“ When the day of his death drew near, and not being able to travel, he came to his brother's house, in the parish of Sorn, where he was born. He caused dig a cave with a saughen bush covering the mouth of it, near to his brother’s house; and the enemies came and searched the house narrowly many times. In the time that he was in this cave, he said to some friends, 1. That God shall make Scotland a desolation. 2. There shall be a remnant in the land, whom God should spare and hide. ”

“ Being in this strait, he said to Robert Wark, an old worthy Christian, worthy of credit, Robert, go and take such a man with you and the first Bark ye can find, compel them, for they will be like the dogs in Egypt, not one of them will move their tongue against you. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. of April, by Major Johnston, in Edinburgh, and detained prisoner in the Bass, where he died. As the interest of Christ lay near his heart through his life, amongst his last words he said, The Lord will defend his own cause. ”

“ They should lie in holes and caves of the earth, and be supplied with meat and drink: And when they come out of their holes, they shall not have freedom to walk, for stumbling on the dead corpses. 4. A stone cut of a mountain, should come down, and God shall be avenged on the great ones of the earth, and the inhabitants of the land, for their wickedness, and then the church should come forth with a bonny bairn-time of young ones at her back. ”

“ I had this account from John Muirhead, who staid much in that house, and other Christian people, when in Ireland.
20. After this, he longed to be out of Ireland, through the fearful apprehensions of that dismal day of rebellion in Ireland, that came upon it four years thereafter, and that he might take part with the sufferers in Scotland. He came near the coast one morning: John Muirhead came to him; lying within a hedge: he said, Have you any news, John? John said There is great fear of the Irish rising. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ He having a wife and children, took a house in East Lothian, where he became a singular Christian. Mr. Peden told these astonishing passages to the foresaid John Cubison and others, who informed me.
7. When brought from the Bass to Edinburgh and sentence of banishment passed upon him, in Dec. 1678. and sixty more fellow-prisoners, for the same cause, to go to America, never to be seen in Scotland again, under the pain of death; after this sentence was past, he several times said, that the ship was not yet built that should take him and these prisoners to Virginia ”

“ On the morrow he threshed victual with the lad, and the next night he spent the same way. The second day, in the morning, the lad said to his mistress, This man sleeps none but groans and prays all night; I get no sleep f (illegible text) him: he threshes very well, and is not sparing (illegible text) himself, tho’ I think he has not been used with it for he can do nothing to the botteling and ordering of the barn ”

“ In that short time he was in Ireland, the Governor required of all Presbyterian ministers that were in Ireland, that they should give it under their hand, that they (illegible text) d no accession to the late rebellion at Bothwel (illegible text) idge, in Scotland, and that they did not approve (illegible text) it; which the most part did; and sent Mr. Thomas Gowans, a Scotsman, and one Mr. Pa (illegible text) n, from the north of Ireland to Dublin, to present it to the Lord Lieutenant: the which when Mr. Peden heard, he said, Mr. Gowans and his brother Mr. ”