‘This sum, no doubt, made up by far the greatest part of the silver
coined money current in Scotland at that time; but it was not to be
expected that the whole money of that kind could be brought into the
bank; for the folly of a few misers, or the fear that people might have
of losing their money, or various other dangers and accidents, prevented
very many of the old Scots coins from being brought in. A great part of
these the goldsmiths, in aftertimes, consumed by melting them down; some
of them have been exported to foreign countries; a few are yet [1738] in
private hands.’[390]
[Sidenote: 1707.]
Ruddiman, finding that, during the time between December 1602 and April
1613, there was rather more estimated value of gold than of silver
coined in the Scottish mint, arrived at the conclusion (though not
without great hesitation), that there was more value of gold coin in
Scotland in 1707 than of silver, and that the sum-total of gold and
silver money together, at the time of the Union, was consequently ‘not
less than nine hundred thousand pounds sterling.’ We are told, however,
in the _History of the Bank of Scotland_, under 1699, that ‘nothing
answers among the common people but silver-money, _even gold being
little known amongst them_;’ and Defoe more explicitly says, ‘there was
at this time _no Scots gold coin current, or to be seen, except a few
preserved for antiquity_.’[391] It therefore seems quite inadmissible
that the Scottish gold coin in 1707 amounted to nearly so much as
Ruddiman conjectures. More probably, it was not £30,000.
It would appear that the Scottish copper-money was not called in at the
Union, and Ruddiman speaks of it in 1738 as nearly worn out of
existence, ‘so that the scarcity of copper-money does now occasion
frequent complaints.’
If the outstanding silver-money be reckoned at £60,000, the gold at
£30,000, and the copper at £60,000, the entire metallic money in use in
Scotland in 1707 would be under six hundred thousand pounds sterling in
value. It is not unworthy of observation, as an illustration of the
advance of wealth in the country since that time, that a private
gentlewoman died in 1841, with a nearly equal sum at her account in the
banks, besides other property to at least an equal amount.
In March 1708, while the renovation of the coinage was going on, the
French fleet, with the Chevalier de St George on board, appeared at the
mouth of the Firth of Forth, designing to invade the country. The Bank
got a great alarm, for it ‘had a very large sum lying in the mint in
ingots,’ and a considerable sum of the old coin in its own coffers,
‘besides a large sum in current species; all of which could not have
easily been carried off and concealed.’[392] The danger, however, soon
blew over. ‘Those in power at the time, fearing lest, all our
silver-money having been brought into our treasury, or into the Bank, a
little before, there should be a want of money for the expenses of the
war, ordered the [Sidenote: 1707.] forty-shilling pieces to be again
issued out of the banks; of which sort of coin there was great plenty at
that time in Scotland, and commanded these to be distributed for pay to
the soldiers and other exigencies of the public; but when that
disturbance was settled, they ordered that kind of money also to be
brought into the bank; and on a computation being made, it was found
that the quantity of that kind, brought in the second time, exceeded
that which was brought in the first time [by] at least four thousand
pounds sterling.’[393]
We are told by the historian of the Bank, that ‘the whole nation was
most sensible of the great benefit that did redound from the Bank’s
undertaking and effectuating the recoinage, and in the meantime keeping
up an uninterrupted circulation of money.’ Its good service was
represented to the queen, considered by the Lords of the Treasury and
Barons of Exchequer, and reported on favourably. ‘But her majesty’s
death intervening, and a variety of public affairs on that occasion and
since occurring, the directors have not found a convenient opportunity
for prosecuting their just claim on the government’s favour and reward
for that seasonable and very useful service.’
[Sidenote: NOV. 3.]
Mr John Strahan, Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, was at this time
owner of Craigcrook, a romantically situated old manor-house under the
lee of Corstorphine Hill—afterwards for many years the residence of Lord
Jeffrey. Strahan had also a house in the High Street of Edinburgh. He
was the owner of considerable wealth, the bulk of which he ultimately
‘mortified’ for the support of poor old men, women, and orphans; a
charity which still flourishes.
Strahan had a servant named Helen Bell to keep his town mansion, and
probably she was left a good deal by herself. As other young women in
her situation will do, she admitted young men to see her in her master’s
house. On Hallowe’en night this year, she received a visit from two
young artisans, William Thomson and John Robertson, whom she happened to
inform that on Monday morning—that is, the second morning thereafter—she
was to go out to Craigcrook, leaving the town-house of course empty.
About five o’clock on Monday morning, accordingly, this innocent young
woman locked up her master’s house, and set forth on [Sidenote: 1707.]
her brief journey, little recking that it was the last she would ever
undertake in this world. As she was proceeding through the silent
streets, her two male friends joined her, telling her they were going
part of her way; and she gave them a couple of bottles and the key of
the house to carry, in order to lighten her burden. On coming to a
difficult part of the way, called the _Three Steps_, at the foot of the
Castle Rock, the two men threw her down and killed her with a hammer.
They then returned to town, with the design of searching Mr Strahan’s
house for money.
According to the subsequent confession of Thomson, as they returned
through the Grassmarket, they swore to each other to give their souls
and bodies to the devil, if ever either of them should inform against
the other, even in the event of their being captured. In the empty
streets, in the dull gray of the morning, agitated by the horrid
reflections arising from their barbarous act and its probable
consequences, it is not very wonderful that almost any sort of
hallucination should have taken possession of these miserable men. It
was stated by them that, on Robertson proposing that their engagement
should be engrossed in a bond, a man started up between them in the
middle of the West Bow, and offered to write the bond, which they had
agreed to subscribe with their blood; but, on Thomson’s demurring, this
stranger immediately disappeared. No contemporary of course could be at
any loss to surmise who this stranger was.[394]
The two murderers having made their way into Mr Strahan’s house, broke
open his study, and the chest where his cash was kept. They found there
a thousand pounds sterling, in bags of fifty pounds each, ‘all milled
money,’ except one hundred pounds, which was in gold; all of which they
carried off. Robertson proposed to set the house on fire before their
departure; but Thomson said he had done wickedness enough already, and
was resolved not to commit more, even though Robertson should attempt to
murder him for his refusal.
Mr Strahan advertised a reward of five hundred merks for the detection
of the perpetrator or perpetrators of these atrocities;[395] but for
some weeks no trace of the guilty men was discovered. At length, some
suspicion lighting upon Thomson, he was taken up, and, having made a
voluntary [Sidenote: 1707.] confession of the murder and robbery, he
expiated his offence in the Grassmarket.[396]
[Sidenote: DEC. 9.]
A poor man named Hunter, a shoemaker in the Potterrow, Edinburgh, had
become possessed of a ‘factory’ for the uplifting of ten or eleven
pounds of wages due to one Guine, a seaman, for services in a ship of
the African Company. The money was now payable out of the Equivalent,
but certain signatures were required which it was not possible to
obtain. With the aid of a couple of low notaries and two other persons,
these signatures were forged, and the money was then drawn.
Detection having followed, the case came before the Court of Session,
who viewed it in a light more grave than seems now reasonable, and
remitted it to the Lords of Justiciary. The result reminds us of the
doings of Justice, when she _did_ act, in the reign of James VI. Hunter
and Strachan, a notary, were hanged on the 18th of February, ‘as an
example to the terror of others,’ says Fountainhall. Three other
persons, including a notary, were glad to save themselves from a trial,
by voluntary banishment. ‘Some moved that they might be delivered to a
captain of the recruits, to serve as soldiers in Flanders; but the other
method was judged more legal.’[397]
[Sidenote: DEC. 30.]
The parish of Spott, in East Lothian, having no communion-cups of its
own, was accustomed to borrow those of the neighbouring parish of
Stenton, when required. The Stenton kirk-session latterly tired of this
benevolence, and resolved to charge half-a-crown each time their cups
were borrowed by Spott. Spott then felt a little ashamed of its
deficiency of communion-cups, and resolved to provide itself with a
pair. Towards the sum required, the minister was directed to take all
the foreign coin now in the box, as it was to be no longer current, and
such further sum as might be necessary.
The parish is soon after found sanctioning the account of Thomas Kerr,
an Edinburgh goldsmith, for ‘ane pair of [Sidenote: 1707.]
communion-cups, weighing 33 oz. 6 drops, at £3, 16_s._ per oz.,’ being
£126, 12_s._ in all, Scots money, besides ‘two shillings sterling of
drink-money given to the goldsmith’s men.’[398]
[Sidenote: 1708.]
The Union produced some immediate effects of a remarkable nature on the
industry and traffic of Scotland—not all of them good, it must be owned,
but this solely by reason of the erroneous laws in respect of trade
which existed in England, and to which Scotland was obliged to conform.
Scotland had immediately to cease importing wines, brandy, and all
things produced by France; with no remeed but what was supplied by the
smuggler. This was one branch of her public or ostensible commerce now
entirely destroyed. She had also, in conformity with England, to cease
exporting her wool. This, however, was an evil not wholly unalleviated,
as will presently be seen.
Before this time, as admitted by Defoe, the Scotch people had ‘begun to
come to some perfection in making broad cloths, druggets, and [woollen]
stuffs of all sorts.’ Now that there was no longer a prohibition of
English goods of the same kinds, these began to come in in such great
quantity, and at such prices, as at once extinguished the superior
woollen manufacture in Scotland. There remained the manufacture of
coarse cloths, as Stirling serges, Musselburgh stuffs, and the like; and
this now rather flourished, partly because the wool, being forbidden to
be sent abroad, could be had at a lower price, and partly because these
goods came into demand in England. Of course, the people at large were
injured by not getting the best price for their wool, and benefited by
getting the finer English woollen goods at a cheaper rate than they had
formerly paid for their own manufactures of the same kinds; but no one
saw such matters in such a light at that time. The object everywhere
held in view was to benefit _trade_—that is, everybody’s peculium, as
distinguished from the general good. The general good was left to see
after itself, after everybody’s peculium had been served; and small
enough were the crumbs usually left to it.
On the other hand, duties being taken off Scottish linen introduced into
England, there was immediately a large increase to that branch of the
national industry. Englishmen came down and established works for
sail-cloth, for damasks, and other linen [Sidenote: 1708.] articles
heretofore hardly known in the north; and thus it was remarked there was
as much employment for the poor as in the best days of the woollen
manufacture.
The colonial trade being now, moreover, open to Scottish enterprise,
there was an immediate stimulus to the building of ships for that
market. Cargoes of Scottish goods went out in great quantity, in
exchange for colonial products brought in. According to Defoe, ‘several
ships were laden for Virginia and Barbadoes the very first year after
the Union.’[399]
We get a striking idea of the small scale on which the earlier
commercial efforts were conducted, from a fact noted by Wodrow, as to a
loss made by the Glasgow merchants in the autumn of 1709. ‘In the
beginning of this month [November],’ says he, ‘Borrowstounness and
Glasgow have suffered very much by the fleet going to Holland, its being
taken by the French. It’s said that in all there is about eighty
thousand pounds sterling lost there, _whereof Glasgow has lost ten
thousand pounds_. I wish trading persons may see the language of such a
providence. I am sure the Lord is remarkably frowning upon our trade, in
more respects than one, since it was put in the room of religion, in the
late alteration of our constitution.’[400]
When one thinks of the present superb wealth and commercial distinction
of the Queen of the West, it is impossible to withhold a smile at
Wodrow’s remarks on its loss of ten thousand pounds. Yet the fact is,
that up to this time Glasgow had but a petty trade, chiefly in sugar,
herrings, and coarse woollen wares. Its tobacco-trade, the origin of its
grandeur, is understood to date only from 1707, and it was not till 1718
that Glasgow sent any vessel belonging to itself across the Atlantic.
Sir John Dalrymple, writing shortly before 1788, says: ‘I once asked the
late Provost Cochrane of Glasgow, who was eminently wise, and who has
been a merchant there for seventy years, to what causes he imputed the
sudden rise of Glasgow. He said it was all owing to four young men of
talents and spirit, who started at one time in business, and whose
success gave example to the rest. _The four had not ten thousand pounds
amongst them when they began._’[401]
[Sidenote: 1708.]
Defoe tells us that, within little more than a year after the Union,
Scotland felt the benefit of the liberation of her commerce in one
article to a most remarkable extent. In that time, she sent 170,000
bolls of grain into England, besides a large quantity which English
merchants bought up and shipped directly off for Portugal. The hardy
little cattle of her pastures, which before the Union had been sent in
large droves into England, being doubtless the principal article
represented in the two hundred thousand pounds which Scotland was
ascertained to obtain annually from her English customers, were now
transmitted in still larger numbers, insomuch that men of birth and
figure went into the trade. Even a Highland gentleman would think it not
beneath him to engage in so lucrative a traffic, however much in his
soul he might despise the Saxons whose gluttony he considered himself as
gratifying. It has often been told that the Honourable Patrick Ogilvie,
whom the reader has already seen engaged in a different career of
activity, took up the cattle-trade, and was soon after remonstrated with
by his brother, the Earl of Seafield, who, as Chancellor of Scotland,
had been deeply concerned in bringing about the Union. The worthy scion
of nobility drily remarked in answer: ‘Better sell nowte than sell
nations.’[402]
A sketch given of a cattle-fair at Crieff in 1723 by an intelligent
traveller, shews that the trade continued to prosper. ‘There were,’ says
he, ‘at least thirty thousand cattle sold there, most of them to English
drovers, who paid down above thirty thousand guineas in ready money to
the Highlanders; a sum they had never before seen. The Highland
gentlemen were mighty civil, dressed in their slashed waistcoats, a
trousing (which is, breeches and stockings of one piece of striped
stuff), with a plaid for a cloak, and a blue bonnet. They have a poniard
knife and fork in one sheath, hanging at one side of their belt, their
pistol at the other, and their snuff-mill before; with a great
broadsword by their side. Their attendance was very numerous, all in
belted plaids, girt like women’s petticoats down to the knee; their
thighs and half of the leg all bare. They had also each their broadsword
and poniard, and spake all Irish, an unintelligible language to the
English. However, these poor creatures hired themselves out for a
shilling a day, to drive the cattle to England, and to return home at
their own charge.’[403]
[Sidenote: 1708. MAY 1.]
Previous to the Union, the Customs and Excise of Scotland were farmed
respectively at £30,000 and £35,000 per annum,[404] which, after every
allowance is made for smuggling, must be admitted as indicative of a
very restricted commercial system, and a simple and meagre style of
living on the part of the people. At the Union, the British government
took the Customs and Excise of Scotland into its own hands, placing them
severally under commissions, partly composed of Englishmen, and also
sending English officers of experience down to Scotland, to assist in
establishing proper arrangements for collection. We learn from Defoe
that all these new fiscal arrangements were unpopular. The anti-union
spirit delighted in proclaiming them as the outward symptoms of that
English tyranny to which poor Scotland had been sold. Smuggling
naturally flourished, for it became patriotic to cheat the English
revenue-officers. The people not only assisted and screened the
contrabandist, but if his goods chanced to be captured, they rose in
arms to rescue them. Owing to the close of the French trade, the
receiving of brandy became a favourite and flourishing business. It was
alleged that, when a Dutch fleet approached the Scottish shores some
months after the Union, several thousands of small casks of that liquor
were put ashore, with hardly any effort at concealment.
Assuming the Excise as a tolerably fair index to the power of a people
to indulge in what they feel as comforts and luxuries, the progress of
this branch of the public revenue may be esteemed as a history of wealth
in Scotland during the remarkable period following upon the Union. The
summations it gives us are certainly of a kind such as no Scotsman of
the reign of Queen Anne, adverse or friendly to the incorporation of the
two countries, could have dreamed of. The items in the account of the
first year ending at May 1, 1708, are limited to four—namely, for beer,
ale, and vinegar, £43,653; spirits, £901; mum,[405] £50; fines and
forfeitures, £58; giving—when £6350 for salaries, and some other
deductions, were allowed for—a net total of £34,898, as a contribution
to the revenue of the country.
The totals, during the next eleven years, go on thus: £41,096, £37,998,
£46,795, £51,609, £61,747, £46,979, £44,488, £45,285—this [Sidenote:
1708.] refers to the year of the Rebellion—£48,813, £46,649, £50,377. On
this last sum the charges of management amounted to £15,400. After this,
the total net produce of the Excise, exclusive of malt, never again came
up to fifty thousand pounds, till the year 1749. The malt tax, which was
first imposed in 1725, then amounted to £22,627, making the entire
Excise revenue of Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century no
more than £75,987. It is to be feared that increase of dexterity and
activity in the smuggler had some concern in keeping down these returns
at so low an amount;[406] yet when large allowance is made on that
score, we are still left to conclude that the means of purchasing
luxuries remained amongst our people at a very humble point.
I am informed by a gentleman long connected with the Excise Board in
Scotland, that the books exhibited many curious indications of the
simplicity, as well as restrictedness, of all monetary affairs as
relating to our country in the reigns of Anne and the first George.
According to a recital which he has been kind enough to communicate in
writing, ‘The remittances were for the most part made in coin, and
various entries in the Excise accounts shew that what were called _broad
pieces_ frequently formed a part of the moneys sent. The commissioners
were in the habit of availing themselves of the opportunity of persons
of rank travelling to London, to make them the bearers of the money; and
it is a curious historical fact, that the first remittance out of the
Excise duties, amounting to £20,000, was sent by the Earl of Leven, who
delivered £19,000 of the amount at the proper office in London,
retaining the other thousand pounds for his trouble and risk in the
service. As the Board in Scotland could only produce to their
comptroller a voucher for the sum actually delivered in London, he could
not allow them credit for more. The £1000 was therefore placed “insuper”
upon the accounts, and so remained for several years; until at last a
warrant was issued by the Treasury, authorising the sum to be passed to
the credit of the commissioners.’
After the middle of the century, the progress is such as to shew that,
whether by the removal of repressive influences, or the imparting of
some fresh spring of energy, the means of the people were at length
undergoing a rapid increase. In 1761, [Sidenote: 1708.] including part
of the first year of George III., the net total Excise revenue had
sprung up to £100,985. It included taxes on glass (£1151), candles
(£6107), leather (£8245), soap and paper (£2992), and wheel-carriages
(£2308). The total had, however, receded fully fourteen thousand pounds
by 1775. After that time, war increased the rate of taxation, and we
therefore need not be surprised to find the Scottish Excise producing
£200,432 in 1781. In 1790, when Robert Burns honoured this branch of the
revenue by taking an office in it, it had reached but to the
comparatively insignificant sum of £331,117. In 1808, being the
hundredth year of its existence, it yielded £1,793,430, being rather
more than _fifty-one_ times its produce during the first year.[407]
[Sidenote: JUNE 1.]
The Duke of Argyle resigning his place as an extraordinary Lord of
Session, in order to follow his charge in the army, his younger brother,
the Earl of Ilay, succeeded him, though under twenty-five years of age;
not apparently that he might take part in the decisions of the bench,
but rather that he might be a learner there, it ‘being,’ says
Fountainhall, ‘the best school for the nobility to learn that is in
Europe.’
[Sidenote: JUNE 26.]
The election of a knight to represent Ross-shire in the British
parliament took place at Fortrose, under the presidency of the sheriff,
Hugh Rose, of Kilravock. There was much dissension in the county, and
the sheriff, whose son was elected, had probably reasons of his own for
appointing the last day of the week for the ceremony. This, however,
having led to travelling on Sunday, was taken into consideration by the
synod some months later, as a breach of decorum on the part of the
sheriff, who consequently received a letter from one of their number who
had been appointed to administer their censure. It set forth how, even
if the meeting had been dissolved on the Saturday evening, many could
not have got home without breaking the fourth commandment; but Kilravock
had caused worse than this, for, by making the meeting late in the day,
he had ‘occasioned the affair to be protracted till the Sabbath began
more than to dawn [two o’clock],’ and there had been ‘gross disorders,’
in consequence of late drinking in taverns. ‘Some,’ says the document,
‘who were in your own [Sidenote: 1708.] company, are said to have sung,
shott, and danced in their progress to the ferry, without any check or
restraint, as if they meant to spit in the face of all sacred and civil
laws,’ The synod had found it impossible to keep silence and allow such
miscarriages to remain unreproved.
It is to be feared that Kilravock was little benefited by their censure,
as he left the paper docketed in his repositories as ‘a comical
synodical rebuke.’[408]
[Sidenote: AUG. 18.]
That remarkable property of human nature—the anxiety everybody is under
that all other people should be virtuous—had worked itself out in sundry
famous acts of parliament, general assembly, and town-council,
throughout our history subsequent to the Reformation. There was an act
of Queen Mary against adultery, and several of Charles II. against
profaneness, drunkenness, and other impurities of life. There was not
one of William and Mary for the enforcement of the fifth commandment;
but the general principle operated in their reign very conspicuously
nevertheless, particularly in regard to profaneness and profanation of
the Lord’s Day. King William had also taken care in 1698 to issue a
proclamation containing an abbreviate of all the acts against
immorality, and in which that of Charles II. against cursing and beating
of parents was certainly not overlooked, as neither were those against
adultery. So far had the anxiety for respectable conduct in others gone
in the present reign, that sheriffs and magistrates were now enjoined by
proclamation to hold courts, once a month at least, for taking notice of
vice and immorality, fining the guilty, and rewarding informers;
moreover, all naval and military officers were ordered to exemplify the
virtues for the sake of those under them, and, above all, see that the
latter duly submitted themselves to kirk discipline.
An act of the town-council of Edinburgh ‘anent prophaneness,’ in August
1693, threatened a rigorous execution of all the public statutes
regarding immoral conduct, such as swearing, sitting late in taverns,
and desecration of the Lord’s Day. It strictly prohibited all persons
within the city and suburbs ‘to brew, or to work any other handiwork, on
the Lord’s Day, or to be found on the streets, standing or walking idly,
or to go in company or vague to the Castlehill [the only open space then
within the city [Sidenote: 1708.] walls], public yards, or fields.’ It
discharged all going to taverns on that day, unseasonably or
unnecessarily, and forbade ‘all persons to bring in water from the wells
to houses in greater quantities than single pints.’ By another act in
1699, tavern-keepers were forbidden to have women for servants who had
not heretofore been of perfectly correct conduct. All these
denunciations were renewed in an act of February 1701, in which,
moreover, there was a severe threat against barbers who should shave or
trim any one on Sunday, and against all who should be found on that day
carrying periwigs, clothes, or other apparel through the streets.
Not long after this, the Edinburgh council took into their consideration
three great recent calamities—namely, the fire in the Kirk-heugh in
February 1700; another fire ‘which happened on the north side of the
Land market, about mid-day upon the 28th of October 1701, wherein
several men, and women, and children were consumed in the flames, and
lost by the fall of ruinous walls;’ and finally, ‘that most tremendous
and terrible blowing up of gunpowder in Leith, upon the 3d of July
last;’ and, reflecting on these things as tokens of God’s wrath, came to
the resolution, ‘to be more watchful over our hearts and ways than
formerly, and each of us in our several capacities to reprove vice with
zeal and prudence, and promote the execution of the laws for punishing
the vicious.’
All originality is taken from a notorious parliamentary enactment of our
time by a council act of April 1704, wherein, after reference to the
great decay of virtue and piety, and an acknowledgment that ‘all manner
of scandals and immoralities do daily abound,’ it is ordered that
taverners, under strong penalties, shall shut at ten o’clock at night,
all persons harbouring there at a later hour to be likewise punished.
Inordinate playing at cards and dice in taverns is instanced in a
council act of about the same period, as one of the most flagrant vices
of the time.
It is to be understood that the discipline of the church over the morals
of congregations was at the same time in full vigour, although not now
fortified by a power of excommunication, inferring loss of civil rights,
as had been the case before the Revolution. Much was done in this
department by fines, proportioned to the quality of offenders, and for
the application of these to charitable uses there was a lay-officer,
styled the Kirk-treasurer, who naturally became a very formidable
person. The [Sidenote: 1708.] poems of Ramsay and others during the
earlier half of the eighteenth century are full of waggish allusions to
the terrible powers of even the ‘man’ or servant of the Kirk-treasurer;
and in a parody of the younger Ramsay on the _Integer Vitæ_ of Horace,
this personage is set forth as the analogue of the Sabine wolf:
‘For but last Monday, walking at noon-day,
Conning a ditty, to divert my Betty,
By me that sour Turk (I not frighted) our Kirk-
Treasurer’s man passed.
And sure more horrid monster in the Torrid
Zone cannot be found, sir, though for snakes renowned, sir;
Nor does Czar Peter’s empire boast such creatures,
Of bears the wet-nurse.’[409]
Burt, who, as an English stranger, viewed the moral police of Scotland
with a curious surprise, broadly asserts that the Kirk-treasurer
employed spies to track out and report upon private individuals; so that
‘people lie at the mercy of villains who would perhaps forswear
themselves for sixpence.’ Sometimes, a brother and sister, or a man and
his wife, walking quietly together, would find themselves under the
observation of emissaries of the Kirk-treasurer. Burt says he had known
the town-guard in Edinburgh under arms for a night besetting a house
into which two persons had been seen to enter. He at the same time
remarks the extreme anxiety about Sabbath observance. It seemed as if
the Scotch recognised no other virtue. ‘People would startle more at the
humming or whistling of a tune on a Sunday, than if anybody should tell
them you had ruined a family.’[410]
It must have been a great rejoicement to the gay people, when a
Kirk-treasurer—as we are told by Burt[411]—‘having a round sum of money
in his keeping, the property of the kirk, marched off with the cash, and
took his neighbour’s wife along with him to bear him company and partake
of the spoil.’
The very imperfect success of acts and statutes for improving the habits
of the people, is strongly hinted at by their frequent repetition or
renewal. We find it acknowledged by the Town Council of Edinburgh, in
June 1709, that the Lord’s Day is still ‘profaned by people standing on
the streets, and vaguing to fields and gardens, and to the Castlehill;
also by standing idle gazing [Sidenote: 1708.] out at windows, and
children, apprentices, and other servants playing on the streets.’[412]
[Sidenote: NOV. 22.]
James Stirling of Keir, Archibald Seton of Touch, Archibald Stirling of
Carden, Charles Stirling of Kippendavie, and Patrick Edmondstone of
Newton, were tried for high treason in Edinburgh, on the ground of their
having risen in arms in March last, in connection with the French plan
of invasion, and marched about for several days, encouraging others to
rise in like manner, and openly drinking the health of the Pretender.
Considering the openness of this treason, the charges against the five
gentlemen were remarkably ill supported by evidence, the only witnesses
being David Fenton, a tavern-keeper at Dunkeld; John Macleran,
‘change-keeper’ at Bridge of Turk; and Daniel Morison and Peter Wilson,
two servants of the Laird of Keir. These persons were all free to
testify that the gentlemen carried swords and pistols, which few people
travelled without in that age; but as for treasonable talk, or drinking
of treasonable healths, their memories were entirely blank. Wilson knew
of no reason for Keir leaving his own house but dread of being taken up
on suspicion by the soldiers in Stirling Castle. A verdict of Not Proven
unavoidably followed.[413]
It has been constantly remembered since in Keir’s family, that as he was
riding home after the trial, with his servant behind him—probably
Wilson—he turned about, and asked from mere curiosity, how it came to
pass that his friend had forgotten so much of what passed at their
parade for the Chevalier in March last, when the man responded: ‘I ken
very weel what you mean, laird; but my mind was clear to trust my saul
to the mercy o’ Heaven, rather than your honour’s body to the mercy o’
the Whigs.’
[Sidenote: NOV.]
Sir James Hall of Dunglass was proprietor of a barony called Old Cambus.
Within it was a ‘room’ or small piece of land belonging to Sir Patrick
Home of Renton, a member of a family of whose hotness of blood we have
already seen some evidences. To save a long roundabout, it had been the
custom for the tenants of the ‘room’ to drive peats from Coldingham Muir
through the Old Cambus grounds, but only on sufferance, and when the
corn [Sidenote: 1708.] was off the fields, nor even then without a quart
of ale to make matters pleasant with Sir James’s tenants. Some dispute
having now arisen between the parties, the tenant of Headchester forbade
Sir Patrick Home’s people to pass through his farm any more with their
peats; and they, on the other hand, determined that they should go by
that short passage as usual. The winter stock of fuel being now
required, the time had come for making good their assumed right. Mr John
Home, eldest son of Sir Patrick, accompanied the carts, with a few
servants to assist in making way. A collision took place, attended with
much violence on both sides, but with no exhibition of weapons that we
hear of, excepting Mr John’s sword, which, he alleged, he did not offer
to draw till his horse had been ‘beat in the face with a great rung
[stick].’ The affair was nevertheless productive of serious
consequences, for a blacksmith was trod to death, and several persons
were hurt. Had it happened eighty years earlier, there would have been
both swords and pistols used, and probably a dozen people would have
been killed.
The justices of the peace for Berwickshire took up the matter, and
imposed a fine of fifty pounds upon Mr John Home, as the person chiefly
guilty of the riot. He appealed to the Court of Session, setting forth
several objections to the sentence. The Earl of Marchmont, whose
daughter had married Sir James Hall, and two other members of the
justice-court, ought to be held as disqualified by affinity to sit in
judgment in the case. To this it was answered, that Sir James was not
the complainer, and his lady was dead. Home then alleged a right to the
passage. It was shewn, on the other hand, that there never had been a
passage save by tolerance and on consideration of the quart of ale; and
though it had been otherwise, he ought to have applied to the
magistrates, and not taken the law into his own hands: ‘however one
enters into possession, though cast in with a sling-stone, yet he must
be turned out by order of law. The Lords would not hear of reversing the
award of the justices; but they reduced the fine to thirty pounds.’[414]
[Sidenote: 1709. MAR.]
The family of the antiquary, Sir James Balfour, to whom we owe the
preservation of so many historical manuscripts, appears to have been a
very unfortunate one. We have seen that his youngest son and successor,
Sir Robert, was slaughtered in the [Sidenote: 1709.] reign of Charles
II. by M‘Gill of Rankeillour.[415] The head of a succeeding generation
of the family, Sir Michael Balfour, was a quiet country gentleman, with
a wife and seven children, residing at the semi-castellated old
manor-house, which we now see standing a melancholy ruin, in a pass
through the Fife hills near Newburgh. He appears to have had debts; but
we do not anywhere learn that they were of serious extent, and we hear
of nothing else to his disadvantage. One day in this month, Sir Michael
rode forth at an early hour ‘to visit some friends and for other
business,’ attended by a servant, whom, on his return home, he
despatched on an errand to Cupar, telling him he would be home before
him. From that hour, Denmill was never again seen. He was searched for
in the neighbourhood. Inquiries were made for him in the towns at a
distance. There were even advertisements inserted in London and
continental newspapers, offering rewards for any information that might
enable his friends to ascertain his fate. All in vain. ‘There were many
conjectures about him,’ says a contemporary judge of the Court of
Session, ‘for some have been known to retire and go abroad upon
melancholy and discontent; others have been said to be transported and
carried away by spirits; a third set have given out they were lost, to
cause their creditors compound, as the old Lord Belhaven was said to be
drowned in Solway Sands, and so of Kirkton, yet both of them afterwards
appeared. The most probable opinion was, that Denmill and his horse had
fallen under night into some deep coal-pit, though these were also
searched which lay in his way home.’ At the distance of ten months from
his disappearance, his wife applied to the Court of Session, setting
forth that her husband’s creditors were ‘falling upon his estate, and
beginning to use diligence,’ and she could not but apprehend serious
injury to the means of the family, though these far exceeded the debts,
unless a factor were appointed. We learn that the court could better
have interposed if the application had come from the creditors; but,
seeing ‘the case craved some pity and compassion,’ they appointed a
factor for a year, to manage the estate for both creditors and relict,
hoping that, before that time elapsed, it would be ascertained whether
Denmill were dead or alive.[416]
The year passed, and many more years after it, without clearing up the
mystery. We find no trace of further legal proceedings regarding the
missing gentleman, his family, or property. The [Sidenote: 1709.] fact
itself remained green in the popular remembrance, particularly in the
district to which Sir Michael belonged. In November 1724, the public
curiosity was tantalised by a story published on a broadside, entitled
_Murder will Out_, and professing to explain how the lost gentleman had
met his death. The narrative was said to proceed on the death-bed
confession of a woman who had, in her infancy, seen Sir Michael murdered
by her parents, his tenants, in order to evade a debt which they owed
him, and of which he had called to crave payment on the day of his
disappearance. Stabbing him with his own sword as he sat at their
fireside, they were said to have buried his body and that of his horse,
and effectually concealed their guilt while their own lives lasted. Now,
it was said, their daughter, who had involuntarily witnessed a deed she
could not prevent, had been wrought upon to disclose all the
particulars, and these had been verified by the finding of the bones of
Sir Michael, which were now transferred to the sepulchre of his family.
But this story was merely a fiction trafficking on the public curiosity.
On its being alluded to in the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_ as an actual
occurrence, ‘the son and heir of the defunct Sir Michael’ informed the
editor of its falsity, which was also acknowledged by the printer of the
statement himself; and pardon was craved of the honourable family and
their tenants for putting it into circulation. On making inquiry in the
district, I have become satisfied that the disappearance of this
gentleman from the field of visible life was never explained, as it now
probably never will be. In time, the property was bought by a
neighbouring gentleman, who did not require to use the mansion as his
residence. Denmill Castle accordingly fell out of order, and became a
ruin. The fathers of people still living thereabouts remembered seeing
the papers of the family—amongst which were probably some that had
belonged to the antiquarian Sir James—scattered in confusion about a
garret pervious to the elements, under which circumstances they were
allowed to perish.
[Sidenote: MAY.]
There was at this time a dearth of victual in Scotland, and it was
considered to be upon the increase. The magistrates and justices of
Edinburgh arranged means for selling meal in open market, though in
quantities not exceeding a firlot, at twelve shillings Scots per peck.
They also ordered all possessors of grain to have it thrashed out and
brought to market before the 20th of May, reserving none to themselves,
and forbade, [Sidenote: 1709.] on high penalties, any one to buy up
grain upon the road to market.[417]
A well-disposed person offered in print an expedient for preventing the
dearth of victual. He discommended the fixing of a price at market, for
when this plan was tried in the last dearth, farmers brought only some
inferior kind of grain to market, ‘so that the remedy was worse than the
disease.’ Neither could he speak in favour of the plan of the French
king—namely, the confiscating of all grain remaining after harvest—for
it had not succeeded in France, and would still less suit a country
where the people were accustomed to more liberty. He suggested the
prohibition of exportation; the recommending possessors of grain to sell
it direct to the people, instead of victual-mongers; and the use of
strict means for fining all who keep more than a certain quantity in
reserve. This writer thought that the corn was in reality not scarce;
all that was needed was, to induce possessors of the article to believe
it to be best for their interest to sell immediately.[418]
[Sidenote: JULY 21.]
There is an ancient and well-known privilege, still kept up, in
connection with the palace and park of Holyroodhouse, insuring that a
debtor otherwise than fraudulent, and who has not the crown for his
creditor, cannot have diligence executed against him there;
consequently, may live there in safety from his creditors. At this time,
the privilege was taken advantage of by Patrick Haliburton, who was in
debt to the extraordinary amount of nearly £3000 sterling, and who was
believed to have secretly conveyed away his goods.
It being also part of the law of Scotland that diligence cannot be
proceeded with on Sunday, the Abbey Lairds, as they were jocularly
called, were enabled to come forth on that day and mingle in their
wonted society.
It pleased Patrick Haliburton to come to town one Sunday, and call upon
one of his creditors named Stewart, in order to treat with him regarding
some proposed accommodation of the matters that stood between them. Mr
Stewart received Patrick with apparent kindness, asked him to take
supper, and so plied his hospitality as to detain him till past twelve
o’clock, when, as he was leaving the house, a messenger appeared with a
writ of caption, and conducted him to prison. Patrick considered himself
as [Sidenote: 1709.] trepanned, and presented a complaint to the Court
of Session, endeavouring to shew that a caption, of which all the
preparatory steps had been executed on the Sunday, was the same as if it
had been executed on the Sunday itself; that he had been treacherously
dealt with; and that he was entitled to protection under the queen’s
late indemnity. The Lords repelled the latter plea, but ‘allowed trial
to be taken of the time of his being apprehended, and the manner how he
was detained, or if he offered to go back to the Abbey, and was enticed
to stay and hindered to go out.’[419] The termination of the affair does
not appear.
A case with somewhat similar features occurred in 1724. Mrs Dilks being
a booked inmate of the Abbey sanctuary, one of her creditors formed a
design of getting possession of her person. He sent a messenger-at-law,
who, planting himself in a tavern within the privileged ground, but
close upon its verge, sent for the lady to come and speak with him. She,
obeying, could not reach the house without treading for a few paces
beyond ‘the girth,’ and the messenger’s concurrents took the opportunity
to lay hold of her. This, however, was too much to be borne by a
fairplay-loving populace. The very female residents of the Abbey rose at
the news, and, attacking the party, rescued Mrs Dilks, and bore her back
in triumph within the charmed circle.[420]
The Rev. James Greenshields, an Irish curate, but of Scottish birth and
ordination—having received this rite at the hands of the deposed Bishop
of Ross in 1694—set up a meeting-house in a court near the Cross of
Edinburgh, where he introduced the English liturgy, being the first time
a prayer-book had been publicly presented in Scotland since the Jenny
Geddes riot of July 1637. Greenshields was to be distinguished from the
nonjurant Scottish Episcopalian clergy, for he had taken the oath of
abjuration (disclaiming the ‘Pretender’), and he prayed formally for the
queen; but he was perhaps felt to be, on this account, only the more
dangerous to the Established Church. It was necessary that something
should be done to save serious people from the outrage of having a
modified idolatry practised so near them. The first effort consisted of
a process raised by the landlord of the house against Mr Greenshields,
in the Dean [Sidenote: 1709.] of Guild’s court, on account of his having
used part of the house, which he took for a dwelling, as a chapel, and
for that purpose broken down certain partitions. The Dean readily
ordained that the house should be restored to its former condition. Mr
Greenshields having easily procured accommodation elsewhere, it became
necessary to try some other method for extinguishing the nuisance. A
petition to the presbytery of Edinburgh, craving their interference, was
got up and signed by two or three hundred persons in a few hours. The
presbytery, in obedience to their call, cited Mr Greenshields to appear
before them. He declined their jurisdiction, and they discharged him
from continuing to officiate, under high pains and penalties.
[Sidenote: SEP.]
Mr Greenshields having persisted, next Sunday, in reading prayers to his
congregation, the magistrates, on the requirement of the presbytery,
called him before them, and formally demanded that he should discontinue
his functions in their city. Daniel Defoe, who could so cleverly expose
the intolerance of the Church of England to the dissenters, viewed an
Episcopalian martyrdom with different feelings. He tells us that
Greenshields conducted himself with ‘haughtiness’ before the civic
dignitaries—what his own people of course regarded as a heroic courage.
He told them positively that he would not obey them; and accordingly,
next Sunday, he read the service as usual in his obscure chapel. Even
now, if we are to believe Defoe, the magistrates would not have
committed him, if he had been modest in his recusancy; but, to their
inconceivable disgust, this insolent upstart actually appeared next day
at the Cross, among the gentlemen who were accustomed to assemble there
as in an Exchange, and thus seemed to brave their authority! For its
vindication, they were, says Defoe, ‘brought to an absolute necessity to
commit him;’ and they committed him accordingly to the Tolbooth.
Here he lay till the beginning of November, when, the Court of Session
sitting down, he presented a petition, setting forth the hardship of his
case, seeing that there was no law forbidding any one to read the
English liturgy, and he had fully qualified to the civil government by
taking the necessary oaths. It was answered for the magistrates, that
‘there needs no law condemning the English service, for the introducing
the Presbyterian worship explodes it as inconsistent,’ and the statute
had only promised that the oath-taking should protect ministers who had
been in possession of charges. ‘The generality of the [Sidenote: 1709.]
Lords,’ says Fountainhall, ‘regretted the man’s case;’[421] but they
refused to set him at liberty, unless he would engage to ‘forbear the
English service.’ Amongst his congregation there was a considerable
number of English people, who had come to Edinburgh as officers of
Customs and Excise. It must have bewildered them to find what was so
much venerated in their own part of the island, a subject of such
wrathful hatred and dread in this.
Greenshields, continuing a prisoner in the Tolbooth, determined, with
the aid of friends, to appeal to the House of Lords against the decision
of the Court of Session. Such appeals had become possible only two years
ago by the Union, and they were as yet a novelty in Scotland. The local
authorities had never calculated on such a step being taken, and they
were not a little annoyed by it. They persisted, nevertheless, in
keeping the clergyman in his loathsome prison, till, after a full year,
an order of the House of Lords came for his release. Meanwhile, other
troubles befell the church, for a Tory ministry came into power, who,
like the queen herself, did not relish seeing the Episcopalian clergy
and liturgy treated contumeliously in Scotland. The General Assembly
desired to have a fast on account of ‘the crying sins of the land,
irreligion, popery, many errors and delusions;’ and they chafed at
having to send for authority to Westminster, where it was very
grudgingly bestowed. It seemed as if they had no longer a barrier for
the protection of that pure faith which it was the happy privilege of
Scotland, solely of all nations on the face of the earth, to enjoy.
Their enemies, too, well saw the advantage that had been gained over
them, and eagerly supported Greenshields in his tedious and expensive
process, which ended (March 1711) in the reversal of the Session’s
decision. ‘It is a tacit rescinding,’ says Wodrow, ‘of all our laws for
the security of our worship, and that unhappy man [an Irish curate of
fifteen pounds a year, invited to Edinburgh on a promise of eighty] has
been able to do more for the setting up of the English service in
Scotland than King Charles the First was able to do.’
[Sidenote: NOV. 9.]
The Lords of Session decided this day on a critical question, involving
the use of a word notedly of uncertain meaning. John Purdie having
committed an act of immorality on which a parliamentary act of 1661
imposed a penalty of a hundred pounds in [Sidenote: 1709.] the case of
‘a gentleman,’ the justices of peace fined him accordingly, considering
him a gentleman within the construction of the act, as being the son of
‘a heritor,’ or land-proprietor. ‘When charged for payment by Thomas
Sandilands, collector of these fines, he suspended, upon this ground
that the fine was exorbitant, in so far as he was but a small heritor,
and, as all heritors are not gentlemen, so he denied that he had the
least pretence to the title of a gentleman. The Lords sustained the
reason of suspension to restrict the fine to ten pounds Scots, _because
the suspender had not the face or air of a gentleman_: albeit it was
alleged by the charger [Sandilands] that the suspender’s profligateness
and debauchery, the place of the country where he lives, and the company
haunted by him, had influenced his mien.’[422]
An anonymous gentleman of Scotland, writing to the Earl of Seafield, on
the improvement of the salmon-fishing in Scotland, informs us how the
fish were then, as now, massacred in their pregnant state, by country
people. ‘I have known,’ he says, ‘a fellow not worth a groat kill with a
spear in one night’s time a hundred black fish or kipper, for the most
part full of rawns unspawned.’ He adds: ‘Even a great many gentlemen,
inhabitants by the rivers, are guilty of the same crimes,’ little
reflecting on ‘the prodigious treasure thus miserably dilapidated.’
Notwithstanding these butcheries, he tells us that no mean profit was
then derived from the salmon-fishing in Scotland; he had known from two
to three thousand barrels, worth about six pounds sterling each,
exported in a single year. ‘Nay, I know Sir James Calder of Muirton
alone sold to one English merchant a thousand barrels in one year’s
fishing.’ He consequently deems himself justified in estimating the
possible product of the salmon-fishing, if rightly protected and
cultivated, at forty thousand barrels, yielding £240,000 sterling, per
annum.[423]
[Sidenote: 1710. FEB.]
At Inchinnan, in Renfrewshire, there fell out a ‘pretty peculiar
accident.’ One Robert Hall, an elder, and reputed as an estimable man,
falling into debt with his landlord, the Laird of Blackston, was
deprived of all he had, and left the place. Two months before this date,
he returned secretly, and being unable to live [Sidenote: 1710.]
contentedly without going to church, he disguised himself for that
purpose in women’s clothes. It was his custom to go to Eastwood church,
but curiosity one day led him to his own old parish-church of Inchinnan.
As he crossed a ferry, he was suspected by the boatman and a beadle of
being a man in women’s clothes, and traced on to the church. The
minister, apprised of the suspicion, desired them not to meddle with
him; but on a justice of peace coming up, he was brought forward for
examination. He readily owned the fact, and desired to be taken to the
minister, who, he said, would know him. The minister protected him for
the remainder of the day, that he might escape the rudeness of the mob;
and on the ensuing day, he was taken to Renfrew, and liberated, at the
intercession of his wife’s father.[424]
[Sidenote: MAY.]
The General Assembly passed an act, declaring the marriage of Robert
Hunter, in the bounds of the presbytery of Biggar, with one John [Joan]
Dickson to be incestuous, the woman having formerly been the mother of a
child, the father of which was grand-uncle to her present husband. The
act discharged the parties from remaining united under pain of highest
censure.
The church kept up long after this period a strict discipline regarding
unions which involved real or apparent relationship. In May 1730, we
find John Baxter, elder in Tealing parish, appealing against a finding
of the synod, that his marriage with his deceased wife’s brother’s
daughter’s daughter, was incestuous. Two years later, the General
Assembly had under its attention a case, which, while capable of being
stated in words, is calculated to rack the very brain of whoever would
try to realise it in his conceptions. A Carrick man, named John
M‘Taggart, had unluckily united himself to a woman named Janet Kennedy,
whose former husband, Anthony M‘Harg, ‘was a brother to John M‘Taggart’s
grandmother, which grandmother was said to be natural daughter of the
said Anthony M‘Harg’s father!’ The presbytery of Ayr took up the case,
and M‘Taggart was defended by a solicitor, in a paper full of derision
and mockery at the law held to have been offended; ‘a new instance,’
says Wodrow,’ of the unbounded liberty that lawyers take.’[425] The
presbytery having condemned the marriage as incestuous, M‘Taggart
appealed in wonted form to the synod, which affirmed the former
decision, and ordered a retractation of the offensive paper on pain of
[Sidenote: 1710.] excommunication. The case then came before the General
Assembly, who left it to be dealt with by its commission. It hung here
for six years, during which it may be presumed that M‘Taggart and his
wife were either separated or only lived together under the load of
presbyterial censure; and at length, in March 1738, it was sent back,
along with the still older case of Baxter, by the commission to the
Assembly itself.[426] How it was ultimately disposed of, I have not
learned.
What would these church authorities have thought of a recent act of the
state of Indiana, which permits marriages with any of the relations of a
deceased partner, and forbids the union of cousins!
[Sidenote: JUNE.]
‘Some ill-disposed persons, said to be of the suppressed parish of
Barnweil [Ayrshire], set fire to the new church of Stair in the
night-time; but it was quickly smothered. The occasion was thought
to be the bringing the bell from Barnweil to Stair. I have scarce
heard of such are instance of fire being wilfully set to a
church.’—_Wodrow._[427] The parish of Barnweil having been
suppressed, and half the temporalities assigned to the new parish of
Stair, the inhabitants appear to have been exasperated beyond all
bounds, and hence this offence.
[Sidenote: AUG. 19.]
David Bruce, a youth of fifteen, accompanied by five companions of about
the same age, all of the city of St Andrews, went out in a boat to amuse
themselves, but, losing one of their oars, and being carried out to sea,
they were unable to return. It was late in the evening before their
friends missed them. A boat was sent in the morning in quest of them,
but in vain. Meanwhile, the boys were tossed up and down along the
waters, without being able to make any shore, although they were daily
in sight of land. At length, after they had been six days at sea without
food or drink, an easterly wind brought them ashore at a place called
_Hernheuch_, four miles south of Aberdeen, and fifty north of St
Andrews. They were all of them in an exhausted condition, and two of
them near death. By the direction of an honest countryman, John
Shepherd, two of the boys were able to climb up the steep cliff beneath
which their skiff had touched shore. Shepherd received them into his
house, and lost no time in sending for help to Aberdeen. Presently, the
Dean of Guild, [Sidenote: 1710.] Dr Gregory a physician, and Mr Gordon a
surgeon, were on the spot, exerting themselves by all judicious means to
preserve the lives of the six boys, five of whom entirely recovered.
Robert Bruce, goldsmith in Edinburgh, father of David Bruce, ‘in
thankful commemoration of the preservation of his son,’ had a
copperplate engraved by Virtue, with a full-length portrait of the lad,
and a view of the six boys coming ashore in the boat. David Bruce was
for many years head cashier of Drummond’s bank at Charing Cross, and
lived till 1771.[428]
[Sidenote: SEP.]
‘One Robert Fleming, a very poor man, who taught an English school at
Hamilton, was taken up for cheating some poor people with
twenty-shilling notes, all wrote with his own hand, and a dark
impression made like the seal of the Bank [of Scotland]. He was
prosecuted for the forgery; and, on his own confession, found guilty,
and condemned to death; but having been reprieved by her majesty several
times, and at last during pleasure, he, after her majesty’s death,
obtained a remission.’[429]
This poor man, in his confession before the Lords who examined him, said
he had forged fifty, but only passed four notes, the first being given
for a shawl to his wife. ‘He declared that he intended to have coined
crown-pieces; and the stamp he had taken in clay, which he shewed; but,
which is most remarkable of all, [he] confessed that he made use of one
of the Psalms, that he might counterfeit the print of the notes the
better by practice, in writing over those letters that were in the
Psalm, and which he had occasion to write in the bank-notes. My Lord
Forglen had forgot what Psalm it was; but the man said the first words
of the Psalm which appeared to him was to this purpose: “The eyes of the
Lord behold the children of men;” which was truly remarkable.’[430]
[Sidenote: NOV. 30.]
Died at Paisley Abbey, of small-pox, the Countess of Dundonald,
celebrated for her beauty, and not less remarkable for her amiable and
virtuous character. She left three infant daughters, all of whom grew in
time to be noted ‘beauties,’ and of whom one became Duchess of Hamilton,
and the other two the Countesses of Strathmore and Galloway. The death
of the lovely young Lady Dundonald of a disease so loathsome and
[Sidenote: 1710.] distressing, was deeply deplored by a circle of noble
kindred, and lamented by the public in general, notwithstanding the
drawback of her ladyship being an adherent of the Episcopal communion.
Wodrow, who condemns the lady as ‘highly prelatical in her principles,’
but admits she was ‘very devote and charitable,’ tells us how, at the
suggestion of Dr Pitcairn, Bishop Rose waited on the dying lady, while
the parish minister came to the house, but was never admitted to her
chamber. Wodrow also states, that for several Sundays after her death,
the earl had sermon preached in his house every Sunday by Mr Fullarton,
an Episcopalian, ‘or some others of that gang;’ and on Christmas Day
there was an administration of the communion, ‘for anything I can hear,
distributed after the English way.’ ‘This,’ adds Wodrow, ‘is the first
instance of the communion at Yule so openly celebrate in this country’
since the Revolution.[431]
The last time we had the Post-office under our attention (1695), it was
scarcely able to pay its own expenses. Not long after that time, in
accordance with the improved resources of the country, it had begun to
be a source of revenue, though to a very small amount. It was conducted
for three years before the Union by George Main, jeweller in Edinburgh,
with an average yearly return to the Exchequer of £1194, 8_s._ 10_d._,
subject to a deduction for government expresses and the expense (£60) of
the packet-boat at Portpatrick. Immediately after that time, the
business of the central office in Edinburgh was conducted in a place no
better than a common shop, by seven officials, the manager George Main
having £200 a year, while his accountant, clerk, and clerk’s assistant
had respectively £56, £50, and £25, and three runners or letter-carriers
had each 5_s._ per week.
An act of the British parliament[432] now placed the Scottish
Post-office under that of England, but with ‘a chief letter-office’ to
be kept up in Edinburgh. The charge for a letter from London to
Edinburgh was established at sixpence, and that for other letters at
twopence for distances within fifty English miles, greater distances
being in proportion. For the five years following the Union, there was
an annual average gain of £6000—a striking improvement upon 1698, when
Sir Robert Sinclair found he could not make it pay expenses, even with
the benefit of a pension of £300 a year.
[Sidenote: 1711. SEP.]
The light-thoughted part of the public was at this time regaled by the
appearance of a cluster of small brochures printed in blurred type on
dingy paper, being the production of William Mitchell, tin-plate worker
in the Bow-head of Edinburgh, but who was pleased on his title-pages to
style himself the _Tinklarian Doctor_. Mitchell had, for twelve years,
been employed by the magistrates of the city as manager of the lighting
of the streets, at the moderate salary of five pounds. He represented
that his predecessor in the office had ten pounds; but ‘I took but five,
for the town was in debt.’ The magistrates, doubtless for reasons
satisfactory to themselves, and which it is not difficult to divine, had
deprived him of his post. ‘Them that does them a good turn,’ says he,
‘they forget; but they do not forget them that does them an ill turn;
as, for example, they keep on a captain [of the town-guard, probably]
for love of Queensberry, for making the Union—I believe he never did
them a good turn, but much evil to me, [as] he would not let me break up
my shop-door the time of the fire, before my goods was burnt.’ The poor
man here alludes to a calamity which perhaps had some share in driving
his excitable brain out of bounds. Being now in comparative indigence,
and full of religious enthusiasm, he took up at his own hands an office
of which he boasted that no magistrate could deprive him, no less than
that of giving ‘light’ to the ministers of the Church of Scotland, who,
he argued, needed this service at his hands—‘otherwise God would not
have raised me up to write to them.’ The ministers, he candidly informs
us, did not relish his taking such a duty upon him, since he had never
received any proper call to become a preacher: some of them called him a
fool, and the principal of a college at St Andrews went the length of
telling him to burn his books. But he acted under an inward call which
would not listen to any such objections. He thought the spirit of God
‘as free to David and Amos the herds, and to James, John, and Simon the
fishers, and Matthew and Levi the customers, as to any that will bide
seven years at college.’ And, if to shepherds and fishermen, why not to
a tin-plate worker or tinkler? ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ &c.
The _Tinkler’s Testament_, which was the great work of Mitchell, was
heralded by an Introduction, dedicating his labours to Queen Anne. He
claimed her majesty’s protection in his efforts to illuminate the
clergy, and hinted that a little money to help in printing his books
would also be useful. He would willingly go to converse with her
majesty; but he was without the means of travelling, [Sidenote: 1711.]
and his ‘loving wife and some small children’ hindered him. This brings
him to remark that, while he lived upon faith, ‘my wife lives much upon
sense,’ as the wives of men of genius are very apt to do. After all,
‘although I should come, I am nothing but a little black man, dull-like,
with two scores upon my brow and a mole on my right cheek;’ which marks
‘I give to your majesty, in case any person come up in a counterfeit
manner;’ nevertheless, ‘if I had clothes, I would look as big as some
gentlemen.’[433]
In this pamphlet, Mitchell abuses the ministers roundly for neglect of
their flocks, telling that for six years the pastor of his parish had
never once inquired for him. They would go and play at bowls, alleging
it was for their health, and allow suffering souls to perish. It was as
if he were employed by a gentleman to make lanterns—took the money—but
never made the articles required, for want of which the gentleman’s
servants were hindered in their work, and perished in pits. ‘Now whether
think ye an immortal soul or my lanterns of most value? I will sell a
good lantern at ten shillings [Scots], though it be made of brass; but
the whole world cannot balance one soul.’