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that some friends said to him “Sir, the people are waiting for sermons.” 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 friend's at Edinburgh, the prisoners, have done something to save their lives I shall not do with them, for the seabillows 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 subtil arguments and advices of ministers, who went into the New yard, where they were prisoners, particularly Mr. Hugh Kenedy. 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 dying lay heavy upon them all their days; and that these unhappy arguments and advices of ministers, prevailed more withthem
