SCOTLAND FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE REBELLION OF 1745.
Ix this volume, as in his two previous ones on the period preceding the Revolution, .Mr. Chambers's object has been "to trace the moral and economic progress of Scotland through the medium of domestic incidents—whatever of the national life is overlooked in ordinary history; allowing the tale in every case to be told as much as possible in contemporary language." Hence the relation which these Annals bear to formal historyis not unlike that which a well-arranged cabinet of rocks and fossils bears to a treatise on geology, or a collection of voyages and travels to a systematic work on geography. Comprising in chronological order a large body of individual facts pertaining to almost every aspect of Scottish life, they enable us to &Seen& from the abstract to the concrete, from more or less vague general con- ceptions to actual realities. The social mechanism of the times is laid open to our inspection in many of its minuter details, and the com- plex forces which determined its ultimate results are resolved before our eyes into their primary elements. The half-century to which the present volume is devoted is peculiarly worth studying in this ana- lytical manner. "It is essentially a time of transition—transition from harsh and despotic to constitutional government; from religious intolerance and severity of manners, to milder views and the love of elegance and amusement; from pride, idleness, and poverty, to in- dustrial courses and the development of the natural resources of the country. At the same time the tendency to the wreaking out of the wilder passions of the individual is found gradually giving place to respect for law. We see, as it were, the dawn of our present social state, streaked with the lingering romance of earlier ages." Let us glance at a few pictures out of the multitude that make up the mov- Ipanoma thus described. lra The first acts of the party which the Revolution made dominant in Scotland, were sadly at variance with the professions they had made in the time of their adversity,- and even with -those they had recorded on their access to power. The Declaration of the Estates concerning the celebrated Claim of Right (April 1689), asserted that "the im- prisoning of persons without expressing the reasons thereof, and de- laying to put them to trial, is contrary to law." It also pronounced as equally illegal "the using of torture without evidence in ordinary crimes." Torture for the purpose of extorting confession was em- ployed by the new Government in at least one notorious case, and it began its rule by committing something like half the nobility and gentry of the kingdom, and many people of inferior rank, to prison, there to lie without trial, subjected to great miseries, and often with- out intimation of a cause for their detention. Such measures for "securing of suspect persons" were pressed with especial severity against Roman Catholics, a body whose numbers had always been insignificant in Scotland since the Reformation, and who were now less formidable than ever. At this very time a fast was ordered with express reference to the acts of the late oppressive Government,
amona•b other things, "the sad persecution of many for their conscience towards God." Liberty of conscience, and even the right to enforce payment of a just debt, were only to be enjoyed by per- sons of approved theological and political opinions. Captain John Slezer complained to the Privy Council of his creditor John Hamilton for having issued letters of caption against him ; whereupon the Council committed the creditor to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and released the debtor. "One can imagine," says Mr. Chambers, "what jests there would be about the case among the cavalier wits in the Laigh Coffee-house—how it would be adduced as an example of that vindication of the laws which the Revolution professed to have in view—how it would,be thought in itself a very good little Revolution, and well worthy of a place in the child's toy picture of The World Turned Upside Down." After a six weeks' imprisonment, Hamilton petitioned the Council, professing submission to the present Govern- ment, and pleading that, being a tradesman and an invalid, he might be utterly ruined in body, family, and estate, if not relieved. Therefore, the lords very kindly liberated this delinquent creditor on his giving security not to offend again, and to reappear if called upon. A similar case occurred three years after. Captain Baillie was recruiting Edinburgh when he was arrested for debt, out of malice, as he in- sinuated, to the Government, by Walter Chiesley, merchant. The • Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Revolution to the RekIrton 4,1745. By Robert Chambers, F.R.S.E., F.S.A., ao. /cc. Published by W. and k Chambers.
Privy Council recommended the Court of Session to expede a sus- pension, and put the debtor at liberty. "But for our seeing creditors treated in this manner for the convenieney of the Government, it would be startling to find that the old plea of the supersedere, of which we have seen some examples in the time of James VI., was still thought not unfit to be resorted to by that regime which had lately redeemed the national liberties." In another instance, the Council gave orders "to expede ane suspension and charge to put to liberty," in favour of James Bayne, an imprisoned debtor, but on condition of his surrendering his effects to his creditors. The reason for this condition, which was not imposed in either of the other cases, was that Bayneavas not a servant of the Government, but its creditor for sums amounting to four thousand pounds sterling. The arbitrary interference of the Government had therefore just this effect : it staved off payment of its own debt, and abandoned its creditor to ruin.
Puritanism was now rampant in Scotland, but righteousness did not flourish accordingly. In January 1691, the General Assembly decreed a national fast, because the land was full of ungodliness and all manner of wickedness. "Yea," the act declares, "Sodom's sins have abounded amongst us, pride, fulness of blood, idleness, vanities of apparel, and shameful sensuality. . . . There is a great con- tempt of the Gospel, and great barrenness under it . . . great want of piety towards God and love towards man, with a woful selfishness, everyone seeking their own things, few the public good or ane other's welfare." The document concludes with a noble stroke of self-portraiture—" the most part more ready to censure the sins of others than to repent of their own."
This anxiety which everybody felt that all other people should be virtuous worked itself out in sundry famous statutes and by-laws, and in the reign of Queen Anne sheriffs and magistrates were enjoined by proclamation to hold courts, once a month at least, for taking notice of vice and immorality, fining the guilty, and rewarding informers. At the same time the discipline of the Kirk was in full vigour, although not now fortified by a power of excommunication, inferring loss of civil right, as had been the case before the Revolution. Much was done in this department by fines, proportioned to the quality of the 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. Burt, an English engineer employed in' Scotland, broadly asserts that the Kirk-treasurer employed spies to track out and report upon private persons ; so that "people lie at the mercy of villains who would perhaps forswear themselves for six- pence." There must have been great rejoicing among 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." Mr. Chambers cites some curious examples of Kirk discipline regarding marriages which in- volved real or apparent relationship. In May, 1730, John Baxter- appealed against a finding of the synod, that his marriage with his deceased wife's brother's daughter's daughter was incestuous. Twct years later the Presbytery of Ayr condemned as incestuous the mar- riage of John MeTag,gart with Janet Kennedy, whose former husband, Anthony McHarg, "was a brother to John McTag,gart's grand- mother, which grandmother was said to be natural daughter of the said Anthony McHarg's father." MeTaggart appealed to the synod, and subsequently to the General Assembly, which left the case to be dealt with by its commission. There it hung for six years, and 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 is not known. It occurs to Mr. Chambers to ask, "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 V' The miserable poverty of the national exchequer might have been pleaded in mitigation of judgment upon such acts of meanness and oppression as we have noted above. At a time when Scotland had a revenue of only a hundred thousand pounds a 3-ear, and yet a con- siderable body of troops to maintain, the troubles arising from the lack of money were beyond description. The most trivial fur- nishing,s for the troops and garrisons remained long unpaid, and became matter of consideration for the Lords of the Privy Council. A town in which a regiment had lain, was usually left in a state of desolation from unpaid debt, and had to make known its misery in the same quarter with but small chance of redress. Many such cases are quoted from the Privy Council Record. Among tlem is one in which the Lords are found meditating on means of discharging various sums due in Leith by officers of Colonel Cunningliame's regiment, such as eight pounds for board and lodging, two and three pounds each for shoemaker's work ; and even Ensign Houghton's hotel bill for " thretteen shillings" is gravely deliberated on. And all these little bills Were duly recommended to the Treasury in hopes that they might be paid out of "the three months up and hearth money." Small as they were they implied no small amount of en- tertainment, seeing that General Mackay during his command in Scotland used to dine at public-houses "where he was served with great variety, and paid only two-and-sixpence Scots—that is two- pence halfpenny—for his ordinary ;" and that in the middle of the eighteenth century a writer to the Signet and his friend dined.ever day in a tavern in the Lawnmarket for "twa groats the piece.' Claret, "wholesome and agreeable drink" was abundant and cheap, the price varying from tenpence the pint to two shillings per bottle ; and it was consumed in immoderate quantities. At Culloden House in the days of President Forbes—Bumper John he was called—the
monthly expenditure for claret was forty pounds sterling. The drink of the common people was ale, celebrated in.prose and verse under the name of Twopenny, because it was sold in pints (equal to two English quarts) at twopence. In the year 1725 this popular luxury for the first time came under the hated hand of the exciseman, a duty of six- pence a bushel being imposed on malt. All Scotland was thrown into commotion. A formidable riot, or rather insurrection, took place in Glasgow, and the magistrates, accused of having favoured the mob, were carried off to Edinburgh and clapped up in the Tolbooth. Ere long the officials had a new trouble on their hands. The Edinburgh brewers would brew no more ale. The commonwealth was in danger, but the Government was equal to the emergency, for the difficulty i involved in a proposal to force men to go on n a trade against their will was not too great to be encountered in those. days. Several of the recusant brewers were sent to prison, and long before the un- imaginable crisis for an entire exhaustion of beer had arrived, the brewers were at work again, and the dissolution of society was averted. "Such," says Mr. Chambers, "were the troubles which Scotland experienced a hundred. and thirty-five years ago, at the prospect of a tax of twenty thousand pounds per annum I"
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