Margaret Haitly, for Adultery. IT was now Mrs. Haitly's turn to stand trial for her life. On the same day with her husband she was prosecuted at his instance, and that of the Lord Ad vocate, on a charge of adultery with ten different persons specified in the indictment; and of having born three children, the fruit of her unlawful amours, the last of them not six months preceding. The evidence of her criminal correspondence, and of the bearing three children in adultery, was complete; yet the jury, from what reason or motive I cannot conjecture, were not unanimous, but by a plu rality of eleven to four found the prisoner guilty. It was not however the feet of them which buried her • husband that carried her out. The Court delayed from time to time pronouncing sentence upon the prisoners. On the 20th of July after, John Fraser was set at liberty, in consequence of having obtained his Majesty's pardon. The other convict Haitly still remained a prisoner; but after a minute and painful examination of the records, I have not been able to discover whether she was kept prisoner for life, or what became of her. 1673 John Murdoch and Janet Douglas, for Adultery. JOHN MURDOCH and Janet Douglas, both of them 1699 married persons, inhabitants of Edinburgh, were ~ tried capitally at the instance of his Majesty's Advocate, not for notour,* but for simple adultery, i. e. for * Records of Justiciary, September 14, November 6, 1699. 1699 one act of adultery. Informations were lodged for the prosecutor and the prisoners. The King's Advocate restricted the libel to an arbitrary punishment. The prisoners threw themselves upon the King's will, and were banished for life, never to return under pain of death. If the frequency, variety, and severity, of criminal prosecutions, can establish the purity of statesmen and judges, this surely was an age in which persons in public office could boast of a very uncommon degree of purity and virtue. In this case, such was the zealous detestation of vice, that persons were indicted capitally for simple adultery, although neither by the statutory law, nor the judgements of the criminal courts, was simple adultery ever deemed capital. A few months preceding this trial, the Court of Justiciary entered on its journalst a recommendation to the King's Advocate, to prosecute witches. About the close of that century too, a man was hanged for murder, although the jury found that the prisoner in defending himself had killed the deceased. Another was hanged for expressing in conversation, opinions on religion and philosophy opposite to those of the times. A third was tried for high treason, for engraving a political print, but acquitted by the jury. Others suffered death also, when perhaps their trials had better been omitted. + Records of Justiciary, March 27, 1699; Nov. 21, 1695; Dec 24, 1696; July 10, 1699; April 14, and 22; May 24, 1701; July 10, 1699. OF FORNICATION. Christopher Little and Margaret Jameson, for Fornication and Theft, charged against them in one Indictment. AFTER the abolition of Popery, and establishment of the Confession of Faith by authority of Parliament, one of the first acts of the legislature was to annex a punishment to the filthie vice of fornication. The punishment was, for the first offence, to pay a fine of £40 Scots, (and upon failure of payment+ to undergo eight days imprisonment, and to be fed upon bread and water), and to stand two hours upon the pillory. For the second offence the fine was raised to 100 merks; and besides being put upon the pillory, the convict was to have his or her head shaved. And for the third offence the pecuniary mulct was augmented to £100 Scots, and the convict was ordained to be thrice ducked in the deepest and foulest pool in the parish, and then to be banished from the same for ever. And this zealous act has been renewed so late as A. D. 1696. On the 16th of October, 1652, a commission was produced in the Parliament-house at Edinburgh, † James VI. Parl. 1. chap. 13.; William, Parl. 1. sess. 6. chap. 31. 1653 1653 from the Commissioners of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, and recorded in the books of Justiciary, appointing George Smith, John March, Andrew Owen, and Edward Mosley, Esquires, or any two of them, commissioners for the administration of justice to the people of Scotland in causes criminal. On the 21st of June, 1653, Henry Whallie, Advocate-General,+ prosecuted Jean Hamilton, Christopher Little, and Margaret Jameson, before the Honourable George Smith and Edward Mosley, two of those Commissioners. The prisoners were charged in the indictment with being all three accessory, art and part, of stealing shirts and sheets forth ' of the house of Elisabeth Potter, widow in New. · haven, after the said Jean Hamilton her theftuous ' upbreaking thereof, committed on the 6th day of May last; and the said Christopher Little and Mar. garet Jameson for the crime of fornication commit. 'ted by them with each other.' The prisoners, Little and Jameson, denied the theft, but acknowledged the fornication, and sub. mitted themselves to the mercy of the Court. The jury, after hearing evidence, unanimously found the prisoners Hamilton and Jameson, guilty of stealing the sheets and shirts, and acquitted the prisoner Little of the same. They also unanimously found the prisoners Little and Jameson guilty of for. nication. The Court sentenced Jean Hamilton to be scourged for theft from the Castlehill to the Nether. bow, and then to be put into the Correction-house + Records of Justiciary, October 16, 1652; June 24, 1653. till farther orders; and ordained Little and Jameson 1653 for fornication instantly to pay £40 Scots, and in case of refusal to be kept prisoners for eight days, and fed on bread and small drink, and next market day to stand an hour bare-headed on the pillory; the prisoner Little then to be set at liberty, but Jameson for the theft to be put in the Correction-house. |
