After an interval of a few years, during which no witch-cases appear on the Privy Council Record, we find a considerable number in the autumn of this year, some at Aberdeen, some at Fogo in Berwickshire, some at Castle Tirrim in Inverness-shire. On the 11th of November, the Council issued a commission for the trial of Grizzel Jaffray, spouse of James Butchard, maltman, now prisoner in the Tolbooth of Dundee, on suspicion of ‘the horrid crime of witchcraft.’ The gentlemen of the commission were empowered to put her to the knowledge of an assize, ‘and if, by her own confession without any sort of torture or other indirect means used, it shall be found she hath renounced her baptism, entered into paction with the devil, or otherwise that malefices be legally proven against her, that then and no otherwise they cause the sentence of death to be execute upon her.’ It is believed that, notwithstanding these enlightened orders, Grizzel suffered incremation.
Tradition connects an affecting anecdote with the case of Grizzel Jaffray. It is stated that her only son, having been long absent at sea, returned in command of his vessel to Dundee, and entered the port at the very time that the execution of his mother was proceeding in the Sea-gate. On hearing the cause of the unusual bustle seen in the town, he set sail again, and was never more seen in Dundee.
On the 6th of January 1670, we find the Privy Council engaged in a new kind of proceeding regarding witchcraft. A woman called Mary M‘Donald, ‘being maliciously pursued by the captain of Clanranald and M‘Donald of Morar for the alleged crime of witchcraft,’ came before the Council for protection, being ‘in fear to be apprehended by the said persons,’ notwithstanding her having given caution to appear and underlie the law in June next. The desired protection was given.
1669.
Amidst the incessant religious troubles of the period, there were some symptoms of a disposition to mercantile enterprise. At the suggestion of sundry ‘expert merchants,’ a Society for Fishing was formed, with the design of prosecuting that employment around the coast, where it was notorious that the Dutch were driving a profitable trade. One of the considerations that weighed with the enterprisers was, that there were many poor people who would work cheaper than the Dutch, ‘and by this the country would get vent for their meal and beasts, which gave no price.’ No one was admitted who did not subscribe at least £100 sterling. The king subscribed £5000, and ‘obliged himself that all materials should be freed from custom and excise. Yet many gentlemen refused to enter, fearing that the merchants, who behoved to manage all, would cheat the other partners; and many merchants refused to enter a society where so many noblemen were engaged, by whom they were afraid to be overawed. Yet the stock did soon increase to £25,000 sterling.’[222]
Every mercantile design in that age was clogged by the spirit of monopoly. If a man proposed to set up a stage-coach, there must be no other stage-coaches but his upon the road. If a company designed to introduce the manufacture of glass, or soap, or any other article, they must have the exclusive right of making the article for a generation. The Royal Company, as it was called, began as usual by securing monopolies. ‘No others might import or export salt or fish for certain months of the year but only of that company.’ This ‘impoverished many families which traded that way,’ and ‘did occasion great grumbling among the people.’—Law.
In 1677, the Royal Company passed an ordinance for strictly enforcing their exclusive right to fish around the Scottish shores, demanding that any other party fishing should take out a licence from them. They themselves being bound only to fish for the service of the country, and not to send any fish abroad, by this restriction, says Fountainhall, ‘many in Glasgow, Dunbar, &c., will be great losers, who, by the export of fish on their own private adventures, brought in above 400,000 merks yearly.’ ‘The remedy,’ he adds, ‘will be to enter into the said company; only, they would be abler with £50 sterling alone to manage the said trade, than with £200 given in there.’
We have here a curious complication of errors in political economy—private enterprise and fair competition checked, and foreign trade forbidden. One would think that the most ingenious contrivances of an enemy could scarcely have devised a state of things more harassingly detrimental to a country; and the wonder is that even selfishness should have been so blind as not to see that the free industry of all was calculated to give better results.
1669.