1641 nancing iniquitous precedent, since we little know how soon it may be converted into an engine for our own destruction. For the son of this very prosecutor fell by an iniquitous sentence on this very charge of leasing-making.* John Niven, Captain of the Ship Fortune of London, for Leasing-making against James Duke of Albany and York. 4 bar 1680 THE prisoner was served with a criminal indictment at the instance of his Majesty's Advocate, setting forth, that, by the statutory law, and the practice of this realm, leasing-making, the engendering of discord between the King and his people, and the uttering slanderous speeches to the disturbance of government, are crimes of a capital nature, yet the prisoner had been guilty of them,+ by railing against the Duke of Albany and York, the King's brother; by charging him with being in a plot to take the King's life; with combining with the French King to invade England; and with coming to Scotland on purpose to make a party to introduce Popery. Frivolous objections to the relevancy of the in * In the state trials, there are three prosecutions to be found for this statutory crime. Those of Lord Ochiltree, Lord Balme. rino, and the Marquis of Argyle. + Records of Justiciary, July 15, 1680. dictment were urged for the prisoner, and repelled 1680 by the Court. William Eccles, writer in Edinburgh, deposed,' that, being in Dysart on the day libelled, in company with the prisoner, and some others, the prisoner inquired at the deponent, and the rest of the company, what stile of reception the Duke of York had met in Scotland? To this the deponent answered, he ' had been received according to his great quality and ' merit, and that he was a fine Prince; and the prisoner replied, there was not one of ten thousand in England who would say so. He added, that the Duke of York was in a plot to take the King's life, and had combined with the French King to invade England; but the deponent cannot say whether the prisoner expressed these words as his own opinion, or that of the people of England. The prisoner at the same time said, no man had a greater regard than him for the Duke; that, under his Royal Highness's conduct, he had lost part of his blood in his Majesty's cause; and that he would be ready to hazard his life in the Duke's service.. † A very unjust account of this trial is given by Lord Foun tainhall, in his Decisions, vol, I. p. 108. The prisoner indispu tably fell within the tyrannical statutes against leasing making, and there seems to have been ho doubt of his having been guilty of the fact. Fountainhall is deemed a writer of authority. He was upon the side of law and liberty; but any one who is conversant in the affairs of that period, and who compares the result of his knowledge with the cases in Fountainhall, must be sensible of the extreme partiality of that writer; a propensity which, in times such as those, it was very difficult to resist. His partiality is the less surprising, as he appears not to have been untinged with fanaticism; and those who have occasion to compare his Journals with the original Records of Justiciary, will see little reason to compliment him upon his accuracy. 1680 The prisoner objected to William Tarbett, a waiter, being received as a witness; but his objections were repelled. Tarbett deposed, that he was accidentally in Burntisland, in the house of Captain Seaton, where he fell in company with the prisoner, and two Englishmen, a shipmaster and his mate, and frequently overheard discourses between them relating to government; and heard the prisoner say, that the Duke had come into Scotland to make a party for introducing Popery, but our good old English hearts 'would not suffer that.' Michael Seaton, against whom also the prisoner urged objections which were over-ruled, deposed, that, in his own house in Burntisland, upon a Sunday in April last, he was sent for into the room where the prisoner, two English seamen, and William Tarbett, were drinking. He heard Niven and the other Englishmen speaking extravagant commonwealth language, and particularly concerning the Duke of York. He could not be positive that the words were those charged in the indictment, viz. that he had come to make a party to introduce Popery, but thinks they were to that purpose. The jury, by a plurality of voices, found the prisoner guilty of leasing-making against the Duke of York. On the 4th of August, the Court sentenced the prisoner to be hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh on the 18th; but, on the 6th of that month, the Court, in consequence of an act of Privy Council, proceeding upon a letter from the King, suspended the execution till his Majesty's further pleasure should be declared; and it does not appear that the sentence ever was executed. OF PARRICIDE. John Dickson, for the Murder of his Father. THE prisoner, who was son and heir to John Dick- 1591 son of Bellchester, on the 30th of April, 1591, was tried for the murder of his father, committed in the month of July, 1588. The criminal record*, contains neither the particulars of the murder, nor the evidence against the prisoner, but only that he was convicted by a jury, and sentenced to be broke upon the wheel at the Cross of Edinburgh. At this period, and long after, the sentences of the Court of Justiciary frequently express no time for their being carried into execution; it being customary to take the convict directly from the Court to the scaf fold. * Records of Justiciary, April 30, 1591. Philip Stansfield was tried for the murder of his father, Sir James Stansfield, 1688. See Salmon's State Trials, p. 610. Τ OF MURDER. 1601 Thomas Armstrong, for the Murder of Sir John Carmichael of that Ilk, Warden of the West Marches. THE uncertain and fluctuating limits of two neighbouring nations, which were always jealous of each other, and often hostile, afforded ample field for the depredations of robbers. We find, accordingly, the Scottish borders infested by clans of banditti, who transmitted their predatory pursuits from father to son, like a common profession. The minute and troublesome regulations established by the warden of the English marches, appointing a relief of sentinels, at every pass, by night and day, within a large district, evince, that the confines of England were no less infested with thieves and robbers. * Their depredations were carried on upon so extensive a scale, and exercised by such numerous bands, as enabled their leaders to live in power and affluence; and sometimes required the whole executive force of the state to crush those robbers. From a statutory prohibition against persons bringing Scot * Bishop of Carlisle's Border Laws, p. 147, et seq. James VI. Parl. 11th, chap. 101. |
