A LETTER From EDINBURGH, NOVEMBER 30.1643.  
Giving full satisfaction to all men why the SCOTISH Army is not yet Advanced into ENGLAND.  
My true and constant Friend,  
Give me leave to use this compellation of you who lives in the midst of so many changes and changelings. Suffer me also to entreat you to afford me a little of your patience (if it be not all spent) till you have perused and pondered these few lines, expressing the condition of our affairs here, and then pronounce your sentence.  
Master Hatcher and his Company with the Treaty, and the Money, came to Leith road November 21. so long a time it pleased God to keep him on Sea, and thereby by exercise our patience.  
The public Orders to the Shires concerning the general Rendezvous (which is appointed to be upon the 29. of December at Hairlaw, a place four miles from Berwicke) were exped upon the fourth day after the arrival of the Ship, which was Novemb. 25.  
The nearest Regiments are appointed to march presently towards the borders, there to quarter and exercise themselves, and to meet with the Cavaliers, if any of them shall appear till the day of Rendezvous.  
Consider with yourself, what time you will allow for sending the Orders to the Shires, to call the Committees of the several Shires, to bring together the Soldiers to their Colours, and to march as fare as Berwick, from which some of the Regiments are no less than a hundred miles distant; after you have impartially considered these and other such necessary duties and distractions, you will not condemn us of delays or slackness.  
Ireland hath also bred us at this time, much trouble and hindrance, for upon the very day of Master Hatcher his arrival, Commissioners came from Ireland, expressing the unsupporable sufferings of our Irish Army: One of them swore to myself, that being present at a Parade, he did see a whole Regiment, whereof scarcely one hundred had either stockings or shoes, but all barelegged and  in this season of the year; and yet poor souls, they are ready to take the Covenant, and to spend their lives against the Cessation, if they had necessaries for their lives furnished unto them.  
Our Counsels were tossed betwixt two extremities, upon the one hand to bring them away, was to give up that Kingdom into the hands of Papists and Rebels; to suffer the poor Protestants there either to be driven forth, and to come upon us for relief, or their throats to be cut by their barbarity, which hath destroyed so many already; and to make the Rebels strong and united for invading these two Kingdoms. Upon the other hand, to keep them there, and to feed them with promises, and really to starve them, as we have done for a long time were to fall in the like barbarity.  
In this perplexity, we have been forced to dispatch from Air 4000 bolls of meal, which we had provided for the Western Regiments, and are providing other necessaries to be sent unto the with diligence. This hath been an unexpected & untimeous, but a necessary diversion of our counsels from the great business. And hath taken up a great part of our time, which the English Commissioners here do know; and the wise there cannot but acknowledge.  
The act of public faith is also concluded, and sent up that there be nothingwanting on our part: No sooner did the Committee of the convention of Estates resolve upon the day of general rendezvous, but the Commissioners of the general assembly in their meeting at Edenbrugh, have appointed a public fast and humiliation for a blessing from Heaven upon our expedition, which is to be solemnly kept in the Army, & in all the Kirks of the Kingdom Jan. 7. being the Lords day, and the wednesday following according to the warning sent to all the Presbitaries and the particular causes expressed therein, which I have herewith sent unto you.  
Thus have we revolved with our prayers and endeavours to join in the cause of God and to wait for his blessing for success.  
FINIS.