The Bass.
REIGN OF WILLIAM III.: 1695–1702.
During this period, the affairs of Scotland were in a marked degree subordinate to those of England. The king, absorbed in continental wars and continental politics, paid little attention to his northern kingdom; he left it chiefly to the care of its state-officers, using as a medium of his own influence, William Carstares, a Presbyterian minister of extraordinary worth, sincerity, and prudence, who had gained his entire esteem and confidence, and who usually attended him wherever he was. A parliament which sat in May 1695, was chiefly occupied with the investigation of the Glencoe massacre, and with measures connected with the rising commercial enterprise of the country, including the formation of a native bank, and that of a company for trading with Africa and the Indies. The latter of these speculations was worked out in an expedition to Darien, and an attempted settlement there, which, through English mercantile jealousy, and the king’s indifference to Scottish interests, ended so unfortunately as greatly to incense the Scottish nation, and increase the party disaffected to the Revolution government. The misery hence arising was increased by a dearth from a succession of bad seasons. Nevertheless, this period will be found in our chronicle to have been remarkable for the establishment of manufactories of various kinds, and for various other industrial enterprises, shewing that the national energies were beginning to take a decidedly new direction. At the same time, instances of deplorable superstition, cruelty, and intolerance were sufficiently numerous to attest that the days of barbarism were not past.
Incessant efforts were made by the Jacobite party to procure the restoration of King James, and the discontents excited by Darien were greatly favourable to their views. Yet the heart of the middle class throughout the more important provinces remained firm in Presbyterianism, for which the Revolution government was the sole guarantee; and in this lay an insuperable bar to all reactionary projects. A war against France, which had begun immediately after the Revolution (May 1689), was brought to a conclusion in September 1697, by the treaty of Ryswick, which included an acknowledgment by Louis XIV. of the title of King William to the English throne. The exiled king, old and abandoned to ascetic devotion, indulged a hope that he would outlive William, and be then quietly recalled. He died, however, in September 1701, with only the assurance of the French king in favour of the restoration of his son. William survived him but a few months, dying of a fever and ague on the 8th March 1702. His vigorous talents, his courage, his essential mildness and tolerance, abated as they were by an unpopular coldness of manners, are amply recognised in English history; among the Scots, while Presbyterians thank him for the establishment of their church, there is little feeling regarding the Dutch king, besides a strong resentment of his concern in the affairs of Glencoe and Darien.
1695. Feb. 17.
This day, being Sunday, the Catholics of Edinburgh were so bold as to hold a meeting for worship in the Canongate. It was fallen upon and ‘dissipat’ by the authorities, and the priest, Mr David Fairfoul, with James De Canton and James Morris, fencing-masters, and John Wilson of Spango, were committed to prison, while the Lord Advocate obtained a list of other persons present. The Privy Council ordered the four prisoners to be carried from the Canongate to the Edinburgh Tolbooth, and appointed a committee to take what steps it might think meet regarding the list of worshippers.
On the 28th February, the Council permitted the liberation of the two fencing-masters, on assurance of their doing nothing offensive to the government in future, under a penalty of five hundred merks. At the same time, they ordained ‘Harry Graham, and his landlord, James Blair, periwig-maker in Niddry’s Wynd; James Brown, son to Hugh Brown, chirurgeon, and the said Hugh his father; John Abercrombie, merchant in Edinburgh, and John Lamb in the Water of Leith, to give bond in the same terms and under the same penalty;’ else to be kept in prison. Orders were given to search for John Laing, writer, John Gordon, writer, and James Scott in the Canongate, ‘who, being also at the said meeting, have absconded.’ The priest Fairfoul was treated with unexpected mercy, being liberated on condition of banishment, not to return under a penalty of three hundred pounds sterling.[[135]]
Feb. 19.
Robert Davidson, merchant in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, represented to the Privy Council that he had been in a good way of merchandise, and proprietor of a two-story house, when in the beginning of December last some of Lord Carmichael’s dragoons were quartered upon him, and deposited their powder in one of his low |1695.| rooms. As they were one morning dividing the powder, it caught fire, and demolished the house, together with his whole merchandise and household plenishing, carrying the bed whereon he and his family lay to the top of the house, and seriously injuring a relative who was living with him at the time, and for the cost of whose cure he was answerable. Robert petitioned for some compensation, and the Council—following its rule of a vicarious beneficence—allowed him to raise a voluntary collection at the church-doors of Aberdeenshire and the two adjacent counties.[[136]]