Part 9

The Earl of Moray, being pursued at law for a tradesman’s account, which was referred to his oath, craved the Court of Session to appoint a commission to take his oath at Dunnibrissle, on the ground that, if he were obliged to come to Edinburgh for the purpose, he should incur as much expense as the whole amount of the alleged debt. As Dunnibrissle is visible from Edinburgh across the Firth of Forth, this must be looked upon as an eccentrically economical movement on his lordship’s part. The court granted the commission, but ordained his lordship to pay any expense which might be incurred by the debtor, or his representative, in travelling to Dunnibrissle to be present at the oath-taking.[97]

The court had occasionally not less whimsical cases before it. In February 1698, there was one regarding a copper caldron, which had been poinded, but not first taken to the Cross to be ‘appreciate.’ The defenders represented that they had done something equivalent in carrying thither a part of it—the ledges—as a symbol; following here a rule applicable with heavy movables, as where a salt-pan was represented by two nails; nay, a symbol not homogeneous, as a wisp of straw for a flock of sheep, fulfilled the law. The defence was sustained, and the poinding affirmed.[98]

[Sidenote: 1692. DEC.]

The Privy Council had under its hands three Protestant clergymen—namely, Mr John Hay, late minister at Falkland; Mr Alexander Leslie, late minister at Crail; and Mr Patrick Middleton, late minister at Leslie—in short, three of the ‘outed’ Episcopal clergy—for not praying for William and Mary. They acknowledged that they prayed ‘only in general terms’ for the king and queen, and were therefore discharged from thereafter exercising any clerical functions, under severe penalties. Soon after, the Council judged, in the case of Mr Alexander Lundie, late minister of Cupar, who stated that, ‘having a mixed auditory, he prayed so as might please both parties.’ This style of praying, or else the manner of alluding to it, did not please the Privy Council, and Mr Lundie was ordered ‘to be carried from the bar, by the macers, to the Tolbooth, there to remain during the Council’s pleasure.’ Having lain there four days, far from all means of subsistence, while his wife was ill of a dangerous disease at home, and his family of small children required his care, Mr Lundie was fain to beg the Council’s pardon for what he had said, and so obtained his liberation also, but only with a discharge from all clerical functions till he should properly qualify himself according to act of parliament.

On the 22d of May 1693, Mr David Angus, minister of Fortrose, was before the Council on a charge that, although deprived for not praying for their majesties in terms of the act of parliament, ‘he has publicly preached and exercised the ministerial function within his own house, and parish where the same lies, and elsewhere, without qualifying himself by signing the oath of allegiance.’ So far from evidencing the sense he ought to have had of the grievous circumstances from which the nation had been relieved, by reading the proclamation of estates, he had neglected it, and prayed for King James, thus stirring up the disaffected in opposition to their majesties’ government, and discouraging their loyal subjects. These were ‘crimes which ought to be severely punished for the terror of others.’ The Lords, therefore, finding him unable to deny the alleged facts, and indisposed to engage for a different behaviour in future, confirmed his deprivation, and discharged him from preaching or exercising any ministerial function within the kingdom.

As a specimen of the equivocating prayers—Mr Charles Key, one of the ministers of South Leith, was charged, in September 1694, with using these expressions, ‘“That God would bless our king and queen, and William and Mary,” or [Sidenote: 1692.] “our king and queen, William and Mary, and the rest of the royal family.”’[99]

[Sidenote: DEC. 31.]

A great number of recruits were now drawn together to be sent to Flanders, but the vessels for their transportation were not ready. The Privy Council therefore ordered their distribution throughout the jails of Lothian and Fife, sixty, eighty, a hundred, and even more, to each tolbooth, according to its capacity—for example, two hundred and forty-four to the jails of Musselburgh, Haddington, and Leith—there to be furnished with blankets to lie on by the various magistrates. When it is known that two Jacobite gentlemen had lately petitioned for liberation from Musselburgh jail, on the ground that it did not contain a fireroom, and their health was consequently becoming ruined, it will not seem surprising that a competent troop of horse and foot had to be ordered ‘to keep guard upon the said recruits, and take care that none of them escape.’

That a good many, induced either by the hardships of their situation, or the enticements of disaffected persons, did desert the service, is certain: a strict proclamation on this subject came out in April 1694. At the same time, John M‘Lachlan, schoolmaster in Glasgow, was before the Privy Council on a charge of having induced a number of soldiers in the regiments lying at that city to desert. ‘Being disaffected,’ it was said, ‘to their majesties’ government, he has, so far as possible for thir three or four years past, made it his business to weaken the government, and to instigate and persuade several soldiers to run away.’ He did ‘forge passes for them.’ In particular, in January last, he did ‘persuade John Fergusson and John M‘Leod, soldiers in Captain Anderson’s company in Lord Strathnaver’s regiment, then lying at Glasgow, to run away and desert ... telling them that they were but beasts and fools for serving King William, for that he was sure that the late King James would be soon here again.... He had given passes to several of the regiment formerly in garrison at Glasgow, and offered to go with them to a gentlewoman’s house without the Steeple-green port, who was a cousin of his, who would secure them and receive their clothes, and furnish them with others to make their escape; and told them they were going to Flanders, and would be felled there, and so it was best for them to desert, and that he would hide their firelocks [Sidenote: 1692.] underground, and give them other coats and money, and a pass to carry them safe away.’

The Council, having called evidence, and found the charge proven, sentenced M‘Lachlan to be whipped through the city of Edinburgh, and banished to the American plantations. They afterwards altered the sentence, and adjudged the Jacobite schoolmaster, instead of being whipped, to stand an hour on the pillory at Edinburgh, and an hour on the pillory at Glasgow, under the care of the hangman, with a paper on his brow, with these words written or printed thereon—‘John M‘Lachlan, schoolmaster at Glasgow, appointed to be set on the pillory at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and sent to the plantations, for seducing and debauching soldiers to run away from their colours, and desert their majesties’ service.’

Two days later, the Privy Council recommended their majesties’ advocate to prosecute M‘Lachlan before the committee anent pressed men, ‘for the disloyal and impertinent speeches uttered by him yesterday while he stood upon the pillory of Edinburgh.’ What came of this, we do not learn; but on the 3d of July there is a petition from M‘Lachlan, setting forth that, after a nineteen weeks’ imprisonment, he is sinking under sickness and infirmity, while his family are starving at home, and craving his liberty, on giving assurance that he shall not offend again against the government. His liberation was ordered.

James Hamilton, keeper of the Canongate Tolbooth (July 16, 1696), represented to the Privy Council that it had been customary for him and his predecessors to receive two shillings Scots per night for each recruit kept in the house, with a penny sterling to the servants (being 3_d._ sterling in all), and their lordships, in consideration of his ‘great trouble in keeping such unruly prisoners in order’—he ‘being liable to the payment of ten dollars for every man that shall make his escape’—had authorised him to take ‘obleisements’ from the officers for the payment of these dues, till lately when the authority was withdrawn. This had led to loss on the part of the petitioner, who had now spent all his own means, and further run into debt, so that, ‘through continual hazard of captions,’ he was threatened with becoming a prisoner in his own jail. He entreated payment of some arrears for General Mackay’s recruits, as well as these recent arrears, and likewise for the proper allowance for ‘the coiners and clippers,’ latterly an abundant class of prisoners, on account of the tempting condition of the coin of the realm for simulation. The Lords [Sidenote: 1693.] recommended Hamilton to the treasury for payment of the monies due to him.[100]

[Sidenote: FEB. 2.]

Though Scotland had long enjoyed the services of four universities, the teaching of any of the natural sciences was not merely unknown in the country, but probably undreamed of, till the reign of Charles II. The first faint gleam of scientific teaching presents itself about 1676, when, under the fostering care of Dr (afterwards Sir) Robert Sibbald, a botanic garden was established near the Trinity College Church, as a means of helping the medical men of Edinburgh to a better knowledge of the pharmacopœia. It was put under the care of James Sutherland, who had been a common gardener, but whose natural talents had raised him to a fitness for this remarkable position. In his little garden in the valley on the north side of the city, he taught the science of herbs to students of medicine for small fees, receiving no other encouragement besides a salary from the city of twenty pounds, which did not suffice to pay rent and servants’ wages, not to speak of the cost of new plants. At the time of the siege of Edinburgh Castle in the spring of 1689, it had been thought necessary, for strategic reasons, to drain the North Loch, and, as the water ran through the Botanic Garden, it came to pass that the place was for some days under an inundation, and when left dry, proved to be covered with mud and rubbish, so that the delicate and costly plants which Sutherland had collected were nearly all destroyed. It had cost him and his assistants the work of a whole season to get the ground cleared, and he had incurred large charges in replacing the plants.

At this date, the Privy Council, on Sutherland’s petition, took into consideration his losses, his inadequate salary, and the good service he was rendering, ‘whereby not only the young physicians, apothecaries, and chirurgeons, but also the nobility and gentry, are taught the knowledge of the herbs, and also a multitude of plants, shrubs, and trees are cultivated which were never known in this nation before, and more numerous than in any other garden in Britain, as weel for the honour of the place as for the advantage of the people.’ They therefore declared that they will in future allow Mr Sutherland fifty pounds a year out of fines falling to them, one half for expenses of the garden, and the other half by way of addition to his salary.[101]

[Sidenote: 1693. APR. 13.]

Mr Stephen Maxwell, ‘alleged to be a Romish priest,’ prisoner in Blackness Castle, Mr George Gordon, Mr Robert Davidson, and Mr Alexander Crichton, ‘also alleged to be popish priests,’ and prisoners in the Edinburgh Tolbooth, were ordered to be set at liberty, provided they would agree to deport themselves from the kingdom ‘in the fleet now lying under convoy of the man-of-war lying in the Road of Leith,’ and give caution to the extent of a hundred pounds that they would never return. On the 17th, Mr James Hepburn, ‘alleged to be a popish priest,’ was ordered to be liberated from the Canongate Tolbooth on the same terms. All of these gentlemen had been for many months deprived of their liberty.

There still lay in Blackness Castle one John Seaton, who had been apprehended in December 1688, on suspicion of being a priest, and confined ever since, being four and a half years. He had been offered the same grace with the rest; but he was prevented by his personal condition from accepting it. According to his own account, he was seventy years of age. He ‘has not only spent any little thing he had, but his health is likewise entirely ruined, beyond any probability of recovery.’ He was most willing to have gone abroad, ‘where he might have expected better usage for ane in his condition than he can reasonably propose to himself anywhere in this kingdom;’ but ‘when the rest went away above a month ago, finding his health so totally broken by sickness, old age, and imprisonment, and his infirmity still growing worse,’ he was ‘necessitat to continue prisoner, rather than hazard a long sea-voyage, whereby he could expect no less than an unavoidable painful death, the petitioner, when formerly in health and strength at sea, being still in hazard of his life.’ John Seaton further represented that he had never, during his long imprisonment, received any support from the government, but been maintained by the charity of his friends. He now prayed the Council that they would take pity on him, and ‘not permit him, ane old sickly dying man, to languish in prison for the few days he can, by the course of nature and his disease, continue in this life,’ but let him retire to ‘some friend’s house, where he may have the use of some help for his distressed condition, and may in some measure mitigate the affliction he at present lies under by old age, sickness, poverty, and imprisonment.’

The Council ordered Seaton to be liberated.[102]

[Sidenote: 1693. APR.]

For some time past there had been an unusual and alarming number of highway robberies. One case, of a picturesque character, may be particularised. William M‘Fadyen, who made a business of _droving_ cattle out of Galloway and Carrick to sell them in the English markets, had received a hundred and fifty pounds sterling at Dumfries, and was on his way home (December 10, 1692), about four miles from that town, when at sunrise he was joined by two men, ‘one in a gentleman’s habit, mounted on a dark-gray horse, with a scarlet coat and gold-thread buttons. He was of extraordinary stature, with his own hair, sad-coloured, ane high Roman nose, slender-faced, thick-lipped, with a wrat [wart] above one of his eyes as big as ane nut, and the little-finger of his left hand bowed towards his loof’—a peculiarity, by the way, which the Duke of Lauderdale believed to denote a man who would come to some sad and untimely end. ‘The other appeared to be his servant, and was also mounted upon ane dark-gray horse, and carried a long gun.’ ‘After they had travelled about half a mile on the way, the servant said he was going through the muir, and desired [M‘Fadyen] to go along with him, which he refused; whereupon he beat [M‘Fadyen] with the but-end of his gun, and said he would make him go. Immediately thereafter, the other came up, and presented a pistol to his breast; and so, after he had made what defence he was able, and had received several wounds, they carried him about a quarter of a mile off the way, and cut the cloak-bag from behind his saddle, and carried away his money.’

Among other steps taken by the Privy Council in consequence of this daring robbery, was to ‘recommend Sir James Leslie, commander-in-chief for the time of their majesties’ forces within this kingdom, to cause make trial if _there be any such person, either officer or soldier, amongst their majesties’ forces_, as the persons described.’ They sent the same recommendation to the Earl of Leven with regard to ‘the officers which are come over from Flanders to levy recruits.’

This seems to have put the military authorities upon their mettle, and they engaged a certain Sergeant Fae, of Sir James Leslie’s regiment, as a detector of the robbers, ‘upon his own expenses, except five pounds allowed him by the [Privy Council].’ The sergeant, an enterprising fellow, with ‘a perfect abhorrence of such villainies,’ went into the duty assigned him with such zeal and courage, that he soon, at the hazard of his life, made seizure of several robbers, of whom two were convicted. Three [Sidenote: 1693. APR. 5.] months of this work having, however, exhausted his means, he was obliged to petition for further encouragement, and the Privy Council ordered him ten pounds for the past service, and five pounds for every robber whom he might apprehend, and who should be convicted in future.[103]

[Sidenote: APR. 11.]

A great number of the smaller lairds of Fife were Jacobite; among the rest, David Boswell of Balmouto. On the other hand, the Earl of Leven, one of the nobility of the county, stood high in office under the Revolution government. Besides a general quarrel with the earl on this ground, Balmouto had probably some private cause of offence to exasperate him; but on this point we only have conjecture.

At the date noted, there was a horse-race at the county town, Cupar; and both gentlemen attended. It is alleged that Balmouto first waited near a house in the town where the earl was, in expectation of his coming forth, but afterwards went away to the raceground. There, as the earl was quietly riding about, Balmouto came up to him behind his back, and struck him twice or thrice over the head and shoulders with a baton. On his lordship turning to defend himself, the assailant struck the horse on the face, and caused it to rear dangerously. Balmouto then fired a pistol at the earl without effect, and was immediately seized by the bystanders, and prevented from doing further mischief.

In a debate before the Privy Council on this case, after hearing representations from both parties, it was held that the earl’s complaint was proved, while an attempt of Balmouto to make out a counter-charge of assault against Lord Leven was declared to have failed. Balmouto was obliged to beg the earl’s pardon on his knees, and, on pain of imprisonment, give caution for future good-behaviour.

On the ensuing 13th of March 1694, Balmouto is found representing to the Council that ‘his misfortune has been so great, that his friends are unwilling to interest themselves in his liberation, whereby his family is in hazard to be ruined, and himself to die in prison;’ and he craved that they would accept his personal obligation, and allow him his liberty. The Earl of Leven having concurred in desiring this, the petition was complied with.[104]

[Sidenote: 1693. JUNE.]

A broadside published this month at Glasgow, under the title of the _Scottish Mercury_, ‘by Mr John Stobo, student in astrologophysick,’ being dated, however, ‘from Kirkintilloch, where I dwell,’ makes us aware that the almanac-making charlatanry was not unknown in Scotland. We learn from it that the French nation are near a sad calamity; that there were fears of conspiracies about Rome and Milan; and Constantinople not likely to be free from tumultuous uproars of the soldiery. ‘The conjunction of Venus with Jupiter relates to some great lady’s marriage.’ The author professes to ground upon natural causes, but not to conclude positively about anything—‘that belongs to God’s providence.’ Finally, there is an advertisement informing the world that John Stobo, as is known in many parts of this kingdom, cures infallibly all diseases, couches cataracts, amputates, &c., working for the poor gratis, and imposing upon the rich ‘as little cost as may be.’

[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]

To promote the making of linen in Scotland, an act was passed in 1686, ordaining that ‘no corps of any persons whatsoever be buried in any shirt, sheet, or anything else, except in plain linen,’ the relatives of deceased persons being obliged, under heavy penalties, to come to their parish minister within eight days of the burial, and declare on oath that the rule had been complied with.[105] Another act was now passed, ordaining that, for the same end, no lint should be exported from the kingdom; that lint imported should be duty free; and making sundry arrangements for a uniformity in the breadth of the cloth produced. There was likewise still another act conferring particular privileges on two companies which carried on the linen manufacture in Paul’s Work, Edinburgh, and in the Citadel of Leith, as an encouragement which was required for their success.

An act was passed at the same time for encouraging James Foulis, John Holland, and other persons named, in setting up a manufactory of ‘that sort of cloth commonly called _Colchester Baises_’ in Scotland; ‘which baises will consume a great deal of wool which cannot be profitable neither at home nor abroad.’

On the same day, there was an act in favour of William Scott, [Sidenote: 1693.] cabinet-maker, who designed to set up a coach-work, being, as would appear, the first of the kind that had been proposed in Scotland, though the use of the article ‘not only occasions the yearly export of a great deal of money out of the kingdom, but likewise that the lieges cannot be furnished with such necessars when they have occasion for them, without bringing them from abroad at a double charge, beside sea-hazard.’ It was ordained that William Scott should have the privileges of a manufactory ‘for making of coaches, chariots, sedans, and calashes, harnish and grinding of glasses,’ for eleven years.

On the 28th May 1694, articles of agreement were concluded between Nicolas Dupin, acting for a linen company in England, and the royal burghs and others in Scotland, for the formation of a company to carry on the linen manufacture in this kingdom. It was arranged that the enterprise should rest in a capital of six thousand five-pound shares, one half of which should be held by Englishmen, the rest by Scotsmen, the burghs being each allowed certain shares in proportion to their standing and wealth. The money to be paid in four instalments within the ensuing two years.[106]

The linen manufacture is spoken of in 1696 as established, and two years later we find the bleaching was executed at Corstorphine.

Dupin conducted works in England and Ireland for the manufacture of paper, and the establishment of another in Scotland was one of the objects for which he had come to the north. Several of the Scottish nobility and gentry whom he met in London encouraged him in his enterprise, telling him that ‘some persons have already attempted to work good writing-paper, but could not effect the same.’ In July we find him addressing the Privy Council for permission to erect and carry on a paper-work in this kingdom, setting forth that he had arrived at ‘the art of making all sorts of fine paper moulds as good, or better, as any made beyond seas, and at a far cheaper rate, insomuch that one man can make and furnish more moulds in one week than any other workman in other nations can finish in two months’ time:’ moreover, ‘whereas large timber is scarce in this kingdom,’ he and his associates ‘have arts to make the greatest mortar and vessel for making of paper without timber;’ they ‘have also provided several ingenious outlandish workmen to work and teach their art in this kingdom.’

On this shewing, Dupin and his friends obtained ‘protection and [Sidenote: 1693.] liberty to set up paper-mills in this kingdom, without hindering any other persons who are already set up;’ also permission ‘to put the coat of arms of this kingdom upon the paper which shall be made by them at these mills.’[107]

By an act of Estates two years later, Dupin’s project was sanctioned as a joint-stock concern.[108]