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and some of us shall go richer home, than we came from home." James Pride, who lived in Fife, an honest man, being one of them, he said many times, he could assert the truth of this, for he came safely home; and, besides other things, he bought two cows; and before that he never had one. I had these accounts both from the foresaid James Kay and Robert Punton, a known public man, worthy of all credit, who was also under the same sentence and lived in the parish of Dalmeny, near Queensferry.
When they arrived at London, the skipper who received them at Leith was to carry them no farther. 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.
