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RELATIVE POSITION OF
DUMFRIES AMONG THE ROYAL BURGHS-DETAILED ACCOUNT OF ITS TRADE AND COMMERCE
IN THE LAST DECADE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY- PROVISION FOR THE
MAINTENANCE OF THE POOR-RISE OF BRIDGEND (MAXWELLTOWN)-BURGHS OF BARONY
NOTICED -LANDED PROPERTY OF THE BURGH - RIGHT OF THE HOUSEHOLDERS TO
PASTURE CATTLE ON ITS COMMONS-PRIMITIVE CONDITION OF THE DOCK MEADOW-FRESH
ILLUSTRATIONS OF TOWN COUNCIL LEGISLATION-PROCEEDINGS OF THE INCORPORATED
TRADES-THE DARIEN SCHEME, AND ITS FOUNDER WILLIAM PATERSON: MUNIFICENT
SUPPORT GIVEN TO IT BY THE BURGH AND DISTRICT.
FROM a very early period,
down till the Union with England, the Burgh, or rather its Council, as an
electoral college, sent a Commissioner to the Estates, or Parliament, the
Provost being often appointed as such. The name of the Burgh usually
appears as the fifteenth on the Parliamentary roll, a place that indicated
the period of its erection rather than its rank. An Act passed in 1701 in
favour of Dumbarton, reserves the right of the members of Ayr, Irving,
Renfrew, Dumfries, and several other burghs, to ride, sit, and vote, and
take precedency in all national meetings before the representative of the
said burgh. In the reigns of the Jameses, and for a century afterwards,
Dumfries had a much higher relative position than that which it now
occupies. Chalmers, writing in 1823, observes, that "Dumfries has
gradually changed its place of precedence, as it has increased in people
and prosperity. According to the tax roll of 1771, it stood the seventh on
the scale of assessment of sixty-six Royal Burghs, there being only six
higher, and no fewer than fifty-nine lower." By a reference to the tax
roll of earlier years, we find that the town occupied a still higher grade
than the author of " Caledonia" assigns to it. In the roll of 1695,
Edinburgh stands first, and is rated at £35 Scots; Glasgow follows far
behind, at a rating of £15, which, however, rose ten years afterwards to
£20; Aberdeen ranks next, at £6 10s.; Dundee follows, at £5 6s. 8d.; then
comes Montrose, at £2 8s.; and next Dumfries, at £1 18s. 4d. In 1705, the
tax on Montrose had fallen to £1 13s. 8d., and that of Dumfries remained
stationary, making it, in the last mentioned year, the fifth of the Royal
Burghs, as tested by taxable wealth. The rate on Lochmaben in 1695 was
3s., on Annan 2s., and on Sanquhar 1s. The oldest tax roll extant, dated
21st February, 1578, makes Dumfries the eighth Royal Burgh: at that period
its proportion of the general assessment was £1 7s. 6d.
A high degree of prosperity was enjoyed by the
Burgh during the reign of James IV.: and though it was more populous at
the date of the Revolution, it was relatively poorer, the various troubles
through which it passed in the interval having operated discouragingly on
its trade and commerce; [Appendix K.] while its landed patrimony had
become much reduced through improvidence or neglect, and its fishings on
the Nith, conferred by royal grant after the Reformation, had passed into
private hands. We have no means of knowing what amount of revenue the
Burgh derived from feus and leases before its common good began to be
tampered with, about the beginning of the sixteenth century; but it must
have been considerable as compared with the expenditure, and we know that,
before the lapse of another hundred years, it had become very much
reduced. Had that not been the case, the "re-edification" of the bridge in
1629 would not have been a very exhaustive effort; and a more favourable
report could have been given of the public finances than the authorities
were able to furnish to certain representatives from the Convention of
Royal Burghs, who in 1692 visited the town to obtain information upon the
subject. Provost Rome, Bailie Johnston, Bailie Irving, and Mr. Menzies,
town-clerk, gave in a statement to the deputies which was the reverse of
cheering. "To the best of their knowledge," the common good was worth
yearly "2,666 lib. 13s. 4d., or thereby" - that is to say, about £222
sterling; and their debts "twentie thousand merks," or nearly £2,100
sterling. We learn from other sources that the bridge custom that year
amounted to £122 sterling; the dues levied at the trone and three ports,
to about £27 sterling; and the rent for the meal market to about £22
sterling: which sums make up within £9 of the whole reported revenue,
leaving only that trifling balance to be received for rent of the mills,
feus, and other small miscellaneous items not specified.
The inland trade, annually, is said to consist
of "thretie packs of linnen cloath at twentie pounds sterline the pack, in
neat twelve hundred pounds sterline, and other goodes of that nature, to
the value of four hundreth and eighty pounds sterline; five thousand sheep
skins at fyfty pound sterline the thousand, in neat two hundreth and
fiftie pound sterline; sex thousand lamb skins, worth seventeen pounds
sterline, which they sell yearly to merchants in Edinburgh and others." It
may be inferred, from the silence observed respecting the manufacture of
woollen cloth, that that branch of industry, once so flourishing in the
Burgh, had little or no existence at the date of the report. In retail
business, it is stated, there are "ten or twelve merchants' shops," whose
staples are iron, tar, and lint; "two that sells cloath and London goodes;"
three that deal in drugs; "some other shops of little accompt, that sell
brandy, pipes, tobacco, candle, and such like wares;" and "there is vented
within the burgh about three tunns of wyne yeirly;" but "they cannot
condescend upon what malt they consume yearly, in regard their milns are
rouped with the rest of their common good." As respects liabilities, it is
stated that the minister draws the tiends of the Burgh acres for their
share of his stipend, the rest being paid by the landward part of the
Parish; that he is allowed £30 for half the rent of his manse; "as also,
they pay to their schoolmaster, doctors, precentor, and other their public
servants, 970 lib. Scots yeirly:" all which, with the interest on the debt
of 20,000 merks, is drawn from the common good. But this is not all: they
have out of it to maintain the fabric of the church, "also the bridge,
consisting of nine large arches, tolbooth, prison-houses, milns, miln-dams,
cluses, and school-houses," the expense of which is estimated at £500
Scots annually; "whereby, and by the expenses of their Commissioners to
the Parliament, Convention, and other publict charges, their patrimonie is
exhausted, and will necessarily endgadge them to contract debts; and by
reasone of the inconvenience of the river, and the chairges of lighters,
it's feared that trade will totally decay, even tho' there were peace."
Equally doleful is the account given by the
reporters of two of the chief thoroughfares:-"About twentie tenements in
the High Street ruinous, besides some houses in closses; and the wholl
north syde of Lochmabanegate totally destroyed by fire about a twelvemonth
since or therby, a great deal whereof is as yet unbuilt." Dumfries in 1692
must have been in a woefully depressed condition to have warranted such
statements as these: though, as the magistrates at the close claimed "to
be relieved of the fyve shilling they were heighted with in the tax roll"
[The Convention of Royal Burghs, at their annual meetings in July, fixed
the quotas of land-tax to be paid to the Crown by each burgh, according to
its wealth; and had power to vary the proportion payable by them according
to their prosperity or decay. Use and wont, rather than Acts of
Parliament, authorized the Convention to exercise an almost inquisitorial
oversight of the burghs in matters of finance. We quote the following
illustrative minute from the Records of the Convention (vol. i., p. 191),
dated at Linlithgow, 15th July, 1554:-" The samyn day, Symon Johnstoun,
Commissioner for the Burgh of Dumfreis, made offer of the thrid penny mair
to the customes of the said burgh, nor presentlie is payit be James Geddes,
customer thairof, quhilk Commissioners, respecting his gude and
profitabill offer, ordanis the said James to be chargit to compeir in
Edinburgh upon the xviij. day of October nixtt, thair to mak his compte to
the burrowis to be appoynted to the hering and allowing thairof,
discharging him of any further using or exercing of the said office from
the said day of Oct. ; and that at the said (lay of his comptis he delyver
to the additouris of the samyn, the half seill or stamp being in his
possession, and that the magistrates of the said burgh of Dumfreis, then
present in Edinburgh, are sufficient customer and comptroller, for quhame
they [the auditors] sal be answerabill for the dew executioun of thair
office to the burrowis foirsaidis, the said auchtene of Oct. nixtt :
quhairunto the said Symon consented." Rather sharp practice this on the
part of the Convention-cashiering the " said James" in his absence, and
appointing a new "customer" for Dumfries, because he had offered a trifle
more for the customs than the old one.] a year previously, they perhaps
deepened the shadows of the picture for the sake of giving effect to their
request. We know that in several preceding years a much more cheerful
report was given in by their own treasurer, showing a revenue varying from
£300 sterling annually to £320; and that in 1699 some separate items of
revenue that have been preserved warrant the supposition that the whole
would amount to the latter mentioned sum at least. In 1699 the bridge
customs yielded £118 12s. 2d. sterling; the dues at the other three
entrances, £24 3s. 1d.; Milldamhead Park, £22 4s. 5d. If we add for other
land rents and feus, say £50; for mills, £50; for burgess fees, £15; for
meal market, E20; and for miscellaneous branches, E20; the aggregate will
be nearly £320, which may be accepted as the annual worth of the common
good in the closing decade of the seventeenth century.
As regards the commerce of the port, an
unfavourable account was also given in 1692; but before quoting from it, a
few preliminary remarks are called for respecting the river and its
estuary. The Solway, into which the Nith flows, has peculiar
characteristics, that render it quite a topographical study. Numerous
currents meeting near its mouth keep up a perpetual conflict; and twice in
every twenty-four hours the tidal flow, suddenly raised above its ordinary
level, and rendered fierce by the tumult, seeks an outvent at the estuary,
through which it rushes with a speed that is nowhere rivalled in the
United Kingdom, or perhaps in the world. It hurries on, carrying a head
four to six feet high, filling up the tortuous channels, and sweeping over
the broad level beds of the Frith with a rapidity that has earned for its
foam-crested billows the title of the White Steeds of the Solway.
[Appendix I.] Gradually, as the tide approaches Dumfries, its pace
moderates, and its head is absorbed; and only on very rare occasions does
the briny current surmount the Caul, though before that barrier was
erected it must have frequently swept through and far beyond the arches of
the bridge. The entire domain of the Solway, except the narrow channel of
the Nith, and the waters that enter near its eastern extremity, is
"alternately a surgy, brown sea-now misty with sand and now tinctured with
silt, oscillating with the rebound of the tide; and a naked, flat,
unrelieved expanse of sand interposing its dreary projection between the
blooming slopes of Cumberland and the finely outlined and warmly tinted
lands of Scotland. Much of its beach, or rather of its bed, even its
broader and more seaward parts, is of the same character; so very much,
indeed, that were the Frith estimated or measured only by the space it
covers at low water, it would figure in extremely limited proportions."
[Sketch of the Solway in the Builder.]
The singularities of the Solway, whether at
high or low water, though very interesting as natural phenomena, are
rather adverse to the prosaic purposes of trade; and the red sandstone
which stretches athwart the southern shore of the Frith forms a rocky bar
over the Nith at Kingholmbank, which has always operated discouragingly on
the interests of the port and river.
For some time before the end of the sixteenth
century, Dumfries was the seat of a considerable trade, which soon
afterwards suffered a serious reduction. Mr. Tucker, a revenue officer
appointed by Government to draw up an account of the Scottish ports in
1656, concludes his notice of those in the south as follows:- "Last of
all," he says, "Dumfreese, a pretty mercat town, but of little trade-that
they have being most part by land, either for Leith or Newcastle, the
badness of coming into the river upon which it lyes hindering their
commerce by sea; soe that whatever they have come that way is comonly and
usually landed at Kirkcudbright. This town of Dumfreese was formerly the
head port of these parts, the town of Ayre being then within the district
of Glasgow; but there being nothing to doe, the Commissioners thought fit
to remove the Collector to Ayre." [Tucker's Report upon the Settlement of
the Revenues of Excise and Customs in Scotland] From the same authority we
learn that "the accompt of the beere, ale, acque vitae lett to farme" in
the several shires of Scotland during the year 1655 amounted to £35,054
8s. 8d., and that the proportion yielded by the port of Dumfries was £694.
In 1692, as we learn from the report to the
Convention, the town owned one large vessel of 140 tons, named the
"Elizabeth;" three of a smaller size-the "Adventure," thirty-six tons; the
" Concord," twenty tons; the " Providence," also twenty tons; a boat of
three tons, and a yawl. The estimated value of the whole fleet was about
£300 sterling; but owing to the want of trade the ships were laid up in
port, and out of repair. The commerce with other countries, once
considerable, had fallen off to such an extent that during the five
preceding years it could be summed up in this narrow compass: "Ane smale
ship from France with eighteen tunns of wyne and sex tunns of brandie or
thereby; item, ane other vestell from Noraway with fyve thousand daills;
item, a small vestell from Stockholm, loaded with iron; item, ane other
small vestell from Bristoll, of the burden of twentie tunns, loadened with
cydar, botles, hopes," and some other small goods of inconsiderable value.
At that period there was no quay or harbour on the river or port, and
"there being but a small water and very shallow, and sand banks all down
the water twenty miles from the town," the use of lighters from
Kirkcudbright and Isle of Heston was rendered necessary: the outlay for
which "consumed the profit of their trade." [General Report on Municipal
Corporations in Scotland, Appendix, p. 43.]
Gradually the commerce of the port increased
so as to require a large staff of officers for its supervision; and though
the Union with England was, as we shall see, viewed with marked
displeasure by the Burgh, the measure exercised a beneficial influence on
all its business concerns. Consequent on that event, a large legitimate
trade sprung up with the American colonies, which, added to that already
carried on with the north of Europe, contributed much to the prosperity of
the port. The poor of
the Parish were maintained from the weekly church-door collections; a
small allowance, the interest of £600 sterling, left for that purpose by a
benevolent burgess, Dr. Johnston, [Dr. Robert Johnston was a gentleman of
varied accomplishments and great professional skill. He was brother-in-law
to George Heriot, and was at one time physician to James VI. By his will,
dated in the parish of St. Ann, Blackfriars', London (where he died), he
left benefactions to Glasgow, Dundee, Montrose, Kirkcudbright, and Moffat,
as well as to Dumfries. A bursary connected with Moffat, and an endowment
for the usher of the school there, are still in existence; but it is
supposed that some of his injunctions were neglected by his executor, Lord
Johnstone, during the turmoil of the civil wars.] in 1639, for which the
rent of the mills was chargeable; ["1st June, 1678. - I, James Richardson,
kirk treasurer, grants me to have received fra John Mairtin, town
thesaurer, the soume of nine pund sterling for the hav quarter ; and that
off the rent of the mylls, being for the use of the poor thereof, I grant
the resait, and discharges the above named John of the foirsaid soume."-Treasurer's
Accounts.] and an occasional tribute levied from the richer class of
burgesses. A glimpse of its pauperism at the close of the seventeenth
century is given in a minute of proceedings taken by a committee appointed
to raise a special fund for indigent persons in the winter of 1698. After
visiting the various quarters of the town, the committee gave in a list of
thirty-eight individuals, constituting "the most creditable and honest
sort of poor, fallen-back burgesses," whom they recommended to be paid
nine pounds sterling quarterly out of Dr. Johnston's mortification; while,
for the sustenance of ninety-four persons in a destitute condition, the
committee proposed to exact from the well-to-do inhabitants such a sum as
would amount to thirty-five pounds Scots weekly for the half year ending
the following 1st of June-all which allowances were over and above the "collectiones
at the kirk door and other church causualities." These figures do not
suggest the existence of any overwhelming amount of pauperism: it seems,
indeed, to have been lighter than the depressing influences, long
previously at work, prepared us to expect.
When the magistrates reported on the state of
the Burgh in 1692, they complained that staple commodities were sold to
its prejudice in "several regalities, baronies, kirk-towns," and other
country villages in the vicinity: one of these was the hamlet of Bridgend,
which has been repeatedly mentioned in our pages. Soon after Devorgilla's
bridge was built, a few dwellings, it may be supposed, would be planted
down at its terminus on the right bank of the Nith; and we know that, at a
very early date, the village, with the ground it occupied, belonged to the
Abbey and College of Lincluden. In 1621, James VI. annulled the annexation
of Bridgend to the Crown, that he might confer it and other heritages upon
his favourite, Murray; the property being thus designated in the Act
passed for that purpose:" The tenementis, housses, and yairdis lyand
besyid the Brigend of Dumfreis, quhilk perteinit of auld to the
sacristenes and prebendaries of the Colledge Kirk of Lincluden, and all
and haill the fyve-pund land of Troqueir."
A contract of wadsett, dated 9th May, 1635,
bears to have been signed at "Bridgend of Drumfreis;" and we have seen
that the freemen of the Burgh recognized it as a suburb before the middle
of the seventeenth century, and that in 1658 no fewer than twelve master
shoemakers, belonging to the cordwainers' corporation, resided in the
village-a proof that then it must have had a considerable population,
amounting perhaps to four hundred at least. Its growth was fostered by the
Maxwells, its feudal superiors; but all the strenuous efforts put
forth by them to make it a market town were foiled by the Dumfries Town
Council, who could not bear the idea of having markets to rival theirs set
up on the opposite bank of the river. [On the 16th of March, 1663, a
minute was drawn up by the Council, showing that " the tacksman of the
bridge and town officers were empowered by antient custom to go to the
crofts in Bridgend holding of the town, and drive all cattle therefrom
presented there to sale, and bring them to the Sands, the ordinary mercat."]
Its oldest surviving house (occupied till
lately as an inn) sits so near the bridge as to receive support from it.
In a precept charter [Now in the hands of Messrs. T. and J. M'Gowan,
solicitors, Dumfries.] granted by the Dumfries Council to the owner of the
tenement, James Birkmyre, cooper, dated the 3rd of October, 1660, it is
described as "that new house builded upon the far end of the Bridge on the
south syde," which was to be held by him and his successors in feu farm
and heritage for ever, "on payment theirfor yeirly the soome of ten merks
Scots," and on condition of giving his attendance at the bridge to see
that no draughts of timber be taken across it till the magistrates grant
permission. The charter is signed by "Robert Graham, provist; John
Cunynegham, bailie; Thos. Irvyne, bailie; Ja. Thomesone, bailie; Wm.
Craike, deane; John Irving, thesarer; Jo. Coupland, counsellor; Edward
Edgar, counsellor." Bridgend, as we shall afterwards see, was erected into
a burgh of barony, under the name of Maxwelltown, in 1810.
Numerous other burghs of barony existed in Dumfriesshire before the
seventeenth century was far advanced-Langholm in Eskdale, Lockerbie and
Ecclefechan in Annandale, Thornhill and Minnyhive in Nithsdale, all of
which remain in vigour; and the trio first named have grown into populous
and flourishing seats of trade. Other baronial burghs that were once
prosperous-Torthorwald, Ruthwell, and Amisfield-have fallen into decay;
while Dalgarno, or Dalgarnock, whose merry market tryst lives in Burns's
well-known lyric, "Last May a braw wooer,"
[" But a' the niest week, as
I fretted wi' care,
I gaed to the tryst o' Dalgarnock;
And wha but my fine fickle lover was there!
I glowed as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock;
I glowed as I'd seen a warlock! "]
has disappeared, leaving no memorial save its
romantic burialground, where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
Traces, more or less distinct, of other deserted villages, are visible in
various portions of the County. Near Dumfries, that of Lincluden, which
rose up under shelter of the College, left some remains up till a recent
period; and the site of one on the farm of Terreglestown can be pointed
out, though every vestige of it has long since passed away.
When agriculture was neither known as a
science nor practised systematically, almost every substantial householder
in the Burgh was his own grazier; and the wealth of some of them lay, like
that of the Bible patriarchs, in herds and flocks. The large extent of the
"communty," or town lands, gave full scope for this pastoral occupation.
Even after the territorial patrimony was of small extent, as compared with
the ground apparently laid claim to at the Riding of the Marches, it
included Castledykes, Kingholm (now Hannayfield), Milldamhead, Barkerland,
a large share of Lochar Moss, and several tofts on the Galloway side of
the Nith. A large proportion of the whole was unfenced and used as a
common, on which all who paid scot and lot had a right, for a trifling
sum, to pasture their cattle.
Early every summer, a tuck-of-drum
proclamation informed the lieges that the time for grazing had arrived,
and that (to borrow from a Council minute, dated 30th May, 1709) " the
whole inhabitants of this Burgh who have bestiall intended for the
Kingholm and Barkerland grass," were to enter them on the following
Friday, "conform to their interests in the stent and land rent-rolls, and
at this entry to make payment of half ane crown to the treasurer for each
soum. [A "soum" was as much ground as would pasture one cow or five
sheep.] And the treasurer is to attend at the Kirk-ate port, at seven of
clock in the morning, to receive the same at the entry of the said
bestiall;" and appointing those who have beasts for pasture " to repair to
the Tolbooth the morrow, to give in notes of their stents and fractions to
the magistrates," declaring, at the same time, " that no person who is not
on the stent-rolls, is to have liberty to procure fractions or any
priveledge in the grass."
In 1642 the "soumes" of cattle pastured at
Kingholm numbered fifty-nine - "Jon Corsane, Proveist," leading the list
with an allotment of three; and those of Barkerland amounted to
twenty-four. The list of "such of the bestial pertaining to the Burgh of
Dumfries as were entered to Barkerland the 2nd of June, 1688," apprises us
that a small charge was levied on each animal. Thus, John Allan pays 10s.
Scots money for a cow; James Ritchie 14s. for "a naig;" [For the privilege
much higher sums were charged in 1664, as is shown by the appended minute,
dated 18th May of that year. " The Counsal, taking into consideration that
many of the inhabitants who bear little or no public burthing, nor have
not any grass nor land of ther awin quherupon to feid their cattle, nor
evir payit for any soumes grasse either in the Kingholm or Barkerland,
though on pretence of the common pasture [they] have eatin up the
Barkerland grass ; thairfore for preventing such abuis it is enacted that
besyd those horse and nolt quich sall be this yeir meyted for the Kingholm
and Barkerland, for quich threttie shilling Scots is to be paid for ilk
soume, all other hors and old nolt that sall be keipit within this burgh
after Witsonday nixt, and pretendit to be fed upon the comon pasture
therof, sall pay twentie shilling Scots; and all other stirkis within two
years old and above one, ten shilling Scots."] the whole entrants
numbering ninety-three, and paying for the season's grass £61 6s., which
sum was probably spent in maintaining the fences of the pasture ground, in
feeding a herd, and defraying other incidental expenses. A salaried keeper
was regularly appointed to take charge of these burghal quadrupeds when
cropping the grass and chewing the cud, and a bovine superior was provided
for them, which was sold by public auction at the close of the season. The
town lands not let out for grass were granted in feu for the benefit of
the revenue; and it is more than suspected that in some instances the
feuars conveniently forgot their obligations, and, becoming free squatters
on the soil attached to them, were transformed from "puir tenant bodies,
scant of cash," to petty lairds.
The lapse of half a century brought little
change in the style of burghal government; the rulers in 1690-1700 being
as prone as their grandfathers to the vice of over-legislation, and as
ignorant as they of the natural laws which regulate supply and demand. We
find them still guarding with unslumbering vigilance the chartered rights
of the burgesses and freemen; endeavouring with laudable, but often
unavailing zeal, to enforce morality, and at least the semblance of
religion, by Acts of Council; and intermeddling with a multitude of petty
concerns, which had better have been left alone.
On the 22nd of September, 1690, pestered by
the children of the Grammar School petitioning for the vacation to begin
sooner than usual, they actually passed a resolution rendering such
refractory juveniles, and all who absented themselves from the classes
before the 5th of September each year, liable to imprisonment. When the
burghal senate could stoop to such trivialities, it is less strange to see
them causing habitual drunkards and swearers to sign an obligation
enforcing their perpetual banishment from the Burgh; or carrying out
several stringent Acts of Parliament directed against intemperance and
profanity, in accordance with which "persons convicted of drunkenness, and
haunting of taverns and ale-houses after ten of the clock at night, or any
tyme of the day except the tyme of travell or for refreshments," were
liable to be put in the jugs or jail six hours; and " all persones
whatsoever within this burgh or suburbes thereof" were enjoined " not to
brew, or to work any other handie work or labour on the Lord's day, or to
be found on the streets standing or walking, or to go in company, or vage
[roam] to the Moat, Chappell, [St. Christopher's] Dock, or Grein Sands, or
any other plaice whatsoever on that day, at any tyme thereof," under a
penalty of £10 Scots; and all the inhabitants were "discharged from going
to ale-houses or taverns, for eating or drinking the tyme of sermon, or
unseasonably or unnecessarily, at any tyme on the Lord's day." For the
administration of these edicts, eight unpaid special constables,
consisting of influential burgesses, were appointed each year, with power
to command the services of the Burgh officers, town guard, and the
inhabitants generally, and to enter houses when requisite in the execution
of their duty.
Nominally the magistrates were elected for one year; but as some of the
provosts, preferring the sweets of office to the insipidities of private
life, managed to occupy the burghal chair for five or more consecutive
years, [Robert Graham, elected provost at Michaelmas,1655, remained in
office till 1660; John Irving, elected as his successor, continued provost
till 1665; and the latter afterwards obtained a longer lease of the
provostship, dating from 1668 till 1673; William Graik was chief
magistrate from 1674 till 1678, and it was under his rule that the above
arrangement was put in force.] a popular cry was raised against this
monopolizing practice, and it was put a stop to in 1676. At the annual
elections held that year, and at every succeeding Michaelmas down till the
Burgh Reform Bill was passed, the councillors were required to sign an
obligation which rendered any of them who held the office of provost,
bailie, dean, or treasurer "more than one year, or two at the most,"
liable to a penalty of £1,000 Scots. By the same agree ment, all persons
who manufactured or sold intoxicating liquors of any kind were prohibited,
under a similar penalty, from officiating as provost.
During the latter half of the seventeenth
century, the Trades, though increased in numbers and wealth, were still
without a public hall; and, it need scarcely be added, continued to
maintain their exclusive privileges with unrelaxing vigour. All the
internal affairs of each craft were regulated with a corresponding
strictness. Before an apprentice could be articled or a journeyman engaged
by a master, leave had to be obtained from the office-bearers of his
corporation. On the 2nd of February, 1668, the rules as to shoemakers'
apprentices were made more precise at a Trades' meeting in the " Orchard
Neuk," where it was enacted, that after liberty had been given by the
deacons, box-masters, and masters, to any freeman to take an apprentice,
the name of the latter was to be entered in the Trades' books, and that
the term of service should be fixed at five years, besides "a yeare for
meat and fie, as use is." At a meeting of office-bearers, held on the 19th
of September, 1673, for regulating the affairs of the same craft, it was
enacted, ,(with consent from the whole traid," that a master's son on
being apprenticed was to treat the freemen to a dinner instead of making a
money payment; "uthers, not freemen's sons, to pay the traid fourtie punds
Scots; apprentices in Bridgend, not being freimen's sons, to pay thirty
punds." We subjoin
the substance of two other illustrative minutes, as furnished by the books
of the same corporation:- "18th July, 1667.-Jon and Robert Lewars,
cordinars, accused befoir the deacon, box-master, and masters, of using
loose and idle speiches, and other scandalous language against the traid;"
and they being anxious to give satisfaction, agreed to forfeit their
freedom if ever they did the like again. On the 17th of December, 1674,
the shoemakers at a general meeting resolved, on account of "the grate
skaith that the traid sustains, by staying ovir lang on the gait on the
mercat day, doe thairfore enact that every man of the traid that comes to
sell on the mercat day, that he enter precisely at ten hours, and stay
till one afternoon, and nae langer"-penalty, twelve shillings. Interesting
muniments of the craft are specified in a list of articles consigned to
the box-master's custody in October, 1666 ; these, including two Seals of
Cause on parchment, with papers relating to the same, and King's letters;
also the old books and flag. These would have supplied valuable
information regarding the erection of the Trades: deep but vain is our
regret that no trace of the venerable relics is left, except the minute
from which we have quoted.
Just as the seventeenth century was drawing
near a close, a great trading scheme, which promised to enrich the whole
country, was sanctioned by the Scottish Parliament. This was the
colonization of Darien, to be effected by an incorporated body named "The
Indian and African Company of Scotland." Dumfries heartily encouraged the
project; and it could scarcely do otherwise, seeing that its distinguished
originator, William Paterson, was born in the farm-house of Skipmyre,
[This point was, up till lately, a matter of some doubt; but it has been
conclusively established in Mr. William Pagan's valuable little work, '°
The Birth-place and Parentage of William Paterson," published in 1865.]
within seven miles of the town, and was, there is every reason to
conclude, numbered among its freemen. It has been often stated, that
Paterson was so closely associated with Dumfries that he represented it in
Parliament; but this is certainly a mistake. There is an inherent
improbability in the idea that the son of a humble farmer should, before
he rose to fame, and without wealth or aristocratic patronage, have
acquired such a position; and it is sufficiently clear that, after he
became distinguished as a great financier and projector, he did not sit as
the member for Dumfries or any other place in Parliament. Had he really,
at any time, officiated as the representative of the Burgh, his name as
such would have appeared in the records of the period; and as it is not to
be found there among the names of other members, this circumstance, in the
absence of positive evidence to the contrary, ought to negative the
statement. The Burgh,
however, and the district round about, looked with all the more favour
upon the Darien scheme because of its being launched by a Dumfriesshire
man. They showed their full faith in it by a liberal purchase of shares;
the town itself, though its strength had been so recently overtasked by an
exhaustive outlay on the bridge, taking stock to the extent of £5,000
sterling. This fact we learn from a curious document [Burgh Records.]
relating to the equivalent money granted by Government after the failure
of the undertaking, and which may be quoted entire, as follows:-" I, John
Inglis, writer to the signet, clerk-depute to Sir James Murray of
Philiphaugh, Lord Register, and specially constitute by him to the effect
underwritten, do hereby certifie that the town of Dumfreis, as a
proprietar in the Indian and African Company of Scotland, their joint
stock, for the sum of five hundred pounds sterling subscription, hath due
unto them for the several payments made thereon, and annual rents of the
same to the first of May last, in whole the sum of three handered and two
pound and one ninth part of a pennie sterling money, conform to their
account, No. 173 in Folio 9 of the subscrived lists or accompt of the
Proprietars of the Joynt Stock of the said Company, given into the Lord
Register and signed by five of the Directors of the said Company, conform
to the Act of Parliament, without any diligence affecting the same, the
fourteenth day of June, 1707. This subsrived upon the nineteenth day of
August, 1707. "To the
Honourable the Commissioners of the Equivalent.
(Signed) "JO: INGLIS."
Then, mark how munificently individual
inhabitants-though the population was a generation before self-represented
"as ane handful of pure personis" - patronized the enterprise. Robert
Paterson, merchant, Dumfries, subscribed for it the then princely sum of
£400 sterling; John Crosbie and James Coulter, merchants, took shares
jointly to the extent of £500; Robert Johnston and John Reid subscribed
between them £400. Our old acquaintance, "Barncleugh," the Romanist
ex-provost, now settled doucely down as a loyal subject of the new
dynasty, bought £200 worth of Darien stock; so did John Irving, son of
Provost Irving, and Thomas Irving, merchant; John Lanrick, writer, Robert
Corbet, merchant, and John Crosby, severally subscribing £100. Some of the
neighbouring lairds and noblemen also purchased largely, according to
their means; the Burgh's patron, Charles, Duke of Queensberry, becoming a
shareholder to the extent of £5,000. The entire capital raised for
Paterson's scheme was £400,000 sterling, of which no less than £11,600, or
fully a thirty-fifth part, was contributed by the district of his birth.
The auspicious commencement of the colony in
1698, and its disastrous failure, brought about mainly by the mean
jealousy of the English and Dutch, more particularly the former, need not
here be dwelt upon. It merited success, and with fair play it would have
succeeded and its proprietors been enriched: "New Caledonia, which remains
to this day a wilderness, might have become the emporium of half the
commerce of the world," [R, Chambers's Scottish Biographical Dictionary.]
and the poor mother-country, Scotland, have been made one of the
wealthiest kingdoms of Europe. As we shall afterwards see, the people and
rulers of Dumfries strenuously opposed the Union with England-the shameful
treatment given to their favourite colonization scheme by the English
having reawakened against them all their old resentment; and but for a
promise that Scotland would be allowed to share in the commercial
privileges of the sister kingdom, and receive from the English exchequer,
repayment of the money lost by the Darien scheme, the Union could scarcely
have been consummated.
A supplementary Act passed by the United
Parliament in 1715, granted £18,241 10s. 10 2/33d. of compensation to the
great projector himself, on account of the losses he had sustained in
connection with the scheme; but he died without receiving a farthing of
that amount. By his
will, written in his sixtieth year, and dated Westminster, 1st July, 1718,
Mr. Paterson left to Elizabeth his stepdaughter, only child to his first
wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, widow of a New England clergyman, £500; to
his eldest stepdaughter, Anne, by his second wife, Mrs. Hannah Kemp, £600;
to his second step-daughter, Mary Kemp, £600; to his two other
step-daughters, Hannah and Elizabeth, £800 each; to Jane Kemp, relict of
Mr. James Kemp, his step-son, £300; to William Mounsey of Skipmyre, eldest
son of his late sister Janet, £200; to the two daughters of the said
sister, Elizabeth and Janet, £200 each; to John Mounsey, younger son of
his said sister, £400; to his only sister, Elizabeth, married to John
Paterson, younger of Kinharvey, in the the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright,
£800. The surplus of
the estate, if any, was to be equally divided among the above-mentioned
persons, in proportion to their specified legacies. Mr. Paul Daranda, of
London, merchant, whom the testator calls "his good friend," and one to
whom his family and himself had been under great obligations, was
appointed sole executor of the trust, with £1,000 "for his care therein,
over his expenses with relation hereto." "It was," says Mr. Pagan, "from
the fund provided or secured to him by the Act of 1715, that Paterson, as
may be supposed, was enabled to leave the several legacies specified in
his will. The executor, Paul Daranda, stands high in the estimation of Mr.
Bannister. [Author of a Life of Paterson.] But in that opinion the
Scottish relations would not concur - at least the present survivors are
under the distinct impression that the legacies never were paid ; and
probably for this reason, that the executor had not been able to recover
from the Treasury the full compensation money ordered by the Act of
Parliament to be paid to Paterson or his heirs. At sundry times the Scotch
relations made searching investigations, but entirely without effect. Mr.
Stewart of Hillside has obliged us with the perusal of notes of a case
drawn up for them in 1853, with a view to further inquiry. That document
leaves little doubt that the compensation money so justly due to Paterson
had not been realized - certainly that the Scotch relatives never received
the legacies designed for them."
We may add to this statement, that the
numerous Patersons in Dumfries and the neighbouring district, who claim
connection with the projector through his sister Elizabeth, or otherwise,
have a traditional idea amongst them that a large proportion of the
compensation money was actually paid to Daranda, but never accounted for
by him. This is a mere vague supposition, to which we attach no credit:
rather would we believe that Paterson's "good friend" vindicated his title
to be so called when the testator was dead and gone; and that if there was
any wrong-doing in the matter, the blame of it rests with the Government
of the day. |
