Chapter XI: Part 11

In his _Second Discourse on Public Affairs_, published in 1698, Fletcher 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.

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.

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.]