[246] Blackwood’s Magazine, v. 75. Mr Hogg mis-states the year as 1620.
[247] Rec. of Justiciary, Arnot’s Crim. Trials, p. 138.
[248] Answer to Scots Presbyterian Eloquence.
[249] A copy of this document, extracted from the Record of the Privy Council, is printed in full in the appendix to Pennant’s Tour. It recites that Lachlan Maclean of Broloies, Hector Og Maclean his brother, and others, had been denounced rebels for refusing to answer to the Earl of Argyle, justiciar of Argyle, for having in the preceding April assembled three or four hundred men by the fire-process (the fiery cross) in Mull, Moveran, and other places, and taken warlike possession of the lands of Knockersmartin, &c. It grants commission to Lord Niel Campbell, and nine other gentlemen, to raise forces and proceed in warlike manner against the rebels, assuring them that no slaughter or fire-raising they may commit will be imputed to them as a crime, provided only they give an account of their proceedings before next New-year’s Day.
[250] A daughter of Hamilton of Bardowie, in Baldernoch parish, designed to pay a visit to her sister-in-law at Hamilton, when a deaf and dumb woman, who had a year before given a remarkable warning, came to the house, and, with many signs, endeavoured to dissuade the young lady from her journey. ‘She takes her down to the yard, and cuts at the root of a tree, making signs that it would fall and kill her. That not being understood by her nor any of them, she takes her journey, the dumb lass holding her to stay. When the young gentle-woman is at Hamilton, her sister-in-law and she go forth to walk in the park; and in their walking they both come under a tree that is cut through at the root, and leaning by the top upon another tree. In that very instant, they hear it shaking and coming down; her sister-in-law turns to the right hand, and she herself flees to the left, that way that the tree fell, and so it crushed her and wounded her sore, so that she dies in two or three days’ sickness.’—Law.
[251] Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, p. 4-10.
[252] The idea of familiar spirits was entertained in this age by persons of the most dignified character. In October 1675, the bishop and synod of Aberdeen were engaged in considering ‘divers complaints that some, under pretence of trances and familiarity with spirits, by going with these spirits commonly called the fairies, hath spoken reproachfully of some persons, whereof some are dead, and some living.’ The synod threatened both the seducers and the consulters with censure, ‘if, after admonition publicly given, they forbear not such practices, or to vent and spread such reproachful speeches, whereof the seducers are the authors.’—A. S. R.
[253] Analecta Scotica, i. 117.
[254] See under July 25, 1661, and April 1, 1662.
[255] Several of the inhabitants of Mull told me, that they had conversed with their relatives that were living at the harbour when the ship was blown up, and they gave an account of a remarkable providence that appeared, in the preservation of one Dr Beaton (the famous physician of Mull), who was on board the ship when she blew up, and was then sitting on the upper deck, which was blown up entire, and thrown a good way off; yet the doctor was saved, and lived several years after.—Martin’s Descrip. West. Isles, 1703. See of the present work, vol. i. p. 189.