and sorer upon us; and that we had been long in the fields, but ere we were delivered, we would go down to Babylon; that either Popery would overspread this land, or be at the breaking in upon us like on inundation of water. And preached upon that text, ‘Let no man be moved with these afflictions, for ye yourselves know, that ye are appointed thereunto.’ Where he insisted on what moving and shaking dispensations the Lord had exercised his people with in former ages, especially that man of God, that went to Jeroboam at Bethel, and delivered his commission faithfully, and yet was turned out of the way by an old lying prophet; how moving and stumbling the manner of his death was to all Israel! And earnestly requested us to take good heed to what ministers we heard, and what advice we followed. When he prayed, he blessed the Lord that he was free of both band and rope: and that he was as clearly willing to hold up the public blest standard of the gospel as ever: And said, The Lord rebuke, give repentance and forgiveness to these ministers that persuaded these prisoners to take that bond. For their perishing by sea was more moving and shocking to him, than if some thousands of them had been slain in the field. He was thereafter taken, the 6th.