1681.
Altogether, Peter seems to have found great difficulty in preventing a sale of foreign cards. It was difficult to detect the importation of such articles. A package containing a quantity of them had lately been brought by the ship of one Adam Watt; and even the custom-house officer winked at its being smuggled ashore. Peter craved the Council (June 7, 1682) for general letters against the contraveners of his privilege; but the Council, apparently warned by the complaints about the Messrs Fountain, would only, on that occasion, agree to give warrant for particular cases. Afterwards (July 5), they gave a more general warrant, but still declaring that Bruce, in the event of making a wrong charge, should be liable to a fine.
Finally, persecuted out of Edinburgh, Peter betook himself to Glasgow, and tried to set up a paper-mill at Woodside, near that city; but here, too, he encountered a variety of troubles and oppressions, designed for the purpose of neutralising his monopoly of the manufacture of playing-cards, his builders failing in their engagements, his men being seduced away from him, his mill-course defrauded of water, and so forth. He complained to the Privy Council (January 6, 1685), and got a decree against his two chief persecutors, John Campbell and James Peddie, for a thousand merks as compensation for the injuries he had suffered. When everything else failed, Peter seems to have turned his religious professions to some account, as he is last seen acting as printer to the Catholic chapel and college at Holyrood—where, doubtless, the Revolution gave him a disagreeable surprise.
Dec. 26.
The college youths renewed the demonstration of last year. ‘Their preparations were so quiet, that none suspected it this year. They brought [the pope] to the Cross, and fixed his chair in that place where the gallows stands. He was tricked up in a red gown and a mitre, with two keys over his arm, a crucifix in one hand, and the oath of the Test in the other. Then they put fire to him, and it burnt lengthy till it came to the powder, at which he blew up in the air.
‘At this time, many things were done in mockery of the Test: one I shall tell. The children of Heriot’s Hospital, finding that the dog which kept the yards of that hospital had a public charge and office, ordained him to take the Test, and offered him a paper. But he, loving a bone better than it, absolutely refused it. They then rubbed it over with butter, which they called an Explication of the Test, in imitation of Argyle, and he licked off the butter, but did spit out the paper; for which they held a jury upon him, and, in derision of the sentence on Argyle, they found the dog guilty of treason, and actually hanged him.’—Foun.
1682. Jan. 16.
1682.