they were sold for slaves, if not for life, at all events for a certain number of years.
No change had been made by the Act of Union of 1706, for it was expressly provided in it that all these heritable jurisdictions "should be reserved to the owners as rights and property."[1] When in 1747 these powers had been swept away, two unhappy classes of men were excepted from the full benefit of the Act. The workers in any kind of mine or in salt-works were to remain as they had hitherto been—serfs for life. These men were found only in the Lowlands, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Nevertheless, even they were not left altogether without relief. "All jurisdiction in any case inferring the loss of life or demembration, was abrogated."[2] A collier or a salter therefore could no longer be hanged or drowned, or even mangled by his master. It was not till the last year of the century that they were finally and fully freed. One of these emancipated serfs lived till the year 1844.[3]
The Act of 1747 not only abolished jurisdictions, but also alleviated the prisoner's lot. Till it was passed, "all over Scotland pits were accounted legal prisons for thieves and other meaner criminals."[4] Lady Margaret Bellenden in Old Mortality praises her pit. "It is not more than two stories beneath ground," she says, "so it cannot be unwholesome, especially as I rather believe there is somewhere an opening to the outer air."[5] But henceforth—so the Act ran—"the prison shall have such windows or grates, as that it may be practicable for any friend of the prisoner to visit, see, and converse with him when he shall be so minded."[6] In out of the way places, where there were no justices within reach, the laird, no doubt, to some extent, continued to exercise his old powers. Thus in Col, more than sixteen years after the Act was passed, the laird put a woman into "the family prison" for theft.[7] There have been men who regarded, or affected to regard with indignation the abolition of these injurious hereditary powers. "By the nation at large," writes Dr. Robert Chambers, "the measure was contemplated as a last stab to the independence of Scotland, previously almost destroyed by the Union."[8] There is
- ↑ Smollett's History of England, ii. 79.
- ↑ An Act for Abolishing the Heritable Jurisdictions, 1747, p. 19.
- ↑ Boswell's Johnson, iii. 202, n. 1.
- ↑ Scotland and Scotsmen, &c., ii. 94.
- ↑ Old Mortality, ed. 1860, ii. 14.
- ↑ An Act for Abolishing, &c., p. 17.
- ↑ Boswell's Johnson, v. 292.
- ↑ History of the Rebellion in Scotland, ed. 1827, ii. 293.
