Aug. 30.
Poland is described as in this age swarming with Scotch pedlers. Its port, Dantzig, contained a number of settled merchants of a respectable order, some of whom were seen from time to time returning to their native country with considerable realised wealth. Formerly, the Scotch merchants at Dantzig, having a kind of rule and governance among themselves, lived in such a way as to secure the esteem of the people of the country. But latterly, ‘discipline being dissolved, the most part of them use such a dissolute form of living, that they are odious to the inhabitants, hurtful to themselves, and despised by strangers, to the great ignominy of the whole nation.’ There was also a continual immigration of multitudes of miserable, debauched, and weakly people from Scotland, including ‘exorbitant numbers of young boys and maids unfit for any service,’ reminding us of the overflowings of the Irish population into England, Scotland, and the United States of America in more recent days.[415] During this summer, owing, doubtless, to the pressure of the famine, this scandalous system had been carried to such a height, that the Scotch merchants were threatened with expulsion from the city. In this exigency, they wrote to the king, craving his intercession. Patrick Gordon, who acted as agent for the king in Dantzig, also wrote, apparently, at the same time, shewing how matters stood, and entreating that some order and rule should be established among his countrymen, as they should not otherwise be able much longer to withstand the strength of their enemies.[416]
Nov. 1.
1624.
The king wrote to the Earl of Mar, requesting him to send into Argyleshire and Glenorchy, for four or five couples of earth-dogs (terriers), which he was desirous of obtaining in order to transmit them to France. His majesty further requested ‘that ye have a special care that the oldest of them be not passing three years of age, and that ye send them not all in one ship, but some in one ship, and other some in another, lest one ship should miscarry.’[417]
The same Earl of Mar, having to spend the winter of 1631 in Stirling, and designing to amuse himself with fox-hunting, sent a letter to his cousin, the Laird of Glenurchy, entreating the favour of ‘a couple of good earth-dogs;’ and adding, what shews the importance of the favour, ‘I pray you use me as familiarly as I do you, for without ceremony, cousin, you shall not have a friend over whom ye have greater power than over me.’ P. S.—‘What ye send me, let it be good, although it be but one.’
Nov. 2.
There is at this time a glimpse of rationality regarding witchcraft in the public authorities, in as far as the Privy Council deemed it right to hesitate about the granting of commissions for the trial of persons charged with that crime. The Council had been troubled by the importunity of persons seeking for such commissions, and at the same time concerned to find that the informations on which the commissions were sought for ‘seemed to be very obscure and dark.’ As anxious for the truth, and to the intent that neither should the innocent be molested nor the guilty escape, they now arranged that all informations should henceforth pass through the hands of the bishop of the diocese, ‘to be seen and considered by him, and such of the ministry as he shall call unto him.’—P. C. R.