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1691, Jan
Scotland is sometimes alluded to in the south, with an imperfect kind of
approbation, as an excessively strait-laced country; but if our neighbours
were to consult the records of the General Assembly on the subject, they
would find it powerfnlly defended from all such charges. An act was passed
by that venerable body for a national fast to be held on the second
Thursday of this month, and the reasons stated for the pious observance
are certainly of a kind to leave the most free-living Englishman but
little room for reproach. It is said: 'There hath been a great neglect of
the worship of God in public, but especially in families and in secret.
The wonted care of sanctifying the Lord's day is gone. . . . cities full
of violence. . . . so that blood touched blood. Yea, Sodom's sins have
abounded amongst us, pride, fulness of blood, idleness, vanities of
apparel, and shameful sensuality.' Even now, it is said, 'few are turned
to the Lord; the wicked go on doing wickedly, and there is found among us
to this day shameful ingratitude for our mercies [and] horrid impenitency
under our sins. . . . . There is a great contempt of the gospel, and great
barrenness under it. . . . great want of piety towards God and love
towards man, with a woful selfishness, everyone seeking their own things,
few the public good or ane other's welfare.'
The document concludes with
one noble stroke of, shall we say, self-portraiture ?-' the most part more
ready to censure the sins of others, than to repent of their own.'
Jan 20
John Adair, mathematician, had been proceeding for some years, under
government patronage and pay, in his task of constructing maps of the
counties of Scotland, 'expressing therein the seats or houses of the
nobility and gentry, the most considerable rivers, waters, lochs, bays,
firths, roads, woods, mountains, royal burghs, and other considerable
towns of each shire'-a work' honourable, useful, and necessary for
navigation.' He was now hindered in his task, as he himself expressed the
matter, 'by the envy, malice, and oppression of Sir Robert Sib bald,
Doctor of Medicine, who, upon pretence of a private paction and contract,
extorted through the power he pretended, took the petitioner [Adair] bound
not to survey any shire or pairt thereof without Sir Robert his special
advice and consent, and that he should not give copies of these maps to
any other person without Sir Robert his special permission, under a severe
penalty.' ,
The Lords of the Privy
Council, on Adair's petition, were at no loss to see how unjust the
Jacobite Sir Robert's proceedings were towards the nation, which, by
parliamentary grant, was paying Adair for his work. They therefore ordered
the hydrographer to go on with his work, notwithstanding Sibbald's
opposition, ordering the latter to deliver up the contract on which it
rested.
Sir Robert Sibbald
afterwards reclaimed against the award of the Privy Council, setting forth
a great array of rights connected with the case; but he spoke from the
wrong side of the hedge, and his claim was refused.'
Jan 21
Captain Burnet of Barns was now recruiting in Edinburgh for a regiment in
Holland. As the service was so much to be approved of, it was the less
important to be scrupulous about the means of promoting it. A fatherless
boy of fourteen, named George Miller, was taken up to Burnet's chamber,
and there induced to accept a piece of money of the value of fourteen
shiUings Scots, which made him a soldier in the captain's regiment. He
seems to have immediately expressed unwillingness to be a soldier; but the
captain caused him instantly to be dragged to the Canongate Tolbooth, and
there kept in confinement. Some friend put in a petition for him to the
Privy Council, setting forth that he had been trepanned, and' had no
inclination to be a soldier, but to follow his learning, and thereafter
other virtuous employments for his subsistence.' It was even hinted that
the boy's father, Robert Miller, apothecary in Edinburgh, had been' a
great sufferer in the late times.' All was in vain; two persons having
given evidence that the boy had 'taken on willingly' with Captain Burnet,
the Council ordained him to be delivered to that gentleman, 'that he may
go alongst with him to Holland in the said service.'
Burnet's style of
recruiting was by no means a singularity. A few days after the above date,
as John Brangen, servant to Mr John Sleigh., merchant in Haddington, was
going on a message to a writer's chamber in Edinburgh with his master's
cloak over his arm, he was seized by Sergeant Douglas, of Douglas of
Kelhead's company, carried to the Canongate Tolbooth, and thence hurried
like a malefactor on board a ship in the road of Leith bound for Flanders.
This man, though called servant, was properly clerk and shopman to his
master, who accordingly felt deeply aggrieved by his abduction. At the
same time, Christian Wauchope petitioned for the release of her husband,
William Murdoch, who had been' innocently seized' and carried off eight
days ago by Captain Douglas's men, 'albeit he had never made any paction
with them;' 'whereby the petitioner and her poor children will be utterly
starved.' Even the town-piper of Musselburgh, James Waugh by name, while
playing at the head of the troop, and thinking of no harm, had been
carried off for a soldier. 'If it was true,' said his masters the
magistrates, 'that he had taken money from the officers, it must have been
through the ignorance and inadvertency of the poor man, thinking it was
given him for his playing as a piper.' He had, they continued, been'
injuriously used in the affair by sinistrous designs and contrail to that
liberty and freedom which all peaceable subjects ought to enjoy under the
protection of authority.'
The government seems to
have felt so far the necessity of acting up to their professions as the
destroyers of tyranny that, in these and a few other cases, they ordered
the liberation of the prisoners.
A few months later,
occurred a private case in which something very like manstealing was
committed by one of the parties in connection with this unscrupulous
recruiting system.
Aug
Robert Wilson, son of Andrew Wilson in Kelso, was servant to Mrs Clerkson,
a widow, at Damhead (near Edinburgh?). On finding that his mistress was
about to take a second husband, he raised a scandal against her, in which
his own moral character was concerned, and she immediately appealed for
redress to Master David Williamson, minister of St Cuthbert's parish. Two
elders came to inquire into the matter- Wilson evaded them, and could not
be found. Then she applied for, and obtained a warrant from a justice of
peace to apprehend Wilson, who now took to hiding. Four friends of hers,
James Bruntain, farmer at Craig Lockhart; David Rainie, brewer in
Portsburgh; James Porteous, gardener at Saughton; and James Borthwick,
weaver at Burrowmuirhead, accompanied by George Macfarlane, one of the
town officers of Edinburgh, came in search of Wilson, and finding him
sleeping in the house of William Bell, smith in Merchiston, dragged him
from bed, and in no gentle manner hurried him off to Macfarlane's house,
where they kept him tanquam in privato curcere for
twenty-four hours. On his pleading for permission to go to the door for
but a minute, swords were drawn, and he was threatened with instant death,
if he offered to stir. Professedly, they were to take him before the
justices; but a better conclusion to the adventure occurred to them.
Captain Hepburn, an officer about to sail with his corps .to Holland, was
.introduced to the terror-stricken lad, who readIly agreed to enlist wIth
hIm, and accepted a dollar as earnest. Before he quitted the care of his
Captors, he signed a paper owning the guilt of raising scandal against his
late mistress.
The father of the young man
complained before the Privy Council of the outrage committed on his son,
as an open and manifest riot and oppression, for which a severe punishment
ought to be inflicted. He himself had been 'bereaved of a son whom he
looked upon to be a comfort, support, and relief to him in his old age.'
On the other hand, the persons complained of justified their acts as legal
and warrantable. The Lords decided that Robert Wilson had 'unjustly been
kept under restraint, and violence done to him ;' but the reparation they
allowed was very miserable, a hundred merks to the aggrieved father.'
Jan 29
Nothing, in the former state of the country, is more remarkable in
contrast with the present, than the miserable poverty of the national
exchequer. The meagreness and uncertainty of the finances required for any
public purpose prior to those happy times when a corrupt House of Commons
was ready to vote whatever the minister wanted, the difficulties
consequently attendant upon all administrative movements-it is impossible
for the reader to imagine without going into an infinity of details. At a
time, of course, when Scotland had a revenue of only a hundred thousand
pounds a year, and yet a considerable body of troops to keep up for the
suppression of a discontented portion of the people, the troubles arising
from the lack of money were beyond description. The most trivial
furnishings for the troops and garrisons remained long unpaid, and became
matter of consideration for the Lords of the Privy Council. A town where a
regiment had lain, was usually left in a state of desolation from unpaid
debt, and had to make known its misery in the same quarter with but small
chance of redress; and scores of statePrisoners in Edinburgh, Blackness,
Stirling, and the Bass, were atarving for want of the common necessaries
of life.
1690
"'On the 18th of April 1690, the inhabitants of Kirkcaldy, Dysart, and
Pathhead complained to the Privy Council, that for ten weeks of this year
they had had Colonel Cunningham's regiment quartered amongst them. The
soldiers, 'having nothing to maintain themselves, were maintained and
furnished in meat and drink, besides all other necessars, by the
petitioners,' who, 'being for the most part poor and mean tradesmen,
seamen, and workmen, besides many indigent widows and orphans,' were thus
'reduced to that extreme necessity as to sell and dispose of their
household plenishing, after their own hread and anything else they had was
consumed for maintenance of the soldiers.' They regarded the regiment as
in their debt to the extent of £336, 68. sterling, of which sum they
craved payment, 'that they might not be utterly ruined, and they and their
families perish for want of bread.' Payment was ordered, but when, or
whether at all, it was paid, we cannot tell.
Another case of this
nature, going far to jnstify the jokes iudulged in by the English
regarding the contemporary poverty of Scotland, occurs in the ensuing
August, when the Council took up the case of James Wilkie of Portsburgh (a
suburb of Edinburgh), complaining that the soldiers of three regiments
lately quartered there, had gone away indebted to him for meat and drink
to the extent of seventeen pounds Scots (£1, 8s. 4d.). 'Seeing the
petitioner is very mean and poor, and not in a capacity to want that small
sum, having nothing to live by but the trust of seIIing a tree of ale, his
credit would be utterly broke for want thereof, unless the Council provide
a remeed.' The Council ordained that the commanders of the regiments
should see the petitioner satisfied by their soldiers.
In January 1691, the
Council is found meditating on means for the satisfaction of James
Hamilton, innkeeper, Leith, who had sent in accounts against officers of
Colonel Cunningham's regiment for board and lodging, amounting to such
sums as eight pounds each. At the same time, it had to treat regarding
shoemakers' accounts owing by the same officers, to the amount of two and
three pounds each. Even Ensign Houston's hotel-biIl for 'thretteen
shiIIings' is gravely deliberated on. And all these little bills were duly
recommended to the lords of their majesties' treasury, in hopes they might
be paid out of 'the three months' cess and hearth money.'
That such small bills,
however, might infer a considerable amount of entertainment, would appear
by no means unlikely, if we could believe a statement of Mr Burt, that
General Mackay himself was accustomed, during his commandership in
Scotland, to dine at public-houses, where he was served with great
variety, and paid only two shillings and sixpence Scots-that is, twopence
half-penny-for his ordinary.' The fact has been doubted; but I can state
as certain, that George Watson, the founder of the hospital in Edinburgh,
when a young man residing in Leith, about 1680, used to dine at a tavern
for fourpence. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, Mr Colquhoun
Grant, writer to the Signet, and a friend who associated with him, dined
every day in a tavern in the Lawnmarket, for 'twa groats the piece,' as
they used to express it.
Amongst other claims on
which the Council had to deliberate, was a very pitiable one from Mr David
Muir, surgeon at Stirling. When General Mackay retreated to that town from
'the ruffle at KiIliecrankie,' Muir had taken charge of the sick and
wounded of the government troops, 'there being none of their own
chirurgeons present.' He 'did several times send to Edinburgh for droggs
and other necessaries,' and was 'necessitat to buy a considerable quantity
of claret wine for bathing and fomenting of their wounds.' His
professional efforts had been successful; but as yet-after the lapse of
eighteen months-he had received no remuneration; neither had he been paid
for the articles he had purchased for the men; at the same time, the
salary due to him, of ten pounds a year as chirurgeon of the castle, was
now more than two years in arrear. It was the greater hardship, as those
who had furnished the drugs and other articles were pressing him for the
debt, 'for which he is like to be pursued.' Moreover, he protested, as
something necessary to support a claim of debt against the state, that 'he
has been always for advancing of his majesty's interest, and well affected
to their majesties' government.' The Council, in this case too, could only
recommend the accounts to the lords of the treasury. [John Callander,
master-smith, petitioned the Privy Council in June 1689,.regarding
smithwork which he had executed for Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, to
the amount of eleven hundred pounds sterling, whereof, though long due, he
had 'never yet received payment of a sixpence.' On his earnest entreaty,
three hundred pounds were ordered to be paid to account. On the ensuing
23d of August, he was ordained to be paid £6567, 17s. 2d., after a rigid
taxing of his accounts, Scots money being of course meant. Connected with
this little matter is an anecdote which has been told in various forms,
regarding the estate of Craigforth, near Stirling. It is alleged that the
master-smith, failing to obtain a solution of the debt from the Scottish
Exchequer, applied to the English treasury, and was there so fortunate as
to get payment of the apparent sum in English money. Haying out of this
unexpected wealth made a wadset on the estate of Craigforth, he ultimately
fell into the possession of that property, which he handed down to his
descendants.' John Callander was grandfather of a gentleman of the same
name, who cultivated literature with assiduity, and was the editor of two
ancient Scottish poems-The Gaberlunzie Man, and Christ's Kirk on the
Green. This gentleman, again, was grandfather to Mrs Thomas Sheridan and
Lady Graham of N etherby.]
1691, Mar 8
Sinclair of Mey, and a friend of his named James Sinclair, writer in
Edinburgh, were lodging in the house of John Brown, vintner, in the
Kirkgate of Leith, when, at a late hour, the Master of Tarbat and Ensign
Andrew Mowat came to join the party. The Master, who was eldest son of the
Viscount Tarbat, a statesman of no mean note, was nearly related to
Sinclair of Mey. There was no harm meant by anyone that night in the
hostelry of John Brown; but before midnight, the floor was reddened with
slaughter.
The Master and his friend
Mowat, who are described on the occasion as excited by liquor, but not
beyond self-control, were sitting in the hall drinking a little ale, while
beds were getting ready for them. A girl named Jean Thomson, who had
brought the ale, was asked by the Master to sit down beside him, but
escaped to her own room, and bolted herself in. He, running in pursuit of
her, blunderingly went into a room occupied by a Frenchman named George
Poiret, who was quietly sleeping there. An altercation took place between
Poiret and the Master, and Mowat, hearing the noise, came to see what was
the matter. The Frenchman had drawn his sword, which the two gentlemen
wrenched out of his hand. A servant of the house, named Christian Erskine,
had now also arrived at the scene of strife, besides a gentleman who was
not afterwards identified. At the woman's urgent request, Mowat took away
the Master and the other gentleman, the latter carrying the Frenchman's
sword. There might have now been an end to this little brawl, if the
Master had not deemed it his duty to go back to the Frenchman's room to
beg his pardon. The Frenchman, finding a new disturbance at his door,
which he had bolted, seems to have lost patience. He knocked on the
ceiling of his room with the fire-tongs, to awaken two brothers, Elias
Poiret, styled Le Sieur de la Roche, and Isaac Poiret, who were sleeping
there, and to bring them to his assistance.
These two gentlemen
presently came down armed with swords and pistols, and spoke to their
defenceless and excited brother at his door. Presently there was a hostile
collision between them and the Master and Mowat in the hall. Jean Thomson
roused her master to come and interfere for the preservation of the peace
but he came too late. The Master and Mowat were not seen making any
assault; but a shot was heard, and, in a few minutes, it was found that
the Sieur de la Roche lay dead with a swordwound through his body, while
Isaac had one of his fingers nearly cut off. A servant now brought the
guard, by whom Mowat was soon after discovered hiding under an outer
stair, with a bent sword in his hand, bloody from point to hilt, his hand
wounded, and the sleeves of his coat also stained with blood. On being
brought where the dead man lay, he viewed the body without apparent
emotion, merely remarking he wondered who had done it.
The Master, Mowat, and
James Sinclair, writer, were tried for the murder of Elias Poiret; but the
jury found none of the imputed crimes proven. The whole affair can,
indeed, only be regarded as an unfortunate scuffle arising from
intemperance, and in which sudden anger caused weapons to be used where a
few gentle and reasonable words might have quickly re-established peace
and good-fellowship.
The three Frenchmen
concerned in this affair were Protestant refugees, serving in the king's
Scottish guards. The Master of Tarbat in due time succeeded his father as
Earl of Cromarty, and survived the slaughter of Poiret forty years. He was
the father of the third and last Earl of Cromarty, so nearly brought to
Towerhill in 1746, for his concern in the rebellion of the preceding
year, and who on that account lost the family titles and estates.
Apr
Down to this time, it was still customary for gentlemen to go armed with
walking-swords. On the borders of the Highlands, dirks and pistols seem to
have not unfrequently been added. Accordingly, when a quarrel happened,
bloodshed was very likely to take place. At this time we have the
particulars of such a quarrel, serving to mark strongly the improvements
effected by modern civilisation.
Some time in August 1690, a
young man named William Edmondstone, described as apprentice to Charles
Row, writer to the Signet, having occasion to travel to Alloa, called on
his master's brother, William Row of Inverallan in passing, and had an
interview with him at a public-house in the hamlet of Bridge of. Allan.
According to a statement from him, not proved, but which it is almost
necessary to believe in order to account for subsequent events, Inveralln
treated him kindly to his face, but broke out upon him afterwards to a
friend, using the words rascal and knave, and other offensive expressions.
The same unproved statement goes on to relate how Edmondstone and two
friends of his, named Stewart and Mitchell, went afterwards to inquire
into Inverallan's reasons for such conduct, and were violently attacked by
him with a sword, and two of them wounded.
The proved
counter-statement of Inverallan is to the effect that Edmondstone,
Stewart, and Mitchell tried, on the 21st of April 1691, to waylay him,
with murderous intent, as he was passing between Dumblane and his lands
near Stirling. Having by chance evaded them, he was in a public-house at
the Bridge of Allan, when his three enemies unexpectedly came in, armed as
they were with swords, dirks, and pistols, and began to use despiteful
expressions towards him. 'He being all alone, and having no arms but his
ordinary walking-sword, did rise up in a peaceable manner, of design to
have retired and gone home to his own house.' As he was going out at the
door, William Edmolldstone insolently called to him to come and fight him,
a challenge which he disregarded. They then followed him out, and
commenced an assault upon him with their swords, Mitchell, moreover,
snapping a pistol at him, and afterwards beating him over the head with
the but-end. He was barely able to protect his life with his sword, till
some women came, and drew away the assailants.
A few days after, the same
persons came with seven or eight other 'godless and graceless persons' to
the lands of Inverallan, proclaiming their design to burn and destroy the
tenants' houses and take the laird's life, and to all appearance would
have effected their purpose, but for the protection of a military party
from Stirling.
For these violences,
Edmondstone and Mitchell were fined in five hundred merks, and obliged to
give large caution for their keeping the peace.
June 25
Upon petition, Sir James Don of Newton, knight-baronet, with his lady and
her niece, and a groom and footman, were permitted 'to travel with their
horses and arms from Scotland to Scairsburgh Wells in England, and to
return again, without trouble or molestation, they always behaving
themselves as becometh.'
This is but a single
example of the difficulties attending personal movements in Scotland for
some time after the Revolution. Owing to the fears for conspiracy, the
government allowed no persons of eminence to travel to any considerable
distance without formal permission.
July 8
An act, passed this day in the Convention of Royal Burghs for a commission
to visit the burghs as to their trade, exempted Kirkwall, Wick, Inverary,
and Rothesay, on account of the difficulty of access to these places!
The records of this ancient
court present many curious details. A tax-roll of July 1692, adjusting the
proportions of the burghs in making up each £100 Scots of their annual
expenditure on public objects, reveals to us the comparative populousness
and wealth of the principal Scottish towns at that time. For Edinburgh, it
is nearly a third of the whole, £32, 6s. 8d.; for Glasgow, less than a
half of Edinburgh, £15; Perth, £3; Dundee, £4, 13s. 4d.; Aberdeen, £6;
Stirling, £1, 8s.; Linlithgow, £1, 6s. ; Kirkcaldy, £2, 8s.; Montrose, £2;
Dumfries, £1, 18s. 4d.; Inverness, £1, 10s.; Ayr, £1, 1s. 4d. ;
Haddington, £1, 12s.
All the rest pay something
less than one pound. In 1694, Inverary is found petitioning for 'ease'
from the four shillings Scots imposed upon them in the tax-roll, as 'they
are not in a condition by their poverty and want of trade to pay any pairt
thereof' The annual outlay of the Convention was at this time about £6000
Scots. Hence the total impost on Inverary would be £240, or twenty pounds
sterling. For the' ease' of this primitive little Highland burgh, its
proportion was reduced to a fourth.
The burghs used to have
very curious arrangements amongst themselves: thus, the statute Ell was
kept in Edinburgh; Linlithgow had charge of the standard Firlot; Lanark of
the Stoneweight; while the regulation Pint-stoup was confided to
Stirling. A special measure for coal, for service in the customs, was the
Chalder of Culross. The burgh of Peebles had, from old time, the
privilege of seizing 'all light weights, short ellwands, and other
insufficient goods, in all the fairs and mercats within the shire of
Teviotdale.' They complained, in 1696, of the Earl of Traquair having
interfered with their rights, and a committee was appointed to deal with
his lordship on the subject.
To these notices it may be
added that the northern burgh of Dingwall, which is now a handsome
thriving town, was reduced to so great poverty in 1704 as not to be able
to send a commissioner to the Convention. 'There was two shillings Scots
of the ten pounds then divided amongst the burghs, added to the shilling
we used formerly to be in the taxt roll [that is, in addition to the one
shilling Scots we formerly used to pay on every hundred pounds Scots
raised for general purposes, we had to pay two shillings Scots of the new
taxation of ten pounds then assessed upon the burghs], the stenting
whereof was so heavy upon the inhabitants, that a great many of them have
deserted the town, which is almost turned desolate, as is weel known to
all our neighbours; and there is hardly anything to be seen but the ruins
of old houses, and the few inhabitants that are left, having now no manner
of trade, live only by labouring the neighbouring lands, and our
inhabitants are still daily deserting us.' Such was the account the town
gave ofitself in a petition to the Convention of Burghs in 1724.
Though Dingwall is only
twenty-one and a half miles to the northward of Inverness, so little
travelling was there in those days, that scarcely anything was known by
the one place regarding the other. It is at this day a subject of jocose
allusion at Inverness, that they at one time sent a deputation to see
Dingwall, and inquire about it, as a person in comfortable circumstances
might send to ask after a poor person in a neighbouring alley. Such a
proceeding actually took place in 1733, and the report brought back was to
the effect, that Dingwall had no trade, though 'there were one or two
inclined to carryon trade if they had a harbour;' that the place had no
prison; and for want of a bridge across an adjacent lake, the people were
kept from both kirk and market.
July 23
Licence was granted by the Privy Council to Dr Andrew Brown to print, and
have sole right of printing, a treatise he had written, entitled A
Vindicatorie Schedule about the New Cure of Fevers.'
This Dr Andrew Brown, commonly called Dolphington, from his estate in
Lanarkshire, was an Edinburgh physician, eminent in practice, and
additionally notable for the effort he made in the above-mentioned work to
introduce Sydenham's treatment of fevers-that is, to use antimonial
emetics in the first stage of the disorder. 'This book and its author's
energetic advocacy of its principles by his other writings and by his
practice, gave rise to a fierce controversy, and in the library of the
Edinburgh College of Physicians there is a stout shabby little volume of
pamphlets on both sides- "Replies" and "Short Answers," and "Refutations,"
and "Surveys," and "Looking-glasses," "Defences," "Letters," "Epilogues,"
&c., lively and furious once, but now resting as quietly together as their
authors are in the Old Greyfriars' Churchyard, having long ceased from
troubling. There is much curious, rude, hard-headed, bad-Englished stuff
in them, with their wretched paper and print, and general ugliness; much
also to make us thankful that we are in our own now, not their then. Such
tearing away, with strenuous logic and good learning, at mere clouds and
shadows, with occasional lucid intervals of sense, observation, and wit!'
Dolphington states in his
book that he visited Dr Sydenham in London, to study his system under him,
in 1687, and presently after returning to Edinburgh, introduced the
practice concerning fevers, with such success, that of many cases none but
one had remained uncured.
Some idea of an amateur
unlicensed medical practice at this time may be obtained from a small book
which had a great circulation in Scotland in the early part of the
eighteenth century. It used to be commonly called Tippermalloch's
Receipts, being the production of 'the Famous John Moncrieff of
Tippermalloch' in Strathearn, 'a worthy and ingenious gentleman,' as the
preface describes him, whose' extraordinary skill in physic and successful
and beneficial practice therein' were so well known, 'that few readers, in
this country at least, can be supposed ignorant thereof.' [The
second edition of Tippermalloch was published in 1716, containing Dr
Pitcairn's method of curing the small-pox. It professes to be superior to
the first edition, being 'taken from an original copy which the author
himself delivered to the truly noble and excellent lady, the late
Marchioness of Athole, and which her Grace the present duchess, a lady no
less eminent for her singular goodness and virtue than her high quality,
was pleased to communicate to us and the public.']
When a modern man glances
over the pages of this dusky ill-printed little volume, he is at a loss to
believe that it ever could have been the medical vade-mecum of
respectable families, as we are assured it was. It has a classification of
diseases under the parts of the human system, the head, the breast, the
stomach, &c., presenting under each a mere list of cures, with scarcely
ever a remark on special conditions, or even a tolerable indication of the
quantity of any medicine to be used. The therapeutics of Tippermalloch
include simples which are now never heard of in medicine, and may be
divided into things capable of affecting the human system, and things of
purely imaginary efficacy, a large portion of both kinds being articles of
such a disgusting character as could not but have doubled the pain and
hardship of all ailments in which they were exhibited. For cold distemper
of the brain, for instance, we have snails, bruised in their shells, to be
applied to the forehead; and for pestilential fever, a cataplasm of the
same stuff to be laid on the soles of the feet. Paralysis calls for the
parts being anointed with convenient ointments' of (among other things)
earthworms. For decay of the hair, mortals are enjoined to (make a lee of
the burnt ashes of dove's dung, and wash the head;' but 'ashes of little
frogs' will do as well. Yellow hair, formerly a desired peculiarity, was
to be secured by a wash composed of the ashes of the ivy-tree, and a fair
complexion by 'the distilled water of snails.' To make the whole face well
coloured, you are coolly recommended to apply to it 'the liver of a sheep
fresh and hot.' (Burn the whole skin of a hare with the ears and nails:
the powder thereof, being given hot, cureth the lethargy" perfectly.'
'Powder of a man's bones burnt, chiefly of the skull that is found in the
earth, cureth the epilepsy: the bones of a man cure a man; the bones of a
woman cure a woman.' The excreta of varions animals figure largely in
Tippermalloch's pharmacopreia, even to a bath of a certain kind for iliac
passion: 'this,' says he, marvellously expelleth wind.' It is impossible,
however, to give any adequate idea of the horrible things adverted to by
the sage Moncrieff, either in respect of diseases or their cures. All I
will say further on this matter is, that if there be any one who thinks
modern delicacy a bad exchange for the plain-spokenness of our
forefathers, let him glance at the pages of John Moncrieff of
Tippermalloch, and a chauge of opinion is certain.
In the department of purely
illusive recipes, we have for wakefulness or coma, 'living creatures
applied to the head to dissolve the humour;' for mania, amulets to be worn
about the neck; and a girdle of wolf's skin certified as a complete
preventive of epilepsy. We are told that' ants' eggs mixed with the juice
of an onion, dropped into the ear, do cure the oldest deafness,' and that
the blood of a wild goat given to ten drops of carduus-water doth
powerfully discuss the pleurisy.' It is indicated under measles, that many
keep an ewe or wedder in their chamber or on the bed, because these
creatures are easily infected, and draw the venom to themselves, by which
means some ease may happen to the sick person.' In like manner, for colic
a live duck, frog, or sucking-dog applied to the part, 'draweth all the
evil to itself, and dieth.' The twenty-first article recommended for
bleeding at the nose is hare's hair and vinegar stuffed in; 'I myself know
this to be the best of anytbing known.' He is equally sure that the
flowing blood of a wound may be repelled by the blood of a cow put into
the wound, or by carrying a jasper in the hand; while for a depraved
appetite nothing is required but the stone aetites bound to the
arm. Sed jam satis.
In Analecta Scotica
is to be found a dream about battles and ambassadors by Sir J. Moncrieff
of Tippermalloch, who at his death in 1714, when eighty-six years of age,
believed it was just about to be fulfilled. The writer, who signs himself
William Moncrieff, and dates from Perth, says of Tippermalloch: 'The
gentleman was, by all who knew him, esteemed to be eminently pious. He
spent much of his time in reading the Scripture-his delight was in the law
of the Lord. The character of the blessed man did belong to him, for in
that he did meditat day and night, and his conversation was suitable
thereto-his leaf did not wither -he was fat and flourishing in his old
age.'
Aug 11
Dame Mary Norvill, widow of Sir David Falconer, president of the Court of
Session, and now wife of John Home of Ninewells, was obliged to petition
the Privy Council for maintenance to her children by her first husband,
their uncle, the Laird of Glenfarquhar, having failed to make any right
arrangement in their behalf. From what the lords ordained, we get an idea
of the sums then considered as proper allowances for the support and
education of a set of children of good fortune. David, the eldest son, ten
years of age, heir to his father's estate of 12,565 merks (about £698
sterling) per annum, over and above the widow's jointure, Was to be
allowed 'for bed and board, clothing, and other necessaries, and for
educating him at schools and colleges as becomes his quality, with a
pedagogue and a boy to attend him, the sum of a thousand merks yearly
(£55, 11s. 1 1/3d. sterling).' To Mistress Margaret, twelve and a half
years old, whose portion is twelve thousand merks, they assigned an
aliment for 'bed and board, clothing, and other necessaries, and for her
education at schools and otherwise as becomes her quality,' five hundred
merks per annum (£27, 15s. 6 1/2d. sterling). Mistress Mary, the second
daughter, eleven years of age, with a portion of ten thousand merks, was
allowed for 'aliment and education' four hundred and fifty merks. For
Alexander, the second son, nine years of age, with a provision of fifteen
thousand merks, there was allowed, annually, six hundred merks. Mistress
Katherine, the third daughter, eight years of age, and Mistress Elizabeth,
seven years of age, with portions of eight thousand merks each, were
ordained each an annual allowance of three hundred and sixty merks.
George, the third son, six years old, with a provision of ten thousand
merks, was to have four hundred merks per annum. These payments to be made
to John Home and his lady, while the children should dwell with them.
'Mistress Katherine' became
the wife of Mr Home's son Joseph, and in 1711 gave birth to the celebrated
philosopher, David Hume. Her brother succeeded a collateral relative as
Lord Falconer of Halkerton, and was the lineal ancestor of the present
Earl of Kintore. It is rather remarkable that the great philosopher's
connection with nobility has been in a manner overlooked by his
biographers.
That the sums paid for the
young Falconers, mean as they now appear, were in accordance with the
ideas of the age, appears from other examples. Of these, two may be
adduced:
The Laird of Langton, 'who
had gotten himself served tutorof.law' to two young persons named
Cockburn, fell about this time into 'ill circumstances.' There then
survived but one of his wards-a girl named Ann Cockburn-and it appeared
proper to her uncle, Lord Crossrig, that she should not be allowed to stay
with a broken man. He accordingly, though with some difficulty, and at
some expense, got the tutory transferred to himself. 'When Ann Cockburn,'
he says, 'came to my house, I did within a short time put her to Mrs
Shiens, mistress of manners, where she was, as I remember, about two
years, at £5 sterling in the quarter, besides presents. Thereafter she
stayed with me some years, and then she was boarded with the Lady
Harvieston, then after with Wallyford, where she still is at £3 sterling
per quarter.'
'In 1700, the Laird of
Kilravack, in Nairnshire, paid an account to Elizabeth Straiton,
Edinburgh, for a quarter's education to his daughter Margaret Rose;
including, for board, £60; dancing, £14, 10s.; 'singing and playing and
virginaIls,' £11, 12s.; writing, £6; 'satin seame,' £6; a set of
wax-fruits, £6; and a 'looking-glass that she broke,' £4, 16s.; all Scots
money.
It thus appears that both
Mrs Shiens and Mrs Straiton charged only £5 sterling per quarter for a
young lady's board.
The subject is further
illustrated by the provision made by the Privy Council, in March 1695, for
the widowed Viscountess of Arbuthnot (Anne, daughter of the Earl of
Sutherland), who had been left with seven children all under age, and
whose husband's testament had been 'reduced.' In her petition, the
viscountess represented that the estate was twenty-four thousand merks per
annum (£1333 sterling). 'My lord, being now eight years of age, has a
governor and a servant; her two eldest daughters, the one being eleven,
and the other ten years of age, and capable of all manner of schooling,
they must have at least one servant; as for the youngest son and three
youngest daughters, they are yet within the years of seven, so each of
them must have a woman to wait upon them.' Lady Arbuthnot was provided
with a jointure of twenty-five chalders of victual; and as her
jointure-house was ruinous, she desired leave to occupy the family mansion
of Arbuthnot House, which her son was not himself of an age to possess.
The Lords, having inquired
into and considered the relative circumstances, ordained that two thousand
pounds Scots (£166, 13s. 4d. sterling) should be paid to Lady Arbuthnot
out of the estate for the maintenance of her children, including the young
lord.
The lady soon after dying,
the earl her father came in her place as keeper of the children at the
same allowance.
Dec
The Quakers residing at Glasgow gave in to the Privy Council a
representation of the treatment they received at the hands of their
neighbours. It was set forth, that the severe dealings with the
consciences of men under the late government had brought about a
revolution, and some very tragical doings. Now, when at last the people
had wrestled out from beneath their grievauces, it was matter of surprise
that those who had complained most thereupon should now be found acting
the parts of their own persecutors against the petitioners [the Quakers].'
It were too tedious to detail what they have suffered since the change of
the government, through all parts of the nation, by beating, stoning, and
other abuses.' In Glasgow, however, their usage had been liker French
dragoons' usage, and furious rabbling, than anything that dare own the
title of Christianity.' Even there they would have endured in silence the
beating, stoning, dragging, and the like which they received from the
rabble,' were it not that magistrates connived at and homologated these
persecutions, and their continued silence might seem to justify such
doings. They then proceeded to narrate that, on the 12th of November,
being met together in their hired house for no other end under heaven than
to wait upon and worship their God,' a company of Presbyterian church
elders, attended with the rude rabble of the town, haled them to James
Sloss, bailie, who, for no other cause than their said meeting, dragged
them to prison, where some of them were kept the space of eight days.'
During that time, undoubted bail was offered for them, but refused, unless
they should give it under their hand [that] they should never meet again
there: At the same time, their meeting-house had been plundered, and even
yet the restoration of their seats was refused. This using of men that are
free lieges would, in the case of others, be thought a very great riot,'
&c.
The feeling of the supreme
administrative body in Scotland on this set of occurrences, is chiefly
marked by what they did not do. They recommended to the Glasgow
magistrates that, if any forms had been taken away from the Quakers, they
shonld be given back!
There were no bounds to the
horror with which sincere Presbyterians regarded Quakerism in those days.
Even in their limited capacity as disowners of an church-politics, they
were thought to be most unchristian. Patrick Walker gravely relates an
anecdote of the seer-preacher, Peden, which powerfully proves this
feeling. This person, being in Ireland, was indebted one night to a Quaker
for lodging. Accompanying his host to the meeting, Peden observed a raven
come down from the ceiling, and perch itself, to appearance, on a
particular person's head, who presently began to speak with great
vehemence. From one man's' head, the appearance passed to another's, and
thence to a third. Peden told the man: I always thought there was devilry
amongst you, but I never thought he appeared visibly to you; but now I see
it.' The incident led to the conversion of the Quaker unto orthodox
Christianity.
On the 5th of April 1694,
there was a petition to the Privy Council from a man named James Macrae,
professing to be a Quaker, setting forth that he had been pressed as a
soldier, but could not fight, as it was contrary to his principles and
conscience; wherefore, if carried to the wars, he conld only be miserable
in himself, while useless to others. He was ordered to be liberated,
provided he should leave a substitute in his place.
It would have been
interesting to see a contemporary Glasgow opinion on this case.
1692
Irregularities of the affections were not now punished with the furious
severity which, in the reign of Charles I., ordained beheading to a tailor
in Currie for wedding his first wife's halfbrother's daughter. But they
were still visited with penalties much beyond what would now be thought
fitting. For example, a woman of evil repute, named Margaret Paterson,
having drawn aside from virtue two very young men, James and David
Kennedy, sons of a late minister of the Trinity College Church, was
adjudged to stand an hour in the jougs at the Tron, and then to be
scourged from the Castle Hill to the Netherbow, after which a life of
exile in the plantations was her portion. The two young men, having been
bailed by their uncle, under assurance for five thousand merks, the entire
amount of their patrimony, broke their bail rather than stand trial with
their associate in guilt. There was afterwards a petition from the uncle
setting forth the hardship of the case, and this was replied to with a
recommendation from the lords of Justiciary to the lords of the treasury
for a modification of the penalty, if their lordships shall think fit.' In
the case of Alison Beaton, where the co-relative offender was a man who
had married her mother's sister, the poor woman was condemned to be
scourged in like manner with Paterson, and then transported to the
plantations. It was a superstitious feeling which dictated such penalties
for this class of offences. The true aim of jurisprudence, to repress
disorders which directly affect the interests of others, and these alone,
was yet far from being understood.
In January 1694, there came
before the notice of the Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, a case of
curiously complicated wickedness. Daniel Nicolson, writer, and a widow
named Mrs Pringle, had long carried on an infamous connection, with little
effort at concealment. Out of a bad spirit towards the unoffending Jean
Lands, his wife, Nicolson and Pringle, or one or other of them, caused to
be forged a receipt as from her to Mr John Elliot, doctor of medicine, for
some poison, designing to raise a charge against her and a sister of hers,
of an attempt upon her husband's life. The alleged facts were proved to
the satisfaction of a jury, and the court, deeming the adultery aggravated
by the forgery, adjudged the guilty pair to suffer in the
Grassmarket-Nicolson by hanging, and Pringle by 'having her head severed
from her body.'
There were, however,
curious discriminations in the judgments of the Justiciary Court. A
Captain Douglas, of Sir William Douglas's regiment, assisted by another
officer and a corporal of the corps, was found guilty of a shocking
assault upon a servingmaid in Glasgow, in 1697. A meaner man, or an
equally important man opposed to the new government, would have, beyond a
doubt, suffered the last penalty for this offence; Captain Douglas, being
a gentleman, and one engaged in the king's service, escaped with a fine of
three hundred merks. |
