[99]. Garrisons were ordered to be “planted, 100 foot and 20 horse, in the house of Blairquhan, Carrick; 50 foot and 10 horse in Barskimming, and the same in Cessnock. The commissioners of the shire to provide 126 beds, 24 pots, as many pans, 240 spoons, 60 timber dishes, as many timber cups, and 40 timber stoups; to be distribute to the said garrisons conform to the number of men; also to provide coal and candle for the garrisons respective.” Act of the committee of council, Ayr, March 4th, 1678. By an act of the 9th, the commissioners were ordered to furnish the garrisons with necessary provisions, such as meat and drink, and to say at what prices they would agree to do so; but having failed, the committee took the business into their own hands, and ordered the prices to be as follow:—Hay, per stone, 2s. Scots; straw, per threave, 4s.; oats, per boll, 50s. in Carrick—55s. in Kyle; meal, per boll, 5 merks; malt, per boll, £5; cheese, per stone, £1, 10s.; pork, per stone, £1, 16s.; French grey salt, per peck, 10s.—Scots ditto, 5s.; butter, per stone, £2, 8s.; each dozen of eggs, 1s. 4d.; milk, per pint, 1s.; each hen, 4s.; each mutton bulk, £2. These prices, reduced to our currency, at 1s. Scots—1d. sterling; £1 Scots—1s. 8d. sterling,—will show the scarcity of cash in these days, and its relative value to the present prices.
In other villages, the meanest soldiers exacted sixpence sterling a-day, and the guards a shilling or merk Scots; their captains and superior officers, half-crowns and crowns at their discretion, or as they thought the poor people could procure it, threatening to burn their houses about their ears if they did not produce sufficient to answer their demands; besides money, the industrious, sober, religious peasantry were constrained to furnish brandy and tobacco; and, what was scarcely less painful, were obliged to witness their filthy brutal excesses. Then, again, some of the ruffians would levy contributions in order, as they pretended, to secure the payers from plunder; yet, after they had filched them of their money, at their departure rifled them of all they could find the means of transporting. Their insolences to the females, our historians have drawn a veil over, as too abominable to admit of description.
An instance or two of their wanton waste are narrated, from which the extent of the damage occasioned by their visitations, may, in some measure, be guessed at, especially as the perpetrators were not the most savage of the crew, but men from whom better things might have been expected. The Angus-shire troop of gentlemen heritors, or yeomanry cavalry, as they would now be called, commanded by the Laird of Dun, was quartered upon the lands of Cunningham of Cunninghamhead, then a boy at school, who, even by the strictest interpretation of the strictest acts of this detestable period, could not be held liable to such an infliction. Pretending that the country houses, upon which they were billetted, were not sufficiently comfortable for persons of their situation, these genteel troopers obliged the tenants to pay to each five pounds sterling for “dry quarters;” but, after they had received the money, they either remained themselves, or sent three or more footmen of the wildest Highlanders to supply their place. A cornet in this troop, Dunbar of Grange, nephew to the commander, perceiving that the entrance to the old tower of Cunninghamhead was strongly secured by an iron grating before a massy wainscoat door—most likely expecting to find some treasure secreted within—called for the keys that he might open and examine the interior. The keeper being absent, he was told that there was nothing of any consequence in the place, for the second story was used as a granary, and the rest of the building was unoccupied. At this, in great wrath, after abusing the people, he set fire to the door, and blew up the grating with gunpowder. Having forced his way in to the foot of a staircase, after ascending, he found himself opposed by a second stout door upon the girnel, also grated; but full of the hope of plunder, he was not thus to be disappointed, and removed this obstruction in the same summary manner. Sure of the prize, he rushed in with his attendants, all equally eager with himself for a share of the spoil, but they saw nothing except oatmeal, as they had been told, which, in their rage at finding themselves “begunkit,” they either “fyled” with their boots and shoes, all clay from the open field, or scattered about and destroyed, under pretence of searching for arms. The loss to the minor, as the greater part of the rents then were paid in produce, has not been mentioned in money; but as the deed happened in the month of February, the pecuniary value, although then high, might not be equal to the detriment its destruction must have occasioned.
William Dickie, a merchant in Kilmarnock, had nine Highlanders quartered upon him six weeks, during which he was obliged to furnish them with meat and drink, and, not having sufficient accommodation for them in his own house, was forced to pay for “dry quarters,” i. e. good beds, in some other, as were numbers besides. When they went off, they carried away with them several sacks full of household stuff, and goods, and a hose full of silver money; and, before leaving, broke two of the honest man’s ribs—stabbed his wife in the side, who was big with child at the time, and otherwise so terrified her, that she died in consequence.
These were the apostles of Episcopacy! and their employers have even found apologists in our own day; but if they who, by preaching, and prayer, and suffering, attempted to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel in their country, were or are called fanatics, by what epithet shall honest indignation designate the miscreants who could endeavour by such means to obtrude an illiterate, ignorant, dissolute, and shameless priesthood, upon an unoffending, and comparatively uncorrupted, part of the population? It is, however, pleasant to notice that, among the Highland leaders, there were several exceptions. The Marquis of Atholl, and the Earl of Perth, are particularly mentioned as having pled the cause of justice and humanity at the council-board of the committee, though, unhappily, their pleadings were overborne by numbers—and their men comported themselves no better than their comrades.
The whole may be summed up in the words of a contemporary writer, an eyewitness, quoted by Wodrow:—“It is evidently apparent that the proceedings of these few months by-past, are a formed contrivance (if God in mercy prevent not) to subvert all religion, and to ruine and depopulate the country—they are open and evident oppression, public violence, and robbery, and invasion of the person and goods of a free and loyal people—a violation of the ancient rights and privileges of the lieges—and a treacherous raising of hatred and discord ’twixt the king and his subjects—and consequently, manifest treason against the commonwealth and the king’s majesty. In a word, when considered in its full extent, and in all its heinous circumstances, it is a complication of the most atrocious crimes that almost ever could have been conceived or perpetrated.” The losses sustained by the county of Ayr alone, were estimated, in an account intended to be laid before the king if he would have received it, at one hundred and thirty-seven thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine pounds, six shillings, Scots—or eleven thousand, four hundred and fifty pounds sterling; and this being only what could be ascertained and proved, was not supposed to be one-half of the real amount of damage inflicted.
While the Highlanders were plundering openly, the committee were equally busy in their vocation—fining or imprisoning all who came before them, whether upon charges of attending conventicles, or not signing the bond. On the 22d February, the Earl of Cassilis appeared, and resolutely refusing to subscribe what he considered as illegal in itself, and impossible for him to perform, was ordered to answer next day to an indictment accusing him of high crimes and misdemeanours, in frequenting conventicles, or allowing them upon his grounds. His lordship did accordingly appear, and denied upon oath, the truth of the averments in the libel, only, if there had been any conventicles upon his ground, or if his tenants had been at them, he knew nothing but by hearsay, he himself having never seen any such meetings, nor any of his tenants present at them. Immediately upon his refusal to subscribe, although he had cleared himself by oath of all the crimes laid to his charge, the lords appointed a messenger to charge him with letters of law-burrows, to pledge himself in the books of the privy council, that his wife, children, men, tenants, cottars, and servants, should not be present at conventicles, or any other disorderly meetings, under a penalty of double his valued yearly rent; and, in case of failure, he was to be denounced a rebel within six days. Hereupon he wrote to their lordships entreating a week’s delay, but they refused to grant him even this small favour, on which he immediately repaired to Edinburgh to offer the council every satisfaction that could be legally required. But upon his coming thither, a proclamation was issued, commanding all noblemen, heritors, and others of the west country, to depart from the capital, and repair to their own houses within three days, before which time, however, his lordship was actually denounced at the market-cross of Ayr, and a caption issued for apprehending him. In these circumstances to have remained in Scotland without some security, would have been the height of folly, he therefore repaired to London, and having obtained the interset of Monmouth, laid a statement of his case before the king.
Universal as the suffering was in the west, yet so impressed were the people with a belief that the council wished some excuse for their conduct, or some pretext for further severities, that, with a patience unparalleled in history, they quietly endured their accumulated grievances, without giving their oppressors the handle so eagerly desired, and left them only the wretched plea of a rhetorical flourish, by which they designated their quiet assemblies,[[100]] to palliate or justify their atrocious aggressions on the constitution of the country, and the common rights of mankind. Whether the privy council felt this, or whether actuated by the dread of some more serious movement among the nobility, as the Earl of Loudon, the Lords Montgomery, Cathcart, and Bargeny, had also become refractory, it is unnecessary to inquire; but, in the latter end of February, the Highland host were ordered home, and the whole, except a few, returned to their native hills laden with the spoils of their more excellent neighbours.
[100]. Calling them rendezvouses of rebellion, or seminaries of rebellion.
Their march is pictured as the route of successful ravagers returning from the sack of some devoted city. They were loaded with spoil. A great many horses which they had stolen, were burdened with the merchandize swept from the dealers’ shops—webs of linen and woollen cloth; silver-plate, bearing the names and arms of gentlemen; bundles of bedclothes, carpets, men and womens’ wearing-apparel, pots, pans, gridirons, and a great variety of promiscuous articles. Their wary leaders had transmitted home large sums of money previously by safe hands, but some of the retreating parties were not so fortunate with their bulky packages; the river Clyde being swollen when they came to Glasgow, the students at College, assisted by a number of other youths, took possession of the bridge, and allowing only forty to pass at a time, obliged the marauders to deliver up their plunder, and then conveyed them out at the West Port, without suffering them to enter the town. In this manner, about two thousand were eased of their burdens, and the custom-house nearly filled with furniture and clothing, which were restored to their proper owners, as far as could be effected.