[Sidenote: 1683.]
The widow of Andrew Anderson at this time carried on business in
Edinburgh as the king’s printer, by virtue of a royal gift debarring
others from exercising the like art. The bibles produced by her are
said by Fountainhall to have been wretchedly executed. One David
Lindsay having now got a similar gift, Mrs Anderson endeavoured to
keep him out of the trade, setting forth that she had been previously
invested with the privilege, and ‘_one press is sufficiently able to
serve all Scotland_, our printing being but inconsiderable.’[295] The
Lords ordained that Mrs Anderson’s monopoly should be held as only
including the printing of such things as had been specified in the gift
to her husband’s predecessor Tyler.
There were at this time printers in Glasgow and Aberdeen, but probably
no other part of Scotland--though St Andrews had had a press before
the Reformation. The business of the printer has been of slow growth
in our country. Edinburgh contained in 1763 only six printing-offices;
in 1790, sixteen;[296] there are, in 1858, sixty-two printing firms,
besides several publishing offices, in which special printing work is
executed.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FEB. 1.]
It was represented to the Privy Council by the Bishop of Aberdeen that
the Quakers in his diocese were now proceeding to such insolency, as
to erect meeting-houses for their worship and ‘schools for training
up their children in their godless and heretical opinions;’ providing
funds for the support of these establishments, and in some instances
adding burial-grounds for their own special use. The Council issued
orders to have proper investigations made amongst the leading Quakers
concerned and the proprietors of the ground on which the said
meeting-houses and schools had been built.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 5.]
At the funeral of the Duke of Lauderdale at Haddington, while the usual
dole of money was distributing among the beggars, one, named Bell,
stabbed another. ‘He was apprehended, and several stolen things found
on him; and, he being made to touch the corpse, the wound bled afresh.
The town of Haddington, who it seems have a sheriff’s power, judged him
presently, and hanged him over the bridge next day.’--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 19.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
Alexander Robertson of Struan, whom we saw two years back breaking
out with mortal fury against an agent of the Marquis of Athole in the
chamber of the Privy Council, now comes before us in a more agreeable
light--namely, as one seeking to cultivate an industrial economy in
the midst of the vicious idleness and barbarism of the Highlands. Far
up among the Perthshire alps, on the dreary shores of Loch Rannoch,
there was then ‘a considerable wood,’ the property of Struan. This
would have been useless to him and the country--being in so remote a
wilderness--‘if he had not, with great expenses and trouble, caused
erect _saw-mills_, in which, these divers years past, there has been
made the number of 176,000 deals.’ This had redounded ‘to the great
benefit and conveniency of the country adjacent, besides the keeping
of many persons at work’ who would otherwise have been idle and in
wretchedness. Struan, however, could not obtain a market for the great
bulk of his timber, without sending it in floats along Loch Rannoch,
and down the water of Tummel into the Tay; and in this long and tedious
passage, it was sometimes driven by storms and spates [floods] on
shore, or on the banks of the rivers, where it was made prey of by
the country people, ‘thinking they would be no further liable than
to a _dead spulyie_.’ Occasionally, ‘louss and broken men’ attacked
his mills in the night-time, and helped themselves to such timber as
they wanted. ‘So that his work was likely to be broken and ruined.’
The Privy Council, on Struan’s petition, issued a strong edict for
the prevention of these spoliations, and further gave him power to
make roads between his saw-mills in Carrie and Apnadull, and to take
a charge of those from Rannoch to Perth, so that he might have the
alternative of land-carriage for his timber.--_P. C. R._
The chance of getting the spoliations put down must have been very
small, for thieving raged like a very pestilence in the Highlands. The
Earl of Perth, writing from Drummond in July 1682, says expressively:
‘We are so plagued with thieving here, it would pity any heart to see
the condition the poor people are in.’[297]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR.]
Sir Thomas Stewart of Coltness[298] was obliged to fly to Holland,
in consequence of a vague threat held out by Sir George Mackenzie,
supposed to have been designed to frighten the unfortunate gentleman
away, that his estate might be seized. The subsequent circumstances,
as related by his son, give a striking view of the troubles in which a
Presbyterian family of rank might then be involved, even while making
no active demonstrations against the government.
[Sidenote: 1683.]
‘The day after he was gone, came one of the Lord Advocate’s
emissaries, Irvine of Bonshaw, with a party of dragoons heated with
fury and with liquor.... They demanded the family horses, though their
warrant bore no more than to apprehend the person of Thomas Stewart
of Coltness; and when Irvine was told by Mr James Stewart, Coltness’s
second son, that he was acting beyond orders in offering to seize
horses or goods, he swore and blasphemed against rebels and assassins,
and that any treatment was warrantable against such. The child Robert
made some childish noise, and he threw down the boy of eight years old
from a high leaping-on stone. The lady, seven months gone with child,
came down to reason with him, but he was so much the more enraged. He
offered to shoot the groom [who] stood behind, for denying the keys
of the stable, and at length carried off the young gentlemen David
and James’s horses.... There was a complaint given in at Edinburgh,
and the horses were returned, jaded and abused by ramblers. This Mr
Irvine, some months after, in a drunken quarrel at Lanark, was stabbed
to death on a dunghill by one of his own gang: a proper exit for such a
blood-hound.’
The lady immediately displenished her house, and, notwithstanding
the delicate state in which she was, prepared to follow her husband
to Holland. Taking with her her step-son David, and a niece of three
years, the child of Mr James Stewart, also an exile in Holland, she
set sail from Borrowstounness in the beginning of June. The ship
encountered a severe storm. ‘The sea was so boisterous, the lady was
in danger of being tossed from her bed, and her step-son was alarmed,
and got up staggering in the hold, and bewailing; but she composedly
said: “David, go to your cabin-bed, and be more quiet, for there is no
back-door here to fly out by.” In some days after, they got safe to
harbour. They took the treck-scuit from Rotterdam to Utrecht, and a
surprising accident happened by the way, and in the scuit close by her:
a Dutch minister’s wife, a fellow-traveller and with child, miscarried
and died instantly. The husband was as one distracted, and would not be
persuaded she was dead, but in a swoon. He made lamentable outcries,
but all to no effect. This was alarming to the lady, and made her
reflect and acknowledge the kind Providence had preserved her and the
fruit of her womb, when in danger both in the journey and the stormy
voyage. Coltness has a remark of thanksgiving on this in his diary,
and concludes with this, “God makes our hymn sound both of mercy and
judgment.”
[Sidenote: 1683.]
‘Her husband, with Mr Pringle of Torwoodlee, came half-way on to
Leyden, and met these recent fugitives, and conducted them to Utrecht,
where trouble was in part forgot, and sorrow in some measure fled,
upon the first transports of being safe and together. Here was the
ingenuous, upright Archibald Earl of Argyle, too virtuous for so
licentious a court as that of King Charles. Here was the Earl of
Loudon, who died anno 1684, and lies buried in the English church
at Leyden. There was here the Lord Viscount Stair, and with him for
education his son, Sir David Dalrymple, in better times Lord Advocate,
and his grandson John, that great general under Queen Anne, and the
ambassador of elegant figure in France, and a field-marshal under King
George. Here was also Lord Melville, [who became] High Commissioner
to the Restitution Parliament under King William, and secretary of
state, and with him his son the Earl of Leven, who went to the king of
Prussia’s service, and after this was commander-in-chief in Scotland,
and governor of Edinburgh Castle in Queen Anne’s reign. But it were
endless to name all the honest party of gentry and ministers, outlawed,
banished, and forfaulted, for the cause of religion and civil liberty.’
In July, Lady Coltness brought into the world the person who relates
the above particulars. ‘The occasion was joyful to the parents; but
the mother had not the blessing of the breasts, and there was hard
procuring a nurse for a stranger. This gave a damp; but a Dutch lady
was so kind as wean her daughter a little sooner, and so a careful and
experienced nurse was procured.’
[Sidenote: 1683.]
‘... Coltness fell in straits ... for he soon spent the little he
brought with him, and remittances were uncertain and but small. His
friends at home were under a cloud. Alertoun, his brother-in-law, was
imprisoned and fined; Sir John Maxwell, his other brother-in-law, was
fined £10,000 and imprisoned; and his younger children had none to
care for them, but their grandmother, Sir James Stewart’s widow. She
had a large jointure [that] was not affected, and acted the part of a
kind parent.... In this present situation, the old widow lady could
give little relief to those banished. It was chargeable supporting
the expenses of a family in Holland, and all visible sources were
stopped or withdrawn; yet a kind Providence raised up friends in a
strange land. Of these the most sympathising was Mr Andrew Russell,
merchant-factor at Rotterdam; he generously proffered money, and
genteelly, as it were, forced it upon Coltness (and so he did to Sir
Patrick Hume of Polwarth, Mr James Stewart, advocate, and others),
though he could have no probable prospect of recovering it; and yet all
was thankfully repaid after the Revolution.’
‘In the end of 1684, Coltness removed to Rotterdam, and there he
received many civilities and friendships from his countrymen,
merchants, and others, and had some remittances, and in part
provisions, transmitted in Scotch ships. Here he had much society of
fellow-sufferers, and they had select meetings for conference and
intelligence. The badge of such select club was a seal in wax, upon
a bit of rounded card, with a blue ribbon and a knot, all in a small
spale-box. I have seen Coltness’s ticket; the device was handsome, the
motto _Omne tulit punctum_, the seal was upon a single spot of the
heart suite card.’[299]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
These severities against the Coltness family form a striking example
of those now practised every day upon the known adherents of the more
extreme Presbyterian views, and the whole would be quite unintelligible
to a candid mind in our times, if we were not aware that, thirty years
before, the party in which Sir Thomas Stewart’s father was a leader,
were subjecting _their_ dissidents to precisely similar treatment:[300]
see, for example, the case of the family of Menzies of Pitfoddels,
fined, confiscated, driven from their native land and means of living,
and the lady and one of her sons lost in a storm at sea;[301] see
the case of Dr Forbes of Corse, thrust from his college and country
because he scrupled to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant; his
very bones refused burial in his own ground! It happened that, in
the very same month which saw Sir Thomas Stewart’s family subjected
to the harsh treatment above described, there was an application to
the Privy Council regarding the sufferings of an Episcopalian family
through two generations, in consequence of the rigours exercised partly
under the dictation of Sir Thomas’s father. It is in the form of a
petition from Mr John Ross, minister of Foveran in Aberdeenshire, and
Mr Alexander Ross, parson of Perth. Their grandfather, Mr John Ross,
parson of Birse in Aberdeenshire, had been turned out of his ministry
in 1647, merely for his ‘opposition to the rebellious and seditious
principles and practices which at that time had overspread the land.’
He was likewise ‘fined at several times in five thousand merks, and
imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for the space of nine months
together, and forced to lend the sum of four thousand merks on the
public bands, as they were called, for carrying on that unnatural
war.’ He had ‘his house frequently plundered by the rebellious armies
then on foot, so that [he] was prejudged in at least the sum of twenty
thousand pounds Scots.’ Thus pillaged, and kept out of his ministry
for thirteen years, he had been reduced to great straits, and left
his family in poverty. The claim of the sufferer and his family was
acknowledged at the Restoration by an order of two hundred pounds out
of the vacant stipends; but it had never been paid. His eldest son,
parson of Monymusk, the father of the petitioners, and who had likewise
suffered for his loyalty, was kept poor all his days through the losses
of his father, and had lately died, leaving a widow and eight children
alive, besides the petitioners, with no means of support but what the
petitioners could contribute.[302] Here, in short, was a clerical
family originally of some substance, reduced to poverty through the
oppressions which had been exercised upon it by those now in their
turn suffering, or their predecessors.[303] In such facts there is
certainly no valid excuse for the severities of the present time; but
they tell us how these severities came to be practised. The reaction,
however, from the Presbyterian reign of terror in the middle of the
century was now beginning to strain and crack, and a settlement of the
political pendulum was not far distant.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JUNE 5.]
At the circuit court at Stirling, a man was tried for reviling a
parson, ‘in causing the piper play _The Deil stick the Minister_.
Sundry pipers were there present as witnesses, to declare it was the
name of ane spring.’[304]--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 12.]
Captain Thomas Hamilton, merchant in Edinburgh, who had for some years
carried on a considerable trade with the American plantations in the
importation of beaver and racoon skins, craved and obtained privileges
for a manufactory of _beaver hats_ which he proposed to set up, being
the first ever attempted in Scotland. He set forth his design as one
which ‘will do no prejudice to any felt-makers,’ while it would benefit
the kingdom by furnishing a particular class of articles ‘at easy
rates.’ He expected also to be able to export his hats.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP.]
Alexander Young, Bishop of Ross, ‘a moderate and learned man,’ being
afflicted with stone, was obliged, like his predecessor in the like
circumstances above a hundred years before,[305] to travel to Paris for
the purpose of having a surgical operation performed for his relief.
Like his predecessor, also, he sank under the consequences of the
operation.--_Foun._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
It was believed that much native copper existed in Scotland; yet all
attempts at realising it by mining had failed. A German named Joachim
Gonel, highly skilled in copper-mining, now proposed to the Privy
Council to work a copper-mine in the parish of Currie with proper
workmen brought from abroad, all at his own expense, provided only he
got a present of the mine from the state. The Council, deeming such a
work calculated to be useful to the public interest, recommended the
government to comply with the request.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: NOV.]
At this time began a frost which lasted with great severity till March,
‘with some storms and snow now and then.’ ‘The rivers at Dundee,
Borrowstounness, and other places where the sea ebbs and flows, did
freeze, which hath not been observed in the memory of man before; and
thereby the cattle, especially the sheep, were reduced to great want
... the like not seen since the winter 1674.’--_Foun._
This frost prevailed equally in England and Ireland, producing ice on
the Thames below Gravesend. One remarkable circumstance arising from it
is noted by a gentleman residing in London, that printing was hindered
for a quarter of a year (by the hardening of the ink).[306]
Patrick Walker speaks emphatically of this frost, and says: ‘Even
before the snow fell, when the earth was as iron, how many graves
were in the west of Scotland in desert places, in ones, twos, threes,
fours, fives together, which was no imaginary thing! Many yet alive,
who measured them with their staves, [found them] exactly the deepness,
breadth, and length of other graves, and the lump of earth lying whole
together at their sides, which they set their feet upon and handled
with their hands. Which many concluded afterwards did presage the two
bloody slaughter years that followed, when eighty-two of the Lord’s
people were suddenly and cruelly murdered in desert places.’
‘An old minister, Mr Bennet, records in his manuscripts, that, before
our late troubles [the Civil War], there were a number of graves cast
open in a moor in the south.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC.]
A scandal broke forth against Mr John M‘Queen, one of the ministers
of Edinburgh. It was alleged that, having fallen besottedly in love
with Mrs Euphame Scott, who despised him, he contrived by a trick to
obtain possession of one of her under-garments, out of which he made
a waistcoat and pair of drawers, by wearing which he believed the
lady would infallibly be induced to give him her affections. ‘He was
suspended for thir fooleries; but in the beginning of February 1684,
the bishop reponed him.’--_Foun._
[Sidenote: 1683.]
If the Presbyterian satirists are not altogether fable-mongers, the
bishop (Paterson) must have had a strong fellow-feeling for M‘Queen.
‘He is said to have kissed his band-strings in the pulpit, in the midst
of an eloquent discourse, which was the signal agreed upon betwixt
him and a lady to whom he was suitor, to shew he could think upon her
charms even while engaged in the most solemn duties of his profession.
Hence he was nicknamed _Bishop Band-strings_.’[307]
* * * * *
It appears there were now two sugar-works in the kingdom, and only
two--being placed at Glasgow[308]--and one of them was in danger of
being stopped in consequence of the death of Peter Gemble, one of
the four partners, his widow refusing to advance her share of what
was necessary for carrying on of the work. Materials, utensils, and
men, to the extent of £16 sterling of wages monthly, were thus thrown
idle--a general calamity. The Privy Council (December 20) enjoined the
magistrates of Glasgow to use their endeavours to get the difference
composed and the work kept up.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DEC. 26.]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
A dismally tragical incident occurred at the Hirsel, the seat of the
Earl of Home near Coldstream. The earl having been long detained
in London, the countess, to beguile the time during the Christmas
holidays, had a party of the neighbouring gentlemen invited to the
house. Amongst these were Johnston of Hilton, Home of Ninewells,
and the Hon. William Home, brother of the earl, and the sheriff of
Berwickshire--three gentlemen who, like the countess, have all been
before us lately in connection with the abduction of the young Lady
Ayton. Cards and dice being resorted to, and William having lost
a considerable sum, a quarrel took place among the gentlemen, and
Johnston, who was of a haughty and hot temper, gave William a slap
in the face. The affair seemed to have been amicably composed, and
all had gone to bed, when William Home rose and went to Johnston’s
chamber, to call him to account for the affront he conceived himself
to have suffered. What passed in the way of conversation between the
two is not known; but certain it is that Home stabbed Johnston in his
bed with nine severe wounds. Home of Ninewells, who slept near by,
came to see what caused the disturbance, and, as he entered the room,
received a sword-thrust from the sheriff, who was now retiring, and
who immediately fled into England upon Johnston’s horse.
The unfortunate Hilton died in a few days. Ninewells recovered. The
sheriff--of whom it was shudderingly remarked that this bloody fact
happened exactly a twelvemonth after the execution of a Presbyterian
rebel whom he had apprehended--was never caught. He was supposed to
have entered some foreign service, and died in battle. In advanced
life, he is said to have made an experiment to ascertain if he could
be allowed to spend the remainder of his days in his native country.
A son of the slaughtered Johnston, while at a public assembly, ‘was
called out to speak with a person, who, it was said, brought him some
particular news from abroad. The stranger met him at the head of the
staircase, in a sort of lobby which led into the apartment where the
company were dancing. He told young Johnston of Hilton, that the man
who had slain his father was on his death-bed, and had sent him to
request his forgiveness before he died. Before granting his request,
Johnston asked the stranger one or two questions; and observing that
he faltered in his answers, he suddenly exclaimed: “You yourself are
my father’s murderer,” and drew his sword to stab him. Home--for it
was the homicide himself--threw himself over the balustrade of the
staircase, and made his escape.’[309]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1683.]
This year a great alarm was excited by a conjunction of the planets
Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation of Leo. It was announced as an
extraordinary conjunction, which had only happened twice before since
the creation of the world; and ‘our prognosticators all spoke of it
as very ominous,’ ‘portending great alterations in Europe.’ Mr George
Sinclair, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow, considered it as
nothing less than ‘terrible.’ To add to the general uneasiness, some
one brought out a treatise on comets, promising a further one under the
title of _Catastrophe Mundi_. Fountainhall was evidently puzzled, for
from November 1682 to March 1683, the season had been ‘like a spring
for mildness,’ and he really could not say whether such an event as
this could be ascribed to the conjunction. Had he waited a little, he
might have seen the matter in a clearer light, for in April there took
place pestilential fevers, with other terrible and uncommon disorders.
‘In Montrose, several families were taken with an _unco disease_, like
unto convulsion fits, their face thrawing about to their neck, their
hands griping close together, so as the very nails of their fingers
make holes in their _looves_; lose their senses, and have a devouring
appetite, eat much, yet not satisfied.’--_Law._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1684.