Upon this,
on Sunday last, there was about three hundred people at
Kirkcudbright Church; some that for seven years before had
never been there. So that I do expect that within a short
time I could bring two parts of three to the Church. But
when I have done,--that is all to no purpose. For we will be
no sooner gone, but in comes their Ministers, and all repent
and fall back to their old ways. So that it is vain to think
of any settlement here, without a constant force placed in
garrison. And this is the opinion of all the honest men
here, and their desire. For there are some of them, do what
they like, they cannot keep the preacher from their houses
in their absence, so mad are some of their wives."
His remedy was to raise a hundred dragoons for a permanent garrison: the
Crown was to pay the soldiers, and the country would find maintenance
for the horses, he bearing his own part as "a Galloway laird," which he
was as trustee of Macdowall's estate. The command of this new force he
was willing to undertake without any additional pay.
It does not seem that this remedy was ever sanctioned; but at any rate
Claverhouse so managed matters that a month later he was able to report
to the Council that all was "in perfect peace."
"All who were in the rebellion are either seized, gone out
of the country, or treating their peace; and they have
already so conformed, as to going to the Church, that it is
beyond my expectation.
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