hey had been at battles abroad; and that if they had been as
well trained, horsed and armed as they were, they would surely have been
put to flight. And few of them escaped, for their shots and strokes were
deadly, of which few recovered; for though there were but nine of the
covenanters killed, yet there were twenty-eight of the enemy killed or
died of their wounds in a few days.

Walker's memoirs, p. 56.

[178] See his letters and answers in the cloud of witnesses.

[179] See more of this laird of Blackstoun, in the appendix.

[180] For a particular account of this gift, see Samson's Riddle, &c.
page 139, 144.

[181] See more of Murray in the Appendix.

[182] It would appear, he was retaken about the end of that year, by the
acts of council; and liberate without any conditions: which was a thing
uncommon at this time. Vid. Wodrow's history, Vol. {illegible}, page
146.

N. B. It has been thought somewhat strange, that the posterity of such
ancient and religious families as this and Earlstoun should be now
extinct in their houses and estates. But this needs be no paradox; for
the condition of the covenant or promise of property and dignity
is,--_if thy children will keep my covenant and testimony, their
children shall also sit upon thy throne for ever, and shall return unto
the Lord thy God, and obey his voice; thy God will bring them unto the
land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shall possess it._ Now the
contrary practices must produce the contrary effects: and upon none more
remarkable than those who apostatize from the profession, principles and
piety of their ancestors. It is said, that Sir Thomas Gordon of
Earlstoun fell into a profligate and irreligious life. And for Donald
Ker, he fell in with king William, and was killed at the battle of
Steinkirk in Flanders, 1692. And for John Crawford (alias Ker) who
married his sister, and with her the estate of Kersland, he got a patent
to be a rogue, _patrem sequitur sua proles_, from Queen Ann and her
ministry, by virtue of which, he feigned himself sometimes a Jacobite,
and sometimes an old dissenter, or Cameronian, (as he calls them) unto
whom he gives high encomiums. What correspondences he might have with
some of these who had been officers in the Angus regiment I know not;
but it is evident from the minute of the general meeting that he was
never admitted into the community, or secrets of the genuine old
dissenters: for, though he attended one or more