3. Extract from the Accounts of the | Trial | of | William Brodie and George Smith, | Before the High Court of Justiciary, | on Wednesday, the 27th and Thursday the 28th Days of August, 1788, | For Breaking Into, and Robbing | The | Excise Office of Scotland, | On the 5th Day of March last. | Illustrated with Notes and Anecdotes. | Containing also, | Several Curious Papers | Relative to the Trial; | as also, several | Transactions of the Criminals. | “Read this and tremble! Ye who ’scape the laws.” Pope. | Edinburgh: | Printed by A. Robertson, Foot of the Horse Wynd. | M,DCC,LXXXVIII.
Octavo, pp. vi.+72.
The advertisement of this account of the trial, which was published on 15th September, 1788 states—“The whole will be neatly printed on a fine paper and new type in three numbers at 9d.; the second number will be published on Saturday, the 20th; and the third on Friday, the 25th curt. And an additional number, price 3d., containing several occurrences, &c., from the day of their sentence till the 2nd of October next. N.B.—Commissions duly answered, for ready money only.”
This was one of the pirated editions referred to by Creech, and is a literal reprint or his first edition of the trial.
The Edinburgh Evening Courant of Thursday, 18th September, 1788, gives the following account of the interdict whereby Creech endeavoured to stop the sale of this and Stewart’s edition.:—“This day a new case in literary property was tried before Lord Dreghorn. Mr. Creech applied for an interdict against two piracies of his account of Brodie and Smith’s trial. The interdict was granted, and parties were heard this day at eleven o’clock. Mr. Creech has sent up copies to Stationers’ Hall by the mail-coach, with orders to enter the book in Stationers’ Hall, according to the Act of Parliament 8th of Queen Anne; but the certificate of entry was not yet arrived. Lord Dreghorn declared both the copies complained on were gross piracies, but as the words of the Act of Parliament were express, he was sorry he could do nothing else than remove the interdict to the sale of the piratical copies until the certificate of entry was produced, and a new interdict might then be applied for, with action of damages. By this judgment it is necessary that the book be entered in Stationers’ Hall before publication.”
In advertising Part II. for sale the publisher made the following announcement:—“When Mr. Robertson published the first number of the above trial he copied it from Mr. Creech’s account of it, not knowing or suspecting it to be property; but being since convinced that it is so, he applied to Mr. Creech for liberty to go on with his future numbers, which he obligingly consented to, although possessed of the certificate of the entry in Stationers Hall. The public will be regularly served, as advertised, with their numbers.”
4. A Full Account of the Trial of William Brodie and George Smith, Before the High Court of Justiciary, on the 27th and 28th Days of August 1788, for Breaking into the Excise Office; With an Account of several other Depredations committed by them and their Associates. Edinburgh: J. Stewart, Lawnmarket, 1788. (Price, 1s. only.)
This was the other “piratical copy” of Creech’s first edition, which was published on 15th September, 1788. No copy of the book is contained either in the British Museum or any other public library, so far as has been ascertained, and the above particulars are taken from a contemporary advertisement.
The publisher announced on 18th September—“J. Stewart informs his friends and the public that the interdict applied for by Mr. Creech was this day removed by the Lord Ordinary, and the sale goes on as formerly.”