2 It's true ye may think, that we were not content, But we grieve when we think your gown should defray 3 To hills or to vallies that ye will repair, 4 But if male-contents to our Prince should convey, And show we are useless when you are away, We'l laugh at your fate, which ye would not prevent, And bid you appeal to the Parliament. The following clever but coarse address "to the Advocates who stayed behind," is sufficiently bitter, remain alone; As when the generous wines drawn off and gone, No doubt, the body has a s n face. Thus, thus, some men reform our laws and gown, As Taylors doe by turning upsyde down. • A play upon Lord Stair's family name of Dalrymple, which was pronounced as if spelt with an u instead of a y. In due season the advocates were compelled to bend to the powers that were, and after having been contumacious for considerably more than twelve months, upon making proper submission, they were, upon the 25th January 1676, re-admitted to practice. But the triumph of the Judges was not of long duration; for the Peers and members of Parliament began to see that appeals might be turned to good account, and they probably thought that there was no reason why the judges should have a monopoly of judicial patronage and plunder. Appeals were encouraged, and in a very short time became common enough. It may be here not out of place to turn to another tribunal where justice was administered on a similar scale. The Scotish Privy Council, which possessed a pretty extensive jurisdiction, was proverbial for its venality and rapacity. Lord Fountainhall records a somewhat amusing instance of the manner in which this honourable Court exerted its powers to serve particular purposes. John eighth Lord Elphinstone was debtor by bond to William Forbes of Tolquhan in the sum of 10,000 merks, which he was not very willing, or rather perhaps, was unable to repay. Luckily for him, Forbes, who was a man of a somewhat irritable temperament, quarrelled with his clergyman, Mr. John Strauchan, and, in the heat of the moment, gave him "a cuff.” Such a chance as this did not escape the vigilance of the debtor. Forbes was cited before the Privy Council, where, after the fashion of a modern election committee, the result had been already settled, and he was adjudged to pay a fine of 10,000 merks to the Crown, five hundred merks to Mr. Strauchan, and four dollars to every witness adduced against him, and the better to enforce implement of the sentence, he was ordered to be imprisoned till he had obeyed it. Elphinstone had previously arranged that he was to get the fine, and as it was the precise sum in which he was indebted to Forbes, he was thus enabled to pay his debt without putting his hand into his pockets at all. Fountainhall candidly informs us that all this" was only done to pay a bond of the like sum “which he had of my Lord Elphinstone, who has got a right "to the fine." Lord Fountainhall in his Chronological Notes, p. 247, refers to a lawsuit between Mr. Robert Pittilloch, advocate,* and Mr. Aytoun of Inchdairnie, the son-in-law of Lord Harcarse, one of the judges, in which the former did not hesitate to call the learned lord "a bryber," for which he (Pittilloch) was apprehended. Harcarse was removed the ensuing day from the bench, and it does not seem that any thing was done to his opponent, who published an account of the whole proceedings under the following singular title:-" Oppression "under the Colour of Law; or, My Lord Harcarse his new "Praticks: As a way-marke for peaceable subjects to beware "of pleying with a hot-spirited Lord of Session, so far as is "possible when arbitrarie Government is in the Dominion. -Proverbs xx, verse 21, An inheritance may be gotten 66 66 hastily at the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed." The author did not venture to print this violent attack in Edinburgh, and accordingly it bears the imprint of London 1689. Of course it would be unfair to take a narrative of this description prepared by the party aggrieved, as evidence of the corrupt practices of Lord Harcarse. It is too probable, however, that the accusation was not without some foundation; for laying aside entirely the " habite and repute” character of the judges, it is remarkable that Fountainhall, while alluding to the lawsuit and the accusation, neither states the latter to be false, nor ventures in his decisions to report the former. There is, besides, one fact mentioned in the pamphlet, which, if true, is somewhat startling, namely, that when the cause was called by Lord Drumcairn, who was the Or * This gentleman, during the usurpation, was Solicitor-General to the Protector, a circumstance which would not tend to his advantage at the restoration. P. 19. A few copies of this legal curiosity were reprinted. Stevenson, 1827. Quarto. dinary, "my Lord Harcarse compeared with his Purple "Gown, and debated the case as Inchdairnie's advocate." The notion of a judge in his robes debating as counsel the case which he might afterwards be called upon to decide, is not very reconcileable with modern notions of propriety. Pittilloch entered an appeal, and from no notice being taken in the Parliamentary Journals of its fate, in all likelihood the suit was compromised.* But a much better authenticated instance of judicial injustice and tyranny has been preserved in the sederunt-book of the parish of Dalry.† It would seem that a Dr. Johnston had, by a codicil to his will, left the sum of £3000 towards the establishing a grammar school in the parish of Dalry. Payment of this sum was resisted by a Mr. Joissy,‡ one of the executors, and an action before the Court of Session was thereupon brought at the instance of the parish. The defender had enlisted under his banners Alexander Gibson of Dury, one of the principal Clerks of Session, and by their joint influence they were enabled to secure a certain portion of the judges. On the other hand, the Earl of Galloway patronized the heritors, and by his and the other means resorted to, the Bench became equally divided. Unfortunately for the parish, the Lord President|| had been gained over by Joissy, and he uniformly contrived to manage matters so judiciously, that the cause was never called in the absence of the supporters of the defender. It so happened, to use the words of the report, that the Court hav * Lord Harcarse reported from 1681 to 1701; but no notice of this remarkable case taken in the printed volume of decisions. The entry is regularly attested by the subscription of the different heritors. There seems no reason for doubting the accuracy of the statement. This man was a barber-surgeon, and the following curious entry relative to his professional charges occurs in the note-book of Sir John Fowlis of Ravelston, Bart. —“ April 5, 1680. To John Jossie for cutting my sone Adames tongue, being tongue-tacked, £5, 16s." (Scots money.) Sir Hew Dalrymple of North Berwick, Bart. second son of the Viscount of Stair. He had the reputation of a first rate jobber. 66 ing "accidentally appointed a perrempter day, about the beginning of February 1704, for reporting and decyding in "the cause, both parties concluded that the paroch would "then gain it, since one of Mr Joissy's lords came to be "then absent. For as my Lord Anstruther's hour in the "Outer-House was betwixt nine and ten of the clock in the "morning, so the Earl of Lauderdal, as Ordinary in the "Outer-House, behoved to sit from ten to twelve in the forenoon for by the 21st act of the fourth session of the first "Parliament of King William and Queen Mary, its statuted expressly, that, if the Lord Ordinary in the Outer-House "sit and reason or voat in any cause in the Inner-House "after the chap of ten hours in the cloak, he may be declin"ed by either party in the cause from ever voating there"after thereintill: Yet such was the Lord President's man 66 66 66 agement, that so soon as my Lord Anstruther returned "from the Outer-House at ten of the cloak, and that my "Lord Lauderdal was even desired by some of the Lords "to take his post in the Outer-House in the tearms of law: "Yet his Lordship was pleased after ten to sit and voat against the paroch, the President at that junctur having 66 put the cause to a voat." Of this irregular conduct the parish found it their duty to complain; and John Menzies of Cammo, an eminent lawyer, prepared and boxed a declinature of the Lord Lauderdale, in name of Mr. Ferguson of Cairoch and the other heritors, stating the violation of the Act of Parliament by his Lordship voting in the Inner-House after ten o'clock, when he ought to have been sitting in judgment in the Outer-House. This measure had been recommended by some of the judges who were in the interest of the parish, and who had objected to his Lordship's sitting and voting. The next morning the President came to the Court in a tremendous rage, insisting that every individual in any ways connected with the declinature should be punished. Upon this the client, counsel, and agent, were ordered to be cited as criminals; the former |