1708
When one thinks of the present superb wealth and commercial distinction of
the Queen of the West, it is impossible to withhold a smile at Wodrow’s
remarks on its loss of ten thousand pounds. Yet the fact is that up to
this time Glasgow had but a petty trade, chiefly in sugar, herrings, and
coarse woollen wares. Its tobacco trade, the origin of its grandeur, is
understood to date only from 1707, and it was not till 1718 that Glasgow
sent any vessel belonging to itself across the Atlantic. Sir John
Dalrymple, writing shortly before 1788, says: ‘I once asked the late
Provost Cochrane of Glasgow, who was eminently wise, and who has been a
merchant there for seventy year; to what causes he imputed the sudden rise
of Glasgow. He said it was all owing to four young men of talents and
spirit, who started at one time in business; and whose success gave
example to the rest. The
four had not ten
thousand pounds amongst them when
they began.’
Defoe tells us that, within little
more than a year after the Union, Scotland felt the benefit of the
liberation of her commerce in one article to a most remarkable extent. In
that time, she sent 170,000 bolls of grain into England, besides a large
quantity which English merchants bought up and shipped directly off for
Portugal. The hardy little cattle of her pastures, which before the Union
had been sent in large droves into England, being doubtless the principal
article represented in the two hundred thousand pounds which Scotland was
ascertained to obtain aunually from her English customers, were now
transmitted in still larger numbers, insomuch that men of birth and figure
went into the trade. Even a Highland gentleman would think it not beneath
him to engage in so lucrative a traffic, however much in his soul he might
despise the Saxons whose gluttony he considered himself as gratifying. lt
has often been told that the Hononrable Patrick Ogilvie, whom the reader
has already seen engaged in a different career of activity, took up the
cattle-trade, and was soon after remonstrated with by his brother, the
Earl of Seafield, who, as Chancellor of Scotland, had been deeply
concerned in bringing about the Union. The worthy scion of nobility drily
remarked in answer: ‘Better sell nowte than sell nations.’’
A sketch given of a cattle-fair at
Crieff in 1723 by an intelligent traveller, shows that the trade continued
to prosper. 'There were,’ says he, ‘at least thirty thousand cattle sold
there, most of them to English drovers, who paid down above thirty
thousand guineas in ready money to the Highlanders; a sum they had never
before seen. The Highland gentlemen were mighty civil, dressed in their
slashed waistcoats, a trousing (which is, breeches and stockings of one
piece of striped stuff), with a plaid for a cloak, and a blue bonnet. They
have a poniard knife and fork in one sheath, hanging at one side of their
belt, their pistol at the other, and their snuff-mill before; with a great
broad-sword by their side, Their attendance was very numerous, all in
belted plaids, girt like women’s petticoats down to the knee; their thighs
and half of the leg all bare. They had also each their broad-sword and
poniard, and spake all Irish, an unintelligible language to the English.
However, these poor creatures hired themselves out for a shilling a day,
to drive the cattle to England, and to return home at their own charge.’
1708, May 1
Previous to the Union, the Customs and Excise of Scotland were farmed
respectively at £30,000 and £35,000 per annum, which, after every
allowance is made for smuggling, must be admitted as indicative of a very
restricted commercial system, and a simple and meagre style of living on
the part of the people. At the Union, the British government took the
Customs and Excise of Scotland into its own hands, placing them severally
under commissions, partly composed of Englishmen, and also sending English
officers of experience down to Scotland, to assist in establishing proper
arrangements for collection. We learn from Defoe that all these new fiscal
arrangements were unpopular. The anti-union spirit delighted in
proclaiming them as the outward symptoms of that English tyranny to which
poor Scotland had been sold. Smuggling naturally flourished, for it became
patriotic to cheat the English revenue. officers. The people not only
assisted and screened the contrabandist, but if his goods chanced to be
captured, they rose in arms to rescue them. Owing to the close of the
French trade, the receiving of brandy became a favourite and flourishing
business. It was alleged that, when a Dutch fleet approached the Scottish
shores some months after the Union, several thousands of small casks of
that liquor were put ashore, with hardly any effort at concealment.
Assuming the Excise as a tolerably
fair index to the power of a people to indulge in what they feel as
comforts and luxuries, the progress of this branch of the public revenue
may be esteemed as a history of wealth in Scotland during the remarkable
period following upon the Union. The summations it gives us are certainly
of a kind such as no Scotsman of the reign of Queen Anne, adverse or
friendly to the incorporation of the two countries, could have dreamed of.
The items in the account of the first year ending at May 1, 1708, are
limited to four—namely, for beer, ale, and vinegar, £43,653; spirit; £901;
‘mum [Mum, a species of fat ale, brewed from wheat and bitter herbs] £50;
fines and forfeiture; £58; giving—when £6350 for salaries, and some other
deductions, were allowed for—a net total of £34,898, as a contribution to
the revenue of the country.
The totals, during time next eleven years, go on thus:
£44,096, £37,998, £46,795, £51,609, £61,747, £46,979, £44,488, £45,285
—this refers to the year of the
Rebellion £48,813, £46,649, £50,377. On this last sum the charges of
management amounted to £15,400. After this, the total net produce of the
Excise, exclusive of malt, never again came up to fifty thousand pounds,
till the year 1749. The malt tax, which was first imposed in 1725, then
amounted to £22,627, making the entire Excise revenue of Scotland in the
middle of the eighteenth century no more than £75,987. It is to be feared
that increase of dexterity and activity in the smuggler had some concern
in keeping down these returns at so low an amount; yet when large
allowance is made on that score, we are still left to conclude that the
means of purchasing luxuries remained amongst our people at a very humble
point.
I am informed by a gentleman long connected with the
Excise Board in Scotland, that the books exhibited many curious
indications of the simplicity, as well as restrictedness, of all monetary
affairs as relating to our country in the reigns of Anne and the first
George. According to a recital which he has been kind enough to
communicate in writing, ‘The remittances were for the most part made in
coin, and various entries in the Excise accounts shew that what were
called broad pieces frequently formed a part of the moneys sent.
The commissioners were in the habit of availing themselves of the
opportunity of persons of rank travelling to London, to make them the
bearers of the money; and it is a curious historical fact, that the first
remittance out of the Excise duties, amonnting to £20,000, was sent by the
Earl of Leven, who delivered £19,000 of the amount at the proper office in
London, retaining the other thousand pounds for his trouble and risk in
the service. As the Board in Scotland could only produce to their
comptroller a voucher for the sum actually delivered in London, he could
not allow them credit for more. The £1000 was therefore placed "insuper"
upon the accounts, and so remained for several years; until at last a
warrant was issued by the Treasury, authorising the sum to be passed to
the credit of the commissioners.’
After the middle of the century, the progress is such
as to shew that, whether by the removal of repressive influences, or the
imparting of some fresh spring of energy, the means of the people were at
length undergoing a rapid increase. In 1761, including part of the first
year of George III., the net total Excise revenue had sprung up to
£100,985. It included taxes on glass (£115l), candles (£6107), leather
(£8245), soap and paper (£2992), and wheel-carriages (£2308). The total
had, however, receded fully fourteen thousand pounds by 1775. After that
time, war increased the rate of taxation, and we therefore need not be
surprised to find the Scottish Excise producing £200,432 in 1781. In 1790,
when Robert Burns honoured this branch of the revenue by taking an office
in it, it had reached but to the comparatively insignificant sum of
£331,117. In 1808, being the hundredth year of its existence, it yielded
£1,793,430, being rather more than fifty-one times its produce
during the first year.’
June 1
The Duke of Argyle resigning his place as an extraordinary Lord of
Session, in order to follow his charge in the army, his younger brother,
the Earl of Ilay, succeeded him, though under twenty-five years of age;
not apparently that he might take part in the decisions of the bench, but
rather that he might be a learner there, it ‘being,’ says Fountainhall,
‘the best school for the nobility to learn that is in Europe.'
June 26
The election of a knight to represent Ross-shire in the British parliament
took place at Fortrose, under the presidency of the sheriff, Hugh Rose, of
Kilravock. There was much dissension in the county, and the sheriff; whose
son was elected, had probably reasons of his own for appointing the last
day of the week for the ceremony. This, however, having led to travelling
on Sunday, was taken into consideration by the synod some months later, as
a breach of decorum on the part of the sheriff, who consequently received
a letter from one of their number who had been appointed to administer
their censure. It set forth how, even if the meeting had been dissolved on
the Saturday evening, many could not have got home without breaking the
fourth commandment; but Kilravock had caused worse than this, for, by
making the meeting late in the day, he had ‘occasioned the affair to he
protracted till the Sabbath began more than to dawn Company are said to
have sung, shott, aud danced in their progress to the ferry, without any
check or restraint, as if they meant to spit in the face of all sacred and
civil laws.’ The synod had found it impossible to keep silence and allow
such miscarriages to remain unreproved.
It is to bc feared that Kilravock was little benefited
by their censure, as he left the paper docketed in his repositories as ‘a
comical synodical rebuke.’
Aug 13
That remarkable property of human nature—the anxiety everybody is under
that all other people should be virtuous—had worked itself out in sundry
famous acts of parliament, general assembly, and town-council, throughout
our history subsequent to the Reformation. There was an act of Queen Mary
against adultery, and several of Charles II. against profaneness,
drunkenness, and other impurities of life. There was not one of William
and Mary for the enforcement of the fifth commandment; but the general
principle operated in their reign very conspicuously nevertheless,
particularly in regard to profaneness and profanation of the Lord’s Day.
King William had also taken care in 1698 to issue a proclamation
containing an abbreviate of all the acts against immorality, and in which
that of Charles II. against cursing and beating of parents was certainly
not overlooked, as neither were those against adultery. So far had the
anxiety for respectable conduct in others gone in the present reign, that
sheriffs and magistrates were now enjoined by proclamation to hold courts,
once a month at least, for taking notice of vice and immorality, fining
the guilty, and rewarding informers; moreover, all naval and military
officers were ordered to exemplify the virtues for the sake of those under
them, and, above all, see that the latter duly submitted themselves to
kirk discipline.
An act of the town-council of Edinburgh ‘anent
prophaneness,’ in August 1693, threatened a rigorous execution of all the
public statutes regarding immoral conduct, such as swearing, sitting late
in taverns, and desecration of the Lord’s Day. It strictly prohibited all
persons within the city and suburbs ‘to brew, or to work any other
handiwork, on the Lord’s Day, or to be found on the streets, standing or
walking idly, or to go in company or vague to the Castle-hill [the only
open space then within the city walls], public yards, or fields.’ It
discharged all going to taverns on that day, unseasonably or
unnecessarily, and forbade tall persons to bring in water from the wells
to houses in greater quantities than single pints.’ By another act in
1699, tavern-keepers were forbidden to have women for servants who had not
heretofore been of perfectly correct conduct. All these denunciations were
renewed in an act of February 1701, in which, moreover, there was a severe
threat against barbers who should shave or trim any one on Sunday, and
against all who should be found on that day carrying periwigs, clothes, or
other apparel through the streets.
Not long after this, the Edinburgh council took into
their consideration three great recent calamities—namely, the fire in the
Kirk-heugh in February 1700; another fire ‘which happened on the north
side of the Landmarket, abont mid-day upon the 28th of October 1701,
wherein several men, and women, and children were consumed in the flames,
and lost by the fall of ruinous walls;’ and finally, ‘that most tremendous
and terrible blowing up of gunpowder in Leith, upon the 3d of July last;’
and, reflecting on these things as tokens of God’s wrath, came to the
resolution, ‘to be more watchful over our hearts and ways than formerly,
and each of us in our several capacities to reprove vice with zeal and
prudence, and promote the execution of the laws for punishing the
vicious.’
All originality is taken from a notorious parliamentary
enactment of our time by a council act of April 1704, wherein, after
reference to the great decay of virtue and piety, and an acknow!edgment
that ‘all manner of scandals and immoralities do daily abound,’ it is
ordered that taverners, under strong penalties, shall shut at ten o’clock
at night all persons harbonring there at a later hour to be likewise
punished.
Inordinate playing at cards and dice in taverns is
instanced in a council act of about the same period, as one of the most
flagrant vices of the time.
It is to be understood that the discipline of the
church over the morals of congregations was at the same time in full
vigour, although not now fortified by a power of excommunication,
inferring loss of civil rights, as had been the case before the
Revolution. Much was done in this department by fines, proportioned to the
quality of offenders, and for the application of these to charitable uses
there was a lay-officer, styled the Kirk-treasurer, who naturally became a
very formidable person. The poems of Ramsay and others during the earlier
half of the eighteenth century are full of waggish allusions to the
terrible powers of even the ‘man’ or servant of the Kirk-treasurer; and in
a parody of the younger Ramsay on the integer Vitae of Horace, this
personage is set forth as the analogue of the Sabine wolf:
‘For but last Monday, walking at noon-day,
Conning a ditty, to divert my Betty,
By me that sour Turk (I not frighted) our Kirk-
Treasurer’s man passed.
And sure more horrid monster in the Torrid
Zone cannot be found, sir, though for snakes renowned, sir;
Nor does Czar Peter’s empire boast such creatures,
Of bears the wet-nurse.’
Burt, who, as an English stranger, viewed the moral
police of Scotland with a curious surprise, broadly asserts that the
Kirk-treasurer employed spies to track out and report upon private
individuals; so that ‘people lie at the mercy of villains who would
perhaps forswear themselves for sixpence.’ Sometimes, a brother and
sister, or a man and his wife, walking quietly together, would find
themselves under the observation of emissaries of the Kirk-treasurer. Burt
says he had known the town-guard in Edinburgh under arms for a night
besetting a house into which two persons had been seen to enter. He at the
same time remarks the extreme anxiety about Sabbath observance. It seemed
as if the Scotch recognised no other virtue. ‘People would startle more at
the humming or whistling of a tune on a Sunday, than if anybody should
tell them you had ruined a family.’’
It must have been a great rejoicement to the gay
people, when a Kirk-treasurer—as we are told by Burt—’ having a round sum
of money in his keeping, the property of the kirk, marched off with the
cash, and took his neighbour’s wife along with him to bear him company and
partake of the spoil.’
The very imperfect success of acts and statutes for
improving the habits of the people, is strongly hinted at by their
frequent repetition or renewal. We find it acknowledged by the Town
Council of Edinburgh, in June 1709, that the Lord’s Day is still ‘profaned
by people standing on the streets, and vaguing to fields and gardens, and
to the Castle-hill; also by standing idle gazing out at windows, and
children, apprentices, and other servants playing on the streets.
Nove 22
James Stirling of Keir, Archibald Seton of Touch, Archibald Stirling of
Carden, Charles Stirling of Kippendavie, and Patrick Edmondstone of
Newton, were tried for high treason in Edinburgh, on the ground of their
having risen in arms in March last, in connection with the French plan of
invasion, and marched about for several days, encouraging others to rise
in like manner, and openly drinking the health of the Pretender.
Considering the openness of this treason, the charges against the five
gentlemen were remarkably ill supported by evidence, the only witnesses
being David Fenton, a tavern-keeper at Dunkeld; John Macleran,
‘change-keeper’ at Bridge of Turk; and Daniel Morison and Peter Wilson,
two servants of the Laird of Keir. These persons were all free to testify
that the gentlemen carried swords and pistols, which few people travelled
without in that age; but as for treasonable talk, or drinking of
treasonable healths, their memories were entirely blank. Wilson knew of no
reason for Keir leaving his own house but dread of being taken up on
suspicion by the soldiers in Stirling Castle. A verdict of Not Proven
unavoidably followed.
It has been constantly remembered since in Keir’s
family, that as he was riding home after the trial, with his servant
behind him—probably Wilson—he turned about, and asked from mere curiosity,
how it came to pass that his friend had forgotten so much of what passed
at their parade for the Chevalier in March last, when the man responded:
‘I ken very weel what you meats, laird; but my mind was clear to trust my
saul to the mercy o’ Heaven, rather than your honour’s body to the mercy
o’ the Whigs.’
Nov
Sir James Hall of Dunglass was proprietor of a barony called Old Cambus.
Within it was a ‘room’ or small piece of land belonging to Sir Patrick
Home of Renton, a member of a family of whose hotness of blood we have
already seen some evidences. To save a long roundabout, it had been the
custom for the tenants of the ‘room’ to drive peats from Coldingham Muir
through the Old Cambus grounds, but only on sufferance, and when the corn
was off the fields, nor even then without a quart of ale to make matters
pleasant with Sir James’s tenants. Some dispute having now arisen between
the parties, the tenant of Headchester forbade Sir Patrick Home’s people
to pass through his farm any more with their peats; and they, on the other
hand, determined that they should go by that short passage as usual. The
winter stock of fuel being now required, the time had come for making good
their assumed right. Mr John Home, eldest son of Sir Patrick, accompanied
the carts, with a few servants to assist in making way. A collision took
place, attended with much violence on both sides, but with no exhibition
of weapons that we hear of, excepting Mr John’s sword, which, he alleged,
he did not offer to draw till his horse had been ‘beat in the face with a
great rung.’ The affair was nevertheless productive of serious
consequences, for a blacksmith was trod to death, and several persons were
hurt. Had it happened eighty years earlier, there would have been both
swords and pistols used, and probably a dozen people would have been
killed.
The justices of the peace for Berwickshire took up the
matter, and imposed a fine of fifty pounds upon Mr John Home, as the
person chiefly guilty of the riot. He appealed to the Court of Session,
setting forth several objections to the sentence. The Earl of Marchmont,
whose daughter had married Sir James Hall, and two other members of the
justice-court, ought to be held as disqualified by affinity to sit in
judgment in the case. To this it was answered, that Sir James was not the
complainer, and his lady was dead. Home then alleged a right to the
passage. It was shewn, on the other hand, that there never had been a
passage save by tolerance and on consideration of the quart of ale; and
though it had been otherwise, he ought to have applied to the magistrates,
and not taken the law into his own hands: ‘however one enters into
possession, though cast in with a sling-stone, yet he must be turned out
by order of law. The Lords would not hear of reversing the award of the
justices; but they reduced the fine to thirty pounds.’
1709, March
The family of the antiquary, Sir James Balfour, to whom we owe the
preservation of so many historical manuscripts, appears to have been a
very unfortunate one. We have seen that his youngest son and successor,
Sir Robert, was slaughtered in the reign of Charles II. by M’Gill of
Rankeillour.’ The head of a succeeding generation of the family, Sir
Michael Balfour, was a quiet country gentleman, with a wife and seven
children, residing at the semi-castellated old manor-house, which we now
see standing a melancholy ruin, in a pass through the Fife hills near
Newburgh. He appears to have had debts; but we do not anywhere learn that
they were of serious extent, and we hear of nothing else to his
disadvantage. One day in this month, Sir Michael rode forth at an early
hour ‘to visit some friends and for other business,’ attended by a
servant, whom, on his return home, he despatehed on an errand to Cupar,
telling him he would be home before him. From that hour, Denmill was never
again seen. He was searched for in the neighbourhood. Inquiries were made
for him in the towns at a distance. There were even advertisements
inserted in London and continental newspapers, offering rewards for any
information that might enable his friends to ascertain his fate. All in
vain. ‘There were many conjectures about him,’ says a contemporary judge
of the Court of Session, ‘for some have been known to retire and go abroad
upon melancholy and discontent; others have been said to be transported
and carried away by spirits; a third set have given out they were lost, to
cause their creditors compound, as the old Lord Belhaven was said to be
drowned in Solway Sands, and so of Kirkton, yet both of them afterwards
appeared. The most probable opinion was, that Denmill and his horse had
fallen under night into some deep coal-pit, though these were also
searched which lay in his way home.’ At the distance of ten months from
his disappearance, his wife applied to the Court of Session, setting forth
that her husband’s creditors were ‘falling upon his estate, and beginning
to use diligence,’ and she could not but apprehend serious injury to the
means of the family, though these far exceeded the debts, unless a factor
were appointed. We learn that the court could better have interposed if
the application had come from the creditors; but, seeing ‘the case craved
some pity and compassion,’ they appointed a factor for a year, to manage
the estate for both creditors and relict, hoping that, before that time
elapsed, it would be ascertained whether Denmill were dead or alive.
The year passed, and many more years after it, without
clearing up the mystery. ‘We find no trace of further legal proceedings
regarding the missing gentleman, his family, or property. The fact itself
remained green in the popular remembrance, particularly in the district to
which Sir Michael belonged. In November 1724, the public curiosity was
tantalised by a story published on a broadside, entitled Murder will
Out, and professing to explain how the lost gentleman had met his
death. The narrative was said to proceed on the death-bed confession of a
woman who had, in her infancy, seen Sir Michael murdered by her parents,
his tenants, in order to evade a debt which they owed him, and of which he
had called to crave payment on the day of his disappearance. Stabbing him
with his own sword as he sat at their fireside, they were said to have
buried his body and that of his horse, and effectually concealed their
guilt while their own lives lasted. Now, it was said, their daughter, who
had involuntarily witnessed a deed she could not prevent, had been wrought
upon to disclose all the particulars, and these had been verified by the
finding of the bones of Sir Michael, which were now transferred to the
sepulchre of his family. But this story was merely a fiction trafficking
on the public curiosity. On its being alluded to in the Edinburgh
Evening Gourant as an actual occurrence, ‘the son and heir of the
defunct Sir Michael’ informed the editor of its falsity, which was also
acknowledged by the printer of the statement himself; and pardon was
craved of the honourable family and their tenants for putting it into
circulation. On making inquiry in the district, I have become satisfied
that the disappearance of this gentleman from the field of visible life
was never explained, as it now probably never will be. In time, the
property was bought by a neighbouring gentleman, who did not require to
use the mansion as his residence. Denmill Castle accordingly fell out of
order, and became a ruin. The fathers of people still living thereabouts
remembered seeing the papers of the family—amongst which were probably
some that had belonged to the antiquarian Sir James—scattered in confusion
about a garret pervious to the elements, under which circumstances they
were allowed to perish.
May
There was at this time a dearth of victual in Scotland, and it was
considered to be upon the increase. The magistrates and justices of
Edinburgh arranged means for selling meal in open market, though in
quantities not exceeding a firlot, at twelve shillings Scots per peck.
They also ordered all possessors of grain to have it thrashed out and
brought to market before the 20th of Mar, reserving none to them selves,
and forbade, on high penalties, any one to buy up grain upon the road to
market.
A well-disposed person offered in print an expedient
for preventing the dearth of victual, he discommended the fixing of a
price at market, for when this plan was tried in the last dearth, farmers
brought only some inferior kind of grain to market, ‘so that the remedy
was worse than the disease.’ Neither could he speak in favour of the plan
of the French king—namely, the confiscating of all grain remaining after
harvest—for it had not succeeded in France, and would still less suit a
country where the people were accustomed to more liberty. He suggested the
prohibition of exportation; the recommending possessors of grain to sell
it direct to the people instead of victual-mongers; and the use of strict
means for fining all who keep more than a certain quantity in reserve.
This writer thought that the corn was in reality not scarce; all that was
needed was, to induce possessors of the article to believe it to be best
for their interest to sell immediately.
July 21
There is an ancient and well-known privilege, still kept up, in connection
with the palace and park of Holyroodhouse, insuring that a debtor
otherwise than fraudulent, and who has not the crown for his creditor,
cannot have diligence executed against him there; consequently, may live
there in safety from his creditors. At this time, the privilege was taken
advantage of by Patrick Haliburton, who was in debt to the extraordinary
amount of nearly £3000 sterling, and who was believed to have secretly
conveyed away his goods.
It being also part of the law of Scotland that
diligence cannot be proceeded with on Sunday, the Abbey Lairds, as they
were jocularly called, were enabled to come forth on that day and mingle
in their wonted society.
It pleased Patrick Haliburton to come to town one
Sunday, and call upon one of his creditors named Stewart, in order to
treat with him regarding some proposed accommodation of the matters that
stood between them. Mr Stewart received Patrick with apparent kindness,
asked him to take supper, and so plied his hospitality as to detain him
till past twelve o’clock, when, as he was leaving the house, a messenger
appeared with a writ of caption, and conducted him to prison. Patrick
considered himself as trepanned, and presented a complaint to the Court of
Session, endeavouring to shew that a caption, of which all the preparatory
steps had been executed on the Sunday, was the same as if it had been
executed on the Sunday itself; that he had been treacherously dealt with;
and that he was entitled to protection under the queen’s late indemnity.
The Lords repelled the latter plea, but ‘allowed trial to be taken of the
time of his being apprehended, and the manner how he was detained, or if
he offered to go back to the Abbey, and was enticed to stay and hindered
to go out. The termination of the affair does not appear.
A case with somewhat similar features occurred in 1724.
Mrs Bilks being a booked inmate of the Abbey sanctuary, one of her
creditors formed a design of getting possession of her person. He sent a
messenger-at-law, who, planting himself in a tavern within the privileged
ground, but close upon its verge, sent for the lady to come and speak with
him. She, obeying, could not reach the house without treading for a few
paces beyond ‘the girth,’ and the messenger’s concurrents took the
opportunity to lay hold of her. This, however, was too much to be borne by
a fairplay-loving populace. The very female residents of the Abbey rose at
the news, and, attacking the party, rescued Mrs Bilks, and bore her back
in triumph within the charmed circle.
The Rev. James Greenshields, an Irish curate, but of
Scottish birth and ordination—having received this rite at the hands of
the deposed Bishop of Ross in 1694—set up a meeting-house in a court near
the Cross of Edinburgh, where he introduced the English liturgy, being the
first time a prayer-book had been publicly presented in Scotland since the
Jenny Geddes riot of July 1637. Greenshields was to be distinguished from
the nonjuraut Scottish Episcopalian clergy, for he had taken the oath of
abjuration (disclaiming the ‘Pretender’), and he prayed formally for the
queen; but he was perhaps felt to be, on this account only the more
dangerous to the Established Church. It was necessary that something
should be done to save serious people from the outrage of having a
modified idolatry practised so near them. The first effort consisted of a
process raised by the landlord of the house against Mr Greenshields, in
the Dean of Guild’s court, on account of his having used part of the
house, which he took for a dwelling, as a chapel, and for that purpose
broken down certain partitions. The Dean readily ordained that the house
should be restored to its former condition. Mr Greenshields having easily
procured accommodation elsewhere, it became necessary to try some other
method for extinguishing the nuisance. A petition to the presbytery of
Edinburgh, craving their interference, was got up and signed by two or
three hundred persons in a few hours. The presbytery, in obedience to
their call, cited Mr Greenshields to appear before them. He declined their
jurisdiction, and they discharged him from continuing to officiate, under
high pains and penalties.
Mr Greenshields having persisted, next Sunday, in
reading prayers to his congregation, the magistrates, on the requirement
of the presbytery, called him before them, and formally demanded that he
should discontinne his functions in their city. Daniel Defoe, who could so
cleverly expose the intolerance of the Church of England to the
dissenters, viewed an Episcopalian martyrdom with different feelings. He
tells us that Greenshields conducted himself with ‘haughtiness’ before the
civic dignitaries—what his own people of course regarded as a heroic
courage. He told them positively that he would not obey them; and
accordingly, next Suuday, he read the service as usual in his obscure
chapel. Even now, if we are to believe Defoe, the magistrates would not
have committed him, if he had been modest in his recusancy; but, to their
inconceivable disgust, this insolent upstart actually appeared next day at
the Cross, among the gentlemen who were accustomed to assemble there as in
an Exchange, and thus seemed to brave their authority! For its
vindication, they were, says Defoe, ‘brought to an absolute necessity to
commit him;’ and they committed him accordingly to the Tolbooth.
Here he lay till the beginning of November, when, the
Court of Session sitting down, he presented a petition, setting forth the
hardship of his case, seeing that there was no law forbidding any one to
read the English liturgy, and he had fully qualified to the civil
government by taking the necessary oaths. It was answered for the
magistrates, that ‘there needs no law condemning the English service, for
the introducing the Presbyterian worship explodes it as inconsistent,’ and
the statute had only promised that the oath-taking should protect
ministers who had been in possession of charges. ‘The generality of the
trepanned, and presented a complaint to the Court of
Session, endeavouring to shew that a caption, of which all the preparatory
steps had been executed on the Sunday, was the same as if it had been
executed on the Sunday itself; that he had been treacherously dealt with;
and that he was entitled to protection under the queen’s late indemnity.
The Lords repelled the latter plea, but ‘allowed trial to be taken of the
time of his being apprehended, and the manner how he was detained, or if
he offered to go back to the Abbey, arid was enticed to stay and hindered
to go out.’’ The termination of the affair does not
appear.
A case with somewhat similar features occurred in 1724.
Mrs Bilks being a booked inmate of the Abbey sanctuary, one of her
creditors formed a design of getting possession of her person. lie sent a
messenger-at-law, who, plauting himself in a tavern within the privileged
ground, but close upon its verge, sent for the lady to come and speak with
him. She, obeying, could not reach the house without treading for a few
paces beyond ‘the girth,’ and the messenger’s concurrcnts took the
opportunity to lay hold of her. This, however, was too much to be borne by
a fairplay-loving populace. The very female residents of the Abbey rose at
the news, and, attacking the party) rescued Mrs Bilks, and bore her back
in triumph within the charmed circle.2
The Rev. James Greenshields, an Irish curate, but of
Scottish birth and ordination—having received this rite at the hands of
the deposed Bishop of Ross in 1694—set up a meeting-house in a court near
the Cross of Edinburgh, where he introduced the English liturgy, being the
first time a prayer-book had been publicly presented in Scotland since the
Jenny Geddes riot of July 1637. Greenshields was to be distinguished from
the nonjuraut Scottish Episcopalian clergy, for lie had taken the oath of
abjuration (dis&aiming the ‘Pretender’), and he prayed formally for the
queen; but he was perhaps felt to be, on this account only the more
dangerous to the Established Church. It was necessary that something
should be done to save serious people from the outrage of having a
modified idolatry practised so near them. The first effort consisted of a
process raised by the landlord of the house against Mr Grecnsliields, in
tiie Dean
of Guild’s court, on account of his having used part of
the house, which lie took for a dwelling, as a chapel, and for that
purpose brolc en down certain partitions. The Dean readily ordained that
the house should be restored to its former condition. Mr Greenshields
having easily procured accommodation elsewhere, it became necessary to try
some other method for extinguishing the nuisance. A petition to the
presbytery of Edinburgh, craving their interference, was got up and signed
by two or three hundred persons in a few hours. The presbytery, in
obedience to their call, cited Mr Greenshields to appear before them. He
declined their jurisdiction, and they discharged him from continuing to
officiate, under high pains and penalties.
Mr Greenshields having persisted, next Sunday, in
reading prayers to his congregation, the magistrates, on the requirement
of the presbytery, called him before them, and formally demanded that he
should discontinne his functions in their city. Daniel Defoe, who could so
cleverly expose the intolerance of the Church of England to the
dissenters, viewed an Episcopalian martyrdom with different feelings. He
tells us that Greenshields conducted himself with ‘haughtiness’ before the
civic dignitaries—what his own people of course regarded as a heroic
courage. He told them positively that lie would not obey them; and
accordingly, next Suuday, he read the service as usual in his obscure
chapel. Even now, if we are to believe Defoe, the magistrates would not
have committed him, if he had been modest in his recusancy; but, to their
inconceivable disgust, this insolent upstart actually appeared next day at
the Cross, among the gentlemen who were accustomed to assemble there as in
an Exchange, and thus seemed to brave their authority! For its
vindication, they were, says Defoe, ‘brought to an absolute necessity to
commit him;’ and they committed him accordingly to the Tolbooth.
Here he lay till the beginning of November, when, the
Court of Session sitting down, he presented a petition, setting forth the
hardship of his ease, seeing that there was no law forbidding
any one to read the English liturgy, and he had fully qualified to
the civil government by taking the necessary oaths. It was answered for
the magistrates, that ‘there needs no law condemning the English service,
for the introducing the Presbyterian worship explodes it as inconsistent,’
and the statute had only promised that the oath-taking should protect
ministers who had been in possession of charges. ‘The generality of the
trepanned, and presented a complaint to the Court of
Session, endeavouring to shew that a caption, of which all the preparatory
steps had been executed on the Sunday, was the same as if it had been
executed on the Sunday itself; that he had been treacherously dealt with;
and that he was entitled to protection under the queen’s late indemnity.
The Lords repelled the latter plea, but ‘allowed trial to be taken of the
time of his being apprehended, and the manner how he was detained, or if
he offered to go back to the Abbey, arid was enticed to stay and hindered
to go out.’’ The termination of the affair does not
appear.
A case with somewhat similar features occurred in 1724.
Mrs Bilks being a booked inmate of the Abbey sanctuary, one of her
creditors formed a design of getting possession of her person. lie sent a
messenger-at-law, who, plauting himself in a tavern within the privileged
ground, but close upon its verge, sent for the lady to come and speak with
him. She, obeying, could not reach the house without treading for a few
paces beyond ‘the girth,’ and the messenger’s concurrcnts took the
opportunity to lay hold of her. This, however, was too much to be borne by
a fairplay-loving populace. The very female residents of the Abbey rose at
the news, and, attacking the party) rescued Mrs Bilks, and bore her back
in triumph within the charmed circle.2
The Rev. James Greenshields, an Irish curate, but of
Scottish birth and ordination—having received this rite at the hands of
the deposed Bishop of Ross in 1694—set up a meeting-house in a court near
the Cross of Edinburgh, where he introduced the English liturgy, being the
first time a prayer-book had been publicly presented in Scotland since the
Jenny Geddes riot of July 1637. Greenshields was to be distinguished from
the nonjuraut Scottish Episcopalian clergy, for lie had taken the oath of
abjuration (dis&aiming the ‘Pretender’), and he prayed formally for the
queen; but he was perhaps felt to be, on this account only the more
dangerous to the Established Church. It was necessary that something
should be done to save serious people from the outrage of having a
modified idolatry practised so near them. The first effort consisted of a
process raised by the landlord of the house against Mr Grecnsliields, in
tiie Dean
of Guild’s court, on account of his having used part of
the house, which lie took for a dwelling, as a chapel, and for that
purpose brolc en down certain partitions. The Dean readily ordained that
the house should be restored to its former condition. Mr Greenshields
having easily procured accommodation elsewhere, it became necessary to try
some other method for extinguishing the nuisance. A petition to the
presbytery of Edinburgh, craving their interference, was got up and signed
by two or three hundred persons in a few hours. The presbytery, in
obedience to their call, cited Mr Greenshields to appear before them. He
declined their jurisdiction, and they discharged him from continuing to
officiate, under high pains and penalties.
Mr Greenshields having persisted, next Sunday, in
reading prayers to his congregation, the magistrates, on the requirement
of the presbytery, called him before them, and formally demanded that he
should discontinne his functions in their city. Daniel Defoe, who could so
cleverly expose the intolerance of the Church of England to the
dissenters, viewed an Episcopalian martyrdom with different feelings. He
tells us that Greenshields conducted himself with ‘haughtiness’ before the
civic dignitaries—what his own people of course regarded as a heroic
courage. He told them positively that lie would not obey them; and
accordingly, next Suuday, he read the service as usual in his obscure
chapel. Even now, if we are to believe Defoe, the magistrates would not
have committed him, if he had been modest in his recusancy; but, to their
inconceivable disgust, this insolent upstart actually appeared next day at
the Cross, among the gentlemen who were accustomed to assemble there as in
an Exchange, and thus seemed to brave their authority! For its
vindication, they were, says Defoe, ‘brought to an absolute necessity to
commit him;’ and they committed him accordingly to the Tolbooth.
Here he lay till the beginning of November, when, the
Court of Session sitting down, he presented a petition, setting forth the
hardship of his ease, seeing that there was no law forbidding
any one to read the English liturgy, and he had fully qualified to
the civil government by taking the necessary oaths. It was answered for
the magistrates, that ‘there needs no law condemning the English service,
for the introducing the Presbyterian worship explodes it as inconsistent,’
and the statute had only promised that the oath-taking should protect
ministers who had been in possession of charges. ‘The generality of the
trepanned, and presented a complaint to the Court of
Session, endeavouring to shew that a caption, of which all the preparatory
steps had been executed on the Sunday, was the same as if it had been
executed on the Sunday itself; that he had been treacherously dealt with;
and that he was entitled to protection under the queen’s late indemnity.
The Lords repelled the latter plea, but ‘allowed trial to be taken of the
time of his being apprehended, and the manner how he was detained, or if
he offered to go back to the Abbey, arid was enticed to stay and hindered
to go out.’’ The termination of the affair does not
appear.
A case with somewhat similar features occurred in 1724.
Mrs Bilks being a booked inmate of the Abbey sanctuary, one of her
creditors formed a design of getting possession of her person. lie sent a
messenger-at-law, who, plauting himself in a tavern within the privileged
ground, but close upon its verge, sent for the lady to come and speak with
him. She, obeying, could not reach the house without treading for a few
paces beyond ‘the girth,’ and the messenger’s concurrcnts took the
opportunity to lay hold of her. This, however, was too much to be borne by
a fairplay-loving populace. The very female residents of the Abbey rose at
the news, and, attacking the party) rescued Mrs Bilks, and bore her back
in triumph within the charmed circle.2
The Rev. James Greenshields, an Irish curate, but of
Scottish birth and ordination—having received this rite at the hands of
the deposed Bishop of Ross in 1694—set up a meeting-house in a court near
the Cross of Edinburgh, where he introduced the English liturgy, being the
first time a prayer-book had been publicly presented in Scotland since the
Jenny Geddes riot of July 1637. Greenshields was to be distinguished from
the nonjuraut Scottish Episcopalian clergy, for lie had taken the oath of
abjuration (dis&aiming the ‘Pretender’), and he prayed formally for the
queen; but he was perhaps felt to be, on this account only the more
dangerous to the Established Church. It was necessary that something
should be done to save serious people from the outrage of having a
modified idolatry practised so near them. The first effort consisted of a
process raised by the landlord of the house against Mr Grecnsliields, in
tiie Dean
of Guild’s court, on account of his having used part of
the house, which lie took for a dwelling, as a chapel, and for that
purpose brolc en down certain partitions. The Dean readily ordained that
the house should be restored to its former condition. Mr Greenshields
having easily procured accommodation elsewhere, it became necessary to try
some other method for extinguishing the nuisance. A petition to the
presbytery of Edinburgh, craving their interference, was got up and signed
by two or three hundred persons in a few hours. The presbytery, in
obedience to their call, cited Mr Greenshields to appear before them. He
declined their jurisdiction, and they discharged him from continuing to
officiate, under high pains and penalties.
Mr Greenshields having persisted, next Sunday, in
reading prayers to his congregation, the magistrates, on the requirement
of the presbytery, called him before them, and formally demanded that he
should discontinne his functions in their city. Daniel Defoe, who could so
cleverly expose the intolerance of the Church of England to the
dissenters, viewed an Episcopalian martyrdom with different feelings. He
tells us that Greenshields conducted himself with ‘haughtiness’ before the
civic dignitaries—what his own people of course regarded as a heroic
courage. He told them positively that lie would not obey them; and
accordingly, next Suuday, he read the service as usual in his obscure
chapel. Even now, if we are to believe Defoe, the magistrates would not
have committed him, if he had been modest in his recusancy; but, to their
inconceivable disgust, this insolent upstart actually appeared next day at
the Cross, among the gentlemen who were accustomed to assemble there as in
an Exchange, and thus seemed to brave their authority! For its
vindication, they were, says Defoe, ‘brought to an absolute necessity to
commit him;’ and they committed him accordingly to the Tolbooth.
Here he lay till the beginning of November, when, the
Court of Session sitting down, he presented a petition, setting forth the
hardship of his ease, seeing that there was no law forbidding
any one to read the English liturgy, and he had fully qualified to
the civil government by taking the necessary oaths. It was answered for
the magistrates, that ‘there needs no law condemning the English service,
for the introducing the Presbyterian worship explodes it as inconsistent,’
and the statute had only promised that the oath-taking should protect
ministers who had been in possession of charges. ‘The generality of the
Lords,’ says Fountainhall, ‘regretted the man’s case;‘
but they refused to set him at liberty, unless he would engage to
‘forbear the English service.’ Amongst his congregation there was a
considerable number of English people, who had come to Edinburgh as
officers of Customs and Excise. It must have bewildered them to find what
was so much venerated in their own part of the island, a subject of such
wrathfnl hatred and dread in this.
Greenshields, continuing a prisoner in the Tolbooth,
determined, with the aid of friends, to appeal to the House of Lords
against the decision of the Court of Session. Such appeals had become
possible only two years ago by the Union, and they were as yet a novelty
in Scotland. The local authorities had never calculated on such a step
being taken, and they were not a little annoyed by it. They persisted
nevertheless in keeping the clergyman in his loathsome prison, till, after
a full year, an order of the House of Lords came for his release.
Meanwhile, other troubles befell the church, for a Tory ministry came into
power, who, like the queen herself, did not relish seeing the Episcopalian
clergy and liturgy treated contuemously in Scotland. The General Assembly
desired to have a fast on account of ‘the crying sins of the land,
irreligion, popery, many errors and delusions;’ and they chafed at having
to send for authority to Westminster, where it was very grudgingly
bestowed. It seemed as if they had no longer a barrier for the protection
of that pure faith which it was the happy privilege of Scotland, solely of
all nations on the face of the earth, to enjoy. Their enemies, too, well
saw the advantage that had been gained over them, and eagerly supported
Greenshields in his tedious and expensive process, which ended (March
1711) in the reversal of the Session’s decision. ‘It is a tacit
rescinding,’ says Wodrow, ‘of all our laws for the security of worship,
and that unhappy man, [an Irish curate of fifteen pounds a year, invited
to Edinburgh on a promise of eighty] has been able to do more for the
setting up of the English service in Scotland than King Charles the First
was able to do.’
Nov 9
The Lords of Session decided this day on a critical question, involving
the use of a word notedly of uncertain meaning. John Purdic having
committed an act of immorality on which a parliamentary act of 1661
imposed a penalty of a hundred pounds in the case of ‘a gentleman,’
the justices of peace fined him accordingly, considering him a gentleman
within the construction of the act, as being the son of ‘ a heritor,’ or
land-proprietor, ‘When charged for payment by Thomas Sandilands, collector
of these fines, he suspended, upon this ground that the fine was
exorbitant, in so far as he was but a small heritor, and, as all heritors
are not gentlemen, so he denied that he had the least pretence to the
title of a gentleman. The Lords sustained the reason of suspension to
restrict the fine to ten pounds Scots, because the suspender had not the
face or air of a gentleman: albeit it was alleged by the charger
[Sandilands] that the suspender’s profligateness and debauchery, the place
of the country where he lives and the company haunted by him, had
influenced his mien.’
An anonymous gentleman of
Scotland, writing to the Earl of Seafleld, on the improvement of the
salmon-fishing in Scotland, informs us how the fish were then, as now,
massacred in their pregnant state, by country people. ‘I have known,’ he
says, ‘a fellow not worth a groat kill with a spear in one night’s time a
hundred black fish or kipper, for the most part full of rawns unspawned.’
He adds: ‘ Even a great many gentlemen, inhabitants by the rivers, are
guilty of the same crimes,’ little reflecting on ‘the prodigious treasure
thus miserably dilapidated.’
Notwithstanding these
butcheries, he tells us that no mean profit was then derived from the
salmon-fishing in Scotland; he had known from two to three thousand
barrels, worth about six pounds sterling each, exported in a single year.
‘Nay, I know Sir James Calder of Mnirton alone sold to one English
merchant a thousand barrels in one year’s fishing.’ He consequently deems
himself justified in estimating the possible product of the
salmon-fishing, if rightly protected and cultivated, at forty thousand
barrels, yielding £240,000 sterling, per annum.
1710, Feb
At Inchinnan, in Renfrewshire, there fell out a ‘pretty peculiar
accident.’ One Robert Hall, an elder, and reputed as an estimable man,
falling into debt with his landlord, the Laird of Blackston, was deprived
of all he had, and left the place. Two months before this date, he
returned secretly, and being unable to live
contentedly without going to church, he
disguised himself for that purpose in
women’s clothes. It was his custom to go to Eastwood
church, but curiosity one day led him to his own old parish-church of
Inchinnan. As he crossed a ferry, he was suspected by the boatman and a
beadle of being a man in women’s clothes, and traced on to the church. The
minister, apprised of the suspicion, desired them not to meddle with him;
but on a justice of peace coming up, he was brought forward for
examination. He readily owned the fact, and desired to be taken to the
minister, who, he said, would know him. The minister protected him for the
remainder of the day, that he might escape the rudeness of the mob; and on
the ensuing day, he was taken to Renfrew, and liberated, at the
intercession of his wife’s father.’
May
The General Assembly passed an act, declaring the marriage of Robert
Hunter, in the bounds of the presbytery of Biggar, with one John [Joan]
Dickson to be incestuous, the woman having formerly been the mother of a
child, the father of which was grand-uncle to her present husband. The act
discharged the parties from remaining united under pain of highest
censure.
The church kept up long after this
period a strict discipline regarding unions which involved real or
apparent relationship. In May 1730, we find John Baxter, elder in Tealing
parish, appealing against a finding of the synod, that his marriage with
his deceased wife’s brother’s daughter’s daughter, was incestuous, Two
years later, the General Assembly had under its attention a case, which,
while capable of being stated in words, is calculated to rack the very
brain of whoever would try to realise it in his conceptions. A Carrick
man, named John M’Taggart, had unluckily united himself to a woman named
Janet Kennedy, whose fonner husband, Anthony M’Harg, ‘was a brother to
John M’Taggart’s grandmother, which grandmother was said to be natural
daughter of the said Anthony M’Harg’s father!’ The presbytery of Ayr took
up the case, and M’Taggart was defended by a solicitor, in a paper full of
derision and mockery at the law held to have been offended; ‘a new
instance,’ says Wodrow, ‘of the unbounded liberty that lawyers take. The
presbytery having condemned the marriage as incestuous, M’Taggart appealed
in wonted form to the synod, which affirmed the former decision, and
ordered a retractation of the offensive paper on pain of excommunication.
The case then came before the General Assembly, who left it to be dealt
with by its commission. It hung here for six years, during which it
may be presumed that M’Taggart and his wife were either separated or only
lived together under the load of presbeterial censure; and at length, in
March 1738, it was sent back, along with the still older case of Baxter,
by the commission to the Assembly itself.’ How it was ultimately disposed
of, I have not learned.
What would these church authorities
have thought of a recent act of the state of Indiana, which permits
marriages with any of the relations of a deceased partner, and forbids the
union of cousins!
June
‘Some ill—disposed persons, said to be of the suppressed parish of
Barnweil [Ayrshire], set fire to the new church of Stair in the
night-time; but it was quickly smothered. The occasion was thought to be
the bringing the bell from Baruweil to Stair. I have scarce heard of such
ane instance of fire being wilfully set to a church.’—Wodrow. The parish
of Barnweil having been suppressed, and half the temporalities assigned to
the new parish of Stair, the inhabitants appear to have been exasperated
beyond all bounds and hence this offence.
Aug 19
David Bruce, a youth of fifteen, accompanied by five companions of about
the same age, all of the city of St Andrews, went out in a boat to amuse
themselves, but, losing one of their oars, and being carried out to sea,
they were unable to return. It was late in the evening before their
friends missed them. A boat was sent in the morning in quest of them, but
in vain. Meanwhile, the boys were tossed up and down along the waters,
without being able to make any shore, although they were daily in sight of
land. At length, after they had been six days at sea without food or
drink, an easterly wind brought them ashore at a place called
Hernheuch, four miles south of Aberdeen, and fifty north of St
Andrews. They were all of them in an exhausted condition, and two of them
near death. By the direction of an honest countryman, John Shepherd, two
of the boys were able to climb up the steep cliff beneath which their
skiff had touched shore. Shepherd received them into his house, and lost
no time in sending for help to Aberdeen. Presently, the Dean of Guild, Dr
Gregory a physician, and Mr Gordon a surgeon, were on the spot, exerting
themselves by all judicious means to preserve the lives of the six boys,
five of whom entirely recovered.
Robert Bruce, goldsmith in
Edinburgh, father of David Bruce, ‘in thankful commemoration of the
preservation of his son,’ had a copperplate engraved by Virtue, with a
full-length portrait of the lad, and a view of the six boys coming ashore
in the boat. David Bruce was for many years head cashier of Drummond’s
bank at Charing Cross, and lived till 1771.’
Sep
One Robert Fleming, a very poor man, who taught an English school at
Hamilton, was taken up for cheating some poor people with twenty-shilling
notes, all wrote with his own hand, and a dark impression made like the
seal of the bank [of Scotland]. He was prosecuted for the forgery; and, on
his own confession, found guilty, and condemned to death; but having been
reprieved by her majesty several times,
and at last during pleasure, he, after her majesty’s death, obtained a
remission.’
This poor man, in his confession before the Lords who
examined him, said be had forged
fifty, but only passed four notes, the first being given for a shawl to
his wife. ‘He declared that he intended to have coined crown-pieces; and
the stamp he had taken in clay, which he shewed; but, which is most
remarkable of all, confessed that he made use of one of the Psalms, that
he might counterfeit the print of the notes the better by practice, in
writing over those letters that were in the Psalm, and which he had
occasion to write in the bank-notes. My Lord Forglen had forgot what Psalm
it was; but the man said the first words of the Psalm which appeared to
him was to this purpose: "The eyes of the Lord behold the children of
men;" which was truly remarkable.’
Nov 30
Died at Paisley Abbey, of small-pox, the Countess of Dundonald, celebrated
for her beauty, and not less remarkable for her amiable and virtuous
character. She left three infant daughters, all of whom grew in time to be
noted ‘beauties,’ and of whom one became Duchess of Hamilton, and the
other two the Countesses of Strathmore and Galloway. The death of the
lovely young Lady Dundonald of a disease so loathsome and distressing, was
deeply deplored by a circle of noble kindred, and lamented by the public
in general, notwithstanding the drawback of her ladyship being an adherent
of the Episcopal communion. Wodrow, who condemns the lady as ‘highly
prelatieal in her principles,’ but admits she was ‘very devote and
charitable,’ tells us how, at the suggestion of Dr Pitcairn, Bishop Rose
waited on the dying lady, while the parish minister came to the house, but
was never admitted to her chamber. Wodrow also states, that for several
Sundays after her death, the earl had sermon preached in his house every
Sunday by Mr Fullarton, an Episcopalian, ‘or some others of that gang;’
and on Christmas Day there was an administration of the communion, ‘for
anything I can hear, distributed after the English way.’ ‘This,’ adds
Wodrow, ‘is the first instance of the communion at Yule so openly
celebrate in this country’ since the Revolution.
The last time we had the Post-office
under our attention (1695), it was scarcely able to pay its own expenses.
Not long after that time, in accordance with the improved resources of the
country, it had begun to be a source of revenue, though to a very small
amount. It was conducted for three years before the Union by George Main,
jeweller in Edinburgh, with an average yearly return to the Exchequer of
£1194, 8s. 10d., subject to a deduction for government expresses and the
expense (£60) of the packet-boat at Portpatrick. Immediately after that
time, the business of the central office in Edinburgh was conducted in a
place no better than a common shop, by seven officials, the manager George
Main having £200 a year, while his accountant, clerk, and clerk’s
assistant had respectively £56, £50, and £25, and three runners or
letter-carriers had each 5s.
per week.
An act of the British parliament now
placed the Scottish Post-office under that of England, but with ‘a chief
letter-office’ to be kept up in Edinburgh. The charge for a letter from
London to Edinburgh was established at sixpence, and that for other
letters at twopence for distances within fifty English miles, greater
distances being in proportion. For the five years following the Union,
there was an annual average gain of £6000—a striking improvement upon
1698, when Sir Robert Sinclair found he could not make it pay expenses,
even with the benefit of a pension of £300 a year. |