SURVEY OF ACCOUNTING 4TH EDITION EDMONDS

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Chapter 10

An Introduction to Management Accounting

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Ashley Bradshaw is the manager of one department in a large store. In this capacity, which of the
following kinds of information would she be interested in?

A. Economic data
B. Financial data
C. Nonfinancial data
D. Both Financial data and Nonfinancial data

2. All of the following are features of managerial accounting except:

A. information is provided primarily to insiders such as managers.

B. information includes economic and non-financial data as well as financial data.
C. information is characterized by objectivity, reliability, consistency, and accuracy.
D. information is reported continuously with a present or future orientation.

3. Choose the answer that is not a distinguishing characteristic of financial accounting information.

A. It is global information that reflects the performance of the whole company.

B. It is focused primarily on the future.
C. It is more concerned with financial data than physical or economic data.
D. It is more highly regulated than managerial accounting information.

4. Managerial accounting information is limited or restricted by which of the following authorities or

principles?

A. Securities and Exchange Commission

B. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
C. Managerial Accounting Standards Board
D. Value-Added Principle

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5. Select the incorrect statement regarding the relationship between type of user and type of
information.

A. Middle managers need more nonfinancial, or operational data than do senior executives.
B. Assembly line supervisors need more immediate feedback on performance than do senior
executives.
C. Senior executives need less aggregated information than do lower-level managers.
D. Senior executives use general economic information as well as financial information.

6. Select the correct statement regarding managerial and financial accounting.

A. Users of managerial accounting information desire greater aggregation than do users of

financial accounting information.
B. Both managerial and financial accounting use economic and physical data in addition to
financial data.
C. Financial accounting is more highly regulated than managerial accounting.
D. Timeliness is more important in financial accounting than in managerial accounting.

7. Which of the following most exemplifies the value-added principle?

A. An ongoing process where continuous improvement is the goal

B. A competitive management program that emphasizes quality
C. Information gathering and reporting activities should be restricted to those activities that add
value in excess of their cost.
D. Managerial accounting information is measured in economic, physical, and financial terms.

8. Which of the following costs would be classified as a direct cost for a company that produces
motorcycles?

A. Rent of manufacturing facility that produces motorcycles

B. Seats used in the motorcycles
C. Wages of motorcycle assembly workers
D. Both Seats used in the motorcycles and Wages of motorcycle assembly workers are correct.

9. Which of the following is a product cost for a construction company?

A. Cost of transporting raw materials to the job site

B. Wages paid to the company's payroll clerk
C. Rent of the company's main office
D. All of these.

10. For a manufacturing company, product costs include all of the following except:

A. indirect material costs.

B. warehousing costs.
C. direct labor costs.
D. All of these are product costs.

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11. During its first year of operations, Connor Company paid $50,000 for direct materials and $36,000
in wages for production workers. Lease payments and utilities on the production facilities
amounted to $14,000. General, selling, and administrative expenses were $16,000. The company
produced 5,000 units and sold 4,000 units for $30.00 a unit. The average cost to produce one unit
is which of the following amounts?

A. $20.00
B. $16.00
C. $18.40
D. $25.00

12. During its first year of operations, Forrest Company paid $30,000 for direct materials and $50,000
in wages for production workers. Lease payments, utility costs, and depreciation on factory
equipment totaled $15,000. General, selling, and administrative expenses were $20,000. The
average cost to produce one unit was $2.50. How many units were produced during the period?

A. 40,000
B. 46,000
C. 38,000
D. None of these.

13. Why do accountants normally calculate cost per unit as an average?

A. Determining the exact cost of a product is virtually impossible.

B. Some manufacturing-related costs cannot be accurately traced to specific units of product.
C. Even when producing multiple units of the same product, normal variations occur in the amount
of materials and labor used.
D. All of these are justifications for computing average unit costs.

14. Which of the following costs is not considered to be a period cost?

A. Warehousing costs
B. Depreciation of delivery vehicles
C. Salaries paid to company executives
D. Freight paid on a purchase of raw materials

15. Select the incorrect statement regarding costs and expenses.

A. Some costs are initially recorded as expenses while others are initially recorded as assets.
B. Expenses are incurred when assets are used to generate revenue.
C. Manufacturing-related costs are initially recorded as expenses.
D. Non-manufacturing costs should be expensed in the period in which they are incurred.

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16. Which of the following costs should be recorded as an expense?

A. Administrative employee salaries

B. Depreciation of manufacturing equipment
C. Insurance for the factory building
D. All of these are expenses.

17. Which of the following costs should not be recorded as an expense?

A. Insurance on factory building

B. Sales commissions
C. Product shipping costs
D. Product advertising

18. Which of the following transactions would cause net income for the period to decrease?

A. Paid $2,500 cash for raw material cost

B. Purchased $8,000 of merchandise inventory
C. Recorded $5,000 of depreciation on production equipment
D. Paid $2,000 for production supplies

19. Which of the following statements is true with regard to product costs versus general, selling, and
administrative costs?

A. Product costs associated with unsold units appear on the income statement as general
expenses.
B. General, selling, and administrative costs appear on the balance sheet.
C. Product costs associated with units sold appear on the income statement as cost of goods sold.
D. None of these is true.

20. Which of the following statements concerning product costs versus general, selling, and
administrative costs is false?

A. Product costs incurred during the period will initially appear as inventory on the balance sheet.
B. General, selling, and administrative costs are always expensed when paid.
C. Product costs may be divided between the balance sheet and income statement.
D. General, selling, and administrative costs never appear as inventory on the balance sheet.

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21. During its first year of operations, Silverman Company paid $14,000 for direct materials and
$19,000 for production workers' wages. Lease payments and utilities on the production facilities
amounted to $17,000 while general, selling, and administrative expenses totaled $8,000. The
company produced 5,000 units and sold 3,000 units at a price of $15.00 a unit.

What is Silverman's cost of goods sold for the year?

A. $50,000
B. $24,600
C. $30,000
D. $41,000

22. During its first year of operations, Silverman Company paid $14,000 for direct materials and
$19,000 for production workers' wages. Lease payments and utilities on the production facilities
amounted to $17,000 while general, selling, and administrative expenses totaled $8,000. The
company produced 5,000 units and sold 3,000 units at a price of $15.00 a unit.

What is the amount of gross margin for the first year?

A. $15,000
B. $24,000
C. $20,000
D. $45,000

23. During its first year of operations, Silverman Company paid $14,000 for direct materials and
$19,000 for production workers' wages. Lease payments and utilities on the production facilities
amounted to $17,000 while general, selling, and administrative expenses totaled $8,000. The
company produced 5,000 units and sold 3,000 units at a price of $15.00 a unit.

What is the amount of finished goods inventory on the balance sheet at year-end?

A. $10,000
B. $20,000
C. $4,000
D. $15,000

24. During its first year of operations, Silverman Company paid $14,000 for direct materials and
$19,000 for production workers' wages. Lease payments and utilities on the production facilities
amounted to $17,000 while general, selling, and administrative expenses totaled $8,000. The
company produced 5,000 units and sold 3,000 units at a price of $15.00 a unit.

What was Silverman's net income for the first year in operation?

A. $7,000
B. $12,000
C. $28,000
D. $37,000

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25. Manufacturing costs that cannot be traced to specific units of product in a cost-effective manner
are:

A. depreciation on production equipment.

B. direct material.
C. indirect labor.
D. Both depreciation on production equipment and indirect labor.

26. What is the effect on the balance sheet of recording a $200 cash purchase of raw materials?

A. Assets decrease by $200 and equity decreases by $200.

B. Assets and equity do not change.
C. Assets increase by $200 and equity increases by $200.
D. Assets increase by $200 and equity does not change.

27. What is the effect on the balance sheet of making cash sales of inventory to customers on profit?

A. Assets and equity increase.

B. Assets and equity decrease.
C. Assets decrease and equity increases.
D. Assets increase and equity decreases.

28. Which of the following types of labor costs will never flow through the balance sheet?

A. Plant supervision
B. Sales commissions
C. Material handling
D. Assembly labor

29. Which of the following is not classified as manufacturing overhead?

A. Product delivery costs

B. Supervisory labor
C. Factory insurance
D. Production supplies

30. Kirsten believes her company's overhead costs are driven (affected) by the number of direct labor
hours because the production process is very labor intensive. During the period, the company
produced 5,000 units of Product A requiring a total of 1,600 labor hours and 2,500 units of Product
B requiring a total of 400 labor hours. What allocation rate should be used if the company incurs
overhead costs of $20,000?

A. $10 per labor hour

B. $2.67 per unit
C. $12.50 per labor hour for Product A and $50 per labor hour for Product B
D. None of these.

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31. Anton believes his company's overhead costs are driven (affected) by the number of machine
hours because the production process is heavily automated. During the period, the company
produced 3,000 units of Product A requiring a total of 100 machine hours and 2,000 units of
Product B requiring a total of 25 machine hours. What allocation rate should be used if the
company incurs overhead costs of $10,000?

A. $2 per unit
B. $2 per machine hour
C. $80 per unit
D. $80 per machine hour

32. The following information relates to Cruz Manufacturing for 2013:

Based on this information, what is the company's cost of goods sold for 2013?

A. $86,000
B. $120,000
C. $114,000
D. $170,000

33. The following information relates to Marshall Manufacturing's 2013 accounting period:

Based on this information, what is the company's net income for 2013?

A. $40,000
B. $70,000
C. $30,000
D. $42,000

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34. Costs such as transportation-out, sales commissions, uncollectible accounts receivable, and
advertising costs are sometimes called:

A. upstream costs.
B. downstream costs.
C. direct costs.
D. indirect costs.

35. All of the following are downstream costs except:

A. packaging costs
B. advertising
C. research and development
D. sales commissions

36. Select the incorrect statement regarding upstream and downstream costs.

A. Companies normally incur significant downstream costs.

B. To be profitable, companies must recover the total cost of developing, producing, and delivering
products.
C. Pricing decisions must consider both upstream and downstream costs in addition to
manufacturing costs.
D. Upstream and downstream costs are reported as product costs on the income statement.

37. Select the incorrect statement regarding service companies.

A. Because service companies do not carry inventory, it is impossible to determine product costs.
B. Because the products of service companies are consumed immediately, there is no finished
goods inventory on their balance sheets.
C. Managers of service companies are expected to control costs, improve quality, and increase
productivity just like managers of manufacturing companies.
D. Material, labor, and overhead costs of service companies are treated as period costs.

38. Identify the false statement regarding how product costs in a manufacturing company differ from
product costs in a service or merchandising company.

A. Both manufacturing companies and service companies incur costs for supplies.
B. Manufacturing companies accumulate product costs in inventory accounts, while service
companies do not.
C. Products of service companies such as restaurants are consumed immediately.
D. Most labor costs for merchandising companies are treated as product costs.

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39. The following information relates to Minimart's 2012 accounting period:

Based on this information, Minimart's total manufacturing costs for 2012 equal:

A. $75,000
B. $87,000
C. $57,000
D. $50,000

40. The following information relates to Minimart's 2012 accounting period:

Minimart's work in process inventory at the beginning of 2012 was $12,000, and work in process
inventory at the end of 2012 was $10,000. Minimart's cost of goods manufactured in 2012 equal:

A. $77,000
B. $89,000
C. $59,000
D. $52,000

41. Costs associated with holding inventory often include:

A. theft, damage, and obsolescence.

B. financing.
C. warehouse space.
D. supervision.
E. All of these.

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42. A company that uses a just in time inventory system:

A. has finished goods inventory on hand at all times in order to speed up shipments of customer
orders.
B. may find that having less inventory actually leads to increased customer satisfaction.
C. assesses its value chain to create new value-added activities.
D. adopts a systematic, problem-solving attitude.

43. Howard Lumber Company mistakenly classified a product cost as an expense that totaled
$20,000. The company produced 2,000 units of product and sold 1,000 of them during the year.
Management is paid a bonus equal to 2% of net income. In the year in which the mistake was
made:

A. product costs were overstated.

B. management bonuses were underpaid.
C. the company's income statement portrayed a more favorable position than actually existed.
D. the company's net income was overstated.

44. Assuming a company's inventory increased during the period, which of the following
misclassifications may increase net income?

A. Recording administrative salaries as a product cost

B. Recording depreciation on production equipment as an expense
C. Expensing raw material costs instead of including them in inventory
D. Recording depreciation on production equipment as an expense and Expensing raw material
costs instead of including them in inventory

45. During her first year with the company, Ann mistakenly accumulated some of the company's
period costs in ending inventory. Which of the following indicates how this error affects the
company's financial statements assuming number of units produced exceeded number of units
sold during the period?

A. Cash flows from operations are understated.

B. Gross margin is unaffected.
C. Net income is overstated.
D. Inventory is understated.

46. If a company misclassifies a general, selling and administrative cost as a product cost in a period
when production exceeds sales:

A. net income will be overstated.

B. total assets will be understated.
C. gross margin will be understated.
D. Both net income will be overstated and gross margin will be understated.

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47. Which of the following is not a reason management might be tempted to classify costs as assets
rather than expensing them during periods in which production exceeds sales?

A. The company's bank may be more likely to extend financing to the firm.
B. Income taxes will be lower.
C. Net income will be higher.
D. Management bonuses may be higher.

48. Certified Management Accountants (CMA) must complete a specified number of continuing
professional education credits each reporting period. Which of the four standards of ethical
conduct issued by the Institute of Management Accountants likely motivated this requirement?

A. Confidentiality
B. Competence
C. Integrity
D. Objectivity

49. Which of the following is not one of the four Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management
Accountants?

A. Credibility
B. Confidentiality
C. Integrity
D. Independence

50. As a Certified Management Accountant, Suzanne is bound by the standards of ethical conduct
issued by the Institute of Management Accountants. During the course of business, Suzanne
learned that her company has decided to discontinue a major product line. If she mentions this
fact to her brother, who is a stockbroker, Suzanne could be in violation of the:

A. competence standard.
B. confidentiality standard.
C. integrity standard.
D. objectivity standard.

51. As a Certified Management Accountant, Derek is bound by the standards of ethical conduct
issued by the Institute of Management Accountants. According to the standards, Derek has a
responsibility to:

A. inform subordinates that they should protect confidential information.

B. ensure that financial accounting records are maintained as per the governing guidelines.
C. monitor the activities of subordinates to assure that confidentiality is maintained.
D. inform subordinates that they should protect confidential information and monitor the activities
of subordinates to assure that confidentiality is maintained.

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52. As a Certified Management Accountant, Grace is bound by the standards of ethical conduct
issued by the Institute of Management Accountants. If she accepts an expensive gift from a
vendor trying to win a contract with her firm, which of the following standards will she violate?

A. Integrity
B. Confidentiality
C. Competence
D. Objectivity

53. Which of the following is not a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002?

A. The chief executive officer and the chief financial officer are jointly responsible for
establishment and enforcement of internal controls.
B. Companies are required to report on the effectiveness of their internal controls.
C. The company's external auditor is charged with the ultimate responsibility for the accuracy of
the company's financial statements and accompanying footnotes.
D. The company's external auditors are required to attest to the accuracy of the internal controls
report.

54. Which of the following practices is not considered an effective means of reengineering business
systems?

A. Identifying the best practices used by world-class competitors

B. Improving the accuracy of cost allocations
C. Increasing non-value added activities
D. All of these are effective means of reengineering business systems.

55. Levenworth Company incurs unnecessary costs each period because of the excess quantities of
inventory maintained to meet unexpected customer demand. The costs of inventory financing,
storage, supervision, and obsolescence could most likely be reduced by which of the following
practices?

A. Activity-based costing
B. Just-in-time inventory
C. Total quality management
D. Benchmarking

56. During which of the following activities, value is considered to be added to a product or service
takes place?

A. Process time
B. Move time
C. Inspection time
D. Rework time

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57. Which of the following best represents a characteristic of managerial accounting?

A. Information is historically based and reported annually.

B. Information is based on estimates and is bounded by relevance and timeliness.
C. Information is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
D. Information is characterized by reliability and objectivity.

58. Which of the following statements concerning manufacturing costs is incorrect?

A. All salaries incurred by the sales department are expensed as incurred.

B. Direct labor costs are recorded initially in an inventory account.
C. Depreciation on manufacturing equipment is a period cost.
D. The cost of direct materials can be readily traced to products.

59. Steuben Company produces dog houses. During 2013, Steuben Company incurred the following
costs:

Wages paid to factory machine operators in producing the dog houses should be categorized as:

A. a product cost and recorded in the inventory account

B. a period cost and recorded on the income statement
C. a product cost and recorded on the income statement
D. a period cost and recorded in the inventory account

60. Steuben Company produces dog houses. During 2013, Steuben Company incurred the following
costs:

Based on the above information, the amount of period costs shown on Steuben's 12/31/2013
income statement is:

A. $430,000
B. $150,000
C. $30,000
D. $180,000

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61. Steuben Company produces dog houses. During 2013, Steuben Company incurred the following
costs:

Based on the above information, which of the following would not be treated as a product cost:

A. office manager's salary

B. rent expense incurred on manufacturing facility
C. depreciation on manufacturing equipment
D. salaries of factory machine operators

62. The benefits of a just-in-time system would include all of the following except:

A. increased warehousing costs.

B. reduced inventory holding costs.
C. improved customer satisfaction.
D. decrease in the number of suppliers.

63. The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002:

A. prohibits CPA's from becoming managerial accountants.

B. created Generally Accepted Accounting principles (GAAP).
C. requires the CEO and CFO to defer responsibility for internal controls to external auditors.
D. requires management to establish a whistleblower policy.

64. A systematic problem-solving philosophy that encourages front line workers to achieve zero
defects is known as:

A. just-in-time (JIT).
B. total quality management (TQM).
C. activity based management (ABM).
D. None of these.

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65. Randall Company manufactures chocolate bars. The following were among Randall's 2013
manufacturing costs:

Randall's 2013 direct labor costs amounted to:

A. $400,000
B. $300,000
C. $175,000
D. $375,000

66. Randall Company manufactures chocolate bars. The following were among Randall's 2013
manufacturing costs:

Randall's 2013 direct materials amounted to:

A. $25,000
B. $225,000
C. $250,000
D. $475,000

67. Which of the following items would be reported directly on the income statement as a period cost?

A. Selling and administrative salaries

B. Cost of lubricant for oiling machinery
C. Wages paid to machine operators
D. All of these.

True / False Questions

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Another random document with
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cross the Forth. Even that part of his army which was discomfited by
the Earl of Mar, had nevertheless become possessed of the principal
standard of the enemy.
This day was fatal to the cause of the Chevalier in another part of
the kingdom. The large party of united Scots and English, under
Forster, had penetrated to Lancashire, without gaining any such
accessions of force as had been expected. On the 12th of November
they were assailed in the town of Preston by a considerable force
under General Willis, who had concentrated the troops of a large
district in order to oppose their march. For this day, they defended
themselves effectually by barricading the streets; but next day the
enemy was increased by a large force under General Carpenter, and
the unfortunate Jacobites then found it necessary to surrender, upon
the simple condition that they should not be immediately put to the
sword. Forster, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Wintoun, and Mackintosh, with
upwards of a hundred other persons of distinction, including a brave
and generous young nobleman, the Earl of Derwentwater, were taken
prisoners. The common men, in number about fourteen hundred,
were disposed about the country in prisons, while their superiors
were conducted to London, and, after being exposed in an
ignominious procession on the streets—a mark of the low taste as
well as of the political animosity of the time—imprisoned in Newgate
on a charge of high treason.
The affairs of the Chevalier now began to decline in Scotland. The
Earl of Sutherland, having established a garrison at Inverness,
afforded to the Earl of Seaforth and the Marquis of Huntly an excuse
for withdrawing their forces from Perth. Some of the other clans
went home to deposit their spoil, or because they could not endure to
be taunted for their bad behaviour at Sheriffmuir. The army being
thus reduced to about four thousand men, various officers began to
think of capitulating with the Duke of Argyle. To this there was one
serious objection. In compliance with a pressing invitation which
they had despatched in better times, they were daily expecting their
prince to arrive amongst them. Nevertheless, the Earl of Mar was
compelled to open a negotiation with the royalist general. In answer
to their message, the duke informed them that he had no power to
treat with them as a body, but would immediately send to court to
ask for the required instructions. They were in this posture when the
unfortunate son of James VII. landed (December 22) at Peterhead,
and advanced to the camp to put himself at their head. The Earl of
Mar and some other officers went to Fetteresso to meet him, and to
apprise him of the present state of his affairs. Although greatly
dejected by what he heard, and much reduced in health by a severe
ague, he resolved to establish himself in royal state at Perth, in the
hope of reanimating the cause. Advancing through Brechin and
Dundee, he entered Perth in a ceremonious manner on the 9th of
January; but he could not conceal his mortification, on finding how
much his forces were reduced in number. It was, nevertheless,
determined that he should be crowned at Scone on the 23d. If he was
disappointed with his adherents, they were no less so with him.
Whether from natural softness of character, or through the influence
of his late malady, or from despair of his present circumstances, he
appeared exceedingly tame and inanimate; quite the reverse, in every
respect, of the bold and stirring chief required for such an enterprise.
The Duke of Argyle, having now received large reinforcements
from England, besides three thousand Dutch troops, sent in terms of
the treaty of Utrecht, found himself as superior in numbers to the
Earl of Mar as that general had been to him in the early part of the
campaign. On the 23d of January, the day on which the Chevalier
was to have been crowned, the royalist troops commenced their
march upon Perth, through deep snow. To retard their progress, all
the villages upon the road were burned by the insurgents. It was now
debated at Perth whether they ought to remain within the town and
defend themselves against the royal forces, who, in this weather,
must suffer severely in the fields, or to march northward and
disperse. A great part of the clans were anxious in the highest degree
for a battle with the duke; but the safety of the Chevalier’s person
was a consideration which precluded all desperate hazards. It was
resolved to vacate Perth. Accordingly, on the 30th of January, a day
ominous to the House of Stuart, from its being the anniversary of the
death of Charles I., the remains of the Highland army deployed
across the river, then covered with thick ice, and marched to Dundee.
The duke entered the town with his vanguard, only twelve hours
after the rear-guard of the insurgents had left it. But the state of the
roads rendered it impossible for him, with all the appurtenances of a
regular army, to overtake the light-footed mountaineers. He followed
on their track towards Aberdeen, at the distance of one or two
marches behind them. At Montrose, the Chevalier and the Earl of
Mar provided for their own safety by going on board a French vessel.
The army, which had been fast declining by the way, was finally
disbanded on the 7th of February at Aberdeen, after which every
man shifted for himself. Thus ended the insurrection of 1715, an
enterprise begun without concert or preparation, and which
languished so much throughout all its parts, that it could hardly be
considered in any other light than as an appearance of certain friends
of the House of Stuart in arms.
The Earl of Derwentwater and the Viscount Kenmure were the
only individuals of distinction who suffered death for this rebellion.
They were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 24th of February. All the
rest of the noblemen and gentlemen taken at Preston either made
their escape from Newgate, which on this occasion manifested a
peculiar irretentiveness, or were pardoned. About twenty inferior
persons were executed. There were, however, at least forty families of
distinction in Scotland whose estates were forfeited. It is to be
mentioned, to the honour of the Argyle family, that they counselled
lenient measures, and set the example by not taking advantage of the
law against such of their vassals as had forfeited their estates into
their hands as superiors.
The miserable failure of this effort for the House of Stuart, and its
dismal consequences, neither allayed the wishes nor extinguished
the hopes of the Jacobite party. Firm in the principle of hereditary
right, convinced that the prosperity and happiness of the country
could only be secured through their legitimate prince, seeing in every
shortcoming and error of the reigning house and ministry
confirmation of their doctrines, they never once faltered in believing
that a restoration was worthy of a civil war. They only admitted now,
that, for success, the assistance of some foreign state was
indispensable.
Unfortunately for the hopes of the party, the favour of France for
the Stuart cause was at this time lost, in consequence of the necessity
which the Regent Orleans felt himself under of cultivating the
alliance of Britain, that he might strengthen himself against the
Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon. Even a home could no
longer be afforded by France for the unfortunate son of James VII.;
and it now occurs, as a curious instance of the vicissitudes of fortune
among historical persons, that the diplomate who negotiated for his
expulsion beyond the Alps (the Earl of Stair) was the grandson of one
whom James VII. had driven to Holland little more than thirty years
before.
Rather oddly, while the Stuart party lost France, prospects opened
to them in quarters wholly new. It pleased the half-crazed Charles
XII. of Sweden to take umbrage at George I. for aid given to some of
his enemies; and he formed the resolution to dethrone the British
monarch, and replace his rival. There was only a total want of ships
of war and transports for effecting this object. Even from the great
rival of the Swede, Peter of Russia, some hopes were at one time
entertained. At length, Spain, under the ambitious politics of her
celebrated minister Alberoni, found it for her interest to take up in a
decided manner the cause of the Stuart. In spring 1719, an
expedition, comprehending a few companies of infantry and a
considerable quantity of arms, passed from St Sebastian to the isle of
Lewis, under the care of the Earl Marischal and the Marquis of
Tullibardine, designing to raise and arm the Highland clans. A
landing was effected in Loch Alsh amongst the friendly Mackenzies,
whose chief, the Earl of Seaforth, accompanied the expedition, and
very quickly there were a thousand natives in arms, in addition to the
Spanish companies. But a foreign force of such a trivial character was
quite insufficient to induce a general rising. While the Jacobite chiefs
lingered in Glenshiel, with only about fifteen hundred men in arms, a
government force of rather superior numbers was conducted
northward by General Wightman. It would have been easy to prevent
this force from entering the Mackenzie country; but no attempt to
that effect was made. The two parties came into conflict on the 11th
of June, and the royal commander had 142 men killed and wounded,
without accomplishing a decisive victory. It was seen, however, by
the Jacobite chiefs, two of whom were wounded, that nothing more
could be effected at present; and it was therefore arranged that the
Spanish troops should next day surrender themselves, while the
Highlanders should disperse. General Wightman was happy to carry
southwards 274 Spanish prisoners, without attempting to inflict any
punishment upon the rebels.
For some years afterwards, the agents of the Stuart prince were
actively engaged in keeping up his interest in Scotland. A large
proportion of the Highland clans and of the Lowland nobility and
gentry, along with the entire body of the Episcopalian clergy, were
his friends; but with the great bulk of the Presbyterian middle classes
his pretensions found little favour, and in the constantly increasing
comfort of the people through the pursuits of peaceful industry his
chance was always becoming less. Having married a Polish princess,
he became in 1720 the father of a prince named Charles Edward, who
was destined to make one last and brilliant, but unsuccessful effort
for the restoration of the family.
King George I., dying in June 1727, was quietly succeeded by his
son George II., with little change in the Whig set of statesmen by
which the affairs of the country had long been conducted. During the
latter years of the first Hanover sovereign, the Duke of Argyle and his
brother, the Earl of Ilay, were the men of chief influence in Scotland.
It was a period remarkable in several respects, but particularly for
the first decided development of the industrial energies of the
people, and for considerable changes in their manners and habits.
For a number of minor incidents, verging or trenching on the domain
of political history, reference must be made to the chronicle.
The strong sense of religious duty at this 1714. Oct.
time connected with the observance of
Sunday, is strikingly shewn in the conduct of the deputation sent by
the Church of Scotland to present a loyal address to George I. on his
accession. Reaching Barnby Moor on a Saturday night, and finding
there was no place of public worship which they were ‘clear’ to attend
within a reachable distance, ‘we resolved,’ says Mr Hart, ‘to spend
the Lord’s Day as well as we could. So each having retired alone for
some time in the morning, we breakfasted about ten of the clock, and
after that Messrs Linning, Ramsay, Adams, Mr Linning’s man, and I,
did shut our chamber-door, and went about worship. I read, sung,
and prayed, and then we retired again to our several chambers, and
met about two of the clock, and Mr Ramsay read, sung, and prayed;
and after that we retired to our several chambers, and met between
four and five, supped, and, after supper, Mr Linning read, sung, and
prayed, and after we had sat a while we retired, and so prepared for
bed. Thus we spent the Lord’s Day at Barnby Moor.’
It may be imagined that no small distress was given to the clergy
generally two years after, when it was reported that Mr William
Hamilton and Mr William Mitchell, in returning recently from
London, had travelled post on a Sabbath-day, with the horn
sounding before them. The presbytery of Edinburgh took up the case
in great grief and concern, and called the two reverend brethren to
give an explanation of their conduct, which fortunately they were
able to do very satisfactorily. Arriving at Stilton on a Saturday night,
and finding there was no accommodation for the next day but in a
public-house, while there was no place where they could rightly join
in worship nearer than Stamford—that is to say, no Presbyterian or
dissenting meeting-house—they had been induced to start on their
journey to the latter place next morning, when, as they were upon
post-horses, it was a matter of course, and needful for safety, that
they should have a boy going before to blow a horn. The presbytery
was satisfied; but one strenuous brother, Mr James Webster, who
was not distinguished by a charitable temper, or much moderation of
words, broke out upon them on this score in his pulpit—not in a
sermon, but in the course of his prayer—and was rebuked on this
account by the presbytery.[467]

For many years after the Revolution, the 1715. Feb.

sombre religious 1715.
feelings of the
community forbade even an attempt at the revival of theatrical
performances. If there was anywhere an inclination to see
Shakspeare, Otway, Congreve, or Addison, put into living forms on
the stage, it was restricted to the same obscurity in the breast which
entertained it, as devotion to the mass or doubts regarding
witchcraft. The plays and other examples of light literature of the age
of Anne did at length begin to find their way from London to
Edinburgh, there to meet a not wholly ungenial reception from at
least that portion of society which professed Episcopacy, not to speak
of a certain minority of the gay, who have usually contrived to exist
even amidst the most gloomy puritanism. Time, moreover, was
continually removing the stern men of the seventeenth century, to be
replaced by others of gentler convictions. The natural love of
amusement began to assert itself against the pride of asceticism and
self-denial. Englishmen were constantly coming in as government
officers, or in pursuit of business, and bringing with them new ideas.
Thus it came to pass that, about the beginning of the Hanover
dynasty, Scotland began to think that it might indulge now and then
in a little merriment, and no great harm come of it. It must be
owned, however, that during much of the eighteenth century, there
was great truth in a simile employed in the preface to a play
published in Edinburgh in 1668, which likened the drama in
Scotland to ‘a swaggerer in a country church.’[468]
The very first presentment of any public theatricals that can be
authenticated, occurred in the early part of 1715, just before the
breaking out of the unfortunate insurrection. We know little about it
besides that a corps was then acting plays at the Tennis Court, near
Holyrood Palace.[469]
‘We have now,’ says a contemporary letter-writer, ‘got a playhouse
set up here in the Tennis Court, to the great grief of all sober good
people; and I am surprised to see such diversions as tend so much to
corrupt men’s manners patronised and countenanced by some of
whom I expected better things.... Mr Webster and several other
ministers have given a testimony against them; and for so doing are
mocked by a great many that you would 1715.
scarce suspect. Particularly, Mr Webster is
very much cried out against for saying no more but that whoever in
his parish did attend these plays should be refused tokens to the
sacrament of the Supper.’[470]
The presbytery of Edinburgh was alive to the danger of allowing
stage-plays to be acted within their borders, and adverted to the
Canongate theatricals in great concern on the 23d of March 1715.
‘Being informed,’ they said, ‘that some comedians have lately come to
the bounds of this presbytery, and do act within the precincts of the
Abbey, to the great offence of many, by trespassing upon morality
and those rules of modesty and chastity which our holy religion
obligeth all its professors to a strict observance of, therefore the
presbytery recommends to all their members to use all proper and
prudent methods to discourage the same.’[471] It is at the same time
rather startling to find that three of the ministers who went as a
deputation to pay the respects of the Church of Scotland to George I.
on his accession in 1714—namely, Mitchell, Ramsay, and Hart—went
at Kendal to see the comedy of Love for Love acted.
 A celebrated total eclipse of the sun, Apr. 22.
which happened about nine o’clock in the
morning of this day, made a great impression in Scotland, as in other
parts of Europe, over which the entire shadow passed. The darkness
lasted upwards of three minutes, during which the usual phenomena
were observed among the lower animals. The Edinburgh bard, Allan
Ramsay, heralded the event with a set of verses, embracing all the
commonplaces connected with it; adding,
‘The unlearned clowns, who don’t our era know,
From this dark Friday will their ages shew,
As I have often heard old country men
Talk of Dark Monday[472] and their ages then.’

Whiston, in his Memoirs, relates what will be to philosophical

persons an amusing anecdote of this eclipse. When the accounts of it
were published beforehand in the streets of London, telling when it
would commence, and that it would be total, a Mohammedan envoy,
from Tripoli, thought the English people were distracted in
pretending to know what God Almighty 1715.
would do; which his own countrymen could
not do. ‘He concluded thus, that God Almighty would never reveal so
great a secret to us unbelievers, when he did not reveal it to those
whom he esteemed true believers. However, when the eclipse came
exactly as we all foretold, he was asked again what he thought of the
matter now; his answer was, that he supposed we knew this by art
magique; otherwise he must have turned Christian upon such an
extraordinary event as this was.’

Mr James Anderson, so honourably July.

known as editor of the Diplomata Scotiæ,
was rewarded for his public services by the appointment of Deputy
Postmaster-general, in place of George Mein. A mass of his
correspondence, preserved in the Advocates’ Library, makes us
acquainted with the condition in which he found postal matters, and
the improvements which he effected during two or three subsequent
years.
We learn that the horse-posts which existed many years back on
some of the principal roads, had, ere this time, been given up, and
foot-runners substituted, excepting perhaps upon what might be
called the aorta of the system, from Edinburgh to Berwick. In this
manner direct bags were conveyed as far north as Thurso, and
westwards to Inverary. There were three mails a week from
Edinburgh to Glasgow, and three in return; the runners set out from
Edinburgh each Tuesday and Thursday, at twelve o’clock at night,
and on Sundays in the morning, and the mails arrived at Glasgow on
the evening of Wednesday and Friday, and on the forenoon of
Monday. For this service the Post-office paid £40 sterling per
annum, but from the fraudulent dealing of the postmaster of Falkirk,
who made the payments, the runners seldom received more than
from £20 to £25.
‘After his appointment, Mr Anderson directed his attention to the
establishment of horse-posts on the western road from Edinburgh.
The first regular horse-post in Scotland appears to have been from
Edinburgh to Stirling; it started for the first time on the 29th
November 1715. It left Stirling at two o’clock afternoon, each
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and reached Edinburgh in time
for the night-mail to England. In March 1717, the first horse-post
between Edinburgh and Glasgow was established, and we have the
details of the arrangement in a memorial addressed to Lord
Cornwallis and James Craggs, who jointly filled the office of
Postmaster-general of Great Britain. The 1715.
memorial states that the “horse-post will set
out for Edinburgh each Tuesday, and Thursday, at eight o’clock at
night, and on Sunday about eight or nine in the morning, and be in
Glasgow (a distance of thirty-six miles by the post-road of that time)
by six in the morning on Wednesday and Friday in summer, and
eight in winter, and both winter and summer will be on Sunday
night.” There appears to have been a good deal of negotiation
connected with the settlement of this post, in which the provost and
bailies of Glasgow took part. After some delay, the matter appears to
have been arranged to the satisfaction of all parties.
‘A proposition was made at this time to establish a horse-post
between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, at a cost of £132, 12s. per annum,
to supersede the foot-posts, which were maintained at a cost of £81,
12s. The scheme, however, appears not to have been entertained at
that time by the Post-office authorities.
 ‘In the year 1715, Edinburgh had direct communication with sixty
post-towns in Scotland, and in the month of August the total sum
received for letters passing to and from these offices and Edinburgh,
was £44, 3s. 1d. The postage on letters to and from London in the
same month amounted to £157, 3s. 2d., and the postage for letters
per the London road, amounted to £9, 19s., making the total sum for
letters to and from Edinburgh, during that month, amount to £211,
5s. 3d.—equal to £2535, 3s. per annum.
‘In 1716, the Duke of Argyle, who had then supreme control in
Scotland, gave orders to Mr Anderson to place relays of horses from
Edinburgh to Inverness, for the purpose of forwarding dispatches to,
and receiving intelligence from, the army in the Highlands under
General Cadogan. These posts worked upon two lines of roads—the
one went through Fife, and round by the east coast, passing through
Aberdeen; the other took the central road viâ Perth, Dunkeld, and
Blair Athole. These horse-posts were, however, discontinued
immediately after the army retired.’[473]
In October 1723, the authorities of the Edinburgh Post-office
announced a thrice-a-week correspondence with Lanark, by means
of the horse-post to Glasgow, and a runner thence to Lanark. The
official annonce candidly owns: ‘This at first sight appears far about’
(it was transforming a direct distance of thirty-one miles into sixty-
six). But ‘the Glasgow horse-post running all night makes the
dispatch so quick, that the letters come this 1715.
way to Lanark in twenty, or at most twenty-
two hours, and from Lanark to Edinburgh in twenty-four hours at
most.’

Two Renfrewshire gentlemen, of whose July 18.

previous dealings with each other in
friendship or business we get but an obscure account, came to a
hostile collision in Edinburgh. Mr James Houston, son of the
deceased Sir Patrick Houston of that Ilk, was walking on a piece of
pavement called the Plainstones, near the Cross, when Sir John
Shaw of Greenock came up with a friend, and the two gentlemen,
designedly or not, slightly jostled each other. Mr Houston put his
hand to his sword, but had not time to draw it before Sir John fell a-
beating him about the head and shoulders with his cane, which,
however, flying out of his hand, he instantly took to his sword, and
before the bystanders could interfere, passed it twice through Mr
Houston’s body.
It was at first thought the man was slain outright; but he was
surviving in a sickly state in the ensuing January, when he raised a
criminal prosecution against the knight of Greenock, and succeeded
in obtaining from him a solatium to the amount of five hundred
pounds.[474]

On the breaking out of the Rebellion this Sep.

month, there was a run upon the Bank of
Scotland, rather encouraged by the directors than otherwise, from a
desire to escape the responsibility and danger of keeping money
during such a critical time. When the whole coin was drawn out, the
Bank rendered up about thirty thousand pounds of public money
which lay in its hands, that it might be lodged in the Castle, and then
very calmly stopped payment, or rather discontinued business,
intimating that their notes should bear interest till better times
should return. In May 1716, the troubles being over, the Bank began
to take in their notes and resume business as usual.[475]

At this crisis, when a formidable Sep. 29.

insurrection was breaking out, the officers
intrusted with the support of the government were not in the
enjoyment of that concord which is said to give strength. The Justice-
clerk (Cockburn of Ormiston) was on bad terms with both the Earl of
Ilay and the Lord Advocate, Sir David 1715.
Dalrymple. The animosity between two of
these men came to a consummation which might be said to prefigure
the celebrated wig-pulling of Sir Robert Walpole and Lord
Townshend. The Earl of Ilay writes at this date from Edinburgh:
‘There has happened an accident which will suspend the Justice-
clerk’s fury against me; for he and the King’s Advocate have had a
corporal dispute; I mean literally, for I parted them.’[476]

Oct. 18.
 In a letter of this date, written at Musselburgh by the Rev. J.
Williamson, minister of that place, some recent domestic events are
alluded to—as ‘the lamentable murder of Doctor Rule last week by
Craigmillar’s second son, and the melancholy providence of a
jeweller’s servant, who was under some dejection for some time, and
did, on Monday last, immediately after sermon, at Leith, run into the
sea deliberately, and drown himself.’ There had been a new election
of Scots peers at Holyrood for the first parliament of the new reign,
and they were all of one sound loyal type—‘a plain evidence of our
further slavery to the English court.’ In reference to this, a fruit-
woman went about the Palace-yard, crying: ‘Who would buy good
pears, old pears, new pears, fresh pears—rotten pears, sixteen of
them for a plack!’[477]

Died, William Carstares, Principal of the Dec. 28.

University of Edinburgh, noted as having
been the intimate friend of King William, and his adviser about all
Scottish affairs; for which reason, and his influence over the fortunes
of the church, he was popularly known by the name of Cardinal
Carstares. It must ever be considered a great honour to the Church
of Scotland to have had the affectionate support of such a man. A
sufferer under the severities of the pre-Revolution government, he
inclined, when his day of power came, to use it with moderation. His
temperate counsels and practice are believed to have had a great
effect in smoothing the difficulties which at first surrounded the
Presbyterian establishment. His probity and disinterestedness have
been above all question. King William said ‘he had known him long
and well, and he knew him to be an Honest Man.’ In the midst of the
contentious proceedings of this period, to light upon the gentle
prudence, the unostentatious worth, and the genial unselfishness of
Carstares, has the effect of a fine, soothing 1715.
melody amidst discord. There are a few
anecdotes of this eminent man, which no one can read without
feeling his heart improved.
A newly widowed sister coming from the country to see him, when
he was engaged in consultations of importance with some of the
officers of state, he instantly left these personages and came to her;
insisted, against her remonstrances, on staying a short while with
her, and giving her a prayer of consolation; then, having appointed a
more leisurely interview, he returned with the tears scarcely effaced
from his countenance, to his noble company.
His charities, which were truly diffusive, were often directed to the
unfortunate Episcopal clergy. One, named Caddell, having called
upon him, he observed that the poor man’s clothes were worn out,
and discreditable to his sacred calling. Instantly ordering a suit to be
prepared for a man of Caddell’s size, he took care to have them first
tried upon his own person when his friend next waited upon him.
‘See,’ said he, ‘how this silly fellow has misfitted me! They are quite
useless to me. They will be lost if they don’t fit some of my friends.
And, by the by, I daresay they might answer you. Please try them on,
for it is a pity they should be thrown away.’ Caddell, after some
hesitation, complied, and found that the clothes fitted him exactly.
With his hard-wrung permission, they were sent home to him, and
he found a ten-pound note in one of the pockets.
It is said that many of the ‘outed’ clergy were in the custom of
receiving supplies, the source of which they never knew till Mr
Carstares’s death. At his funeral, two men were observed to turn
aside together, quite overcome by their grief. Upon inquiry, it was
found they were two nonjurant ministers, whose families, for a
considerable time, had been supported by the benefactions of him
they were laying in the grave.[478]
If the partisans of particular doctrines and formulæ were to try
occasionally upon each other the effect of kindly good offices such as
these, might they not sometimes make a little way with their
opponents, instead of merely exasperating and hardening them, as,
under existing circumstances, they almost invariably do?

John Kellie, corporal in the Earl of Stair’s 1716. Apr. 21.

regiment, was put into the Edinburgh
Tolbooth for killing John Norton, sergeant of the same regiment, in a
duel near Stirling. He was liberated at the 1716.
[479]
bar, on the 23d July ensuing.
The fighting of duels by private soldiers, now never heard of,
seems then to have been not uncommon. The Edinburgh Courant of
February 16, 1725, states: ‘This morning, two soldiers of the regiment
that lies in the Canongate were whipped for fighting a duel.’

The Whig government of George I., May 21.

having now got the lay Jacobites effectually
put down, bethought itself of the clergy of the defeated party, the
Episcopalians, who had made several active demonstrations during
the late insurrection, and constantly stood in a sort of negative
rebellion, in as far as they never prayed for the king de facto. Under a
prompting from a high quarter, the Commissioners of Justiciary now
ordered the advocate-depute, Duncan Forbes, to proceed against
such of the Episcopal clergy in Scotland as had not prayed for King
George, or otherwise obeyed the late Toleration Act by registering
orders from a Protestant bishop. The consequent proceedings reveal
to us a curious view of the condition of Episcopacy at that time in
Edinburgh—at once comprehending a large number of clergy, and
existing in the greatest obscurity.
There were Mr William Abercrombie and Mr David Freebairn, Mr
Robert Marshall and Mr William Wylie, each described as ‘preacher
in the Episcopal meeting-house in Bailie Fyfe’s Close;’ Mr George
Johnston, Mr Robert Keith, and Mr Andrew Lumsdain, severally
described as ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Barrenger’s
Close;’ Mr Jasper Kellie, ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house
below the Fountain-well;’ Mr Thomas Rhind, ‘preacher in the
Episcopal meeting-house in Sandilands’ Close;’ Mr George Grahame,
‘preacher and user of the English Liturgy in his own house, to which
many do resort as an Episcopal meeting-house, in Canongate-head;’
Mr Andrew Cant, Mr David Lambie, Mr David Rankine, and Mr
Patrick Middleton, ‘preachers in the Episcopal meeting-house in
Skinner’s Close;’ Mr Henry Walker and Mr Patrick Home, each
described as ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Todrig’s
Wynd;’ Mr Robert Calder, ‘preacher, sometimes in Edinburgh,
sometimes in Tranent’ [the reputed author of Scots Presbyterian
Eloquence Displayed]; Mr William Milne and Mr William Cockburn,
‘preachers in the Episcopal meeting-house 1716.
in Blackfriars’ Wynd’ [the latter probably he
who had lately been chased by the mob out of Glasgow]; Mr James
Walker, ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Dickson’s
Close;’ Mr Alexander Sutherland, senior, and Mr Robert Chein,
‘preachers in the Episcopal meeting-house at the back of Bell’s
Wynd.’ Thus, we see there were ten places of worship in Edinburgh—
all in retired situations, and, strange to say, all within two hundred
yards or so of each other; having in all twenty-two ministers; being
considerably more than the number of the Established clergy then in
Edinburgh; but in what poverty they lived may be partly inferred
from the fact, that Thomas Ruddiman, the grammarian, when
attending an Episcopal meeting-house in Edinburgh in 1703, paid
only ‘forty shillings’ (3s. 4d.) for his seat for two years.[480]
Besides the twenty-two Edinburgh clergy, there were Mr Arthur
Miller, ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Leith,’ and Mr
Robert Coult and Mr James Hunter, ‘Episcopal preachers in
Mussleburgh,’ all involved in the same prosecution.
The result of their trial was a sentence, applicable to all except Mr
William Cockburn, forbidding them to exercise their ministerial
functions till they should have fulfilled the requirements of the law,
and amerciating them in twenty pounds each for not praying for
King George. The only visible difference between the old
persecutions and this was, that there was a populace to howl in the
one case, and not in the other. However, the authorities were
humane. The magistrates of Edinburgh were content to see that
letters of ordination were registered. When the Prince of Wales,
acting as regent, some time after sent them a secretary of state’s
letter, complaining that the sentence was not fully carried out—the
object being to compel a praying for his father—the magistrates
applied for instructions to the commissioners of Justiciary, and were
told that, having once passed sentence, the court could do nothing
more in the case. So the Episcopal meeting-houses in Bailie Fyfe’s,
Barrenger’s, Sandilands’, and other closes went on as before.[481]

William Mure of Caldwell travelling with Aug.

a party of friends from Edinburgh to Ross-
shire, came the first stage—namely, to the Queensferry—in a coach,
and afterwards proceeded on horseback. Writing an account of his
journey to his wife, from Chanonry, August 1716.
30, he says: ‘We came in coach to the Ferry
on Friday; and though we were once overturned, yet none of us had
any misfortune.’ Probably Mr Mure considered himself as getting off
very well with but one overturn in a coach-journey of eleven English
miles. He goes on: ‘We came that night to Perth, where the Master of
Ross and Lady Betty met us. On Saturday, we came to Dunkeld, and
were all night with the Duke of Athole. On Sunday, after sermon, we
left the ladies there, and came to the Blair.’ The ladies probably had
scruples about Sunday travelling; but Mr Mure, although a man of
notedly religious character, appears to have had none. ‘On Monday,’
he adds, ‘we made a long journey, and went to Glenmore, where my
Lord Huntly’s fir-woods are. On Tuesday, we came to Kilravock’s
house [Kilravock], and yesternight came here, which is the first town
in the shire of Ross.’[482] Thus a journey of about 170 miles occupied
in all six days.
In April 1722, the king being about to visit Hanover, certain
Scottish lords, amongst others, were appointed to attend him. It is
intimated in a London paper of April 28,[483] that they set out from
Edinburgh for this purpose on the previous Monday, the 23d; and
‘the roads being laid with post-horses, they are expected here as to-
morrow.’ That is, the journey would occupy in the way of posting
from Monday to Sunday, or seven days. It was one day more than the
time occupied in a journey from London to Edinburgh by the Duke of
Argyle in September 1715, when he posted down in the utmost haste,
with some friends, to take command of the troops for the resistance
to the insurgent Earl of Mar.
It appears that about this time there were occasional packet-ships,
by which people could travel between Edinburgh and London. In
1720, the Bon Accord, Captain Buchanan, was advertised as to sail
for London on the 30th June, having good accommodation for
passengers, and ‘will keep the day, goods or no goods.’ Two years
later, the ‘Unity packet-boat of Leith’ was in like manner announced
as to proceed to London on the 1st September, ‘goods or no goods,
wind and weather serving, having good accommodation for
passengers, and good entertainment.’ The master to be spoke with in
the Laigh Coffee-house.[484] But this mode of transit was occasionally
attended with vicissitudes not much less 1716.
vexatious than those of the pious voyager of
the Æneid. For example, we learn from a paragraph in an Edinburgh
newspaper, on the 15th November 1743, that the Edinburgh and
Glasgow packet from London, ‘after having great stress of weather
for twenty days, has lately arrived safe at Holy Island, and is soon
expected in Leith harbour.’
During the decade 1720–30, return chaises for London, generally
with six horses, are occasionally advertised. The small amount of
travelling which then prevailed is marked by the fact, that we find
such a conveyance announced on the 11th of May to set out
homeward on the 15th or 16th, and on the 18th re-advertised as to go
on the 2d or 3d of June, no one having come forward in the interval
to take advantage of the opportunity. We find, however, in 1732, that
a periodical conveyance had at length been attempted. The
advertisement states, ‘that the Stage Coach continues to go from the
Canongate for London, or any place on the road, every Wednesday
fortnight. And if any gentleman want a by-coach, they may call at
Alexander Forsyth’s, opposite to the Duke of Queensberry’s Lodging,
where the coach stands.’
In May 1734, a comparatively spirited effort in the way of
travelling was announced by John Dale and three other persons—
namely, a coach to set out towards the end of this week [pleasant
indefiniteness!] for London, or any place on the road, to be
performed in nine days, or three days sooner than any other coach
that travels the road.’
The short space between the two populous towns of Edinburgh
and Leith must have been felt as a particularly favourable field for
this kind of enterprise; and, accordingly, a ‘Leith stage’ was tried
both in 1610 and 1660,[485] but on both occasions failed to receive
sufficient encouragement. In July 1722, we are informed that, on the
9th instant, ‘two stage-coaches are to begin to serve betwixt
Edinburgh and Leith, and are to go with or without company every
hour of the day. They are designed to contain six persons, each
paying threepence during the summer, and fourpence during the
winter for their fare.’

This day met at Edinburgh a set of Sep. 1.

commissioners appointed under a late act
‘to inquire of the estates of certain traitors, and of popish recusants,
and of estates given to superstitious uses, in order to raise money out
of them for the use of the public.’ The first 1716.
and most prominent object was to
appropriate the lands of the Scottish nobles and gentlemen who had
taken part in the late insurrection for the House of Stuart. Four out
of the six commissioners were Englishmen, members of the House of
Commons, and among these was the celebrated Sir Richard Steele,
fresh from the literary glories he had achieved in the Tatler,
Spectator, and Guardian, from his sufferings in the Whig cause
under Anne, and the consolatory honours he attained under the new
monarch.
It was a matter of course that strangers of such distinction should
be honoured in a city which received few such guests; and doubtless
the government officials in particular paid them many flattering
attentions. But the commissioners very soon found that their
business was not an easy or agreeable one. There was in Scotland
plenty of hatred to the Jacobite cause; but battling off its adherents
at Sheriffmuir, and putting down its seminaries, the Episcopal
chapels, was a different thing from seeing an order come from
England which was to extinguish the names and fortunes of many
old and honourable families, and turn a multitude of women and
children out of house and home, and throw them upon the charity of
their friends or the public. Most of the unfortunates, too, had
connections among the Whigs themselves, with claims upon them for
commiseration, if not assistance; and we all know the force of the old
Scottish maxim—eternal blessings rest on the nameless man who
first spoke it!—that bluid is thicker than water.
It was with no little surprise and no little irritation that these
English Whig gentlemen discovered how hard it was to turn the
forfeited estates into money, or indeed to make any decent progress
at all in the business they came about. The first and most vexatious
discovery they made was, that there was a code of law and frame of
legal procedure north of the Tweed different from what obtained to
the south of it. The act was framed with a regard to the practices of
English law, which were wholly unknown and could not be
recognised in Scotland. Then as to special impediments—first came
the Scotch Court of Exchequer, with a claim under an act of the
preceding year, imposing a penalty of five hundred pounds and loss
of liferents and whole movables on every suspected man who did not
deliver himself up before a certain day: all of the men engaged in the
late insurrection had incurred this penalty; the affair came under the
Exchequer department; and it was necessary to discriminate between
what was forfeited by the one act and what was forfeited by the other.
There was something more obstructive, 1716.
however, than even the Scottish Exchequer.
The commissioners discovered this in the form of a body called the
Court of Session, or, in common language, ‘the Fifteen,’ who sat
periodically in Edinburgh, exercising a mysterious influence over
property throughout the country, and indulging in certain phrases of
marvellous potency, though utterly undreamed of in Southern
Britain. Here is how it was. The act had, of course, admitted the
preferable claims of the creditors of the traitors, and of those who
had claims for marriage and other provisions on their estates. On
petitions from these persons—in whose reality the commissioners
had evidently a very imperfect faith—this Court of Session had
passed what, in their barbarous jargon, they called sequestrations of
the said estates, at the same time appointing factors to uplift the
rents, for the benefit of the aforesaid persons in the first place, and
only the commissioners in the second. What further seemed to the
commissioners very strange was, that these factors were all of them
men notedly disaffected to the Revolution interest, most of them
confidential friends, some even the relatives, of the forfeited persons,
and therefore all disposed to make the first department of the
account as large, and the second as small, as possible. Nor was even
this all, for, as had been pointed out to them by some of the
Established clergy of Forfarshire, these factors were persons
dangerous to the government. For example, Sir John Carnegie of
Pitarrow, factor on the Earl of Southesk’s estate, was the man who,
on the synod of Angus uttering a declaration in 1712 for the House of
Hanover, had caused it to be burned at the head burgh of the shire.
John Lumsdain, who was nominated to the charge of the estates of
the Earl of Panmure, had greatly obstructed the establishment of the
church in the district, and proved altogether ‘very uneasy to
presbyteries and synods.’ Suppose the unruly king of Sweden should
land on the east of Scotland, there were all the tenants of those large
estates in the obedience of men who would hail his arrival and
forward his objects!
 The general result was, that the commissioners found themselves
stranded in Edinburgh, as powerless as so many porpoises on
Cramond sands, only treated with a little more outward respect. One
proposal, indeed, they did receive (January 1717), that seemed at first
to be a Scottish movement in their favour—namely, an offer from the
Lord Advocate (Sir David Dalrymple), with their concurrence, to
commence actions in the Court of Session for determining the claims
of creditors; but, seeing in this only an 1716.
endless vista of vexatious lawsuits, they
declined it, preferring to leave the whole matter to be disposed of by
further acts of the legislature.[486]

By virtue of the treason-law for Scotland, Sep. 3.

passed immediately after the Union, the
government this day suddenly removed eighty-nine rebel prisoners
from Edinburgh to Carlisle, to be there tried by English juries, it
being presumed that there was no chance of impartiality in Scotland.
The departing troop was followed by a wail of indignant lament from
the national heart. Jacobites pointing to it with mingled howls and
jeers as a proof of the enslavement of Scotland—Whigs carried off by
irresistible sympathy, and unable to say a word in its defence—
attested how much the government did by such acts to retard the
desirable amalgamation of the two nations. Under the warm feeling
of the moment, a subscription was opened to provide legal defences
for the unfortunate Scotsmen, and contributions came literally from
all sorts and conditions of men. Even the Goodman of the Tolbooth
gave his pound. The very government officials in some instances
were unable to resist an appeal so thrilling.
The list includes the names of nineteen of the nobility—namely,
Errol, Haddington, Rosebery, Morton, Hopetoun, Dundonald,
Moray, Rutherglen, Cassillis, Traquair, March, Galloway, Kinnoull,
Eglintoune, Elibank, Colville, Blantyre, Coupar, and Deskford, all for
considerable sums. Amongst other entries are the following: Lady
Grizel Cochrane, £6, 9s.; the Commissioners of Excise, £7, 10s. 6d.;
Mr George Drummond, Goodman of the Tolbooth [Edinburgh], £1;
John M‘Farlane, Writer to the Signet, 10s. 9d.; the Merchant
Company, £5; the Incorporation of Goldsmiths, £5; the
Incorporation of Tailors, £5; the Incorporation of Chirurgeons, £5;