These admissions, that the "servants" required coercion; that they were confined in the public prison and other convenient places; and that they were sold, are of course, amply confirmed by the witnesses on the other side. A witness, William Jamieson, had a pathetic little history of his own to tell. He lived in the village of Old Meldrum, in the year 1740, and he had then a son John, between ten and eleven years old. One evening his boy did not come home; and in the course of his anxious inquiries, next day, about the missing youth, he was told by some neighbours, "that they saw a man, whom they said was a servant to John Burnet, late merchant in Aberdeen, who was commonly called Bonny John, with the deponent's said son, and two other boys, much about the same age, travelling towards Aberdeen, and that his son would be sent to the plantations." The kind of alarm that would be conveyed to the father's heart by such an intimation, may be imagined; and the poor villager, surrounded by people among whom a dread of this species of kidnapping had become a panic, would be little relieved from his anxieties, by hearing the neighbours describe the horrors of the slavery to which such of their offspring as underwent the calamity of capture were subjected, and lament their utter feebleness to resist the strong hand, fortified by law and authority, by which the injury was perpetrated. Jamieson, however, resolved to make an effort for his son. He went presently to Aberdeen, and saw Burnet, who apparently transacted too large a business in the "servant trade," to be conscious of so small an item in the account as the villager's son, "and told him that he had several boys, but did not know whether the deponent's son was amongst them; but said, though he was, the deponent would not get him back, because he was engaged with him." The "deponent"—a word which in Scotland is the technical term for witness; we are sorry that it is necessary to use it so often, but we cannot help it—after his interview with the great kidnapper, wandered along the broad links or downs on the sea-shore, "where he had been informed the boys were out getting the air." There "he observed a great number of boys—he thinks about sixty: that they were attended by a man who, the deponent was informed by the people of the town, was employed for the purpose by the said John Burnet; that this man had a horsewhip, and the deponent observed him striking the boys therewith, when they went out of the crowd." The poor man saw his own boy John in the little herd, and joyfully hailed him. The boy, by a natural impulse, ran to his father, and said he would gladly follow him home if he dared. "Immediately upon this, the person who was Mr Burnet's overseer, came up and gave the boy a lash with his whip, and took him by the shoulder and carried him amongst the rest, and immediately drove them off." The father kept company with the procession, and thus describes its progress.
"When the boys were marching up to the barn, the deponent kept pace with the overseer, who followed immediately after the boys, entreating of him to get liberty to speak to his son; who answered him that he should get leave to speak to him by-and-by, when they were come to the barn; but when they came there the overseer locked the door, and refused the deponent access; that he never saw his son after this. That the deponent in passing through the town of Aberdeen, after his son was so locked up from him, was told by several tradespeople, and others to whom he had told the story of his son, that it would be in vain for him to apply to the magistrates to get his son liberated, because some of the magistrates had a hand in those things, as well as the said John Burnet; upon which the deponent went home."
A very characteristic record of these transactions still remained in the books and accounts of the parties implicated. Among these documents, one of the witnesses, denominated "Walter Scott, writer to the signet," produces "the ship book," apparently the same which some of the witnesses more descriptively call "the kidnapping book." It is needless to say whose father it was who possessed this curious document. The investigation occurred in 1762—nine years before the birth of Sir Walter; and it was perhaps one of the last ideas that would have ever occurred to his respectable parent, that it was worth while communicating to his offspring any information from a mere merchant's account book, which had been placed in his hands in the usual routine of his business, and probably afterwards forgotten. Yet what a lively history might have been woven out of its dry materials, had it remained among the other lumber in George Square, to be rummaged out by the lame boy! Mr Scott was the agent for the kidnappers. It is satisfactory to observe that he appears to have been too honest an agent for their purposes; for we find that he transmitted to them this book by post, in order that it might be exhibited in the course of the arbitration, to which we shall hereafter allude; but his employers knew their own interest too well to produce it, until they were subsequently compelled to do so.
The extracts from the books transferred to the papers before us, are of course those only which have some reference to the case of Peter Williamson; thus—
| "Jan. 8, 1743. To a pair of stockings | s. | d. |
| to Peter Williamson | 0 | 6 |
| To a woollen cap to ditto | 0 | 5 |
| 13, To five days of ditto | 1 | 3 |
And a more emphatical entry—
| "To the man that brought Williamson | 1 | 6 |
Listing appears to have been the slang, or, more properly speaking, the business term for kidnapping, and the price of the operation passes through a scale of sums, graduated probably to the difficulty of the task. Thus, while Williamson was procured for 1s. 6d., there is an entry "To a Serjeant for listing Mackie, 5s.;" while on the other hand, there is only "1s. 4½d. to Lighton and a soldier for listing Robert Paterson." There is one sweeping charge of a guinea, "to Maclean, sent to the country to list servants,"—amount of business done not stated, but it must have been considerable, as there are occasional entries of "cash sent to the country to Maclean." Sometimes sums are entered as paid to the parties themselves—as 5s. "to Margaret Robertson, when listed;" yet this can scarcely have been a voluntary operation on Margaret's part, as the immediate succeeding item is 1s. 6d. "to the wright on board and one of the boys for listing her." Five shillings are entered as "to two soldiers for listing Allardyce." He must have been a difficult boy to catch, as there is a further entry of 2s., as "cash they spent with him."
This item introduces us to a dark feature in the expenditure of the kidnappers,—the sums that appear to have been spent by them in vicious indulgences to their young captives, to prevent the tedium of their imprisonment, from driving them to desperate efforts for their escape. We have thus,—"to the boys to play at cards, 1s.;" and in another place, "to the boys to drink, when put in the workhouse, 1s.; to six packs of cards to them, 9d." It is almost a relief in the perusal of these heartless business-like columns—every red line of which has the hard outline of premeditated cruelty—to read of 1s. 6d. being paid "to the piper for playing in the workhouse two days." But in the neighbourhood of this, there are some entries which we dare not copy. There is a candid explicitness about these accounts, which we must confess that we have not sufficient virtuous courage to imitate, by transferring to our columns some charges, of which we would yet fain give our readers an idea. The person who kept the books no doubt "called a spade a spade;" and, indeed, he bestowed on many other things their ordinary vulgar nomenclature. We tremble in approaching his most explicit declarations; we almost fear reproach in offering to the reader an extract of an item, in which he has been very decorous, considering the subject; but such an item! who shall explain its meaning? Here it is—"To Colonel Horsie for his concubine, £1!"
Some entries referring to "the boys in the Tolbooth," or, more briefly, the prisoners," remind us, were this necessary, that these accounts related to persons kept in bondage. Other parts indicate the comprehensive nature of the business done in "the servant trade." Thus, on the 12th of May, there is a charge of 7s. 6d. "to three days' board of ten servants from the Tolbooth;" and on the same day, "to five days' board of thirty-four servants, £2, 2s. 6d." The latter number is frequently repeated in the account, and probably represents the stock of one considerable holder. It was estimated by the witnesses that sixty-nine were transported in one cargo in 1743; "and when," says a writer already alluded to, "it is considered that the trade was carried on to an equal extent for nearly six years, it is impossible to estimate the number of unhappy beings carried off at less than six hundred.[20]