of Salton made some statements regarding the multitude of the vagrant
poor in Scotland which have often been quoted. He remarked that, owing
to the bad seasons of this and the three preceding years, the evil was
perhaps now greater than it had ever been; ‘yet there have always been
in Scotland such numbers of poor, as by no regulations could ever be
ordinarily provided for; and this country has always swarmed with such
numbers of idle vagabonds, as no laws could ever restrain.’ He estimated
the ordinary number of such people at a hundred thousand, and the
present at two hundred thousand—‘vagabonds who live without any regard
to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature.’ ‘No
magistrate,’ he says, ‘could ever discover which way one in a hundred of
these wretches died, or that ever they were baptised. Many murders have
been discovered among them; and they are not only a most unspeakable
oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread or some kind of
provision to perhaps forty such villains in a day, are sure to be
insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live in houses
distant from any neighbourhood. [Sidenote: 1699.] In years of plenty,
many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast
and riot for many days; and at country-weddings, markets, burials, and
other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and
women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.’
To remedy this evil, Fletcher proposed in all seriousness what reads
like Swift’s suggestion to convert the children of the Irish poor into
animal food. He recommended that the great mass of the able-bodied of
these superfluous mortals should be reduced to serfdom under such
persons as would undertake to keep and employ them, arguing that slavery
amongst ancient states was what saved them from great burdens of pauper
population, and was a condition involving many great advantages to all
parties. He was for hospitals to the sick and lame, but thought it would
be well, for example and terror, to take three or four hundred of the
worst of the others, commonly called _jockies_, and present them to the
state of Venice, ‘to serve in the galleys against the common enemy of
Christendom.’
Most of the patriot’s contemporaries probably acknowledged the existence
of the evil which he described—though he probably exaggerated it to the
extent of at least a third—but there is no appearance of the slightest
movement having ever been made towards the adoption of his remedy. A
modern man can only wonder at such a scheme proceeding from one whose
patriotism was in general too fine for use, and who held such views of
the late tyrannical governments, that he was for punishing their
surviving instruments several years after the Revolution.[257]
At the date noted, the government was revolving more rational plans for
mitigating the evils of the wide-spread mendicancy. [Sidenote: 1699.]
The Privy Council issued a proclamation, adverting to the non-execution
of the laws for the poor during the time of the scarcity, but intimating
that better arrangements were rendered possible by the plentiful harvest
just realised. The plan ordered to be adopted was to build
correction-houses at Edinburgh, Dumfries, Ayr, Glasgow, Stirling, Perth,
Dundee, Aberdeen, and Inverness, each for the county connected with the
burgh, into which the poor should be received: no allusion is made to
the other counties. The poor were to be confined to the districts in
which they had had residence for the last three years. It was ordained
of each correction-house, that it should have ‘a large close
sufficiently enclosed for keeping the said poor people, that they be not
necessitat to be always within doors to the hurt and hazard of their
health.’ And the magistrates of the burghs were commanded to take the
necessary steps for raising these pauper-receptacles under heavy
penalties.[258]
[Sidenote: NOV. 9.]
It was customary for the Lords of Privy Council to grant exclusive right
to print and vend books for certain terms—being all that then existed as
equivalent to our modern idea of copyright. Most generally, this right
was given to booksellers and printers, and bore reference rather to the
mercantile venture involved in the expense of producing the book, than
to any idea of a reward for authorcraft. Quite in conformity with this
old view of literary rights, the Council now conferred on George
Mossman, stationer in Edinburgh, ‘warrant to print and sell the works of
the learned Mr George Buchanan, in ane volume in folio, or by parts in
lesser volumes,’ and discharged ‘all others to print, import, or sell,
the whole or any part of the said Mr George his works in any volume or
character, for the space of nineteen years.’
In conformity with the same view of copyright, another Edinburgh
stationer, who, in 1684, had obtained a nineteen years’ title to print
Sir George Mackenzie’s _Institutes of the Law of Scotland_, soon after
this day was favoured with a renewal of the privilege, on his
contemplating a second edition.
Robert Sanders, printer in Glasgow, had printed a large impression of a
small book, entitled _Merchandising Spiritualised, or the Christian
Merchant Trading to Heaven_, by Mr James Clark, minister at Glasgow;
which, in Sanders’s opinion, was calculated [Sidenote: 1699.] to be ‘of
excellent use to good people of all ranks and degrees.’ For his
encouragement in the undertaking, he petitioned the Privy Council (July
13, 1703) for an exclusive right of publishing the book; and he was
fortified in his claim by a letter from the author, as well as a
‘testificat from Mr James Woodrow, professor of divinity at Glasgow,
anent the soundness of the said book.’ The Council, taking all these
things into account, gave Sanders a licence equivalent to copyright for
nineteen years.[259]
[Sidenote: NOV. 30.]
The abundant harvest of 1699 was acknowledged by a general thanksgiving.
But, that the people might not be too happy on the occasion, the king,
in the proclamation for this observance, was made to acknowledge that
the late famine and heavy mortality had been a just retribution of the
Almighty for the sins of the people; as likewise had been ‘several other
judgments, specially the frustrating the endeavours that have been made
for advancing the trade of this nation.’ [The royal councillors were too
good Christians, or too polite towards their master, to insinuate as a
secular cause the subserviency of the king to English merchants jealous
of Scottish rivalry.] For these reasons, he said, it was proper, on the
same day, that there be solemn and fervent prayers to God, entreating
him to look mercifully on the sins of the people, and remove these, ‘the
procuring causes of all afflictions,’ and permit that ‘we may no more
abuse his goodness into wantonness and forgetfulness.’
The people of Scotland were poor, and lived in the most sparing manner.
When they made an honourable attempt to extend their industry, that they
might live a little better, their sovereign permitted the English to
‘frustrate the endeavour.’ He then told them to humble themselves for
the sins which had procured their afflictions, and reproached them with
a luxury which they had never enjoyed. The whole affair reminds one of
the rebuke administered by Father Paul to the starved porter in _The
Duenna_: ‘Ye eat, and swill, and drink, and gormandise,’ &c.
[Sidenote: DEC. 14.]
Notwithstanding the abundance of the harvest, universally acknowledged a
fortnight before by solemn religious rites, there was already some alarm
beginning to arise about the future, chiefly in consequence of the very
natural movements observed among possessors of and dealers in grain, for
reserving the stock against [Sidenote: 1699.] eventual demands. There
now, therefore, appeared a proclamation forbidding export and
encouraging import, the latter step being ‘for the more effectual
disappointing of the ill practices of forestalled and regraters.’[260]
[Sidenote: DEC. 7.]
We have at this time a curious illustration of the slowness of all
travelling in Scotland, in a petition of Robert Irvine of Corinhaugh to
the Privy Council. He had been cited to appear as a witness by a
particular day, in the case of Dame Marjory Seton, relict of Lewis
Viscount of Frendraught, but he did not arrive till the day after,
having been ‘fully eight days upon the journey that he usually made in
three,’ in consequence of the unseasonableness of the weather, by which
even the post had been obstructed. The denunciation against him for
nonappearance was discharged.[261]
[Sidenote: 1700. JAN.]
A case of a singular character was brought before the Court of
Justiciary. In the preceding July, a boy named John Douglas, son of
Douglas of Dornock, attending the school of Moffat, was chastised by his
teacher, Mr Robert Carmichael, with such extreme severity that he died
on the spot. The master is described in the indictment as beating and
dragging the boy, and giving him three lashings without intermission; so
that when ‘let down’ for the third time, he ‘could only weakly struggle
along to his seat, and never spoke more, but breathed out his last, and
was carried dying, if not dead, out of the school.’ Carmichael fled, and
kept out of sight for some weeks, ‘but by the providence of God was
discovered and seized.’
‘The Lords decerned the said Mr Robert to be taken from the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh by the hangman under a sure guard to the middle of the
Landmarket, and there lashed by seven severe stripes; then to be carried
down to the Cross, and there severely lashed by six sharp stripes; and
then to be carried to the Fountain Well, to be severely lashed by five
stripes; and then to be carried back by the hangman to the Tolbooth.
Likeas, the Lords banish the said Mr Robert furth of this kingdom, never
to return thereto under all highest pains.’[262]
Robert Carmichael was perhaps only unfortunate in some constitutional
weakness of his victim. An energetic use of the lash [Sidenote: 1700.]
was the rule, not the exception, in the _old school_—nay, even down to
times of which many living persons may well say, ‘quæque miserrima vidi,
et quorum pars magna fui.’ In the High School of Edinburgh about 1790,
one of the masters (Nicol) occasionally had twelve dunces to whip at
once, ranking them up in a row for the purpose. When all was ready, he
would send a polite message to his colleague, Mr Cruikshank, ‘to come
and hear his _organ_.’ Cruikshank having come, Mr Nicol would proceed to
administer a rapid cursory flagellation along and up and down the row,
producing a variety of notes from the patients, which, if he had been
more of a scientific musician, he might have probably called a
_bravura_. Mr Cruikshank was sure to take an early opportunity of
inviting Mr Nicol to a similar treat.
[Sidenote: JAN.]
One of the most conspicuous persons at this time in Scotland—one of the
few, moreover, known out of his own country, or destined to be
remembered in a future age—was Dr Archibald Pitcairn. He practised as a
physician in Edinburgh, without an equal in reputation; but he was also
noted as a man of bright general talents, and of great wit and
pleasantry. His habits were convivial, after the manner of his time, or
beyond it; and his professional Delphi was a darkling tavern in the
Parliament Close, which he called the Greping Office (_Latinè_,
‘Greppa’), by reason of the necessity of groping in order to get into
it. Here, in addition to all difficulties of access, his patients must
have found it a somewhat critical matter to catch him at a happy moment,
if it was true, as alleged, that he would sometimes be drunk twice a
day. It is also told of him that, having given an order at home, that
when detained overnight at this same Greping Office, he should have a
clean shirt sent to him by a servant next morning, the rule was on one
occasion observed till the number of clean shirts amounted to six, all
of which he had duly put on; but, behold, when he finally re-emerged and
made his way home, the whole were found upon him, one above the other!
Perhaps these are exaggerations, shewing no more than that the habits of
the clever doctor were such as to have excited the popular imagination.
It was a matter of more serious moment, that Pitcairn was insensible to
the beauties of the Presbyterian polity and the logic of the Calvinistic
faith—being for this reason popularly labelled as an atheist—and that,
in natural connection with this frame of opinion, he was no admirer of
the happy revolution government.
He had, about this time, written a letter to his friend, Dr Robert
[Sidenote: 1700.] Gray, in London; and Captain Bruce, a person attached
to the service of the Duke of Hamilton, had sent it to its destination
under a cover. It fell, in London, into the hands of the Scottish
Secretary, Seafield, who immediately returned it to the Lord Chancellor
in Edinburgh, as one of a dangerous character towards the government.
The Lord Chancellor immediately caused Dr Pitcairn and Captain Bruce to
be apprehended and put into the Tolbooth, each in a room by himself. On
the letter being immediately after read to the Privy Council (January
16), they entirely approved of what had been done, and gave orders for a
criminal process being instituted before them against the two gentlemen.
[Illustration: Dr Pitcairn.]
On the 25th of January, Pitcairn was brought before the Council on a
charge of contravening various statutes against _leasing-making_—that
is, venting and circulating reproaches and false reports against the
government. He was accused of having, on a certain day in December,
written a letter to Dr Gray in reference to an [Sidenote: 1700.] address
which was in course of signature regarding the meeting of parliament.
This, he said, was going on unanimously throughout the nation, only a
few courtiers and Presbyterian ministers opposing it, and that in vain;
‘twice so many have signed since the proclamation anent petitioning as
signed it before.’ ‘He bids him [Dr Gray] take notice that there is one
sent to court, with a title different, to beguile the elect of the
court, if it were possible.’ ‘And all the corporations and all the
gentlemen have signed the address, and himself among the rest; and it is
now a National Covenant, and, by Jove, it would produce a national and
universal ——; to which he adds that he is thinking after a lazy way to
reprint his papers, but hopes there shall be news ere they are printed,
and that he is calculating the force of the _musculi abdominis_ in
digesting meat, and is sure they can do it, _une belle affaire_.’
In the letters of charge brought forward by the Lord Advocate, it was
alleged that there were here as many falsehoods as statements, and the
object of the whole to throw discredit on the government was manifest.
One of his allegations was the more offensive as he had sought to
confirm it ‘by swearing profanely as a pagan, and not as a Christian,
“by Jove, it will produce a national and universal ——,” which blank
cannot be construed to have a less import than a national and universal
overturning.’ Seeing it clearly evidenced that he had ‘foolishly and
wickedly meddled in the affairs of his majesty and his estate, he ought
to be severely punished in his person and goods, to the terror of others
to do the like in time coming.’
Dr Pitcairn, knowing well the kind of men he had to deal with, made no
attempt at defence; neither did he utter any complaint as to the
violation of his private correspondence. He pleaded that he had written
in his cups with no evil design against the government, and threw
himself entirely on the mercy of the Council. His submission was
accepted, and he got off with a reprimand from the Lord Chancellor,
after giving bond with his friend Sir Archibald Stevenson, under two
hundred pounds sterling, to live peaceably under the government, and
consult and contrive nothing against it.[263]
[Sidenote: FEB. 3.]
This is the date of a conflagration in Edinburgh, which made a great
impression at the time, and was long remembered. It [Sidenote: 1700.]
broke out in one of the densest parts of the city, in a building between
the Cowgate and Parliament Close, about ten o’clock of a Saturday night.
Here, in those days, lived men of no small importance. We are told that
the fire commenced in a closet of the house of Mr John Buchan, being
that below the residence of Lord Crossrig, one of the judges. Part of
his lordship’s family was in bed, and he was himself retiring, when the
alarm was given, and he and his family were obliged to escape without
their clothes. ‘Crossrig, naked, with a child under his oxter [armpit],
happing for his life,’ is cited as one of the sad sights of the night.
‘When people were sent into his closet to help out with his cabinet and
papers, the smoke was so thick that they only got out a small cabinet
with great difficulty. Albeit his papers were lying about the floor, or
hung about the walls of his closet in pocks, yet they durst not stay to
gather them up or take them ... so that that cabinet, and his servant
[clerk]‘s lettron [desk], which stood near the door of the lodging, with
some few other things, was all that was saved, and the rest, even to his
lordship’s wearing-clothes, were burnt.’[264] According to an
eye-witness, the fire continued to burn all night and till ten o’clock
on Sunday morning, ‘with the greatest _frayor_ and vehemency that ever I
saw a fire do, notwithstanding that I saw London burn.’[265] ‘The flames
were so terrible, that none durst come near to quench it. It was a very
great wind, which blew to such a degree, that, with the sparks that came
from the fire, there was nothing to be seen through the whole city, but
as it had been showers of sparks, like showers of snow, they were so
thick.’[266]
‘There are burnt, by the easiest computation, between three and four
hundred families; the pride of Edinburgh is sunk; from the Cowgate to
the High Street, all is burnt, and hardly one stone left upon another.
The Commissioner, the President of Parliament, the President of the
Court of Session [Sir Hugh Dalrymple], the Bank [of Scotland], most of
the lords, lawyers, and clerks were burnt, besides many poor families.
The Parliament House very nearly [narrowly] escaped; all registers
confounded [the public registers being kept there]; clerks’ chambers and
processes in such a confusion, that the lords and officers of state are
just now met in Ross’s tavern, in order to adjourn the session
[Sidenote: 1700.] by reason of the disorder. Few people are lost, if any
at all; but there was neither heart nor hand left among them for saving
from the fire, nor a drop of water in the cisterns. Twenty thousand
hands flitting [removing] their trash, they knew not where, and hardly
twenty at work. Many rueful spectacles, &c.’[267]
The Town Council recorded their sense of this calamity as a ‘fearful
rebuke of God,’ and the Rev. Mr Willison of Dundee did not omit to
improve the occasion. ‘In Edinburgh,’ says he, ‘where Sabbath-breaking
very much abounded, the fairest and stateliest of its buildings, in the
Parliament Close and about it (to which scarce any in Britain were
comparable), were on the fourth of February (being the Lord’s Day),
burnt down and laid in ashes and ruins in the space of a few hours, to
the astonishment and terror of the sorrowful inhabitants, whereof I
myself was an eye-witness. So great was the terror and confusion of that
Lord’s Day, that the people of the city were in no case to attend any
sermon or public worship upon it, though there was a great number of
worthy ministers convened in the place (beside the reverend ministers of
the city) ready to have prayed with or preached to the people on that
sad occasion, for the General Assembly was sitting there at the time.
However, the Lord himself, by that silent Sabbath, did loudly preach to
all the inhabitants of the city,’ &c.[268]
Some of the houses burnt on this occasion, forming part of the
Parliament Square, were of the extraordinary altitude of fourteen
stories, six or seven of which, however, were below the level of the
ground on the north side. These had been built about twenty years before
by Thomas Robertson, brewer, a thriving citizen, who is described in his
epitaph in the Greyfriars’ churchyard as ‘remarkable for piety towards
God, loyalty towards his prince, love to his country, and civility
towards all persons;’ while he was also, by these structures, ‘urbis
exornator, si non conditor.’[269] But Robertson, as youngest bailie, had
given the Covenant out of his hand to be burnt at the Cross in 1661; and
‘now God in his providence hath sent a burning among his lands, so that
that which was eleven years a-building, was not six hours of burning.
Notwithstanding this, he was a good man, and lamented to his death the
burning of the Covenant; he was also very helpful to the Lord’s
prisoners during the late persecution.’[270]
[Sidenote: 1700.]
There being no insurance against fire in those days, the heirs of
Robertson were reduced from comparative affluence to poverty, and the
head of the family was glad to accept the situation of a captain in the
city guard, and at last was made a pensioner upon the city’s
charge.[271]
Amongst the burnt out has been mentioned the Bank of Scotland. ‘The
directors and others concerned did with great care and diligence carry
off all the cash, bank-notes, books, and papers in the office; being
assisted by a party of soldiers brought from the Castle by the Earl of
Leven, then governor thereof, and governor of the bank, who, with the
Lord Ruthven, then a director, stood all the night directing and
supporting the soldiers, in keeping the stair and passage from being
overcrowded. But the Company lost their lodging and whole furniture in
it.’[272]
Lord Crossrig, who suffered so much by this fire, tells us in his
_Diary_, that in the late evil times—that is, before the Revolution—he
had been a member of a society that met every Monday afternoon ‘for
prayer and conference.’ Since their deliverance, such societies had gone
out of fashion, and profanity went on increasing till it came to a great
height. Hearing that there were societies setting up in England ‘for
reformation of manners,’ and falling in with a book that gave an account
of them, he bethought him how desirable it was that something of the
sort should be attempted in Edinburgh, and spoke to several friends on
the subject. There was, consequently, a meeting at his house in November
1699, at which were present Mr Francis Grant (subsequently Lord Cullen);
Mr Matthew Sinclair; Mr William Brodie, advocate; Mr Alexander Dundas,
physician, and some other persons, who then determined to form
themselves into such a society, under sanction of some of the clergy.
The schedule of rules for this fraternity was signed on the night when
the fire happened.
‘This,’ says Crossrig, ‘is a thing I remark as notable, which presently
was a rebuke to some of us for some fault in our solemn engagement
there, and probably Satan blew that coal to witness his indignation at a
society designedly entered into in opposition to the Kingdom of
Darkness, and in hopes that such an occurrence should dash our society
in its infancy, and discourage us to proceed therein. However, blessed
be our God, all who then met have continued steadfast ever since ... and
we have had many meetings since that time, even during the three months
[Sidenote: 1700.] that I lived at the Earl of Winton’s lodging in the
Canongate.... Likeas, there are several other societies of the same
nature set up in this city.’[273]
[Sidenote: FEB.]
The burning out of the Bank of Scotland was not more than twenty days
past, when a trouble of a different kind fell upon it. ‘One Thomas
M‘Gie, who was bred a scholar, but poor, of a good genius and ready wit,
of an aspiring temper, and desirous to make an appearance in the world,
but wanting a fund convenient for his purpose, was tempted to try his
hand upon bank-notes. At this time all the five kinds of notes—namely,
£100, £50, £20, £10, and £5—were engraven in one and the same character.
He, by artful razing, altered the word five in the _five_-pound note,
and made it _fifty_. But good providence discovered the villainy before
he had done any great damage, by means of the check-book and a record
kept in the office; and the rogue was forced to fly abroad. The
check-book and record are so excellently adapted to one another, and
well contrived; and the keeping them right, and applying thereof, is so
easy, that no forgery or falsehood of notes can be imposed upon the bank
for any sum of moment, before it is discovered. After discovering this
cheat of M‘Gie, the company caused engrave new copper-plates for all
their notes, each of a different character, adding several other checks;
so that it is not in the power of man to renew M‘Gie’s villainy.’[274]
[Sidenote: FEB.]
The glass-work at Leith made a great complaint regarding the ruinous
practice pursued by the work at Newcastle, of sending great quantities
of their goods into Scotland. The English makers had lately landed at
Montrose no less than two thousand six hundred dozen of bottles, ‘which
will overstock the whole country with the commodity.’ On their petition,
the Lords of the Privy Council empowered the Leith Glass Company to send
out officers to seize any such English bottles and bring them in for his
majesty’s use.[275]
[Sidenote: MAR. 14.]
The ill-reputed governments of the last two reigns put down unlicensed
worship among the Presbyterians, on the ground that the conventicles
were schools of disaffection. The present government acted upon
precisely the same principle, in crushing attempts at the establishment
of Episcopal meeting-houses. The [Sidenote: 1700.] commission of the
General Assembly at this time represented to the Privy Council that the
parishes of Eyemouth, Ayton, and Coldingham[276] were ‘very much
disturbed by the setting up of Episcopal meeting-houses, whereby the
people are withdrawn from their duty to his majesty, and all good order
of the church violat.’ On the petition of the presbytery of Chirnside,
backed by the Assembly Commission, the Privy Council ordained that the
sheriff shut up all these meeting-houses, and recommended the Lord
Advocate to ‘prosecute the pretended ministers preaching at the said
meeting-houses, not qualified according to law, and thereby not having
the protection of the government.’[277]
This policy seems to have been effectual for its object, for in the
statistical account of Coldingham, drawn up near the close of the
eighteenth century, the minister reports that there were no
Episcopalians in his parish. It is but one of many facts which might be
adduced in opposition to the popular doctrine, that persecution is
powerless against religious conviction.
Notwithstanding the many serious and the many calamitous things
affecting Scotland, there was an under-current of pleasantries and
jocularities, of which we are here and there fortunate enough to get a
glimpse. For example—in Aberdeen, near the gate of the mansion of the
Earl of Errol, there looms out upon our view a little cozy tavern, kept
by one Peter Butter, much frequented of students in Marischal College
and the dependents of the magnate here named. The former called it the
_Collegium Butterense_, as affecting to consider it a sort of university
supplementary to, and necessary for the completion of, the daylight one
which their friends understood them to be attending. Here drinking was
study, and proficiency therein gave the title to degrees. Even for
admission, there was a _theme_ required, which consisted in drinking a
particular glass to every friend and acquaintance one had in the world,
with one more. Without these possibly thirty-nine or more articles being
duly and unreservedly swallowed, the candidate was relentlessly
excluded. On being accepted, a wreath was conferred, and Master James
Hay, by virtue of the authority [Sidenote: 1700.] resting in him under
the rules of the foundation, addressed the neophyte:
Potestatem do tibique
Compotandi bibendique,
Ac summa pocula implendi,
Et haustus exhauriendi,
Cujusve sint capacitatis,
E rotundis aut quadratis.
In signum ut manumittaris,
Adornet caput hic galerus,
Quod tibi felix sit faustumque,
Obnixe comprecor multumque.
There were _theses_, too, on suitably convivial ideas—as, for example:
’Gainst any man of sense,
_Asserimus ex pacto_,
Upon his own expense,
_Quod vere datur ens
Potabile de facto_....
If you expect degrees,
Drink off your cup and fill,
We’re not for what you please:
Our absolute decrees
Admit of no free-will....
The longer we do sit,
The more we hate all quarrels,
(Let none his quarters flit),
The more we do admit
Of _vacuum_ in barrels. &c.
Or else:
For to find out a parallaxis
We’ll not our minds apply,
Save what a toast in Corbreed[278] makes us;
Whether the moon moves on her axis,
Ask Black and Gregory.[279]
That bodies are _à parte rei_,
To hold we think it meetest;
Some cold, some hot, some moist, some dry,
Though all of them ye taste and try,
The fluid is the sweetest.
_Post sextam semi hora_
At night, no friend refuses
To come _lavare ora_;
_Est melior quam Aurorâ_,
And fitter for the Muses, &c.
[Sidenote: 1700.]
A diploma conferred upon George Durward, doubtless not without very
grave consideration of his pretensions to the honour, is couched in much
the same strain as the theses:
To all and sundry who shall see this,
Whate’er his station or degree is,
We, Masters of the Buttery College,
Send greeting, and to give them knowledge,
That George Durward, _præsentium lator_,
Did study at our _Alma Mater_
Some years, and hated foolish projects,
But stiffly studied liquid logics;
And now he’s as well skilled in liquor
As any one that blaws a bicker;
For he can make our college theme
A syllogism or enthymeme....
Since now we have him manumitted,
In arts and sciences well fitted,
To recommend him we incline
To all besouth and north the line,
To black and white, though they live as far
As Cape Good-Hope and Madagascar,
Him to advance, because he is
_Juvenis bonæ indolis_, &c.
We have, however, no specimen of the wit of this fluid university that
strikes us as equal to a _Catalogus Librorum in Bibliothecâ Butterensi_;
to all external appearance, a dry list of learned books, while in
reality comprehending the whole paraphernalia of a tavern. It is
formally divided into ‘Books in large folio,’ ‘Books in lesser folio,’
‘Books in quarto,’ ‘Books in octavo,’ and ‘Lesser Volumes,’ just as we
might suppose the university catalogue to have been. Amongst the works
included are: ‘Maximilian Malt-kist de principiis liquidorum—Kircherus
Kettles de eodem themate—Bucket’s Hydrostaticks—Opera Bibuli Barrelli,
ubi de conservatione liquoris, et de vacuo, problematice
disputatur—Constantinus Chopinus de philosophicis bibendi legibus, in
usum Principalis, curâ Georgii Leith [described in a note as a
particularly assiduous pupil of the college] 12 tom.—Compendium ejus,
for weaker capacities—Barnabius Beer-glass, de lavando gutture—Manuale
Gideonis Gill, de Syllogismis concludentibus—Findlay [Sidenote: 1700.]
Fireside, de circulari poculorum motu,’ &c. One may faintly imagine how
all this light-headed nonsense would please Dr Pitcairn, as he sat
regaling himself in the Greping Office, and how the serious people would
shake their heads at it when they perused it at full length, a few years
afterwards, in Watson’s _Collection of Scots Poems_.
[Sidenote: JULY 31.]
The commissioners of the General Assembly, considering the impending
danger of a late harvest and consequent scarcity, and the other
distresses of the country, called for the 29th day of August being
solemnised by a fast. In the reasons for it, they mention the unworthy
repining at the late providences, and ‘that, under our great penury and
dearth, whilst some provoked God by their profuse prodigality, the
poorest of the people, who suffered most, and who ought thereby to have
been amended, have rather grown worse and worse.’
Duncan Robertson, a younger son of the deceased Laird of Struan, had
fallen out of all good terms with his mother, apparently in consequence
of some disputes about their respective rights. Gathering an armed band
of idle ruffians, he went with them to his mother’s jointure-lands, and
laid them waste; he went to a ‘room’ or piece of land occupied by his
sister Margaret, and carried off all that was upon it; he also ‘laid
waste any possession his other sister Mrs Janet had.’ When a military
party, posted at Carie, came to protect the ladies, he fired on it, and
afterwards plainly avowed to the commander that his object was to
dispossess his mother and her tenants. By this cruel act, Lady Struan
and her other children had been ‘reduced to these straits and
difficulties, that they had not whereupon to live.’
[Sidenote: AUG. 2.]
The Privy Council gave orders for the capture of Duncan Robertson, and
his being put in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and kept there till further
orders.[280]
[Sidenote: NOV. 16.]
A band of persons, usually called Egyptians or gipsies, used to go about
the province of Moray in armed fashion, helping themselves freely to the
property of the settled population, and ordinarily sleeping in kilns
near the farmhouses. There seems to have been thirty of them in all, men
and women; but it was [Sidenote: 1700.] seldom that more than eight or
ten made their appearance in any one place. It was quite a familiar
sight, at a fair or market in Banff, Elgin, Forres, or any other town of
the district, to see nearly a dozen sturdy Egyptians march in with a
piper playing at their head, their matchlocks slung behind them, and
their broadswords or dirks by their sides, to mingle in the crowd,
inspect the cattle shewn for sale, and watch for bargains passing among
individuals, in order to learn who was in the way of receiving money.
They would be viewed with no small suspicion and dislike by the
assembled rustics and farmers; but the law was unable to put them
entirely down.
[Illustration: Macpherson’s Sword.]
James Macpherson, who was understood to be the natural son of a
gentleman of the district by a gipsy mother, was a conspicuous or
leading man in the band; he was a person of goodly figure and great
strength and daring, always carrying about with him—how acquired we
cannot tell—an example of the two-handed swords of a former age, besides
other weapons. He had a talent for music, and was a good player on the
violin. It has been stated that some traits of a generous nature
occasionally shone out in him; but, on the whole, he was merely a
Highland cateran, breaking houses and henroosts, stealing horses and
cattle, and living recklessly on the proceeds, like the tribe with which
he associated.
Duff, Laird of Braco, founder of the honours and wealth of the Earls of
Fife, took a lead at this time in the public affairs of his district. He
formed the resolution of trying to give a check to the lawless
proceedings of the Egyptians, by bringing their leaders to justice. It
required some courage to face such determined ruffians with arms in
[Sidenote: 1700.] their hands, and he had a further difficulty in the
territorial prejudices of the Laird of Grant, who regarded some of the
robbers as his tenants, and felt bound, accordingly, to protect them
from any jurisdiction besides his own.[281] This remark bears
particularly upon two named Peter and Donald Brown, who had lived for
half a year at a place closely adjacent to Castle-Grant, and the former
of whom was regarded as captain of the band.
Finding Macpherson, the Browns, and others at the ‘Summer’s Eve Fair in
Keith, the stout-hearted Braco made up his mind to attack them. To
pursue a narrative which appears to be authentic: ‘As soon as he
observed them in the fair, he desired his brother-in-law, Lesmurdie, to
bring him a dozen stout men, which he did. They attacked the villains,
who, as they had several of their accomplices with them, made a
desperate resistance. One of them made a pass at Braco with his hanger,
intending to run him through the heart; but it slanted along the outside
of the ribs, and one of his men immediately stabbed the fellow dead.
They then carried Macpherson and [Peter] Brown to a house in Keith, and
set three or four stout men to guard them, not expecting any more
opposition, as all the rest of the gang were fled. Braco and Lesmurdie
were sitting in an upper room, concerting the commitment of their
prisoners, when the Laird of Grant and thirty men came calling for them,
swearing no Duff in Scotland should keep them from him. Braco, hearing
the noise of the Grants, came down stairs, and said, with seeming
unconcern and humour: “That he designed to have sent them to prison; but
he saw they were too strong a party for him to contend with, and so he
must leave them;” but, without losing a moment, he took a turn through
the market, found other two justices of peace, kept a court, and
assembled sixty stout fellows, with whom he retook the two criminals,
and sent them to prison.’[282]
[Sidenote: 1700.]
James Macpherson, the two Browns, and James Gordon, were brought before
the sheriff of Banffshire at Banff, on the 7th of November 1700, charged
with ‘being habit and repute Egyptians and vagabonds, and keeping the
markets in their ordinary manner of thieving and purse-cutting’ ...
being guilty also of ‘masterful bangstrie and oppression.’ A procurator
appeared on the part of the young Laird of Grant, demanding surrender of
the two Browns, to be tried in the court of his regality, within whose
bounds they had lived, and offering a _culreach_ or pledge for
them;[283] but the demand was overruled, on the ground that the Browns
had never been truly domiciliated there. Witnesses were adduced, who
detailed many felonies of the prisoners. They had stolen sheep, oxen,
and horses; they had broken into houses, and taken away goods; they had
robbed men of their purses, and tyrannously oppressed many poor people.
It was shewn that the band was in the habit of speaking a peculiar
language. They often spent whole nights in dancing and debauchery, Peter
Brown or Macpherson giving animation to the scene by the strains of the
violin. An inhabitant of Keith related how Macpherson came to his house
one day, seeking for him, when, not finding him, he stabbed the bed, to
make sure he was not there, and, on going away, set the ale-barrel
aflowing. The jury gave a verdict against all the four prisoners; but
sentence was for the meantime passed upon only Macpherson and Gordon,
adjudging them to be hanged next market-day.[284]
Macpherson spent the last hours of his life in composing a tune
expressive of the reckless courage with which he regarded his fate. He
marched to the place of execution, a mile from the town, playing this
air on his violin. He even danced to it under the fatal tree. Then he
asked if any one in the crowd would accept his fiddle, and keep it as a
memorial of Macpherson; and finding no one disposed to do so, he broke
the instrument over his knee, and threw himself indignantly from the
ladder. Such was the life and death of a man of whom one is tempted to
think that, with such qualities as he possessed, he might, in a happier
age, [Sidenote: 1700.] have risen to some better distinction than that
which unfortunately he has attained.[285]
[Sidenote: 1701. JAN. 25.]
At this date one of the most remarkable of the precursors of Watt in the
construction of the steam-engine, comes in an interesting manner into
connection with Scotland. Captain Thomas Savery, an Englishman,
‘treasurer to the commissioners of sick and wounded,’ had, in 1696,
described an engine framed by himself, and which is believed to have
been original and unsuggested, ‘in which water is raised not only by the
expansive force of steam, but also by its condensation, the water being
raised by the pressure of the atmosphere into receivers, from which it
is forced to a greater height by the expansive force of the steam.’[286]
He had obtained a patent for this engine in 1698, to last for
thirty-five years.
We have seen that there were busy-brained men in Scotland, constantly
trying to devise new things; and even now, Mr James Gregory, Professor
of Mathematics in the Edinburgh University—a member of a family in which
talent has been inherent for two centuries—was endeavouring to bring
into use ‘a machine invented by him for raising of water in a continued
pipe merely by lifting, without any suction or forcing, which are the
only ways formerly practised, and liable to a great many
inconveniences.’ By this new machine, according to the inventor, ‘water
might be raised to any height, in a greater quantity, and in less space
of time,’ than by any other means employing the same force. It was
useful for ‘coal-pits or mines under ground.’ On his petition,
[Sidenote: 1701.] Mr Gregory obtained an exclusive right to make and use
this machine for thirty-one years.
Another such inventive genius was Mr James Smith of Whitehill, who for
several years made himself notable by his plans for introducing supplies
of water into burghs. Smith had caught at Savery’s idea, and made a
paction with him for the use of his engine in Scotland, and now he
applied to the Estates for ‘encouragement.’ He says that, since his
bargain with Captain Savery, he ‘has made additions to the engine to
considerable advantage, so that, in the short space of an hour, there
may be raised thereby no less than the quantity of twenty tuns of water
to the height of fourteen fathoms.’ Any member of the honourable house
was welcome to see it at work, and satisfy himself of its efficiency;
whence we may infer that an example of it had come down to Edinburgh. In
compliance with his petition, Smith was invested with the exclusive
power of making the engine and dealing with parties for its use during
the remainder of the English patent.[287]
Savery’s steam-engine, however, was a seed sown upon an infertile soil,
and after this date, we in Scotland at least hear of it no more.
[Sidenote: JULY 10.]
It pleased the wisdom of the Scottish legislature (as it did that of the
English parliament likewise) to forbid the export of wool and of woolly
skins, an encouragement to woollen manufacturers at home, at the
expense, as usual, of three or four times the amount in loss to the rest
of the community. At this date, Michael Allan, Dean of Guild in
Edinburgh, came before the Privy Council to shew that, in consequence of
the extreme coldness and backwardness of the late spring, producing a
mortality of lambs, there were many thousands of lambs’ skins, or
_morts_, which could not be manufactured in the kingdom, and would
consequently be lost, but which would be of value at Dantzig and other
eastern ports, where they could be manufactured into clothing. He
thought that property to the value of about seven thousand pounds
sterling might thus be utilised for Scotland, which otherwise ‘must of a
necessity perish at home, and will be good for nothing;’ and the
movement was the more desirable, as the return for the goods would be in
‘lint, hemp, iron, steel, pot-ashes, and knaple, very useful for our
[Sidenote: 1701.] manufactures, and without which the nation cannot
possibly be served.’
The Council called in skinners, furriers, and others to give them the
best advice, and the result was a refusal to allow the skins to be
exported.
Rather more than a twelvemonth before (June 4, 1700), it was intimated
to the Privy Council by ‘the manufactory of Glasgow,’ that one
Fitzgerard, an Irish papist, ‘has had a constant trade these three years
past of exporting wool and woollen yarn to France, and that he has at
this present time combed wool and woollen yarn to the value of three
thousand pounds sterling ready to be exported, to the great ruin of the
nation, and of manufactories of that kind.’ The Council immediately sent
orders to the magistrates of Glasgow to take all means in law for
preventing the exportation of the articles in question.[288]
[Sidenote: FEB. 20.]
A petition on an extraordinary subject from the magistrates and
town-council of Elgin, was before the Privy Council. Robert Gibson of
Linkwood had been imprisoned in their Tolbooth as furious, at the desire
of the neighbouring gentry, and for the preservation of the public
peace. In the preceding October, when the magistrates were in Edinburgh
on business before the Privy Council, Gibson set fire to the Tolbooth in
the night-time, and there being no means of quenching the flames, it was
burnt to the ground. Their first duty was to obtain authority from the
Privy Council to send the incendiary in shackles to another place of
confinement, and now they applied for an exemption from the duty of
receiving and confining prisoners for private debts till their Tolbooth
could be rebuilt. They obtained the required exemption until the term of
Whitsunday 1703.
[Sidenote: FEB.]
Wodrow relates a story of the mysterious disappearance of a gentleman
(chamberlain of a countess) dwelling at Linlithgow, and esteemed as a
good man. A gentleman at Falkirk, with whom he had dealings, sent a
servant one afternoon desiring him to come immediately. His wife would
not allow him to travel that evening, and the servant departed without
him. Long before daylight next morning, the chamberlain rose and
prepared for his journey, but did not omit family worship. In the part
of Scripture which he read (Acts xx.), occurred the sentence, ‘you shall
[Sidenote: 1701.] see my face no more.’ Whether this occurred by chance
or not is not known, but he repeated the passage twice. After departing,
he returned for his knife; again he returned to order one of his sons
not to go out that day. By daylight his horse was found, with an empty
saddle, near Linlithgow Bridge (a mile west of the town), and no search
or inquiry made then, or for a considerable time after, sufficed to
discover what had become of him. Wodrow states the suspicion of his
being murdered, but as he had taken only some valuable papers with him,
and viewing the fact of his being a steward, it does not seem difficult
to account for his disappearance on a simpler hypothesis.[289]
[Sidenote: MAR. 1.]
The contract for a marriage between Sir John Shaw of Greenock and
Margaret Dalrymple, eldest daughter of the Lord President of the Court
of Session, being signed to-day, ‘there was an entire hogshead of claret
drunk’ by the company assembled on the occasion. At the marriage, not
long after, of Anne, a younger daughter of the Lord President, to James
Steuart, son of the Lord Advocate, ‘the number of people present was
little less,’ being just about as many as the house would hold. A
marriage was, in those days, an occasion for calling the whole
connections of a couple of families together; and where the parties
belonged, as in these cases, to an elevated rank in society, there was
no small amount of luxury indulged in. Claret was, in those days,
indeed, but fifteen, and sack eighteen pence, while ale was
three-halfpence, per bottle, so that a good deal of bibulous indulgence
cost little.
The expenditure upon the clothes of a bride of quality was very
considerable. Female fineries were not then produced in the country as
they are now, and they cost probably twice the present prices. We find
that, at the marriage of a daughter of Smythe of Methven to Sir Thomas
Moncrieff of that Ilk, Bart., in December of this very year, there was a
head suit and ruffles of cut work at nearly six pounds ten shillings; a
hood and scarf at two pounds fifteen shillings; a silk under-coat nearly
of the same cost; a gown, petticoat, and lining, at between sixteen and
seventeen pounds; garters, at £1, 3_s._ 4_d._: the entire outfit costing
£109, 18_s._ 3_d._[290]
When Mrs Margaret Rose, daughter of the Laird of Kilravock, was married
in 1701, there was an account from Francis Brodie, [Sidenote: 1701.]
merchant in Edinburgh, for her wedding-clothes, including seventeen and
a quarter ells of flowered silk, £11, 13_s._; nine and a quarter ells of
green silk shagreen for lining, £2, 14_s._; six and a half ells of green
galloon, 19_s._ 6_d._; with other sums for a gown and coat, for an
under-coat, and an undermost coat; also, for a pair of silk stockings,
12_s._; a necklace and silk handcurcher, 8_s._; and some thirty or forty
other articles, amounting in all to £55, 8_s._ 9_d._ sterling. This
young lady carried a tocher of 9000 merks—about nine times the value of
her marriage outfit—to her husband, John Mackenzie, eldest son of Sir
Alexander Mackenzie of Coul.
At the marriage of Anne Dalrymple to Mr James Steuart, ‘the bride’s
favours were all sewed on her gown from top to bottom, and round the
neck and sleeves. The moment the ceremony was performed, the whole
company ran to her, and pulled off the favours; in an instant, she was
stripped of them all. The next ceremony was the garter [we have seen
what it cost], which the bridegroom’s man attempted to pull from her
leg, but she dropped it on the floor; it was a white and silver ribbon,
which was cut in small parcels, [a piece] to every one in company. The
bride’s mother then came in with a basket of favours belonging to the
bridegroom; those and the bride’s were the same with the bearings of
their families—hers, pink and white; his, blue and gold colour.’ ‘The
company dined and supped together, and had a ball in the evening; the
same next day at Sir James Steuart’s. On Sunday, there went from the
President’s house to church three-and-twenty couple, all in high dress.
Mr Barclay, then a boy, led the youngest Miss Dalrymple, who was the
last of them. They filled the galleries of the [High] Church from the
king’s seat to the wing loft. The feasting continued till they had gone
through all the friends of the family, with a ball every night.’[291]
[Sidenote: MAR. 14.]
It was not yet three years since the people of Scotland were dying of
starvation, and ministers were trying to convince their helpless flocks
that it was all for their sins, and intended for their good. Yet now we
have a commission issued by the government, headed as usual with the
king’s name, commanding that all loads of grain which might be brought
from Ireland into the west of Scotland, should be staved and sunk, and
this, so far as appears, without a remark from any quarter as to the
horrible impiety of [Sidenote: 1701.] the prohibition in the first
place, and the proposed destruction of the gifts of Providence in the
second.[292]
An example of the simple inconvenience of these laws in the ordinary
affairs of life is presented in July 1702. Malcolm M‘Neill, a native of
Kintyre, had been induced, after the Revolution, to go to Ireland, and
become tenant of some of the waste lands there. Being now anxious to
settle again in Argyleshire, on some waste lands belonging to the Duke
of Argyle, he found a difficulty before him of a kind now unknown, but
then most formidable. How was he to get his stock transported from
Ballymaskanlan to Kintyre? Not in respect of their material removal, but
of the laws prohibiting all transportation of cattle from Ireland to
Scotland. It gives a curious idea of the law-made troubles of the age,
that Malcolm had to make formal application to the Privy Council in
Edinburgh for this purpose. On his petition, leave to carry over two
hundred black-cattle, four hundred sheep, and forty horses, was granted.
It is a fact of some significance, that the duke appears in the sederunt
of the day when this permission was given. That without such powerful
influence no such favour was to be obtained, is sufficiently proved by
the rare nature of the transaction.
[Sidenote: 1700. JAN. 9.]
We find, in January 1700, that the execution of the laws against the
importation of Irish cattle and horses had been committed to Alexander
Maxwell, postmaster at Ayr, who seems to have performed his functions
with great activity, but not much good result. He several times went
over the whole bounds of his commission, establishing spies and waiters
everywhere along the coast. By himself and his servants, sometimes with
the assistance of soldiers, he made a great number of seizures, but his
profits never came up to his costs. Often, after a seizure, he had to
sustain the assaults of formidable rabbles, and now and then the cattle
or horses were rescued out of his hands. For six weeks at a time he was
never at home, and all that time not thrice in his bed—for he had to
ride chiefly at night—but on all hands he met with only opposition, even
from the king’s troops, ‘albeit he maintains them and defrays all their
charges when he employs them.’ On his petition (January 9, 1700), he was
allowed a hundred pounds by the Privy Council as an encouragement to
persevere in his duty.
In the autumn of 1703, an unusual anxiety was shewn to enforce the laws
against the importation of provisions from Ireland and [Sidenote: 1700.]
from England. Mr Patrick Ogilvie of Cairns, a brother of the Lord
Chancellor, Earl of Seafield, was commissioned to guard the coasts
between the Sound of Mull and Dumfries, and one Cant of Thurston to
protect the east coast between Leith and Berwick, with suitable
allowances and powers. It happened soon after that an Irish skipper,
named Hyndman, appeared with a vessel of seventy tons, full of Irish
meal, in Lamlash Bay, and was immediately pounced upon by Ogilvie. It
was in vain that he represented himself as driven there by force of
weather on a voyage from Derry to Belfast: in spite of all his
pleadings, which were urged with an air of great sincerity, his vessel
was condemned.
Soon after, a Scottish ship, sailing under the conduct of William Currie
to Londonderry, was seized by the Irish authorities by way of reprisal
for Hyndman’s vessel. The Scottish Privy Council (February 15, 1704)
sent a remonstrance to the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
setting forth this act as ‘an abuse visibly to the breach of the good
correspondence that ought to be kept betwixt her majesty’s kingdoms.’
How the matter ended does not appear; but the whole story, as detailed
in the record of the Privy Council, gives a striking idea of the
difficulties, inconveniences, and losses which nations then incurred
through that falsest of principles which subordinates the interests of
the community to those of some special class, or group of individuals.
Ogilvie was allowed forty foot-soldiers and twenty dragoons to assist
him in his task; but we may judge of the difficulty of executing such
rules from the fact stated by him in a petition, that, during the
interval of five weeks, while these troops were absent at a review in
the centre of the kingdom, he got a list of as many as a hundred boats
which had taken that opportunity of landing from Ireland with victual.
Indeed, he said that, without a regular independent company, it was
impossible to prevent this traffic from going on.[293]
We do not hear much more on this subject till January 1712, when Thomas
Gray, merchant in Irvine, and several other persons, were pursued before
the Court of Session for surreptitious importation of Irish victual, by
Boswell and other Ayrshire justices interested in the prices of Scottish
produce. The delinquents were duly fined. Fountainhall, after recording
the decision, adds a note, in which he debates on the principles
involved in the free trade in corn. ‘This importation of meal,’ says he,
‘is good for [Sidenote: 1700.] the poor, plenty making it cheap, but it
sinks the gentlemen’s rents in these western shires. Which of the two is
the greater prejudice to the bulk of the nation? _Problema esto_: where
we must likewise balance the loss and damage we suffer by the exporting
so much of our money in specie to a foreign country to buy it, which
diminishes our coin _pro tanto_: But if the victual was purchased in
Ireland by exchange of our goods given for it, that takes away that
objection founded on the exporting of our money.’[294]
[Sidenote: 1701. APR. 15.]
John Lawson, burgess of Edinburgh, was projector of an
Intelligence-office, to be established in the Scottish capital, such as
were already planted in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and other large
cities, for ‘recording the names of servants, upon trial and certificate
of their manners and qualifications, whereby masters may be provided
with honest servants of all sorts, and servants may readily know what
masters are unprovided’—and ‘the better and more easy discovery of all
bargains, and the communication and publishing all proposals and other
businesses that the persons concerned may think fit to give notice and
account of, for the information of all lieges.’
He had been at pains to learn how such offices were conducted in foreign
countries, and had already set up a kind of register-office for servants
in Edinburgh, ‘to the satisfaction and advantage of many, of all ranks
and degrees.’ There was, however, a generation called _wed-men_ and
_wed-wives_, who had been accustomed, in an irregular way, to get
employers for servants and nurses, and servants and nurses for masters
and mistresses. It was evident to John that his intelligence-office
could never duly thrive unless these practitioners were wholly
suppressed. He craved exclusive privileges accordingly from the Privy
Council—that is, that these wed-men and wed-wives be discharged ‘on any
colour or pretence’ from meddling with the hire of servants, or giving
information about bargains and proposals—though ‘without prejudice [he
was so far modest] to all the lieges to hire servants and enter into
bargains, and do all other business upon their own proper knowledge, or
upon information gratuitously given.’
Honest John seems to have felt that something was necessary to reconcile
the authorities to a plan obviously so much for his own interest. The
religious feeling was, as usual, a ready resource. He reminded the Lords
that there had been great inconveniences [Sidenote: 1701.] from the
dishonest and profligate servants recommended by the wed-men and
wed-wives; nay, some had thus been intruded into families who had not
satisfied church-discipline, and did not produce testimonials from
ministers! He held out that he was to take care ‘that all such as offer
themselves to nurse children shall produce a certificate of their good
deportment, in case they be married, and if not, that they have
satisfied the kirk for their scandal, or have found a caution so to do.’
One great advantage to the public would be, that gentlemen or ladies
living in the country could, by correspondence with the office, and no
further trouble or expense, obtain servants of assured character, ‘such
as master-households, _gentlemen_, valets, stewards, pages, grieves,
gardeners, cooks, porters, coachmen, grooms, footmen, postilions, young
cooks for waiting on gentlemen, or for change-houses; likewise
_gentlewomen_ for attending ladies, housekeepers, chambermaids,
women-stewards and cooks, women for keeping children, ordinary servants
for all sorts of work in private families, also taverners and
ticket-runners, with all sorts of nurses who either come to gentlemen’s
houses, or nurse children in their own’—for so many and so various were
the descriptions of menials employed at that time even in poor Scotland.
With regard to the department for commercial intelligence, it was
evident that ‘men are often straitened how and where to inquire for
bargains they intend,’ while others are equally ‘at a loss how to make
known their offers of bargains and other proposals.’ The latter were
thus ‘obliged to send clapps, as they call them,[295] through the town,
and sometimes to put advertisements in gazettes, which yet are noways
sufficient for the end designed, for the clapps go only in Edinburgh,
and for small businesses, and the gazette is uncertain, and gazettes
come not to all men’s hands, nor are they oft to be found when men have
most to do with them, whereas a standing office would abide all men, and
be ever ready.’
The Council complied with Lawson’s petition in every particular, only
binding him to exact no more fee than fourteen shillings Scots (1_s._
2_d._), where the fee is twelve pounds Scots (£1 sterling) or upwards,
and seven shillings Scots where the fee is below that sum.
[Sidenote: JULY 3.]
The infant library of the Faculty of Advocates having been [Sidenote:
1701.] burnt out of its original depository in the Parliament Square, a
new receptacle was sought for it in the rooms under the Parliament
House—the Faculty and the Edinburgh magistrates concurring in the
request—and the Privy Council complied, only reserving the right of the
high constable to view and search the place ‘the time of the sitting of
parliament’—a regulation, doubtless, held necessary to prevent new
examples of the Gunpowder Treason.
[Sidenote: AUG. 27.]
Lord Basil Hamilton, sixth son of the Duchess of Hamilton—a young man
endeared to his country by the part he had taken in vindicating her
rights in the Darien affair—lost his life by a dismal accident, leaving
but one consolation to his friends, that he lost it in the cause of
humanity. Passing through Galloway, with his brother the Earl of Selkirk
and some friends, he came to a little water called the Minnick, swelled
with sudden rain. A servant went forward to try the ford, and was
carried away by the stream. Lord Basil rushed in to save the man, caught
him, but was that moment dismounted, and carried off by the torrent; so
he perished in the sight of his brother and friends, none being able to
render him any assistance. It was a great stroke to the Hamilton family,
to the country party, and indeed to the whole of the people of Scotland.
Lord Basil died in his thirtieth year.
On the evening of the next day, the Earl of Selkirk came, worn with
travel, to the gate of Hamilton Palace, to tell his widowed mother of
her irreparable loss. But, according to a story related by Wodrow, her
Grace was already aware of what had happened. ‘On the Wednesday’s night
[the night of the accident] the duchess dreamed she saw Lord Basil and
Lord Selkirk drowned in a water, and she thought she said to Lady
Baldoon [Lord Basil’s wife], “Charles and Basil are drowned,” Charles
being the Earl of Selkirk. The Lady Baldoon, she thought, answered:
“Lord Selkirk is safe, madam; there is no matter.” The duchess thought
she answered: “The woman’s mad; she knows not her lord is dead;” and
that she [Lady Baldoon] added: “Is Basil dead? then let James [the duke]
take all: I will meddle no more with the world.” All this she [the
duchess] told in the Thursday morning, twelve hours or more before Lord
Selkirk came to Hamilton, who brought the first word of it.’[296]
[Sidenote: DEC. 5.]
Four men were tried at Perth for theft by the commissioners [Sidenote:
1701.] for securing the peace of the Highlands, and, being found guilty,
were liable to the punishment of death. The Lords, however, were pleased
to adjudge them to the lighter punishment of perpetual servitude, not in
the plantations, as we have seen to be common, but at home, and the
panels to be ‘at the court’s disposal.’ One of them, Alexander Steuart,
they bestowed as a gift on Sir John Areskine of Alva, probably with a
view to his being employed as a labourer in the silver-mine which Sir
John about this time worked in a glen of the Ochils belonging to
him.[297] Sir John was enjoined to fit a metal collar upon the man,
bearing the following inscription: ‘Alex^r. Steuart, found guilty of
death for theft, at Perth, the 5th of December 1701, and gifted by the
justiciars as a perpetual servant to Sir John Areskine of Alva;’ and to
remove him from prison in the course of the ensuing week.[298] The
reality of this strange proceeding has been brought home to us in a
surprising manner, for the collar, with this inscription, was many years
ago dredged up in the Firth of Forth, in the bosom of which it is
surmised that the poor man found a sad refuge from the pains of slavery.
As a curious memorial of past things, it is now preserved in our
National Museum of Antiquities.
The reader will perhaps be surprised to hear of a silver-mine in the
Ochils, and it may therefore be proper, before saying anything more,
that we hear what has been put on record on this subject.
‘In the parish of Alva, a very valuable mine of silver was discovered
about the commencement of the last century[299] by Sir James [John]
Erskine of Alva, in the glen or ravine which separates the _Middle-hill_
from the _Wood-hill_. It made its first appearance in small strings of
silver ore, which, being followed, led to a large mass of that metal. A
part of this had the appearance of malleable silver, and was found on
trial to be so rich as to produce twelve ounces of silver from fourteen
ounces of ore. Not more than £50 had been expended when this valuable
discovery was made. For the space of thirteen or fourteen weeks, it is
credibly affirmed that the proprietor obtained ore from this mine to the
value of £4000 per week. When this mass was exhausted, the silver ore
began to appear in smaller quantities; [Sidenote: 1701.] symptoms of
lead and other metals presented themselves, and the search was for the
present abandoned.’[300]
It is related that Sir John, walking with a friend over his estate,
pointed out a great hole, and remarked: ‘Out of that hole I took fifty
thousand pounds.’ Then presently, walking on, he came to another
excavation, and, continued he: ‘I put it all into _that_ hole.’
Nevertheless, the search was renewed by his younger brother, Charles
Areskine, Lord Justice-Clerk, but without the expected fruit, though a
discovery was made of cobalt, and considerable quantities of that
valuable mineral were extracted even from the rubbish of his
predecessor’s works. In 1767, Lord Alva, the son of the Lord
Justice-Clerk, bestowed a pair of silver communion-cups upon the parish
of Alva, with an inscription denoting that they were fashioned from
silver found at the place.
The granting of Steuart as ‘a perpetual servant’ to Sir John Areskine
sounds strangely to modern ears; but it was in perfect accordance with
law and usage in Scotland in old times; and there was even some vestige
of the usage familiar to Englishmen at no remote date, in laws for
setting the poor to work in workhouses. The act of the Highland
justiciars was the more natural, simple, and reasonable, that labourers
in mines and at salt-works were regarded by the law of Scotland as
‘necessary servants,’ who, without any paction, by merely coming and
taking work in such places, became bound to servitude for life, their
children also becoming bound if their fathers in any way used them as
assistants. Such is the view of the matter coolly set down in the
_Institutes_ of Mr John Erskine (1754), who further takes leave to tell
his readers that ‘there appears nothing repugnant, either to reason, or
to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, in a contract by which one
binds himself to perpetual service under a master, who, on his part, is
obliged to maintain the other in all the necessaries of life.’ It
appears that the salters and miners were transferred with the works when
these were sold; but a right in the masters to dispose of the men
otherwise, does not appear to have been a part of the Scots law.
In the year 1743, there appears to have been a disposition among the
bondsmen of the coal-mines in Fife and Lothian to assert their freedom.
Fifteen men who worked in the Gilmerton coal-works having absented
themselves in October, and gone to [Sidenote: 1701.] work at other
collieries, their master, Sir John Baird of Newbyth, advertised them, so
that no other master might break the act of parliament by entertaining
them, and also that the deserters might be secured. In the same year,
the Marquis of Lothian had to complain of three boys who ran away from
his colliery at Newbattle, and took refuge amongst the people of another
estate, supposed to have been that of the Viscount Oxenford. He
accordingly addressed the following letter to that nobleman:
‘NEWBATTLE, _July the 21st, 1743_.
‘MY LORD—Being told Sir Robert Dixon is not at home, I am equally
satisfied that Mr Biger should determine the use and practice of
coal-masters in such cases, if he pleases to take the trouble, which I
suppose is all your lordship is desirous to know before you let me
have these boys that ran away from my colliery, and was entertained by
your people; but if I mistake your intention, and you think it
necessary I prove my title to them in law, I am most willing to refer
the whole to Mr Biger, and therefore am ready to produce my evidence
at any time you please to appoint, and if my claim is found to be
good, shall expect the boys be returned without my being obliged to
find them out. My lord, I am not so well acquainted with Mr Biger as
to ask the favour; therefore hopes your lordship will do it, and wish
it may be determined soon, if convenient. I beg my best respects to
Lady Orbiston; and am, my lord,
‘Your lordship’s most obedient
‘and humble Servant,
‘LOTHIAN.’
‘_P. S._—I have not the smallest pretensions to the faither of these
boys, and should have pleasure in assisting you if I could spare any
of my coaliers.’[301]
Whether Mr Gibson of Durie had been dealt with in the same manner by his
colliers, we do not know; but in November he advertised for hands,
offering good and regularly paid wages, and ‘a line under his hand,
obliging himself to let them go from the works at any time, upon a
week’s warning, without any restraint whatever.’ He would also accept a
loan of workers from other coal-proprietors, and oblige himself ‘to
restore them when demanded.’[302]
I must not, however, forget—and certainly it is a curious thing
[Sidenote: 1701.] to remember—that I have myself seen in early life
native inhabitants of Scotland who had been slaves in their youth. The
restraints upon the personal freedom of salters and colliers—remains of
the villainage of the middle ages—were not put an end to till 1775, when
a statute (15 Geo. III. 28) extinguished them. I am tempted to relate a
trivial anecdote of actual life, which brings the recentness of slavery
in Scotland vividly before us.
About the year 1820, Mr Robert Bald of Alloa, mining-engineer, being on
a visit to Mr Colin Dunlop, at the Clyde Ironworks, near Glasgow, found
among the servants of the house an old working-man, commonly called Moss
Nook, who seemed to be on easy terms with his master. One day, Mr Bald
heard the following conversation take place between Mr Dunlop and this
veteran:
‘Moss Nook, you don’t appear, from your style of speaking, to be of this
part of the country. Where did you originally come from?’
‘Oh, sir,’ answered Moss Nook, ‘do you not know that your father brought
me here long ago from Mr M‘Nair’s of the Green [a place some miles off,
on the other side of the river]? Your father used to have merry-meetings
with Mr M‘Nair, and, one day, he saw me, and took a liking to me. At the
same time, Mr M‘Nair had taken a fancy to a very nice pony belonging to
your father; so they agreed on the subject, and _I was niffered away for
the pony_. That’s the way I came here.’
The man had, in short, been a slave, and was exchanged for a pony. To Mr
Bald’s perception, he had not the least idea that there was anything
singular or calling for remark in the manner of his leaving the Green.
[Sidenote: 1702.]
A Scottish clergyman resident in England—the same who lately ‘promoted
contributions for the printing of Bibles in the Irish language, and sent
so many of them down to Scotland, and there is no news he more earnestly
desires to know than what the G[eneral] A[ssembly] doth whenever it
meeteth for promoting the interests of the Gospel in the Highlands’—at
this time started a scheme for ‘erecting a library in every presbytery,
or at least county, in the Highlands.’ He had been for some time
prevented from maturing his plan by bodily distempers and faint hopes of
success; but now the scheme for sending libraries to the colonies had
encouraged him to come forward, and he issued a printed [Sidenote:
1702.] paper explaining his views, and calling for assistance. His great
object was to help the Highland Protestant clergy in the matter of
books, seeing that, owing to their poverty, and the scarcity of books,
few of them possessed property of that kind to the value of twenty
shillings; while it was equally true, that at the distance they lived at
from towns, the borrowing of books was with most of them impossible. It
was the more necessary that they should be provided with books, that the
Romish missionaries were so active among the people: how could the
clergy encounter these adversaries without the knowledge which they
might derive from books? ‘The gross ignorance of the people in those
parts, together with some late endeavours to seduce the inhabitants of
the isle of Hirta to a state of heathenism,[303] make it very necessary
that they be provided with such treatises as prove the truth of the
Christian religion. At the same time, the excellent parts and capacities
of the ministers generally throughout the Highlands give good ground to
expect much fruit from such a charity.’
The promoter of the scheme felt no hesitation in asking assistance in
the south, because the poverty of Scotland—‘occasioned chiefly by their
great losses at sea, the decay of trade, the great dearth of corn, and
the death of cattle for some years together—renders the people generally
unable to do much in the way of charity. Nevertheless, there are not
wanting those amongst them, who, amidst their straits and wants, are
forward to promote this or any other good design, even beyond their
power.’ He hoped no native would take offence at this confession, the
truth of which ‘is too much felt at home and known abroad to be
denied.... But if any are so foolish as to censure this paragraph, their
best way of confutation is to take an effectual and speedy course to
provide a competent number of libraries for such parts of our native
country as need them most.’
He even went so far as to draw up a set of rules for the keeping and
lending of the books—a very stringent code certainly it is; ‘but,’ says
he, ‘they who know the world but a little, and have seen the fate of
some libraries, will reckon the outmost precaution we can use little
enough to prevent what otherwise will be unavoidable. It’s a work of no
small difficulty to purchase a parcel of good books for public
advantage; nor is it less difficult [Sidenote: 1702.] to preserve and
secure them for posterity, when they are purchased.’[304]
A Memorial concerning the Highlands, published at Edinburgh in the
ensuing year, described them as full of ignorance and heathenism. Most
of the people were said to be unacquainted with the first principles of
Christianity; a few had been ‘caught by the trinkets of popery.’ While
there were schools at Inverness, Forres, Keith, Kincardine O’Neil,
Perth, &c.—places closely adjacent to the Highlands—there were none in
the country itself, excepting one at Abertarf (near the present
Fort-Augustus, in Inverness-shire), which had been erected by charitable
subscription, but where it was found nearly impossible to get scholars
unless subsistence was provided for them. In remote places, children
remained unbaptised for years. In the country generally, theft and
robbery were esteemed as ‘only a hunting, and not a crime;’ revenge, in
matters affecting a clan, even when carried the length of murder, was
counted a gallantry; idleness was a piece of honour; and blind obedience
to chiefs obscured all feeling of subjection to civil government.[305]
It was under a sense of the unenlightened state of the Highlands, and
particularly of the hold which the Catholic religion had obtained over
the Gael, that the ‘Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge’
was soon after formed by a combination of the friends of Presbyterian
orthodoxy. It was incorporated in 1709, at which time a strong effort
was made by the courts of the Established Church to promote
contributions in its behalf, though under some considerable
discouragements. Wodrow tells us that this Society was originated by a
small knot of gentlemen, including Mr Dundas of Philipston, clerk of the
General Assembly; Sir H. Cunningham, Sir Francis Grant [Lord Cullen],
Commissary Brodie, Sir Francis Pringle, and Mr George Meldrum, who,
about 1698, had formed themselves into a society for prayer and
religious correspondence. Writing now to Mr Dundas about the
subscriptions, and enclosing twenty-five pounds as a contribution from
the presbytery of Paisley, he apologises for the smallness of the sum in
proportion to the importance of the object, and says: ‘The public spirit
and zeal for any good designs is much away from the generality here.’
‘The truth is,’ says he, regarding [Sidenote: 1702.] another matter,
‘the strait of this part of the country is so great, through the dearth
of victual, that our collections are very far from maintaining our poor,
and our people ... are in such a pet with collections for bridges,
tolbooths, &c., that when any collection is intimate, they are sure to
give less that day than their ordinary.’[306] Nevertheless, the Society
was able to enter on a course of activity, which has never since been
allowed to relax.
The scheme of presbyterial libraries was realised in 1705 and 1706 to
the extent of nineteen, in addition to which fifty-eight local libraries
were established; but these institutions are understood to have been
little successful and ill supported. In 1719, the Christian Knowledge
Society had forty-eight schools established, increased to a hundred and
nine in 1732, and to two hundred at the close of the century. Its
missionary efforts were also very considerable. Such, however, were the
natural and other difficulties of the case, that a writer described the
people in 1826 as still ‘sunk in ignorance and poverty.’[307] It is not
merely that schools must necessarily be few in proportion to
geographical space, and school-learning, therefore, difficult of
attainment, but the Highlander unavoidably remains unacquainted with
many civilising influences which the communication of thought, and
observation of the processes of merchandise and the mechanical trades,
impart to more fortunate communities. The usual consequence of the
introduction of Christianity to minds previously uneducated has been
realised. It has taken a form involving much of both old and new
superstition, along with feelings of intolerance towards dissent even in
the most unessential particulars, such as recall to men in the south a
former century of our history.
It is remarkable that, while the bulk of the Highland population were
unschooled and ignorant, there were abundance of gentlemen who had a
perfect knowledge of Latin, and even composed Latin poetry. Nor is it
less important or more than strictly just to observe that, amidst all
the rudeness of former times in the Highlands, there was amongst the
common people an old traditionary morality, which included not a little
that was entitled to admiration. To get a full idea of what this was,
one must peruse the writings of Mrs Grant and Colonel Stewart. The very
depredations so often spoken of could hardly be said to [Sidenote:
1702.] involve a true turpitude, being so much connected as they were
with national and clan feelings.
[Sidenote: FEB. 10.]
Captain Simon Fraser of Beaufort, who had long been declared rebel for
not appearing to answer at the Court of Justiciary on the charge of
rape brought against him by the dowager Lady Lovat,[308] was described
at this time as living openly in the country as a free liege, ‘to the
contempt of all authority and justice.’ The general account given of
his habits is rather picturesque. ‘He keeps in a manner his open
residence within the lordship of Lovat, where, and especially in
Stratherrick,[309] he further presumes to keep men in arms, attending
and guarding his person.’ These he also employed in levying
contributions from Lady Lovat’s tenants, and he had thus actually
raised between five and six thousand merks. ‘Proceeding yet to further
degrees of unparalleled boldness, [he] causes make public intimation
at the kirks within the bounds on the Lord’s Day, that all the people
be in readiness with their best arms when advertised.’ The tenants
were consequently so harassed as to be unable to pay her ladyship any
rents, and there were ‘daily complaints of these strange and lawless
disorders.’
The Council granted warrants of intercommuning against the culprit, and
enjoined his majesty’s forces to be helpful in apprehending him.[310] We
find that, in the month of August, Fraser had departed from the country,
but his interest continued to be maintained by others. His brother John,
with thirty or forty ‘loose and broken men,’ went freely up and down the
countries of Aird and Stratherrick, menacing with death the chamberlains
of the Lady Lovat[311] and her husband, Mr Alexander Mackenzie of
Prestonhall, if they should uplift the rents in behalf of their master
and mistress, and threatening the tenants in like manner, if they should
pay their rents to those persons. The better to support this lawless
system, John kept a garrison of armed gillies in the town of Bewly, ‘the
heart of the country of Aird,’ entirely at the cost of the tenants
there. Within the last few weeks, they had taken from the tenants of
Aird ‘two hundred custom wedders and lambs,’ and, breaking up the
meal-girnels of Bewly, they had supplied themselves with sixty bolls of
[Sidenote: 1702.] meal. At the beginning of July, Fraser, younger of
Buchrubbin, and two accomplices, came to the house of Moniack, the
residence of Mr Hugh Fraser, one of the lady’s chamberlains, ‘and having
by a false token got him out of his house,’ first reproached him with
his office, and then ‘beat him with the butts of their guns, and had
murdered him if he had not made his escape.’
Mr Hugh Fraser and Captain John Mackenzie, ‘conjunct bailie and
chamberlain,’ applied for protection to the Highland commission of
justiciary, who ordered a small military party to go and maintain the
law in the Aird. But it was very difficult to obtain observance of law
in a country where the bulk of the people were otherwise minded. The
introduction of soldiers only added to the fierceness of the rebellious
Frasers, who now sent the most frightful threats to all who should take
part with Lady Lovat and her husband.
On the 5th of August, John Fraser came from Stratherrick with a party of
fifty armed followers, and gathering more as he passed through the Aird,
he fell upon the house of Fanellan, where Captain Mackenzie and the ten
soldiers were, with between two and three hundred men, calling upon the
inmates to surrender, on pain of having the house burnt about their ears
if they refused. They did refuse to yield, and the Frasers accordingly
set fire to the house and offices, the whole of which were burnt to the
ground. Captain Mackenzie, Hugh Fraser of Eskadale, the ten soldiers and
their commander, Lieutenant Cameron, besides a servant of Prestonhall,
were all taken prisoners. Having dismissed the soldiers, the Frasers
carried the rest in a bravadoing triumph through the country till they
came to the end of Loch Ness. There dismissing Lieutenant Cameron, they
proceeded with the two bailies and the servant to Stratherrick,
everywhere using them in a barbarous manner. The report given nine days
after in Edinburgh says of the prisoners, whether they be dead or alive
is unknown.
The Privy Council, feeling this to be ‘such an unparalleled piece of
insolence as had not been heard of in the country for an age,’ instantly
ordered large parties of troops to march into the Fraser countries, and
restore order.
On the 8th of September, the Council sent Brigadier Maitland and Major
Hamilton their thanks ‘for their good services done in dispersing the
Frasers,’ and, a few days after, we find orders issued for using all
endeavours to capture John Fraser. Captain [Sidenote: 1702.] Grant’s
company remained in Stratherrick till the ensuing February.[312]
[Sidenote: MAR. 11.]
At ten o’clock in the evening, Colonel Archibald Row arrived express at
Edinburgh with the news of the king’s death. King William died in
Kensington Palace at eight o’clock in the morning of Sunday the 8th
instant: it consequently took three days and a half for this express to
reach the Scottish capital, being a day more than had been required by
Robert Carey, when he came to Edinburgh with the more welcome
intelligence of the demise of Queen Elizabeth, ninety-nine years before.
[Illustration: House of Lord Advocate Steuart, at bottom of Advocates’
Close, west side.]