Reduced for want of provisions, and seeing all succors cut off
by the seizure of the fleet, the inhabitants, detesting their new
rulers, collected in bands; and lying in wait for the soldiers of the
garrison, murdered them secretly, and in great numbers. But here the
evil did not end; for by the punishments which the governor thought
proper to inflict by lots on the guilty, or the guiltless (he not being
able to discover who were actually the assassins), the distress of the
town was augmented to a horrible degree. Such a state of things could
not be long maintained. Aware that should he continue in the fortress,
his troops must assuredly perish, either by insurrection within, or
from the enemy without, the Southron commander determined no longer to
wait the appearance of a relief which might never arrive; and to stop
the internal confusion, be sent a flag of truce to Wallace, accepting
and signing his offered terms of capitulation. By this deed, he
engaged to open the gates at sunset, but begged the interval between
noon and that hour, to allow him time to settle the animosity between
his men and the people before he should surrender his brave followers
entirely into the hands of the Scots.
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