1699, July
Whenever a gentleman at this time returned from France, he became an object of suspicion to the government, on account of his having possibly had some traffickings with the exiled royal family, with views to the raising of disturbances at home. The Earl of Nithsdale having come from that country in July, a committee of the Privy Council was sent to speak with him, and ‘report what they find in the said earl’s deportment in France or since he came therefrom.’ A few days afterwards, he was formally permitted ‘to go borne and attend to his own affairs.’ In November, Graham of Boquhapple, having returned from France ‘without warrant from his majesty,’ was put up in the old Tolbooth, there to remain a close prisoner till further order, but with permission for his family and a physician to visit him. At the end of February, Graham, having given an ingenuous account of himself as a worn-out old soldier of the Revolution, was liberated.

July 18
From Ross-shire, a new batch of witches was reported, in the persons of ‘John Glass in Spittal; Donald M’Kulkie in Drumnamerk; Agnes Desk in Kilraine; Agnes Wrath there; Margaret Monro in Milntown; Barbara Monro, spouse to John Glass aforesaid; Margaret Monro, his mother; Christian Gilash in Gilkovie; Barbara Rassa in Milntown; Mary Keill in Ferintosh; Mary Glass in Newton; and Thick Shayme.’ All being ‘alleged guilty of the diabolical crimes and charms of witchcraft,’ it was most desirable that they should be brought to a trial, ‘that the persons guilty may receive condign punishment, and others may be deterred from committing such crimes and malefices in time coming;’ but the distauee was great, and travelling expensive; so it was determined to issue a commission to Robertson of Inshes and several other gentlemen of the district, for doing justice on the offenders.

July 25
The inventive spirit, of which we have seen so many traits within the last few years, had entered the mind of the poor Englishman, Henry Neville Payne, so long confined, without trial, under the care of the Scottish government, on account of his alleged concern in a Jacobite conspiracy. In a petition dated at Stirling Castle, he stated to the Privy Council, that "though borne down with age, poverty, and a nine years’ imprisonment, he is preparing ane experiment for river navigation, whereby safer, larger, and swifter vessels may be made with far less charge than any now in use.’ As this experiment, however, owing to the straitened circumstances and personal confinement of the inventor, had cost ten times more than it otherwise would have done, so did he find it could not be perfected unless he were allowed personally to attend to it. He entreated that, however they might be determined to detain him in Scotland, they would, ‘in Christian compassion to his hard circumstances, permit him on his parole, or moderate bail, to have freedom within some limited confinement near this place, to go forth of the Castle, that he may duly attend his business, as the necessity of it requires.’

The Council granted him liberty of half a mile’s range from the Castle, during a limited portion of the day, under a guard.

Sep 15
In his Second Discourse on Public Affairs, published in 1698, Fletcher of Salton made some statements regarding the multitude of the vagrant poor in Scotland which have often been quoted. He remarked that, owing to the bad seasons of this and the three preceding years, the evil was perhaps now greater than it had ever been; ‘yet there have always been in Scotland such numbers of poor, as by no regulations could ever be ordinarily provided for; and this country has always swarmed with such numbers of idle vagabonds, as no laws could ever restrain.’ He estimated the ordinary nnmber of such people at a hundred thousand, and the present at two hundred thousand—"vagabonds who live without any regard to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature.’ ‘No magistrate,’ he says, ‘could ever discover which way one in a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptised. Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in a day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years of plenty, many thousands of them meet ‘toottlier in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country-weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.’

To remedy this evil, Fletcher proposed in all seriousness what reads like Swift’s suggestion to convert the children of the Irish poor into animal food. He recommended that the great mass of the able-bodied of these superfluous mortals should be reduced to serfdom under such persons as would undertake to keep and employ them, arguing that slavery amongst ancient states was what saved them from great burdens of pauper population, and was a condition involving many great advantages to all parties. He was for hospitals to the sick and lame, but thought it would be well, for example and terror, to take three or four hundred of the worst of the others, commonly called fockies, and present them to the state of Venice, ‘to serve in the galleys against the common enemy of Christendom.’

Most of the patriot’s contemporaries probably acknowledged the existence of the evil which he described—though he probably exaggerated it to the extent of at least a third—but there is no appearance of the slightest movement having ever been made towards the adoption of his remedy. A modern man can only wonder at such a scheme proceeding from one whose patriotism was in general too fine for use, and who held such views of the late tyrannical governments, that he was for punishing their surviving instruments several years after the Revolution. [The irascible temper of Fletcher is well known, and his slaughter of an associate in the Monmouth expedition is a historical fact. A strange story is told of him in Mrs Calderwood of Polton’s account of her journey in Holland (Coltness Collections). ‘Saiton,’ she says, ‘could not endure the smoke of toback, and as he was in a night—scoot [in Holland] the skipper and he fell out about his forbidding him to smoke. Salton, finding he could not hinder him, went up and sat on the ridge of the boat, which bows like an arch. The skipper was so contentious that he followed him, and on whatever side Salton sat, he put his pipe in the cheek next him, and whiffed in his face. Salton went down several times and brought up stones in his pocket from the ballast, and slipped them into the skipper's pocket that was next the water, and when he found he had loadened hin as much as would sink him, he gives him a shove, so that over he hirsled, The boat went on, and Salton came down among the rest ef the passengers, who probably were asleep, and fell asleep among the rest. In a little time, bump came the scoot against the side, on which they all damned the skipper but, behold, when they called, there was no skipper; which would breed no great amazement in a Dutch company.']

The Privy Council issued a proclamation, adverting to the non-execution of the laws for the poor during the time of the scarcity, but intimating that better arrangements were rendered possible by the plentiful harvest just realised. The plan ordered to be adopted was to build correction-houses at Edinburgh, Dumfries, Ayr, Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Inverness, each for the county connected with the burgh, into which the poor should be received: no allusion is made to the other counties. The poor were to be confined to the districts in which they had had residence for the last three years. It was ordained of each correction-house, that it should have ‘a large close sufficiently enclosed for keeping the said poor people, that they be not necessitat to be always within doors to the hurt and hazard of their health.’ And the magistrates of the burghs were commanded to take the necessary steps for raising these pauper-receptacles under heavy penalties.’

Nov 8
It was customary for the Lords of Privy Council to grant exclusive right to print and vend books for certain terms—being all that then existed as equivalent to our modern idea of copyright. Most generally, this right was given to booksellers and printers, and bore reference rather to the mercantile venture involved in the expense of producing the book, than to any idea of a reward for authorcraft. Quite in conformity ‘with this old view of literary rights, the Council now conferred on George Mossinan, stationer in Edinburgh, ‘warrant to print and sell the works of the learned Mr George Buchanan, in ane volume in folio, or by parts in lesser volumes,’ and discharged ‘all others to print, import, or sell, the whole or any part of the said Mr George his works in any volume or character, for the space of nineteen years.’

In conformity with the same view of copyright, another Edinburgh stationer, who, in 1684, had obtained a nineteen years’ title to print Sir George Mackenzie’s Institutes of the Law of Scotland, soon after this day was favoured with a renewal of the privilege, on his contemplating a second edition.

Robert Sanders, printer in Glasgow, had printed a large impression of a small book, entitled Merchandising Spiritualised, or the Christian Merchant Trading to Heaven., by Mr James Clark, minister at Glasgow; which, in Sanders’s opinion, was calculated to be ‘of excellent use to good people of all ranks and degrees.’ For his encouragement in the undertaking, he petitioned the Privy Council (July 13, 1703) for an exclusive right of publishing the book; and he was fortified in his claim by a letter from the author, as well as a ‘testificat from Mr James Woodrow, professor of divinity at Glasgow, anent the soundness of the said book.’ The Council, taking all these things into account, gave Sanders a licence equivalent to copyright for nineteen years.’

Nov 30
The abundant harvest of 1699 was acknowledged by a general thanksgiving. But, that the people might not be too happy on the occasion, the king, in the proclamation for this observance, was made to acknowledge that the late famine and heavy mortality had been a just retribution of the Almighty for the sins of the people; as likewise had been ‘several other judgments, specially the frustrating the endeavours that have been made for advancing the trade of this nation.' [The royal councillors were too good Christians, or too polite towards their master, to insinuate as a secular cause the subserviency of the king to English merchants jealous of Scottish rivalry.] For these reasons, he said, it was proper, on the same day, that there be solemn and fervent prayers to God, entreating him to look mercifully on the sins of the people, and remove these, ‘the procuring causes of all afflictions,’ and permit that ‘we may no more abuse his goodness into wantonness and forgetfulness.’

The people of Scotland were poor, and lived in the most sparing manner, When they made an honourable attempt to extend their industry, that they might live a little better, their sovereign permitted the English to ‘frustrate the endeavour.’ He then told them to humble themselves for the sins which had procured their afflictions, and reproached them with a luxury ‘which they had never enjoyed. The whole affair reminds one of the rebuke administered by Father Paul to the starved porter in The Duenna: ‘Ye eat, and swill, and drink, and gormandise,’ &c.

Dec 11
Notwithstanding the abundance of the harvest., universally acknowledged a fortnight before by solemn religious rites, there was already some alarm beginning to arise about the future, chiefly in consequence of the very natural movements observed among possessors of and dealers in grain, for reserving the stock against eventual demands. There now, therefore, appeared a proclamation forbidding export and encouraging import, the latter step being ‘for the more effectual disappointing of the ill practices of forestallers and regraters.’’

Dec 7
We have at this time a curious illustration of the slowness of all travelling in Scotland, in a petition of Robert Irvine of Corinhaugh to the Privy Council. He had been cited to appear as a witness by a particular day, in the case of Dame Marjory Seton, relict of Lewis Viscount of Frendraught, but he did not arrive till the day after, having been ‘fully eight days upon the journey that he usually made in three,’ in consequence of the unseasonableness of the weather, by which even the post had been obstructed. The denunciation against him for non-appearance was discharged.

1700, Jan
A case of a singular character was brought before the Court of Justiciary. In the preceding July, a boy named John Douglas, son of Douglas of Dornock, attending the school of Moffat, was chastised by his teacher, Mr Robert Carmichael, with such extreme severity that he died on the spot. The master is described in the indictment as beating and dragging the boy, and giving him three lashings without intermission, so that when ‘let down’ for the third time, he ‘could only weakly struggle along to his seat, and never spoke more, but breathed out his last, and was carried dying, if riot dead, out of the school.’ Carmichael fled, and kept out of sight for some weeks, cut by the providence of God was discovered and seized.’

‘The Lords decerned the said Mr Robert to be taken from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh by the hangman under a sure guard to the middle of the Laudmarket, and there lashed by seven severe stripes; then to be carried down to the Cross, and there severely lashed by six sharp stripes; and then to be carried to the Fountain Well, to be severely lashed by five stripes; and then to be carried back by the hangman to the Tolbooth. Likeas, the Lords banish the said Mr Robert furth of this kingdom, never to return thereto under all highest pains.’

Robert Carmichael was perhaps only unfortunate in some constitutional weakness of his victim. An energetic use of the lash was the rule, not the exception, in the old school—nay, even down to times of which many living persons may well say, ‘quaeque miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui.’ In the High School of Edinburgh about 1790, one of the masters (Nicol) occasionally had twelve dunces to whip at once, ranking them up in a row for the purpose. When all was ready, he would send a polite message to his colleague, Mr Cruikshank, ‘to come and hear his organ.’ Cruikshank having come, Mr Nicol would proceed to administer a rapid cursory flagellation along and up and down the row, producing a variety of notes from the patients, which, if he had been more of a scientific musician, he might have probably called a bravura. Mr Cruikshank was sure to take an early opportunity of inviting Mr Nicol to a similar treat.

Jan
One of the most conspicuous persons at this time in Scotland— one of the few, moreover, known out of his own country, or destined to be remembered in a future age—was Dr Archibald Pitcairn. He practised as a physician in Edinburgh, without an equal in reputation; but he was also noted as a man of bright general talents, and of great wit and pleasantry. His habits were convivial, after the manner of his time, or beyond it; and his professional Delphi was a darkling tavern in the Parliament Close, which he called the Greping Office (Latine, ‘Greppa’), by reason of the necessity of groping in order to get into it. Here, in addition to all difficulties of access, his patients must have found it a somewhat critical matter to catch him at a happy moment, if it was true, as alleged, that he would sometimes be drunk twice a day. It is also told of him that, having given an order at home, that when detained overnight at this same Greping Office, he should have a clean shirt sent to him by a servant next morning, the rule was on one occasion observed till the number of clean shirts amounted to six, all of which he had duly put on; but, behold, when he finally re-emerged and made his way home, the whole were found upon him, one above the other! Perhaps these are exaggerations, shewing no more than that the habits of the clever doctor were such as to have excited the popular imagination. It was a matter of more serious moment, that Pitcairn was insensible to the beauties of the Presbyterian polity and the logic of the Calvinistie faith—being for this reason popularly labelled as an atheist—and that, in natural connection with this frame of opinion, he was no admirer of the happy revolution government.

He had, about this time, written a letter to his friend, Dr Robert Gray, in London; and Captain Bruce, a person attached to the service of the Duke of Hamilton, had sent it to its destination under a cover. It fell, in London, into the hands of the Scottish

Secretary, Seafleld, who immediately returned it to the Lord Chancellor in Edinburgh, as one of a dangerous character towards the government. The Lord Chancellor immediately caused Dr Pitcairn and Captain Bruce to be apprehended and put into the Tolbooth, each in a room by himself. On the letter being immediately after read to the Privy Council (January 16), they entirely approved of what had been done, and gave orders for a criminal process being instituted before them against the two gentlemen.

On the 25th of January, Pitcairn was brought before the Council on a charge of contravening various statutes against leasing-making—that is, venting and circulating reproaches and false reports against the government. He was accused of having, on a certain day in December, written a letter to Dr Gray in reference to an address which was in course of signature regarding the meeting of parliament. This, be said, was going on unanimously throughont the nation, only a few courtiers and Presbyterian ministers opposing it, and that in vain; ‘twice so many have signed since the proclamation anent petitioning as signed it before.’ ‘He bids him [Dr Gray] take notice that there is one sent to court, with a title different, to beguile the elect of the court, if it were possible.’ ‘And all the corporations and all the gentlemen have signed the address, and himself among the rest; and it is now a National Covenant, and, by Jove, it would produce a national and universal—; to which he adds that he is thinking after a lazy way to reprint his papers, but hopes there shall be news ere they are printed, and that he is calculating the force of the musculi abdominis in digesting meat, and is sure they can do it, une belle affaire.'

In the letters of charge brought forward by the Lord Advocate, it was alleged that there were here as many falsehoods as statements, and. the object of the whole to throw discredit on the government was manifest. One of his allegations was the more offensive as he had sought to confirm it ‘by swearing profanely as a pagan, and not as a Christian, "by Jove, it will produce a national and universal —," which blank cannot be construed to have a less import than a national and universal overturning.’ Seeing it clearly evidenced that he had ‘foolishly and wickedly meddled in the affairs of his majesty and his estate, he ought to be severely punished in his person and goods, to the terror of others to do the like in time coming.’

Dr Pitcairn, knowing well the kind of men he had to deal with, made no attempt at defence; neither did he utter any complaint as to the violation of his private correspondence. He pleaded that he had written in his cups with no evil design against the government, and threw himself entirely on the mercy of the Council. His submission was accepted, and he got off with a reprimand from the Lord Chancellor, after giving bond with his friend Sir Archibald Stevenson, under two hundred pounds sterling, to live peaceably under the government, and consult and contrive nothing against it.

Feb 3
This is the date of a conflagration in Edinburgh, which made a great impression at the time, and was long remembered. It broke out in one of the densest parts of the city, in a building between the Cowgate and Parliament Close, about ten o’clock of a Saturday night. ilere, in those days, lived men of no small importance. We are told that the fire commenced in a closet of the house of Mr John Buchan, being that below the residence of Lord Crossrig, one of the judges. Part of his lordship’s family was in bed, and he was himself retiring, when the alarm was given, and he and his family were obliged to escape without their clothes. ‘Crossring, naked, with a child under his oxter [armpit], happing for his life,' is cited as onr of the sad sights of the night. 'When people were sent into his closet to help out with his cabinet and papers, the smoke was so thick that they only got out a small cabinet with great difficulty. Albeit his papers were lying about the floor, or hung about the walls of his closet in pocks, yet they durst not stay to gather them up or take them...... so that that cabinet, and his servant [clerk]'s lettron [desk], which stood near the door of the lodging, with some few other things, was all that was saved, and the rest, even to his lordship’s wearing-clothes, were burnt!’ According to an eye-witness, the fire continued to burn all night and till ten o’clock on Sunday morning, ‘with the greatest frayor and vehemency that ever I saw a fire do, notwithstanding that I saw London burn.' ‘The flames were so terrible, that none durst come near to quench it. It was a very great wind, which blew to such a degree, that, with the sparks that came from the fire, there was nothing to be seen through the whole city, but as it had been showers of sparks, like showers of sr:ow, they were so thick.’

‘There are burnt, by the easiest computation, between three and four hundred families; the pride of Edinburgh is sunk; from the Cowgate to the High Street, all is burnt, and hardly one stone left upon another. The Commissioner, the President of Parliament, the President of the Court of Session [Sir Hugh Dalrymple], the Bank [of Scotland], most of the lords, lawyers, and clerks were burnt, besides many poor families. The Parliament House very nearly [narrowly] escaped; all registers confounded [the public registers being kept there]; clerk's chambers and processes in such a confusion, that the lords and officers of state are just now met in Ross's tavern, in order to adjourn the session by reason of the disorder. Few people are lost, if any at all, but thewre was neither heart nor hand left among them for saving from the fire, nor a drop of water in the cisterns. Twenty thousand hands flitting [removing] their trash, they knew not where, and hardly twenty at work. Many rueful spectacles, &c.'

The Town Council recorded their sense of this calamity as a fearful rebuke of God,’ and the Rev. Mr Willison of Dundee did not omit to improve the occasion. ‘In Edinburgh,’ says he, ‘where Sabbath-breaking very much abounded, the fairest and stateliest of its buildings, in the Parliament Close and about it (to which scarce any in Britain were comparable), were on the fourth of February (being the Lord’s Day), burnt down and laid in ashes and ruins in the space of a few hours, to the astonishment and terror of the sorrowful inhabitants, whereof I myself was an eye-witness. So great was the terror and confusion of that Lord’s Day, that the people of the city were in no case to attend any sermon or public worship upon it, though there was a great number of worthy ministers convened in the place (beside the reverend ministers of the city) ready to have prayed with or preached to the people on that sad occasion, for the General Assembly was sitting there at the time. However, the Lord himself; by that silent Sabbath, did loudly preach to all the inhabitants of the city,’ &c.

Some of the houses burnt on this occasion, forming part of the Parliament Square, were of the extraordinary altitude of fourteen stories, six or seven of which, however, were below the level of the ground on the north side. These had been built about twenty years before by Thomas Robertson, brewer, a thriving citizen, who is described in his epitaph in the Greyfriars’ churchyard as ‘remarkable for piety towards God, loyalty towards his prince, love to his country, and civility towards all persons;’ while he was also, by these structures, ‘urbis exornator, si non conditor," But Robertson, as youngest bailie, had given the Covenant out of his hand to be burnt at the Cross in 1661; and ‘now God in his providence hath sent a burning among his lands, so that that which was eleven years a-building, was not six hours of burning. Notwithstanding this, he was a good man, and lamented to his death the burning of the Covenant; he was also very helpful to the Lord’s prisoners during the late persecution.'

There being no insurance against fire in those days, the heirs of Robertson were reduced from comparative affluence to poverty, and the head of the family was glad to accept the situation of a captain in the city guard, and at last was made a pensioner upon the city’s charge.

Amongst the burnt out has been mentioned the Bank of Scotland. ‘The directors and others concerned did with great care and diligence carry off all the cash, bank-notes, books, and papers in the office; being assisted by a party of soldiers brought from the Castle by the Earl of Leven, then governor thereof, and governor of the bank, who, with the Lord Ruthven, then a director, stood all the night directing and supporting the soldiers, in keeping the stair and passage from being overcrowded. But the Company lost their lodging and whole furniture in it.’

Lord Crossrig, who suffered so much by this fire, tells us in his Diary, that in the late evil times—that is, before the Revolution— he had been a member of a society that met every Monday afternoon ‘for prayer and conference.’ Since their deliverance, such societies had gone out of fashion, and profanity went on increasing till it came to a great height. Hearing that there were societies setting up in England for reformation of manners,’ and falling in with a book that gave an account of them, he bethought him how desirable it was that something of the sort should be attempted in Edinburgh, and spoke to several friends on the subject. There was, consequently, a meeting at his house in November 1699, at which were present Mr Francis Grant (subsequently Lord Cullen); Mr Matthew Sinclair; Mr William Brodie, advocate; Mr Alexander Dundas, physician, and some other persons, who then determined to form themselves into such a society, under sanction of some of the clergy. The schedule of rules for this fraternity was signed on the night when the fire happened.

‘This,’ says Crossrig, 'is a thing I remark as notable, which presently was a rebuke to some of us for some fault in our solemn engagement there, and probably Satan blew that coal to ‘witness his indignation at a society designedly entered into in opposition to the Kingdom of Darkness, and in hopes that such an occurrence should dash our society in its infancy, and discourage us to proceed therein. However, blessed be our God, all who then met have continued steadfast ever since . . . . and we have had many meetings since that time, even during the three months that I lived at the Earl of Winton’s lodging in the Canongate. Likeas, there are several other societies of the same nature set up in this city.’’

Feb
The burning out of the Bank of Scotland was not more than twenty days past, when a trouble of a different kind fell upon it. ‘One Thomas M’Gie, who was bred a scholar, but poor, of a good genius and ready wit, of an aspiring temper, and desirous to make an appearance in the world, but wanting a fund convenient for his purpose, was tempted to try his hand upon bank-notes. At this time all the five kinds of notes—namely, £100, £50, £20, £10, and £5—were engraven in one and the same character. He, by artful razing, altered the word five in the five-pound note, and made it fifty. But good providence discovered the villainy before he had done any great damage, by means of the check-book and a record kept in the office; and the rogue was forced to fly abroad. The check-book and record are so excellently adapted to one another, and well contrived; and the keeping them right, and applying thereof, is so easy, that no forgery or falsehood of notes can be imposed upon the bank for any sum of moment, before it is discovered. After discovering this cheat of M'Gie, the company caused engrave new copper-plates for all their notes, each of a different character, adding several other checks; so that it is not in the power of man to renew M’Gie’s villainy.’

Feb
The glass-work at Leith made a great complaint regarding the ruinous practice pursued by the work at Newcastle, of sending great quantities of their goods into Scotland. The English makers had lately landed at Montrose no less than two thousand six hundred dozen of bottles, ‘which will overstock the whole country with the commodity.’ On their petition, the Lords of the Privy Council empowered the Leith Glass Company to send out officers to seize any such English bottles and bring them in for his majesty’s use.

Mar 14
The ill-reputed governments of the last two reigns put down unlicensed worship among the Presbyterians, on the ground that the conventicles were schools of disaffection. The present government acted upon precisely the same principle, in crushing attempts at the establishment of Episcopal meeting-houses. The commission of the General Assembly at this time represented to the Privy Council that the parishes of Eyemouth, Ayton, and Coldingham were ‘very much disturbed by the setting up of Episcopal meeting-houses, whereby the people are withdrawn from their duty to his majesty, and all good order of the church violat.’ On the petition of the presbytery of Chirnside, backed by the Assembly Commission, the Privy Council ordained that the sheriff shut up all these meeting-houses, and recommended the Lord Advocate to ‘prosecute the pretended ministers preaching at the said meeting-houses, not qualified according to law, and thereby not having the protection of the government!

This policy seems to have been effectual for its object, for in the statistical account of Coldingham, drawn up near the close of the eighteenth century, the minister reports that there were no Episcopalians in his parish. It is but one of many facts which might be adduced in opposition to the popular doctrine, that persecution is powerless against religious conviction.

Notwithstanding the many serious and the many calamitous things affecting Scotland, there was an under-current of pleasantries and jocularities, of which we are here and there fortunate enough to get a glimpse. For example—in Aberdeen, near the gate of the mansion of the Earl of Errol, there looms out upon our view a little cozy tavern, kept by one Peter Butter, much frequented of students in Marischal College and the dependents of the magnate here named. The former called it the Colleqium Butterense, as affecting to consider it a sort of university supplementary to, and necessary for the completion of, the daylight one which their friends understood them to be attending. Here drinking was study, and proficiency therein gave the title to degrees. Even for admission, there was a theme required, which consisted in drinking a particular glass to every friend and acquaintance one had in the world, with one more. Without these possibly thirty-nine or more articles being duly and unreservedly swallowed, the candidate was relentlessly excluded. On being accepted, a wreath was conferred, and Master James Hay, by virtue of the authority resting in him under the rules of the foundation, addressed the neophyte:

There were theses, too, on suitably convivial ideas—as, for example:

‘Gainst any man of sense,
Asserimus ex pacto,
Upon his own expense,
Quod vere datur ens
Potabile de facto...

If you expect degrees,
Drink off your cup and fill,
We’re not for what you please:
Our absolute decrees
Admit of no free-will.....

The longer we do sit,
The more we hate all quarrels,
(Let none his quarters flit),
The more we do admit
Of vacuum in barrels. &c.

Or else:

For to find out a parallaxis
We’ll not our minds apply,
Save what a toast in Corbreed makes us;
Whether the moon moves on her axis,
Ask Black and Gregory.

That bodies are à parte rei,
To hold we think it meetest;
Some cold, some hot, some moist, some dry,
Though all of them ye taste and try,
The fluid is the sweetest.

Post sextant semi hora
At night, no friend refuses
To come lavare ora;
Est melior guam Aurorad
And fitter for the Muse; &c.

A. diploma conferred upon George Durward, doubtless not without very grave consideration of his pretensions to the honour, is couched in much the same stram as the theses:

We have, however, no specimen of the wit of this fluid university that strikes us as equal to a Catalogus Librorum in Bibliotheed Butterensi; to all external appearance, a dry list of learned books, while in reality comprehending the whole paraphernalia of a tavern. It is formally divided into ‘Books in large folio,’ Books in lesser folio,’ ‘Books in quarto,’ ‘Books in octavo,’ and ‘Lesser Volumes,’ just as we might suppose the university catalogue to have been. Amongst the works included are: ‘Maximilian Malt-kist de principiis liquidorum—Kireherus Kettles de codem themate—Bueket’s Hydrostaticks—Opera Bibuli Barrelli, ubi de conservatione liquoris, et de vacuo, problematice disputatur— Constantinus Chopinus de philosophicis bibendi legibus, in usum Principalis, curâ Georgii Leith [described in a note as a particularly assiduous pupil of the college] 12 tom.—Compendium ejus, for weaker capacities—Barnabius Beer-glass, de lavando gutture—Manuale Gideonis Gill, de Syllogismiis concludentibus—Findlay Fireside, de circulari poculorum motu,’ &c. One may faintly imagine how all this light-headed nonsense would please Dr Pitcairn, as he sat regaling himself in the Greping Office, and how the serious people would shake their heads at it when they perused it at full length, a few years afterwards, in Watson’s Collection of Scots Poems.

July 31
The commissioners of the General Assembly, considering the impending danger of a late harvest and consequent scarcity, and the other distresses of the country, called for the 29th day of August being solemimised by a fast. In the reasons for it, they mention the unworthy repining at the late providences, and ‘that, under our great penury and dearth, whilst some provoked God by their profuse prodigality, the poorest of the people, who suffered most, and who ought thereby to have been amended, have rather grown worse and worse.’

Duncan Robertson, a younger son of the deceased Laird of Struan, had fallen out of all good terms with his mother, apparently in consequence of some disputes about their respective rights. Gathering an armed band of idle ruffians, he went with them to his mother’s jointure-lands, and laid them waste; he went to a ‘room’ or piece of land occupied by his sister Margaret, and carried off all that was upon it; he also ‘laid waste any possession his other sister Mrs Janet had.’ When a military party, posted at Cane, came to protect the ladies, he fired on it, and afterwards plainly avowed to the commander that his object was to dispossess his mother and her tenants. By this cruel act, Lady Struan and her other children had been ‘reduced to these straits and difficulties, that they had not whereupon to live.’