The first glimpse of further procedure which we obtain is from a letter of John Shaw of Bargarran, professing to be a friend of both parties, though he had appeared amongst the armed party led by Orbieston’s bailie-depute. He writes, 23d August, as follows to William Cunningham of Craigends, a decided friend of Dargavel: ‘Sir—The Laird of Orbieston heard when he was last here that Dargavel was intendit to put through a door to his burial-place, which will be (as he says) very inconvenient for Orbieston’s laft [gallery]; so he desired me to acquaint you therewith, that ye wold deall with Dargavel to forbear; otherways he wold take it very ill, and has given orders to some people here to stop his design, if he do it not willingly; wherefor, to prevent further trouble and emulation betwixt the two gentlemen, ye wold do well to advyse him to the contrair either by a lyn or advyse, as ye think most proper. I desyre not to be seen in this, because they are both my friends, and I a weel-wisher to them both. I thought to have waited on you myself; bot, being uncertain of your being at home, gives you the trouble of this lyne, which is all from, sir, your most humble servant, J. Shaw. Ye wold do this so soon as possible.’
There are letters from Craigends to Dargavel, strongly indicating the likelihood that violent measures would again be resorted to by Orbieston, and advising how these might best be met and resisted. But the remainder of the affair seems to have been peaceable. Orbieston applied to the Privy Council for an order to stop Dargavel, apparently proceeding upon the rule long established, but little obeyed, against burying in churches; and the Council did send an order, dated the 29th August, ‘requiring you to desist from striking any door or breaking any part of the church-wall of Erskine, until your right and Orbieston’s right be discusst by the judges competent for preventing further abuse.’ Dargavel immediately sent a petition, shewing how he was only acting upon an agreement with Orbieston, and hereupon the former order was recalled, and Dargavel permitted to have the access he required, however incommodious it might be to Orbieston’s ‘laft.’[[85]]
1692. May 10.
The prisoners in the Canongate Tolbooth forced the key from the jailer, and took possession of their prison, which they held out against the magistrates for a brief space. A committee of Privy Council was ordered to go and inquire who had been guilty of this act of rebellion.[[86]] Viewing the manner in which jails were provided, there can be no doubt that it was a rebellion of the stomach.
May 17.
Under our present multiplication of newspapers, a piece of false intelligence is so quickly detected, that there is no temptation for the most perverse politician to put such a thing in circulation. In King William’s days, when the printed newspaper barely existed, and the few who were curious about state-affairs had to content themselves with what was called a news-letter—a written circular emanating from a centre in London—a falsehood would now and then prove serviceable to a party, particularly a depressed one.
We get an idea of a piece of the social economy of the time under notice, from a small matter which came under the attention of the Privy Council. William Murray kept a tavern in the Canongate. Each post brought him a news-letter for the gratification of his customers, and which doubtless served to maintain their allegiance to his butt of claret. Just at this time, when there were alarms of an invasion from France, a lie about preparations on the French shore was worth its ink. The lord high chancellor now informed the Council that Murray’s letter was generally full of false news; that he caused destroy the one brought by last post, merely to keep Murray out of trouble; and he had kept up the one just come, ‘in respect there is a paper therein full of cyphers which cannot be read.’ Matters having now become so serious, he had caused Murray to be brought before the Council.
Murray declared before a committee ‘he knows not what person writes the news-letter to him ... he never writes any news from this to London ... he knows not what the cyphers in the paper sent in his letter with this post does signify.’ They sent him under care of a macer to the Tolbooth, to be kept there in close prison, and his papers at home to be searched for matter against their majesties or the government.
On the 2d of June, William Murray represented that he had |1692.| now been a fortnight in jail, and his poor family would be ruined if he did not immediately regain his liberty. The Council caused him to be examined about the cypher-letter, and asked who was his correspondent. We do not learn what satisfaction he gave on these points; but a week later, he was liberated.
On the 15th November, the Privy Council ordered the magistrates of Edinburgh to shut up the Exchange Coffee-house, and bring the keys to them, ‘in respect of the seditious news vented in and dispersed from the said coffee-house.’ A month after, the owners, Gilbert Fyfe and James Marjoribanks, merchants, shewed that, some of their news-letters having once before been kept up from them on account of the offensive contents, they had changed their correspondent, in order that the government might have no such fault to find with them. Moved, however, by malice against them, their old correspondent had addressed to them a letter sure by its contents to bring them into trouble with the officers of state, and it had been the cause of their house being shut up accordingly. Seeing how innocently on their part this had come about, and how prejudicial it was to their interest, the men petitioned for re-possession of their house, which was granted, under caution that they were to vent no news until it was approved of by their majesties’ solicitor, or whoever the Privy Council might appoint, ‘the reviser always setting his name thereto, or at least ane other mark, as having revised the same.’