An edict of the same date strictly forbade the exportation of victual. One, dated the 7th July, orders that the girnels at Leith, which had been closed in hopes of higher prices, be opened, and the victual sold ‘as the price goes in the country, not below the last Candlemas fairs.’ On the 13th, there was an edict against regrating or keeping up of victual generally, threatening the offenders with forfeiture of their stocks. In September, the tolerance for importing of foreign grain was extended to the second Tuesday of November ensuing. On the 9th November, a proclamation stated that ‘through the extraordinary unseasonableness of the weather for some months past, and the misgiving of this year’s crop and harvest, the scarcity of victual is increased to that height, as threatens a general distress and calamity.’ Wherefore the exportation of grain was again strictly prohibited. A strong proclamation against forestalling and regrating appeared on the 15th of the same month.
A solemn fast was kept on the 9th of March 1699, on account of ‘the lamentable stroke of dearth and scarcity.’ During this spring there were officers appointed to search out reserved victual, and expose it at current prices; also commissioners to appoint prices in the several counties. We find the commissioners of supply for the county of Edinburgh, by virtue of powers intrusted to them by the Privy Council, ordaining in April maximum prices for all kinds of grain—an interference with the rights of property at which our forefathers never scrupled, notwithstanding the constant experience of its uselessness for the object in view. They fixed that, till September next, the highest price for the best wheat should be seventeen pounds Scots per boll, the best oats twelve pounds, and the best oatmeal sixteen shillings and sixpence per peck (half a stone).[[225]]
‘These unheard-of manifold judgments continued seven years [?], not always alike, but the seasons, summer and winter, so cold and barren, and the wonted heat of the sun so much withholden, that it was discernible upon the cattle, flying fowls, and insects decaying, that seldom a fly or cleg was to be seen: our harvests not in |1698.| the ordinary months; many shearing in November and December; yea, some in January and February; many contracting their deaths, and losing the use of their feet and hands, shearing and working in frost and snow; and, after all, some of it standing still, and rotting upon the ground, and much of it for little use either to man or beast, and which had no taste or colour of meal.
‘Meal became so scarce, that it was at two shillings a peck, and many could not get it. It was not then with many, “Where will we get siller?” but, “Where shall we get meal for siller?” I have seen, when meal was sold in markets, women clapping their hands and tearing the clothes off their heads, crying: “How shall we go home and see our children die of hunger? They have got no meat these two days, and we have nothing to give them!” Through the long continuance of these manifold judgments, deaths and burials were so many and common, that the living were wearied with the burying of the dead. I have seen corpses drawn in sleds. Many got neither coffin nor winding-sheet. I was one of four who carried the corpse of a young woman a mile of way, and when we came to the grave, an honest poor man came and said: “You must go and help to bury my son; he has lain dead these two days; otherwise, I shall be obliged to bury him in my own yard.” We went, and there were eight of us had to carry the corpse of that young man two miles, many neighbours looking on us, but none to help us. I was credibly informed that in the north, two sisters on a Monday morning were found carrying the corpse of their brother on a barrow with bearing ropes, resting themselves many times, and none offering to help them. I have seen some walking about at sunsetting, and next day, at six o’clock in the summer morning, found dead in their houses, without making any stir at their death, their head lying upon their hand, with as great a smell as if they had been four days dead; the mice or rats having eaten a great part of their hands and arms.
‘Many had cleanness of teeth in our cities, and want of bread in our borders; and to some the staff of bread was so utterly broken (which makes complete famine), that they did eat, but were neither satisfied nor nourished; and some of them said to me, that they could mind nothing but meat, and were nothing bettered by it; and that they were utterly unconcerned about their souls, whether they went to heaven or hell.
‘The nearer and sorer these plagues seized, the sadder were their effects, that took away all natural and relative affections, so that husbands had no sympathy for their wives, nor wives for their |1698.| husbands, parents for their children, nor children for their parents. These and other things have made me to doubt if ever any of Adam’s race were in a more deplorable condition, their bodies and spirits more low, than many were in these years.
‘The crowning plague of all these great and manifold plagues was, many were cast down, but few humbled; great murmuring, but little mourning; many groaning under the effects of wrath, but few had sight or sense of the causes of wrath in turning to the Lord: and as soon as these judgments were removed, many were lift up, but few thankful; even these who were as low as any, that outlived these scarce times, did as lightly esteem bread as if they had never known the worth of it by the want of it. The great part turned more and more gospel-proof and judgment-proof; and the success of the gospel took a stand at that time in many places of the land, but more especially since the Rebellion, 1715.
‘King William his kindness is not to be forgotten, who not only relieved us from tyranny, but had such a sympathy with Scotland, when in distress of famine, that he offered all who would transport victual to Scotland, that they might do it custom-free, and have twenty pence of each boll.
‘I cannot pass this occasion without giving remarks upon some observable providences that followed these strange judgments upon persons who dwelt in low-lying fertile places, who laid themselves out to raise markets when at such a height, and had little sympathy with the poor, or those who lived in cold muirish places, who thought those who lived in these fertile places had a little heaven; but soon thereafter their little heavens were turned into little hells by unexpected providences.... There was a farmer in the parish of West Calder (in which parish 300 of 900 examinable persons wasted away, who at that time was reckoned worth 6000 merks of money and goods) that had very little to spare to the poor; the victual lay spoiling in his house and yard, waiting for a greater price. Two honest servant-lasses, whose names were Nisbet, being cast out of service (for every one could not have it; many said, they got too much wages that got meat for their work), these two lasses would not steal, and they were ashamed to beg; they crept into a house, and sat there wanting meat until their sight was almost gone, and then they went about a mile of way to that farmer’s yard, and ate four stocks of kail to save their lives. He found them, and drove them before him to the Laird of Baad’s, who was a justice-of-peace, that he might get them punished. The laird inquired what moved them to go by so many yards, and go to his. They said: “These in their way were in straits themselves, and he might best spare them.” The laird said: “Poor conscionable things, go your way—I have nothing to say to you.” One of them got service, but the other died in want; it was her burial I mentioned before, who was carried by us four. But so in a very few years he was begging from door to door, whom I have served at my door, and to whom I said: “Who should have pity and sympathy with you, who kept your victuals spoiling, waiting for a greater price, and would spare nothing of your fulness to the poor; and was so cruel to the two starving lasses, that you took them prisoners for four stocks of kail to save their lives? Ye may read your sin upon your judgment, if ye be not blind in the eyes of your soul, as ye are of one in your body, and may be a warning to all that come after you.”’[[226]]
These striking and well-told anecdotes of the dearth are from the simple pages of Patrick Walker. The account he gives of the religious apathy manifested under the calamity is corroborated by a rhymster named James Porterfield, who was pleased to write a series of poems on three remarkable fires in Edinburgh, which he viewed entirely in the light of ‘God’s Judgments against Sin’—such being indeed the title of his book,[[227]] which he dedicated to the magistrates of the city. He says: