July 18.
From Ross-shire, a new batch of witches was reported, in the persons of ‘John Glass in Spittal; Donald M‘Kulkie in Drumnamerk; Agnes Desk in Kilraine; Agnes Wrath there; Margaret Monro in Milntown; Barbara Monro, spouse to John Glass aforesaid; Margaret Monro, his mother; Christian Gilash in Gilkovie; Barbara Rassa in Milntown; Mary Keill in Ferintosh; Mary Glass in Newton; and Erick Shayme.’ All being ‘alleged guilty of the diabolical crimes and charms of witchcraft,’ it was most desirable that they should be brought to a trial, ‘that the persons guilty may receive condign punishment, and others may be deterred from committing such crimes and malefices in time coming;’ but the distance was great, and travelling expensive; so it was determined to issue a commission to Robertson of Inshes and several other gentlemen of the district, for doing justice on the offenders.
The proceedings of Mr Robertson and his associates were duly reported in November, and a committee was appointed by the Privy Council to consider it, that they might afterwards give their opinion, ‘whether the sentence mentioned in the said report should be put in execution as pronounced or not.’ On the 2d of January 1700, the committee, composed of the judges Rankeillor and Halcraig, reported that Margaret Monro and Agnes Wrath had made confession—for them they recommended some |1699.| arbitrary punishment. Against John Glass in Spittal, and Mary Keill in Ferintosh, it was their opinion that nothing had been proved. The Council consequently assoilzied these persons from the sentence which had been passed upon them by the local commissioners, and ordered their liberation from the jail of Fortrose. As to the other persons, they adopted the proposal of an arbitrary punishment, remitting to the committee to appoint what they thought proper.[[253]] This is the first appearance of an inclination in the central authorities to take mild views of witchcraft.[[254]] We are not yet, however, come to the last instance of its capital punishment.
On the 20th of November 1702, Margaret Myles was hanged at Edinburgh for witchcraft. According to a contemporary account: ‘The day being come, she was taken from the prison to the place of execution. Mr George Andrew, one of the preachers of this city, earnestly exhorted her, and desired her to pray; but her heart was so obdured, that she answered she could not; for, as she confessed, she was in covenant with the devil, who had made her renounce her baptism. After which, Mr Andrew said: “Since your heart is so hardened that you cannot pray, will you say the Lord’s Prayer after me?” He began it, saying: “Our Father which art in heaven;” but she answered: “Our Father which wart in heaven;” and by no means would she say otherways, only she desired he might pray for her. He told her: “How could she bid him pray for her, since she would not pray for herself.” Then he sung two verses of the 51st Psalm, during which time she seemed penitent; but when he desired her to say: “I renounce the devil,” she said: “I unce the devil;” for by no means would she say distinctly that she renounced the devil, and adhered unto her baptism, but that she unced the devil, and hered unto her baptism. The only sign of repentance she gave was after the napkin had covered her face, for then she said: “Lord, take me out of the devil’s hands, and put me in God’s.”’[[255]]
July 25.
The inventive spirit, of which we have seen so many traits within the last few years, had entered the mind of the poor |1699.| Englishman, Henry Neville Payne, so long confined, without trial, under the care of the Scottish government, on account of his alleged concern in a Jacobite conspiracy. In a petition dated at Stirling Castle, he stated to the Privy Council, that ‘though borne down with age, poverty, and a nine years’ imprisonment, he is preparing ane experiment for river navigation, whereby safer, larger, and swifter vessels may be made with far less charge than any now in use.’ As this experiment, however, owing to the straitened circumstances and personal confinement of the inventor, had cost ten times more than it otherwise would have done, so did he find it could not be perfected unless he were allowed personally to attend to it. He entreated that, however they might be determined to detain him in Scotland, they would, ‘in Christian compassion to his hard circumstances, permit him on his parole, or moderate bail, to have freedom within some limited confinement near this place, to go forth of the Castle, that he may duly attend his business, as the necessity of it requires.’
The Council granted him liberty of half a mile’s range from the Castle, during a limited portion of the day, under a guard.[[256]]
Sep. 15.
In his Second Discourse on Public Affairs, published in 1698, Fletcher of Salton made some statements regarding the multitude of the vagrant poor in Scotland which have often been quoted. He remarked that, owing to the bad seasons of this and the three preceding years, the evil was perhaps now greater than it had ever been; ‘yet there have always been in Scotland such numbers of poor, as by no regulations could ever be ordinarily provided for; and this country has always swarmed with such numbers of idle vagabonds, as no laws could ever restrain.’ He estimated the ordinary number of such people at a hundred thousand, and the present at two hundred thousand—‘vagabonds who live without any regard to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature.’ ‘No magistrate,’ he says, ‘could ever discover which way one in a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptised. Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in a day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. |1699.| In years of plenty, many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country-weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.’
To remedy this evil, Fletcher proposed in all seriousness what reads like Swift’s suggestion to convert the children of the Irish poor into animal food. He recommended that the great mass of the able-bodied of these superfluous mortals should be reduced to serfdom under such persons as would undertake to keep and employ them, arguing that slavery amongst ancient states was what saved them from great burdens of pauper population, and was a condition involving many great advantages to all parties. He was for hospitals to the sick and lame, but thought it would be well, for example and terror, to take three or four hundred of the worst of the others, commonly called jockies, and present them to the state of Venice, ‘to serve in the galleys against the common enemy of Christendom.’