After an interval of a few years, during which no witch-cases appear on
the Privy Council Record, we find a considerable number in the autumn
of this year, some at Aberdeen, some at Fogo in Berwickshire, some at
Castle Tirrim in Inverness-shire. On the 11th of November, the Council
issued a commission for the trial of Grizzel Jaffray, spouse of James
Butchard, maltman, now prisoner in the Tolbooth of Dundee, on suspicion
of ‘the horrid crime of witchcraft.’ The gentlemen of the commission
were empowered to put her to the knowledge of an assize, ‘and if, by
her own confession without any sort of torture or other indirect means
used, it shall be found she hath renounced her baptism, entered into
paction with the devil, or otherwise that malefices be legally proven
against her, that then and no otherwise they cause the sentence of
death to be execute upon her.’ It is believed that, notwithstanding
these enlightened orders, Grizzel suffered incremation.
Tradition connects an affecting anecdote with the case of Grizzel
Jaffray. It is stated that her only son, having been long absent at
sea, returned in command of his vessel to Dundee, and entered the port
at the very time that the execution of his mother was proceeding in the
Sea-gate. On hearing the cause of the unusual bustle seen in the town,
he set sail again, and was never more seen in Dundee.
On the 6th of January 1670, we find the Privy Council engaged in a new
kind of proceeding regarding witchcraft. A woman called Mary M‘Donald,
‘being maliciously pursued by the captain of Clanranald and M‘Donald
of Morar for the alleged crime of witchcraft,’ came before the Council
for protection, being ‘in fear to be apprehended by the said persons,’
notwithstanding her having given caution to appear and underlie the law
in June next. The desired protection was given.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1669.]
Amidst the incessant religious troubles of the period, there were some
symptoms of a disposition to mercantile enterprise. At the suggestion
of sundry ‘expert merchants,’ a Society for Fishing was formed, with
the design of prosecuting that employment around the coast, where it
was notorious that the Dutch were driving a profitable trade. One of
the considerations that weighed with the enterprisers was, that there
were many poor people who would work cheaper than the Dutch, ‘and by
this the country would get vent for their meal and beasts, which gave
no price.’ No one was admitted who did not subscribe at least £100
sterling. The king subscribed £5000, and ‘obliged himself that all
materials should be freed from custom and excise. Yet many gentlemen
refused to enter, fearing that the merchants, who behoved to manage
all, would cheat the other partners; and many merchants refused to
enter a society where so many noblemen were engaged, by whom they were
afraid to be overawed. Yet the stock did soon increase to £25,000
sterling.’[222]
Every mercantile design in that age was clogged by the spirit of
monopoly. If a man proposed to set up a stage-coach, there must be no
other stage-coaches but his upon the road. If a company designed to
introduce the manufacture of glass, or soap, or any other article, they
must have the exclusive right of making the article for a generation.
The Royal Company, as it was called, began as usual by securing
monopolies. ‘No others might import or export salt or fish for certain
months of the year but only of that company.’ This ‘impoverished many
families which traded that way,’ and ‘did occasion great grumbling
among the people.’--_Law._
In 1677, the Royal Company passed an ordinance for strictly enforcing
their exclusive right to fish around the Scottish shores, demanding
that any other party fishing should take out a licence from them. They
themselves being bound only to fish for the service of the country, and
not to send any fish abroad, by this restriction, says Fountainhall,
‘many in Glasgow, Dunbar, &c., will be great losers, who, by the export
of fish on their own private adventures, brought in above 400,000
merks yearly.’ ‘The remedy,’ he adds, ‘will be to enter into the said
company; only, they _would be abler with £50 sterling alone to manage
the said trade, than with £200 given in there_.’
We have here a curious complication of errors in political
economy--private enterprise and fair competition checked, and foreign
trade forbidden. One would think that the most ingenious contrivances
of an enemy could scarcely have devised a state of things more
harassingly detrimental to a country; and the wonder is that even
selfishness should have been so blind as not to see that the free
industry of all was calculated to give better results.
[Sidenote: 1669.]
There is so much in the religious troubles of this period to attract
attention, that history takes little note of anything else. Yet there
was also a complete suite of chronic evils arising from the little
advancement made in the arts and economy of life. The king appropriated
an exclusive right to make salt, though only to hand it over to a
courtier; the salt was consequently bad and dear. In some districts--as
Galloway, the west, and the Highlands--to which the native article
could not be carried, salt was wholly wanting, and the people used
salt-water instead, ‘by which many of them died as of a plague;
others being forced to buy at intolerable rates, as sixteen shillings
the boll, though they formerly had it for four.’ Another statesman,
married to a niece of Lauderdale, had a control over the importation of
brandy, and managed to make that liquor to some extent supersede both
native ‘strong waters’ and Spanish wines. A third, Sir John Nicolson,
was allowed to put a tax on tobacco. He was grandson of Sir William
Dick, and it was thought by this means to repay in some measure the
public debt incurred to that famous merchant in the time of the Civil
War. Moralists of a loyal type tried to make out that it was well to
check the use of ‘an unnecessary and expensive drug;’ but ‘custom
had made tobacco as necessary as nature had made meat and drink, and
consequently this imposition was as grievous as if bread or ale had
been burdened.’[223] Add to these vexing imposts a coin debased for
the profit of the mint-master--a brother of Lauderdale--and it will be
seen that the evils of Scotland during this reign were not wholly of a
sentimental nature.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1670.