Chapter XII: Part 12

We find, in January 1700, that the execution of the laws against the importation of Irish cattle and horses had been committed to Alexander Maxwell, postmaster at Ayr, who seems to have performed his functions with great activity, but not much good result. He several times went over the whole bounds of his commission, establishing spies and waiters everywhere along the coast. By himself and his servants, sometimes with the assistance of soldiers, he made a great number of seizures, but his profits never came up to his costs. Often, after a seizure, he had to sustain the assaults of formidable rabbles, and now and then the cattle or horses were rescued out of his hands. For six weeks at a time he was never at home, and all that time not thrice in his bed—for he had to ride chiefly at night—but on all hands he met with only opposition, even from the king’s troops, ‘albeit he maintains them and defrays all their charges when he employs them.’ On his petition (January 9, 1700), he was allowed a hundred pounds by the Privy Council as an encouragement to persevere in his duty.

In the autumn of 1703, an unusual anxiety was shewn to enforce the laws against the importation of provisions from Ireland and [Sidenote: 1700.] from England. Mr Patrick Ogilvie of Cairns, a brother of the Lord Chancellor, Earl of Seafield, was commissioned to guard the coasts between the Sound of Mull and Dumfries, and one Cant of Thurston to protect the east coast between Leith and Berwick, with suitable allowances and powers. It happened soon after that an Irish skipper, named Hyndman, appeared with a vessel of seventy tons, full of Irish meal, in Lamlash Bay, and was immediately pounced upon by Ogilvie. It was in vain that he represented himself as driven there by force of weather on a voyage from Derry to Belfast: in spite of all his pleadings, which were urged with an air of great sincerity, his vessel was condemned.

Soon after, a Scottish ship, sailing under the conduct of William Currie to Londonderry, was seized by the Irish authorities by way of reprisal for Hyndman’s vessel. The Scottish Privy Council (February 15, 1704) sent a remonstrance to the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, setting forth this act as ‘an abuse visibly to the breach of the good correspondence that ought to be kept betwixt her majesty’s kingdoms.’ How the matter ended does not appear; but the whole story, as detailed in the record of the Privy Council, gives a striking idea of the difficulties, inconveniences, and losses which nations then incurred through that falsest of principles which subordinates the interests of the community to those of some special class, or group of individuals.

Ogilvie was allowed forty foot-soldiers and twenty dragoons to assist him in his task; but we may judge of the difficulty of executing such rules from the fact stated by him in a petition, that, during the interval of five weeks, while these troops were absent at a review in the centre of the kingdom, he got a list of as many as a hundred boats which had taken that opportunity of landing from Ireland with victual. Indeed, he said that, without a regular independent company, it was impossible to prevent this traffic from going on.[293]

We do not hear much more on this subject till January 1712, when Thomas Gray, merchant in Irvine, and several other persons, were pursued before the Court of Session for surreptitious importation of Irish victual, by Boswell and other Ayrshire justices interested in the prices of Scottish produce. The delinquents were duly fined. Fountainhall, after recording the decision, adds a note, in which he debates on the principles involved in the free trade in corn. ‘This importation of meal,’ says he, ‘is good for [Sidenote: 1700.] the poor, plenty making it cheap, but it sinks the gentlemen’s rents in these western shires. Which of the two is the greater prejudice to the bulk of the nation? _Problema esto_: where we must likewise balance the loss and damage we suffer by the exporting so much of our money in specie to a foreign country to buy it, which diminishes our coin _pro tanto_: But if the victual was purchased in Ireland by exchange of our goods given for it, that takes away that objection founded on the exporting of our money.’[294]

[Sidenote: 1701. APR. 15.]

John Lawson, burgess of Edinburgh, was projector of an Intelligence-office, to be established in the Scottish capital, such as were already planted in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and other large cities, for ‘recording the names of servants, upon trial and certificate of their manners and qualifications, whereby masters may be provided with honest servants of all sorts, and servants may readily know what masters are unprovided’—and ‘the better and more easy discovery of all bargains, and the communication and publishing all proposals and other businesses that the persons concerned may think fit to give notice and account of, for the information of all lieges.’

He had been at pains to learn how such offices were conducted in foreign countries, and had already set up a kind of register-office for servants in Edinburgh, ‘to the satisfaction and advantage of many, of all ranks and degrees.’ There was, however, a generation called _wed-men_ and _wed-wives_, who had been accustomed, in an irregular way, to get employers for servants and nurses, and servants and nurses for masters and mistresses. It was evident to John that his intelligence-office could never duly thrive unless these practitioners were wholly suppressed. He craved exclusive privileges accordingly from the Privy Council—that is, that these wed-men and wed-wives be discharged ‘on any colour or pretence’ from meddling with the hire of servants, or giving information about bargains and proposals—though ‘without prejudice [he was so far modest] to all the lieges to hire servants and enter into bargains, and do all other business upon their own proper knowledge, or upon information gratuitously given.’

Honest John seems to have felt that something was necessary to reconcile the authorities to a plan obviously so much for his own interest. The religious feeling was, as usual, a ready resource. He reminded the Lords that there had been great inconveniences [Sidenote: 1701.] from the dishonest and profligate servants recommended by the wed-men and wed-wives; nay, some had thus been intruded into families who had not satisfied church-discipline, and did not produce testimonials from ministers! He held out that he was to take care ‘that all such as offer themselves to nurse children shall produce a certificate of their good deportment, in case they be married, and if not, that they have satisfied the kirk for their scandal, or have found a caution so to do.’

One great advantage to the public would be, that gentlemen or ladies living in the country could, by correspondence with the office, and no further trouble or expense, obtain servants of assured character, ‘such as master-households, _gentlemen_, valets, stewards, pages, grieves, gardeners, cooks, porters, coachmen, grooms, footmen, postilions, young cooks for waiting on gentlemen, or for change-houses; likewise _gentlewomen_ for attending ladies, housekeepers, chambermaids, women-stewards and cooks, women for keeping children, ordinary servants for all sorts of work in private families, also taverners and ticket-runners, with all sorts of nurses who either come to gentlemen’s houses, or nurse children in their own’—for so many and so various were the descriptions of menials employed at that time even in poor Scotland.

With regard to the department for commercial intelligence, it was evident that ‘men are often straitened how and where to inquire for bargains they intend,’ while others are equally ‘at a loss how to make known their offers of bargains and other proposals.’ The latter were thus ‘obliged to send clapps, as they call them,[295] through the town, and sometimes to put advertisements in gazettes, which yet are noways sufficient for the end designed, for the clapps go only in Edinburgh, and for small businesses, and the gazette is uncertain, and gazettes come not to all men’s hands, nor are they oft to be found when men have most to do with them, whereas a standing office would abide all men, and be ever ready.’

The Council complied with Lawson’s petition in every particular, only binding him to exact no more fee than fourteen shillings Scots (1_s._ 2_d._), where the fee is twelve pounds Scots (£1 sterling) or upwards, and seven shillings Scots where the fee is below that sum.

[Sidenote: JULY 3.]

The infant library of the Faculty of Advocates having been [Sidenote: 1701.] burnt out of its original depository in the Parliament Square, a new receptacle was sought for it in the rooms under the Parliament House—the Faculty and the Edinburgh magistrates concurring in the request—and the Privy Council complied, only reserving the right of the high constable to view and search the place ‘the time of the sitting of parliament’—a regulation, doubtless, held necessary to prevent new examples of the Gunpowder Treason.

[Sidenote: AUG. 27.]

Lord Basil Hamilton, sixth son of the Duchess of Hamilton—a young man endeared to his country by the part he had taken in vindicating her rights in the Darien affair—lost his life by a dismal accident, leaving but one consolation to his friends, that he lost it in the cause of humanity. Passing through Galloway, with his brother the Earl of Selkirk and some friends, he came to a little water called the Minnick, swelled with sudden rain. A servant went forward to try the ford, and was carried away by the stream. Lord Basil rushed in to save the man, caught him, but was that moment dismounted, and carried off by the torrent; so he perished in the sight of his brother and friends, none being able to render him any assistance. It was a great stroke to the Hamilton family, to the country party, and indeed to the whole of the people of Scotland. Lord Basil died in his thirtieth year.

On the evening of the next day, the Earl of Selkirk came, worn with travel, to the gate of Hamilton Palace, to tell his widowed mother of her irreparable loss. But, according to a story related by Wodrow, her Grace was already aware of what had happened. ‘On the Wednesday’s night [the night of the accident] the duchess dreamed she saw Lord Basil and Lord Selkirk drowned in a water, and she thought she said to Lady Baldoon [Lord Basil’s wife], “Charles and Basil are drowned,” Charles being the Earl of Selkirk. The Lady Baldoon, she thought, answered: “Lord Selkirk is safe, madam; there is no matter.” The duchess thought she answered: “The woman’s mad; she knows not her lord is dead;” and that she [Lady Baldoon] added: “Is Basil dead? then let James [the duke] take all: I will meddle no more with the world.” All this she [the duchess] told in the Thursday morning, twelve hours or more before Lord Selkirk came to Hamilton, who brought the first word of it.’[296]

[Sidenote: DEC. 5.]

Four men were tried at Perth for theft by the commissioners [Sidenote: 1701.] for securing the peace of the Highlands, and, being found guilty, were liable to the punishment of death. The Lords, however, were pleased to adjudge them to the lighter punishment of perpetual servitude, not in the plantations, as we have seen to be common, but at home, and the panels to be ‘at the court’s disposal.’ One of them, Alexander Steuart, they bestowed as a gift on Sir John Areskine of Alva, probably with a view to his being employed as a labourer in the silver-mine which Sir John about this time worked in a glen of the Ochils belonging to him.[297] Sir John was enjoined to fit a metal collar upon the man, bearing the following inscription: ‘Alex^r. Steuart, found guilty of death for theft, at Perth, the 5th of December 1701, and gifted by the justiciars as a perpetual servant to Sir John Areskine of Alva;’ and to remove him from prison in the course of the ensuing week.[298] The reality of this strange proceeding has been brought home to us in a surprising manner, for the collar, with this inscription, was many years ago dredged up in the Firth of Forth, in the bosom of which it is surmised that the poor man found a sad refuge from the pains of slavery. As a curious memorial of past things, it is now preserved in our National Museum of Antiquities.

The reader will perhaps be surprised to hear of a silver-mine in the Ochils, and it may therefore be proper, before saying anything more, that we hear what has been put on record on this subject.

‘In the parish of Alva, a very valuable mine of silver was discovered about the commencement of the last century[299] by Sir James [John] Erskine of Alva, in the glen or ravine which separates the _Middle-hill_ from the _Wood-hill_. It made its first appearance in small strings of silver ore, which, being followed, led to a large mass of that metal. A part of this had the appearance of malleable silver, and was found on trial to be so rich as to produce twelve ounces of silver from fourteen ounces of ore. Not more than £50 had been expended when this valuable discovery was made. For the space of thirteen or fourteen weeks, it is credibly affirmed that the proprietor obtained ore from this mine to the value of £4000 per week. When this mass was exhausted, the silver ore began to appear in smaller quantities; [Sidenote: 1701.] symptoms of lead and other metals presented themselves, and the search was for the present abandoned.’[300]

It is related that Sir John, walking with a friend over his estate, pointed out a great hole, and remarked: ‘Out of that hole I took fifty thousand pounds.’ Then presently, walking on, he came to another excavation, and, continued he: ‘I put it all into _that_ hole.’

Nevertheless, the search was renewed by his younger brother, Charles Areskine, Lord Justice-Clerk, but without the expected fruit, though a discovery was made of cobalt, and considerable quantities of that valuable mineral were extracted even from the rubbish of his predecessor’s works. In 1767, Lord Alva, the son of the Lord Justice-Clerk, bestowed a pair of silver communion-cups upon the parish of Alva, with an inscription denoting that they were fashioned from silver found at the place.

The granting of Steuart as ‘a perpetual servant’ to Sir John Areskine sounds strangely to modern ears; but it was in perfect accordance with law and usage in Scotland in old times; and there was even some vestige of the usage familiar to Englishmen at no remote date, in laws for setting the poor to work in workhouses. The act of the Highland justiciars was the more natural, simple, and reasonable, that labourers in mines and at salt-works were regarded by the law of Scotland as ‘necessary servants,’ who, without any paction, by merely coming and taking work in such places, became bound to servitude for life, their children also becoming bound if their fathers in any way used them as assistants. Such is the view of the matter coolly set down in the _Institutes_ of Mr John Erskine (1754), who further takes leave to tell his readers that ‘there appears nothing repugnant, either to reason, or to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, in a contract by which one binds himself to perpetual service under a master, who, on his part, is obliged to maintain the other in all the necessaries of life.’ It appears that the salters and miners were transferred with the works when these were sold; but a right in the masters to dispose of the men otherwise, does not appear to have been a part of the Scots law.

In the year 1743, there appears to have been a disposition among the bondsmen of the coal-mines in Fife and Lothian to assert their freedom. Fifteen men who worked in the Gilmerton coal-works having absented themselves in October, and gone to [Sidenote: 1701.] work at other collieries, their master, Sir John Baird of Newbyth, advertised them, so that no other master might break the act of parliament by entertaining them, and also that the deserters might be secured. In the same year, the Marquis of Lothian had to complain of three boys who ran away from his colliery at Newbattle, and took refuge amongst the people of another estate, supposed to have been that of the Viscount Oxenford. He accordingly addressed the following letter to that nobleman:

‘NEWBATTLE, _July the 21st, 1743_.

‘MY LORD—Being told Sir Robert Dixon is not at home, I am equally
satisfied that Mr Biger should determine the use and practice of
coal-masters in such cases, if he pleases to take the trouble, which I
suppose is all your lordship is desirous to know before you let me
have these boys that ran away from my colliery, and was entertained by
your people; but if I mistake your intention, and you think it
necessary I prove my title to them in law, I am most willing to refer
the whole to Mr Biger, and therefore am ready to produce my evidence
at any time you please to appoint, and if my claim is found to be
good, shall expect the boys be returned without my being obliged to
find them out. My lord, I am not so well acquainted with Mr Biger as
to ask the favour; therefore hopes your lordship will do it, and wish
it may be determined soon, if convenient. I beg my best respects to
Lady Orbiston; and am, my lord,

‘Your lordship’s most obedient
‘and humble Servant,
‘LOTHIAN.’

‘_P. S._—I have not the smallest pretensions to the faither of these
boys, and should have pleasure in assisting you if I could spare any
of my coaliers.’[301]

Whether Mr Gibson of Durie had been dealt with in the same manner by his colliers, we do not know; but in November he advertised for hands, offering good and regularly paid wages, and ‘a line under his hand, obliging himself to let them go from the works at any time, upon a week’s warning, without any restraint whatever.’ He would also accept a loan of workers from other coal-proprietors, and oblige himself ‘to restore them when demanded.’[302]

I must not, however, forget—and certainly it is a curious thing [Sidenote: 1701.] to remember—that I have myself seen in early life native inhabitants of Scotland who had been slaves in their youth. The restraints upon the personal freedom of salters and colliers—remains of the villainage of the middle ages—were not put an end to till 1775, when a statute (15 Geo. III. 28) extinguished them. I am tempted to relate a trivial anecdote of actual life, which brings the recentness of slavery in Scotland vividly before us.

About the year 1820, Mr Robert Bald of Alloa, mining-engineer, being on a visit to Mr Colin Dunlop, at the Clyde Ironworks, near Glasgow, found among the servants of the house an old working-man, commonly called Moss Nook, who seemed to be on easy terms with his master. One day, Mr Bald heard the following conversation take place between Mr Dunlop and this veteran:

‘Moss Nook, you don’t appear, from your style of speaking, to be of this part of the country. Where did you originally come from?’

‘Oh, sir,’ answered Moss Nook, ‘do you not know that your father brought me here long ago from Mr M‘Nair’s of the Green [a place some miles off, on the other side of the river]? Your father used to have merry-meetings with Mr M‘Nair, and, one day, he saw me, and took a liking to me. At the same time, Mr M‘Nair had taken a fancy to a very nice pony belonging to your father; so they agreed on the subject, and _I was niffered away for the pony_. That’s the way I came here.’

The man had, in short, been a slave, and was exchanged for a pony. To Mr Bald’s perception, he had not the least idea that there was anything singular or calling for remark in the manner of his leaving the Green.

[Sidenote: 1702.]

A Scottish clergyman resident in England—the same who lately ‘promoted contributions for the printing of Bibles in the Irish language, and sent so many of them down to Scotland, and there is no news he more earnestly desires to know than what the G[eneral] A[ssembly] doth whenever it meeteth for promoting the interests of the Gospel in the Highlands’—at this time started a scheme for ‘erecting a library in every presbytery, or at least county, in the Highlands.’ He had been for some time prevented from maturing his plan by bodily distempers and faint hopes of success; but now the scheme for sending libraries to the colonies had encouraged him to come forward, and he issued a printed [Sidenote: 1702.] paper explaining his views, and calling for assistance. His great object was to help the Highland Protestant clergy in the matter of books, seeing that, owing to their poverty, and the scarcity of books, few of them possessed property of that kind to the value of twenty shillings; while it was equally true, that at the distance they lived at from towns, the borrowing of books was with most of them impossible. It was the more necessary that they should be provided with books, that the Romish missionaries were so active among the people: how could the clergy encounter these adversaries without the knowledge which they might derive from books? ‘The gross ignorance of the people in those parts, together with some late endeavours to seduce the inhabitants of the isle of Hirta to a state of heathenism,[303] make it very necessary that they be provided with such treatises as prove the truth of the Christian religion. At the same time, the excellent parts and capacities of the ministers generally throughout the Highlands give good ground to expect much fruit from such a charity.’

The promoter of the scheme felt no hesitation in asking assistance in the south, because the poverty of Scotland—‘occasioned chiefly by their great losses at sea, the decay of trade, the great dearth of corn, and the death of cattle for some years together—renders the people generally unable to do much in the way of charity. Nevertheless, there are not wanting those amongst them, who, amidst their straits and wants, are forward to promote this or any other good design, even beyond their power.’ He hoped no native would take offence at this confession, the truth of which ‘is too much felt at home and known abroad to be denied.... But if any are so foolish as to censure this paragraph, their best way of confutation is to take an effectual and speedy course to provide a competent number of libraries for such parts of our native country as need them most.’

He even went so far as to draw up a set of rules for the keeping and lending of the books—a very stringent code certainly it is; ‘but,’ says he, ‘they who know the world but a little, and have seen the fate of some libraries, will reckon the outmost precaution we can use little enough to prevent what otherwise will be unavoidable. It’s a work of no small difficulty to purchase a parcel of good books for public advantage; nor is it less difficult [Sidenote: 1702.] to preserve and secure them for posterity, when they are purchased.’[304]

A Memorial concerning the Highlands, published at Edinburgh in the ensuing year, described them as full of ignorance and heathenism. Most of the people were said to be unacquainted with the first principles of Christianity; a few had been ‘caught by the trinkets of popery.’ While there were schools at Inverness, Forres, Keith, Kincardine O’Neil, Perth, &c.—places closely adjacent to the Highlands—there were none in the country itself, excepting one at Abertarf (near the present Fort-Augustus, in Inverness-shire), which had been erected by charitable subscription, but where it was found nearly impossible to get scholars unless subsistence was provided for them. In remote places, children remained unbaptised for years. In the country generally, theft and robbery were esteemed as ‘only a hunting, and not a crime;’ revenge, in matters affecting a clan, even when carried the length of murder, was counted a gallantry; idleness was a piece of honour; and blind obedience to chiefs obscured all feeling of subjection to civil government.[305]

It was under a sense of the unenlightened state of the Highlands, and particularly of the hold which the Catholic religion had obtained over the Gael, that the ‘Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge’ was soon after formed by a combination of the friends of Presbyterian orthodoxy. It was incorporated in 1709, at which time a strong effort was made by the courts of the Established Church to promote contributions in its behalf, though under some considerable discouragements. Wodrow tells us that this Society was originated by a small knot of gentlemen, including Mr Dundas of Philipston, clerk of the General Assembly; Sir H. Cunningham, Sir Francis Grant [Lord Cullen], Commissary Brodie, Sir Francis Pringle, and Mr George Meldrum, who, about 1698, had formed themselves into a society for prayer and religious correspondence. Writing now to Mr Dundas about the subscriptions, and enclosing twenty-five pounds as a contribution from the presbytery of Paisley, he apologises for the smallness of the sum in proportion to the importance of the object, and says: ‘The public spirit and zeal for any good designs is much away from the generality here.’ ‘The truth is,’ says he, regarding [Sidenote: 1702.] another matter, ‘the strait of this part of the country is so great, through the dearth of victual, that our collections are very far from maintaining our poor, and our people ... are in such a pet with collections for bridges, tolbooths, &c., that when any collection is intimate, they are sure to give less that day than their ordinary.’[306] Nevertheless, the Society was able to enter on a course of activity, which has never since been allowed to relax.

The scheme of presbyterial libraries was realised in 1705 and 1706 to the extent of nineteen, in addition to which fifty-eight local libraries were established; but these institutions are understood to have been little successful and ill supported. In 1719, the Christian Knowledge Society had forty-eight schools established, increased to a hundred and nine in 1732, and to two hundred at the close of the century. Its missionary efforts were also very considerable. Such, however, were the natural and other difficulties of the case, that a writer described the people in 1826 as still ‘sunk in ignorance and poverty.’[307] It is not merely that schools must necessarily be few in proportion to geographical space, and school-learning, therefore, difficult of attainment, but the Highlander unavoidably remains unacquainted with many civilising influences which the communication of thought, and observation of the processes of merchandise and the mechanical trades, impart to more fortunate communities. The usual consequence of the introduction of Christianity to minds previously uneducated has been realised. It has taken a form involving much of both old and new superstition, along with feelings of intolerance towards dissent even in the most unessential particulars, such as recall to men in the south a former century of our history.

It is remarkable that, while the bulk of the Highland population were unschooled and ignorant, there were abundance of gentlemen who had a perfect knowledge of Latin, and even composed Latin poetry. Nor is it less important or more than strictly just to observe that, amidst all the rudeness of former times in the Highlands, there was amongst the common people an old traditionary morality, which included not a little that was entitled to admiration. To get a full idea of what this was, one must peruse the writings of Mrs Grant and Colonel Stewart. The very depredations so often spoken of could hardly be said to [Sidenote: 1702.] involve a true turpitude, being so much connected as they were with national and clan feelings.

[Sidenote: FEB. 10.]

Captain Simon Fraser of Beaufort, who had long been declared rebel for not appearing to answer at the Court of Justiciary on the charge of rape brought against him by the dowager Lady Lovat,[308] was described at this time as living openly in the country as a free liege, ‘to the contempt of all authority and justice.’ The general account given of his habits is rather picturesque. ‘He keeps in a manner his open residence within the lordship of Lovat, where, and especially in Stratherrick,[309] he further presumes to keep men in arms, attending and guarding his person.’ These he also employed in levying contributions from Lady Lovat’s tenants, and he had thus actually raised between five and six thousand merks. ‘Proceeding yet to further degrees of unparalleled boldness, [he] causes make public intimation at the kirks within the bounds on the Lord’s Day, that all the people be in readiness with their best arms when advertised.’ The tenants were consequently so harassed as to be unable to pay her ladyship any rents, and there were ‘daily complaints of these strange and lawless disorders.’

The Council granted warrants of intercommuning against the culprit, and enjoined his majesty’s forces to be helpful in apprehending him.[310] We find that, in the month of August, Fraser had departed from the country, but his interest continued to be maintained by others. His brother John, with thirty or forty ‘loose and broken men,’ went freely up and down the countries of Aird and Stratherrick, menacing with death the chamberlains of the Lady Lovat[311] and her husband, Mr Alexander Mackenzie of Prestonhall, if they should uplift the rents in behalf of their master and mistress, and threatening the tenants in like manner, if they should pay their rents to those persons. The better to support this lawless system, John kept a garrison of armed gillies in the town of Bewly, ‘the heart of the country of Aird,’ entirely at the cost of the tenants there. Within the last few weeks, they had taken from the tenants of Aird ‘two hundred custom wedders and lambs,’ and, breaking up the meal-girnels of Bewly, they had supplied themselves with sixty bolls of [Sidenote: 1702.] meal. At the beginning of July, Fraser, younger of Buchrubbin, and two accomplices, came to the house of Moniack, the residence of Mr Hugh Fraser, one of the lady’s chamberlains, ‘and having by a false token got him out of his house,’ first reproached him with his office, and then ‘beat him with the butts of their guns, and had murdered him if he had not made his escape.’

Mr Hugh Fraser and Captain John Mackenzie, ‘conjunct bailie and chamberlain,’ applied for protection to the Highland commission of justiciary, who ordered a small military party to go and maintain the law in the Aird. But it was very difficult to obtain observance of law in a country where the bulk of the people were otherwise minded. The introduction of soldiers only added to the fierceness of the rebellious Frasers, who now sent the most frightful threats to all who should take part with Lady Lovat and her husband.

On the 5th of August, John Fraser came from Stratherrick with a party of fifty armed followers, and gathering more as he passed through the Aird, he fell upon the house of Fanellan, where Captain Mackenzie and the ten soldiers were, with between two and three hundred men, calling upon the inmates to surrender, on pain of having the house burnt about their ears if they refused. They did refuse to yield, and the Frasers accordingly set fire to the house and offices, the whole of which were burnt to the ground. Captain Mackenzie, Hugh Fraser of Eskadale, the ten soldiers and their commander, Lieutenant Cameron, besides a servant of Prestonhall, were all taken prisoners. Having dismissed the soldiers, the Frasers carried the rest in a bravadoing triumph through the country till they came to the end of Loch Ness. There dismissing Lieutenant Cameron, they proceeded with the two bailies and the servant to Stratherrick, everywhere using them in a barbarous manner. The report given nine days after in Edinburgh says of the prisoners, whether they be dead or alive is unknown.

The Privy Council, feeling this to be ‘such an unparalleled piece of insolence as had not been heard of in the country for an age,’ instantly ordered large parties of troops to march into the Fraser countries, and restore order.

On the 8th of September, the Council sent Brigadier Maitland and Major Hamilton their thanks ‘for their good services done in dispersing the Frasers,’ and, a few days after, we find orders issued for using all endeavours to capture John Fraser. Captain [Sidenote: 1702.] Grant’s company remained in Stratherrick till the ensuing February.[312]

[Sidenote: MAR. 11.]

At ten o’clock in the evening, Colonel Archibald Row arrived express at Edinburgh with the news of the king’s death. King William died in Kensington Palace at eight o’clock in the morning of Sunday the 8th instant: it consequently took three days and a half for this express to reach the Scottish capital, being a day more than had been required by Robert Carey, when he came to Edinburgh with the more welcome intelligence of the demise of Queen Elizabeth, ninety-nine years before.

REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE: 1702–1714.

The death of King William without children (March 8, 1702), opened the succession to the Princess Anne, second daughter of the late King James. Following up the policy of her predecessor, she had not been more than two months upon the throne, when, in conjunction with Germany and Holland, she proclaimed war against the king of France, whose usurpation of the succession to Spain for a member of his family, had renewed a general feeling of hostility against him. This war, distinguished by the victories of the Duke of Marlborough, lasted till the peace of Utrecht in 1713. The queen had been many years married to Prince George of Denmark, and had had several children; but all were now dead.

King William left the people of Scotland in a state of violent discontent, on account chiefly of the usage they had received in the affair of Darien. Ever since the Revolution, there had been a large party, mainly composed of the upper classes, in favour of the exiled dynasty. It was largely reinforced, and its views were generally much promoted, by the odium into which the government of William III. had fallen, and by the feelings of jealousy and wrath which had been kindled against the whole English nation. This was not a natural state of things for Scotland, for the bulk of the people, Presbyterian at heart, could have no confidence in a restored sovereign of the House of Stuart; but anger had temporarily overcome many of the more permanent feelings of the people, and it was hard to say what course they might take in the dynastic difficulties which were impending.

In 1700, the English parliament, viewing the want of children to both William and the Princess Anne, had settled the crown of England upon the Electress Sophia of Hanover, daughter of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I., she being the nearest Protestant heir; thus excluding not only the progeny of James II., but that of several elder children of the Princess Elizabeth, all of whom were of the Roman Catholic religion. It was highly desirable that the Scottish Estates should be induced to settle the crown of Scotland on the same person, in order that peace might be preserved between the two kingdoms; but the discontents of the Scotch stood in the way. Not that there existed in Scotland any insuperable desire for another person, or any special objection to Sophia; the great majority would probably have voted, in ordinary circumstances, for this very course. But Scotland had been wronged and insulted; it was necessary to shew the English that this could not be done with safety to themselves. She had a claim to equality of trading privileges: it was right that she should use all fair means to get this established. Accordingly, in 1703, the Scottish parliament passed two acts calculated to excite no small alarm in the south: one of them, styled the Act of Security, ordaining that the successor of Queen Anne should not be the same person with the individual adopted by the English parliament, unless there should be a free communication of trade between the two countries, and the affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured from English influence; the other, providing that, as a means of enforcing the first, the nation should be put under arms. The queen, after some hesitation, was obliged to ratify the Act of Security. In the debates on these measures, the Scottish parliament exhibited a degree of eloquence which was wholly a novelty, and the memory of which long survived. It was a remarkable crisis, in which a little nation, merely by the moral power which animated it, contrived to inspire fear and respect in one much its superior in numbers and every other material element of strength.

The general sense of danger thus created in England proved sufficient to overcome that mercantile selfishness which had inflicted so much injustice upon Scotland. It came to be seen, that the only way to secure a harmony with the northern kingdom in some matters essential to peace, was to admit it to an incorporating union, in which there should be a provision for an equality of mercantile privileges. To effect this arrangement, accordingly, became the policy of the English Whig ministry of Queen Anne. On the other hand, the proposition did not meet a favourable reception in Scotland, where the ancient national independence was a matter of national pride; nevertheless, there also a parliamentary sanction was obtained for the preliminary steps.

In May 1706, the Commissioners, thirty from each nation, met at Westminster, to deliberate on the terms of the proposed treaty. It was soon agreed upon that the leading features of the act should be—a union of the two countries under one sovereign, who, failing heirs of the queen, should be the Electress of Hanover or her heir; but each country to retain her own church establishment and her own laws—Scotland to send sixteen representative peers and forty-five commoners to the British parliament—Scottish merchants to trade freely with England and her colonies—the taxes to be equalised, except that from land, which was to be arranged in such a way that when England contributed two millions, Scotland should give only a fortieth part of the sum, or forty-eight thousand pounds; and as the English taxes were rendered burdensome by a debt of sixteen millions, Scotland was to be compensated for its share of that burden by receiving, as ‘an Equivalent,’ about four hundred thousand pounds of ready money from England, which was to be applied to the renovation of the coin, the discharge of the public debts, and a restitution of the money lost by the African Company.

When these articles were laid before the Scottish Estates in October, they produced a burst of indignant feeling that seemed to overspread the whole country. The Jacobite party, who saw in the union only the establishment of an alien dynasty, were furious. The clergy felt some alarm at the prelatic element in the British parliament. The mass of the people grieved over the prospect of a termination to the native parliament, and other tokens of an ancient independence. Nevertheless, partly that there were many men in the Estates who had juster views of the true interests of their country, and partly that others were open to various influences brought to bear upon their votes, the act of union was passed in February 1707, as to take effect from the ensuing 1st of May. The opposition was conducted principally by the Duke of Hamilton, a Jacobite, and, but for his infirmity of purpose, it might have been more formidable. The Duke of Queensberry, who acted on this occasion as the queen’s commissioner to parliament, was rewarded for his services with an English dukedom. The Privy Council, the record of whose proceedings has been of so much importance to this work, now came to an end; but a Secretary of State for Scotland continued for the next two reigns to be part of the apparatus of the central government in the English metropolis.

Of the discontent engendered on this occasion, the friends of the exiled Stuarts endeavoured to take advantage in the spring of 1708, by bringing a French expedition to the Scottish coasts, having on board five thousand men, and the son of James II., now a youth of twenty years of age. It reached the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and many of the Jacobite gentry were prepared to join the young prince on landing. But the Chevalier de St George, as he was called, took ill of small-pox; the British fleet under Admiral Byng came in sight; and it was deemed best to return to France, and wait for another opportunity.

The Tory ministry of the last four years of Queen Anne affected Scotland by the passing of an act of Toleration for the relief of the persecuted remnant of Episcopalians, and another act by which the rights of patrons in the nomination of clergy to charges in the Established Church were revived. The Whigs of the Revolution felt both of these measures to be discouraging. During this period, in Scotland, as in England, the Cavalier spirit was in the ascendency, and the earnest Whigs trembled lest, by complicity of the queen or her ministers, the Pretender should be introduced, to the exclusion of the Protestant heir. But the sudden death of Anne on the 1st of August 1714, neutralised all such schemes, and the son of the then deceased Electress Sophia succeeded to the British throne, under the name of George I., with as much apparent quietness as if he had been a resident Prince of Wales.

[Sidenote: 1702. JULY.]

On the principle that minute matters, which denote a progress in improvement, or even a tendency to it, are worthy of notice, it may be allowable to remark at this time an advertisement of Mr George Robertson, apothecary at Perth, that he had lately set up there ‘a double Hummum, or Bath Stove, the one for men, and the other for women, approven of by physicians to be of great use for the cure of several diseases.’ A hummum is in reality a Turkish or hot-air bath. We find that, within twenty years after this time, the chirurgeons in Edinburgh had a _bagnio_, or hot bath, and the physicians a cold bath, for medical purposes.

The _Edinburgh Gazette_ which advertises the Perth hummum, also announces the presence, in a lodging at the foot of the West Bow of Edinburgh, of Duncan Campbell of Ashfield, chirurgeon to the city of Glasgow, who had ‘cutted nine score persons [for stone] without the death of any except five.’[313] There was also a mysterious person, styled ‘a gentleman in town,’ and ‘to be got notice of at the Caledonian Coffee-house,’ who had ‘had a secret imparted to him by his father, an eminent physician in this kingdom, which, by the blessing of God, certainly and safely cures the phrenzie’—also ‘convulsion-fits, vapours, and megrims—in a few weeks, at reasonable rates, and takes no reward till the cure is perfected.’

In the same sheet, ‘G. Young, against the Court of Guard, Edinburgh,’ bespoke favour for ‘a most precious eye-water, which infallibly cures all distempers in the eyes, whether pearl, web, catracht, blood-shot dimness, &c., and in less than six times dressing has cured some who have been blind seven years.’

The custom of vending quack medicines from a public stage on the street—of which we have seen several notable examples in the [Sidenote: 1702.] course of the seventeenth century—continued at this time, and for many years after, to be kept up. Edinburgh was occasionally favoured with a visit from a famous practitioner of this kind, named Anthony Parsons, who, in announcing his arrival in 1710, stated the quality of his medicines, and that he had been in the habit of vending them on stages for thirty years. In October 1711, he advertised in the _Scots Postman_—‘It being reported that Anthony Parsons is gone from Edinburgh to mount public stages in the country, this is to give notice that he hath left off keeping stages, and still lives in the Hammermen’s Land, at the Magdalen Chapel, near the head of the Cowgate, where may be had the ORVIETAN, a famous antidote against infectious distempers, and helps barrenness, &c.’ Four years later, Parsons announced his design of bidding adieu to Edinburgh, and, in that prospect, offered his medicines at reduced rates; likewise, by auction, ‘a fine cabinet organ.’[314]

In April 1724, one Campbell, commonly called (probably from his ragged appearance) _Doctor Duds_, was in great notoriety in Edinburgh as a quack mediciner. He does not seem to have been in great favour with the populace, for, being seen by them on the street, he was so vexatiously assaulted, as to be obliged to make his escape in a coach. At this time, a mountebank doctor erected a stage at the foot of the Canongate, in order to compete with Doctor Duds for a share of business; but a boy being killed by a fall from the fabric the day of its erection, threw a damp on his efforts at wit, and the affair appears to have proved a failure.[315]

The author just quoted had a recollection of one of the last of this fraternity—an Englishman, named Green—who boasted he was the third generation of a family which had been devoted to the profession. ‘A stage was erected in the most public part of a town, and occupied by the master, with one or two tumblers or rope-dancers, who attracted the multitude. Valuable medicines were promised and distributed by a kind of lottery. Each spectator, willing to obtain a prize, threw a handkerchief, enclosing one or two shillings, on the stage. The handkerchief was returned with a certain quantity of medicines. But along with them, a silver cup was put into one to gratify some successful adventurer.’

‘Doctor Green, younger of Doncaster’—probably the second of the three generations—had occasion, in December 1725, to advertise [Sidenote: 1702.] the Scottish community regarding his ‘menial servant and tumbler,’ Henry Lewis, who, he said, had deserted his service with a week’s prepaid wages in his pocket, and, as the doctor understood, ‘has resorted to Fife, or some of the north-country burghs, with design to get himself furnished with a play-fool, and to set himself up for a doctor experienced in the practice of physic and chirurgery.’ Doctor Green deemed himself obliged to warn Fife and the said burghs, whither he himself designed to resort in spring, against ‘the said impostor, and to dismiss him as such.’[316]

We have this personage brought before us in an amusing light, in May 1731, in connection with the King’s College, Aberdeen. He had applied to this learned sodality for a diploma as doctor of medicine, ‘upon assurances given under his hand, that he would practise medicine in a regular way, and give over his stage.’ They had granted him the diploma accordingly. Finding, afterwards, that he still continued to use his stage, ‘the college, to vindicate their conduct in the affair, and at the same time, in justice to the public, to expose Mr Green his disingenuity, recorded in the Register of Probative Writs his letter containing these assurances.’ They also certified ‘that, if Mr Green give not over his stage, they will proceed to further resentment against him.’[317]

Down to this time there was still an entire faith among the common sort of people in the medical properties of natural crystals, perforated stones, ancient jet ornaments, flint arrow-heads, glass beads, and other articles. The custom was to dip the article into water, and administer the water to the patient. The Stewarts of Ardvorlich still possess a crystal which was once in great esteem throughout Lower Perthshire for the virtues which it could impart to simple water. A flat piece of ivory in the possession of Campbell of Barbreck—commonly called _Barbreck’s Bone_—was sovereign for the cure of madness. This article is now deposited in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries in Edinburgh. The _Lee Penny_—a small precious stone, set in an old English coin, still possessed by the Lockharts of Lee—is another and highly noted example of such charms for healing.

It was also still customary to resort to certain wells and other waters, on account of their supposed healing virtues, as we have seen to be the case a century earlier. Either the patient was brought to the water, and dipped into it, or a fragment of his [Sidenote: 1702.] clothing was brought and cast into, or left on the side of it, a shackle or tether of a cow serving equally when such an animal was concerned. If such virtues had continued to be attributed only to wells formerly dedicated to saints, it would not have been surprising; but the idea of medicinal virtue was sometimes connected with a lake or other piece of water, which had no such history. There was, for example, on the high ground to the west of Drumlanrig Castle, in Nithsdale, a small tarn called the Dow [_i. e._ black] Loch, which enjoyed the highest medical repute all over the south of Scotland. People came from immense distances to throw a rag from a sick friend, or a tether from an afflicted cow, into the Dow Loch, when, ‘these being cast in, if they did float, it was taken for a good omen of recovery, and a part of the water carried to the patient, though to remote places, without saluting or speaking to any one they met by the way; but, if they did sink, the recovery of the party was hopeless.’[318] The clergy exerted themselves strenuously to put down the superstition. The trouble which the presbytery of Penpont had, first and last, with this same Dow Loch, was past expression. But their efforts were wholly in vain.[319]

[Sidenote: 1702. JULY 3.]

‘It pleased the great and holy God to visit this town [Leith], for their heinous sins against him, with a very terrible and sudden stroke, which was occasioned by the firing of thirty-three barrels of powder; which dreadful blast, as it was heard even at many miles distance with great terror and amazement, so it hath caused great ruin and desolation in this place. It smote seven or eight persons at least with sudden death, and turned the houses next adjacent to ruinous heaps, tirred off the roof, beat out the windows, and broke out the timber partitions of a great many houses and biggings even to a great distance. Few houses in the town did escape some damage, and all this in a moment of time; so that the merciful conduct of Divine Providence hath been very admirable in the preservation of hundreds of people, whose lives were exposed to manifold sudden dangers, seeing they had not so much previous warning as to shift a foot for their own preservation, much less to remove their plenishing.’ So proceeded a petition from ‘the distressed inhabitants of Leith’ to the Privy Council, on the occasion of this sore calamity. ‘Seeing,’ they went on to say, ‘that part of the town is destroyed and damnified to the value of thirty-six thousand nine hundred and thirty-six pounds, Scots money, by and attour several other damages done in several back-closes, and by and attour the household plenishing and merchant goods destroyed in the said houses, and victual destroyed and damnified in lofts, and the losses occasioned by the houses lying waste; and seeing the owners of the said houses are for the most part unable to repair them, so that a great part of the principal seaport of the nation will be desolate and ruinous, if considerable relief be not provided,’ they implored permission to make a charitable collection throughout the kingdom at kirk-doors, and by going from house to house; which prayer was readily granted.[320]

[Sidenote: JULY 8.]

The Earl of Kintore, who had been made Knight Marischal of Scotland at the Restoration, and afterwards raised to the peerage for his service in saving the regalia from the English in 1651, was still living.[321] He petitioned the Privy Council at this date on account of a pamphlet published by Sir William Ogilvie of Barras, in which his concern in the preservation of the regalia was unduly depreciated. His lordship gives a long recital on the subject, from which it after all appears that his share of the business was confined to his discommending obedience to [Sidenote: 1702.] be paid to a state order for sending out the regalia from Dunnottar Castle—in which case it was likely they might have been taken—and afterwards doing what he could to put the English on a false scent, by representing the regalia as carried to the king at Paris. He denounces the pamphlet as an endeavour ‘to rob him of his just merit and honour, and likewise to belie his majesty’s patents in his favour,’ and he craved due punishment. Sir William, being laid up with sickness at Montrose, was unable to appear in his own defence, and the Council, accordingly, without hesitation, ordered the offensive brochure to be publicly burnt at the Cross of Edinburgh by the common hangman.