29th of October

St Narcissus, bishop of Jerusalem, 2d century. St Chef or Theuderius, abbot, about 575.

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Born. – James Boswell, biographer of Johnson, 1740, Edinburgh.

Died. – Jean le Rond d’Alembert, mathematician and encyclopædist, 1783, Paris; Allan Cunningham, poet and miscellaneous writer, 1842, London.

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On this Day in Other Sources.

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In 1574 there is an entry in the council records ordering “the four ports to be kept daylie continewalie, and at ewin the portaris to deliver the keyes to ane of the baillies.” And again, “Ordains the Rattonraw, Drygate, and Grayefriar portis to be made sure and lokit, and stand lokit, and keyis thairof deliverit to the baillies, and nane to repair thairthroucht without the special license of the provest and baillies.”¹

– Old Glasgow, pp.162-175.

¹  29th October, 1574.

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The 29th of October, this year [1579], the King held a parliament at Edinburgh, wherein there [were] many good laws enacted, both for advancement of the gospel, liberty of the church, and prosperity of the kingdom. In this parliament was his majesty’s revocation of the earldom of Lennox made to the Lord Charles Stewart, his uncle, father to the Lady Arabella, ratified. 

– Historical Works, pp.340-416.

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Of charges against the ministers there are few, but they do occur occasionally. One of the presbytery, Mr. David Weems, is accused that he is “fund to be declynand in doctrine, negligent in preparacioun, and in his teaching hes gevin occasioun of lauchtir; and aftymes to be overtaine wt drink.”¹ Another minister is charged with the crime of usury – receiving interest on certain sums he had lent. In this case the proceedings are voluminous and protracted, for usury in those days was a serious offence. 

– Old Glasgow, pp.189-215.

¹  29th October, 1600.

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Towards the end of the seventeenth century, however, the work of sanitary reform was progressing, and not only were the “syvers” ordered to be kept clear, but the streets and closes were appointed to be swept clean, and all accumulations of refuse to be removed off the streets. By a minute of council¹ the magistrates order that each inhabitant shall clean the street in front of his house, and that no one within the ports shall lay any filth “upon the hie streets without the drop of the houss excepting that quhilk they sall caus tak or carie awaye within eight and fourtie hours after the laying out therof.”

– Old Glasgow, pp.266-276.

¹  29th October, 1670.

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Among the rest the Convention of Royal Burghs sent in a petition, which we give here as a specimen of all the rest:-  

   ‘To His Grace, Her Majesty’s High Commissioner, and the Right Honourable the Estates of Parliament, the address of the Commissioners to the General Convention of the Royal Burrows of this ancient Kingdom, convened the 29th of October last, upon the great concern of the Union proposed betwixt Scotland and England, for concerting such measures as should be esteemed proper for them to take with relation to their trade and other concerns.  

   ‘Humbly Sheweth –  

   ‘That as by the claim of right, it is the privilege of all subjects to petition; so at this time, being mostly empowered by our constituents, and knowing the sentiments of the people we represent, it is our indispensable duty to signify to your Grace, and the Honourable Estates of Parliament. that as we are not against an honourable and safe Union with England, consistent with the being of this Kingdom, and Parliament thereof, without which, we conceive neither our religion, nor our civil interests and trade, as we now, by law, enjoy them, can be secured to us and our posterity, far less can we expect to have the condition of the people of Scotland, with relation to these great concerns, made better and improved, without a Scots Parliament.  

   ‘And, seeing by the articles of Union, now under the consideration of the Honourable Estates of Parliament, it is agreed that Scotland and England shall be united into one kingdom; and that the united kingdoms be united by one and the same Parliament, by which our Monarchy is suppressed, our Parliament extinguished, and in consequence, our religion, Church government, claim of right, laws, liberties, trades, and all that is dear to us, daily in danger of being encroached upon, altered, or wholly subverted by the English, in a British Parliament, wherein the mean representation allowed for Scotland can never signify in securing to us the interest reserved by us, or granted to us by the English.  

   ‘And by these articles our poor people are made liable to the English taxes, which is a certain unsupportable burden, considering that the trade proposed is uncertain, involved, and wholly precarious, especially when regulated as to export and import by the laws of England, and under the same prohibitions and restrictions, customs, and duties. And considering that the most considerable branches of our trade are differing from those of England, and are, and may be yet more discouraged by their laws; and that all the concerts of trade and our interest are, after the Union, subject to such alterations as the Parliament of Great Britain shall think fit.  

   ‘We therefore supplicate your Grace and the Honourable Estates of Parliament, and do assuredly expect that ye will not conclude such an Incorporate Union, as is contained in the articles proposed, but that ye will support and maintain the true Reformed Protestant Religion and Church Government, as by law established, the sovereignty and independency of this crown and kingdom, and the rights and privileges of Parliament, which have been generously asserted by you, in the ————  session of this present Parliament: And do further pray, that effectual means may be used for defeating the designs and attempts of all Popish pretenders whatsomever, to the succession of this crown and kingdom, and for securing this nation against all the attempts and encroachments that may be made by any persons whatsomever, upon the sovereignty, religion, laws, liberties, trade, and quiet of the same. And we promise to maintain with our lives and fortunes all these valuable things, in opposition to all Popish and other enemies whatsomever, according to our laws and claim of right.  

   ‘Signed by order, and in presence of the Convention, by  

‘SAM. McLELLAN, Preses.’     

– How Scotland Lost Her Parliament, Chapter II. 

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This trench does not appear to have been completed. The work was renewed at the time of the rebellion of 1715, the projected size of the ditch being twelve feet wide and six feet deep. Barricades were at the same time erected, and there are repeated entries on the subject in the burgh records of that year. Under date 29th October, 1715, there is a minute bearing “that in this tyme of common danger the toun is put to vast charges and expences in fortyfieing the toun, and many other wayes which they cannot evite, and that it is the advyce of his Grace the Duke of Argyll, General and Commander in Chiefe of his Majestys forces in North Brittan, the toun should be put in a better posture of defence by drawing lynes of intrinchment about the toun in case of an attack against it be the rebells and that the same be done with all expedition;” therefore the treasurer is authorized to contract a loan to the extent of £500 sterling. Then follow numerous entries of payments for barricading the different ports, for barricades “at the Gallowgate and St. Tennochs burn,” for stopping the passage at Buns Wynd, and for wages and tools to the men working on the trenches. 

– Old Glasgow, pp.162-175.

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“COUNTY OF AYR.

October 25, 1785.

   AT a meeting held here this day, in consequence of advertisements published in the news-papers, by order of the Convener, calling a meeting of the Noblemen, Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Commissioners of Supply of this county, to take under their consideration a Bill now pending in Parliament, for diminishing the number, and increasing the salaries of the Judges of the Courts of Session and Exchequer in Scotland, they came to the following Resolutions:  

    I. RESOLVED, That the articles of the Union between England and Scotland, cannot be infringed by the British Parliament, without the consent of the people of Scotland; because the number of members from Scotland being inconsiderable, compared with the number of members from England, those articles, upon the faith of which Scotland resigned her independency, if not immutable, would be negatory. 

    II. RESOLVED, That the permanency of the Court of Session, as constituted at the time of the Union, being one of those articles, the attempt to alter that constitution, without consulting the people of Scotland, was most improper and disrespectful. 

   III. RESOLVED, That we will not consent to a change in the number of the Judges, unless Parliament shall at the same time, grant us the privilege of a Jury in civil causes, or some other mode by which the forms of procedure may be shortened, and law-suits rendered less tedious and expensive, with the approbation of the people of Scotland.  

        (Signed)                                                                   HUGH MONTGOMERIE, Preses.  

                  By order of the Meeting,                                            JOHN BOSWELL, Clk.”  

– Caledonian Mercury, 29th October, 1785. 

– Treaty of Union Articles, 1750-1800.

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“COUNTY OF ROSS.

   IN a Meeting of the Freeholders, Justices of the Peace, and Commissioners of Supply, of the County of Ross, held at TAIN on the 14th of October current, being the anniversary of their Michaelmas Head Court, the Act passed in the last Session of Parliament, for raising a certain number of men in the several Counties, Royal Burghs, &c. in Scotland, was brought under their consideration, and the following Resolutions being adopted, were ordered by a majority of the Meeting, to be published in the Caledonian Mercury, and Edinburgh Evening Courant.  

    I. RESOLVED, That this County, in the prosecution of the present just and necessary war, will chearfully contribute to its just and equal proportion of such extraordinary public aids, whether in men or money, as may be required from Scotland at large, on the principle of a general levy or assessment; to be distributed internally, according to any established constitutional rule, or otherwise manifested to be in the spirit of fair equalization, ascertained on grounds of recent authentic enquiry, locally made,  into the actual population and pecuniary resources of the county. 

   II. RESOLVED, That the late Naval Requisition of Men from this County, or equivalent bounty money for the number deficient, has virtually, if not altogether in form, operated in the nature of the annual Land Tax, and must ever continue to do so, under the actual circumstances of a Highland District, wholly destitute of manufactures, and possessing only a very limited commerce, with infant fisheries, and under the natural dislike of its inhabitants to a seafaring like, while such enthusiasts in embracing the military, as to occasion, as well in the present as in former wars, an inconvenient deficiency of hands in performing the necessary labour of husbandry. 

   III. RESOLVED, That in raising a Land Assessment, in whatever shape, on the united kingdom, the Act of Union in 1707, expressly restricts the proportion to be exacted from Scotland; while the repartition of such proportion, in terms and form of a monthly cess, throughout this great division of Britain among its several County and Borough sub-divisions, had, in fact, been constitutionally fixed by the prior Act of 1690, soon after the Revolution, and invariably recognised since to the present time, as the only established rule in distributing [lacuna] laid on the Landholders.  

    IV. RESOLVED, That the said Requisition considered and found to be essentially a Land Tax, appears to be not only a manifest violation of the Treaty of Union, as exceeding the stipulated proportion exigible from Scotland, but deviates in an alarming degree, to the great disadvantage of this and other Highland Counties, from the constitutional rate of equal internal division, established by the Act of Supply in 1690, without our being able to discover any well-founded reasonable ground or principle for such deviation. 

    V. RESOLVED, That in a War of great and sudden emergencies, such as the present, in which every member of the empire is equally interested, however expedient it may have been to wave the stipulations of the Act of Union in settling the quota of Scotland, we cannot suppose it to have been the intention of the Legislature to introduce any other scheme of repartition of that quota among the county and borough sub-divisions of the country, either arbitrarily, unequally, or oppressively; though such in fact has been the experienced consequence felt throughout this district, in making up the pecuniary equivalent for deficient men, recently required for the navy; but on the contrary, that the internal distribution in question, might have passed into a temporary law through inadvertance, on the suggestion of the framer of the bill, on which the law proceeded, being unopposed, by petition or otherwise, in the rapidity of its course through both Houses of Parliament, though eventually only by reason of the remoteness of our local situation. 

    VI. RESOLVED, That accordingly, and in obedience to the expressed will of the Legislature, this county, not only completed, timeously and without hesitation, the equivalent thus exacted, and greatly exceeding in amount it proportion of the annual Land Tax, when men for the navy could not be raised under the temptation of the highest offered bounties; but took on itself by unanimous concurrence of the Land-holders, acting separately, the full burden of the moiety authorised to be levied, by way of relief, from its small and numerous tenantry, and that in consideration of the circumstances of their situation, unused, and perhaps unable, by reason of the comparative poverty of a Highland district, to pay any such direct contribution to Government. 

   VII. RESOLVED, That though the Law, thus involving a matter of serious grievance to this and other Highland counties, be now no longer in existence, yet if suffered to pass unnoticed, may, hereafter, on a familiar occasion, and under like circumstances, recur on us in the way of precedent or otherwise, with tenfold inequality and rigour.  

   VIII. RESOLVED, therefore, That the Member for this County be instructed from the tenor of the proceeding Resolutions, to guard against the establishment of so alarming a precedent in future, and strenuously oppose every scheme of internal repartition of a general levy in Scotland, whether in men or money, and ultimately and essentially operating as a Land Assessment, which hath not for its basis the Constitutional Act of 1690, or should otherwise proceed on arbitrary, unknown, and unequal principles of taxation.  

    IX. RESOLVED, That these Resolutions be published in the Caledonian Mercury, and Edinburgh Evening Courant, and that the Clerk of the Meeting be appointed to cause them to be published accordingly. 

CH. ROSS, Preses.

   Extracted from the Minutes, by  

GEO. MACKENZIE, Clerk.”

– Caledonian Mercury, Thursday 29th October, 1795. 

– Treaty of Union Articles, 1750-1800.