begging you will favour me with an Account of the nature and business of the Signet office in Scotland; which, by the removal of the Duke of Roxburghe, falls to the two English Secretarys of State. I suppose it is by virtue of their having the Seals; so that they will want no patent or commission for that purpose. If I am mistaken in this point, I humbly pray your Lop will set me right; and that you will also inform me, what sort of constitution the Secretarys of State should give to those whom they shall think fit to entrust with the care of that Office; and, if they should be persons residing here, what deputation they are to give to yR person or persons that are to officiate for them at Edinburgh. I will not conceal from your Lop that the two Secretarys of State having determined to appoint each an under Secretary to be at the head of that Office, I shall come to be concerned in it: so that your favouring me with these informations will be more particularly an obligation to myself, who am with great truth & respect, I inclose a Letter from my Lord Duke of Newcastle to Maj' Gen' Wade; which his Grace desires you will forward to him by an Express. My Lord, No. CXXI. & most obedient Servant, CH: DELAFAYE. The Duke of Newcastle to the Lord Advocate. My Lord, Whitehall, Augt 24th 1725. HIS Majesty, not intending for the future to have any particular Secretary of State for Scotland, has been pleased to remove the Duke of Roxburghe from that Employment; and ordered his other Secretarys of State to take care of the department that his Grace had. As, in my Lord Townshend's absence, that must lye singly upon me; I must beg your Lop will be pleased to send me from time to time such accounts as you shall judge to be for His Maj's Service. It is a very great pleasure to me, that, in the execution of the King's Commands, I shall have the honour of your Lops Correspondence, and the happiness of your assistance; which will be the more necessary to me, who must be unacquainted with the Laws and methods of proceeding in your Country. I shall endeavour to supply those defects as far as I am able, by my attention to His Majesty's service; and to recommend myself to the good opinion of the King's faithfull subjects of Scotland, by promoting, as far as in me lyes, their interest and welfare; and pursuing those measures that may be for the honour & happiness of the United Kingdom. I HAVE the honour of yours of the 24th, which I cannot help looking on as a favour; since it gives me an opportunity to show how willing I am at least to serve you, and how pleas'd I am with any thing that may turn to your advantage. As As to the nature of the Office of His Majesty's Signet in Scotland, it is pretty much of the same kind that Keeper of the great or Privy Seal is; but with this difference, that the common fees of the office are all the salary that generally is annexed to it; which fees are more considerable than those of either of the other Seals, because of the multiplicity of business that goes thro' that office; all process from the Court of Session passing under the Signet Seal. The proper business of the Deputy or under Keeper, as he is called, is, by himself or his servant, to affix the Seal to all Writings that pass the office; to keep the Records of that office in good order; to collect the dues of the Signet, and to account for them to the principal Keeper; and, since the Union of the Crowns, to dispatch to London, and receive from it, the Secretary's Packet, commonly called the black Box, in which all public dispatches, Warrants, &c. are contained. As to the Constitution of the Office, the Signet does not properly belong to the Secretary's Office; tho', for time past memory, it has been annexed to it; but then it has been generally granted to the Secretary by a particular Commission under the great Seal of Scotland; and for your more perfect understanding the nature of such Commission, I transmit you a Copy from the Record of the last, which was given to the Duke of Roxburgh. The Principal Keeper, being so appointed, constitutes a Deputy or under keeper by a Commission; a Copy whereof, I mean of the last given by the Duke of Roxburgh, I have also inclosed to you. If you and any person in my Lord Townsend's office are to be appointed principal Keepers, you have but to joyn in a deputation according to the form transmitted to you; but if the two Secretarys of State are made principal Keepers, you'll take care, in your Commission from them, to have an ample power of deputation, and of appointing all inferior Officers; that you may be able to choose fit persons for the service of the public, and for doing yourselves justice. The value of the Office, in whole, runs, as I have been inform'd, from between £1500 to 17, or 1800 £. pr Ann; and the usual fee to the under Keeper is 100 ₤ certain, and one tenth part of the profits of the office, he being accountable for the remainder to the principal Keeper. As this under Keeper is the proper Officer through whose hand all the Secretary's dispatches pass, you doubtless will take care to pitch on a fit person for that trust; as well as on another fit person for a distinct office, called the Clerkship of the Signet, the fees whereof are a trifle, not exceeding 60, or 70 £ a year; which does not come out of the Keeper of the Signet's profits, but arises from a perquisite called drink-money payable to that officer. If there is any thing defective in this account, I shall supply it as well as I can, when you are pleas'd to put me any fresh question. уса I thank you for your goodness in sending me a Copy of the Magistrates of Glasgow's Papers. They begin to be insolent in hopes of impunity, which I cannot well imagine how they have conceived; but their tryal, when I am allowed to go on with it, will convince the world whether I have been in the wrong to them, as they willingly would have you, it seems, believe I was. I do not trouble you with any account of the cure lately wrought on our Brewers here; who seem to have returned to their senses only because they saw that we had force enough prepared to bind them had they continued mad; since I know that Earl Ilay has, by a more expeditious conveyance, given an account of those matters to the Duke of Newcastle, who has laid them before the Lords Justices; and I am very hopeful, that as the direction of the affairs of Scotland is now in his Grace's hands, the madness of the people, which was pretty much encouraged by the countenance they met with from the friends of a certain great man, will cool, and that things will speedily grow quiet. Since Earl Ilay has wrote as I mention'd to you, it will be unnecessary for me to trouble you with any publick Letter by this Post, tho' I have received yours of the 26th. I am; Sir, Your most obedient & most humble Ser Edinb' 31 Aug 1725. No. CXXIII. ch M' Scrope to the Lord Advocate. My Lord, Sep: ye 2a, 1725. THE News we came yesterday by an Express from my Lord Ilay, of your having put an end to the confederacy of ye Brewers, gave great pleasure to every body here; & S' R: W: told me this morning, y' he would very soon write to you himself, to return you thanks for ye part you have taken in y', & y zeal you have shewn in this whole affaire. I can't find but justice is done you in all Letters he hath received; & he is very sensible of every sort of difficulty you have to encounter wth. He told me, there was a Letter for me by y express, but it's not yet come to my hands; how y' comes to pass I don't know. I believe you will not have a Secretary of State in haste. I am, wth pfect truth & esteem, My Lord, Yo' most faithfull humble Serv No. CXXIV. J. S. Sir Robert Walpole to the Lord Advocate. Dear Sir, London, Sept. 4th 1725. I HAVE not hitherto troubled you, since you left this place, because you gave me leave to make use of Mr. Scrope's correspondence with you; both to inform myself of what was transacting among you, and likewise, from time to time, express the great satisfaction I had in y' vigilance and ability, in strugling with ye greatest difficulties that a Man could possibly be engag'd in; but ye great prospect that their now is of successe in all y' endeavours calls upon me not only to congratulate wth you, but to return you my thanks for ye Zeal you have shown for His Majesties Service, and ye indefatigable pains you have taken to extricate ye Government out of the greatest difficulties; and it is hard to determine, whether y' zeal, abilities, or resolution, is most to be comended. But I hope now you will find y' work easier, and if y alteration His Majesty has been pleased to make will tend at all towards facilitating y' future proceedings, it will be an additional satisfaction to me y' I have been able to contribute to y' convenience in advising what I thought absolutely necessary for His Majestie's Service. You will go on, S', to co-operate with ye Justice Generall; & I doubt not but, by y' joint endeavours, we shall soon see all those black clouds disipated that so lately threatned storms & confusion, I am very truly, Dear S', Y' most faithfull Humble Serv', *The Riots at Glasgow on account of the Malt Tax. R. WALPOLE. No. CXXV. Sir, No. CXXV. The Lord Advocate to M' Delafaye. AFTER the interruption of correspondence occasioned by my expedition to the Northern Parts of this Country, where by travelling I have improved my health beyond my own expectation, I return to my former practice of letting you hear weekly from me; which I take to be my duty, because it was my Lord Duke of Newcastle's command. Whilst I was in the North Country I made severall small progresses into the Highlands; and what on my first arrival at Inverness I wrote to you concerning the tranquility of those parts, I can now confirm from my own observation. In the whole of my Journey I did not see one highlander carry the least bitt of Arms, neither did I hear of any theft or robbery. The last Year's complaints and madness are very much stilled; and, from all appearances, I imagine the King's measures, pursued with common prudence, will produce Duty and Obedience where his enemies endeavoured to sow jealousy and disafection. In my way I made some enquiry after the Popish Priests and their practices, which with justice gives so much jealousy to our Kirk. I look for perfect information in a few days against Seven or 8 of the most troublesome of them. My Lord Duke of Newcastle was pleased, before I left London, to say, that ane Order should be sent to me to prosecute them at the Publick Charge. If this has slipped his Grace's Memory you will be so good as to put him in mind of it, and it will come still in time enough. Upon my arrivall here, I found every thing in the same quiet and tranquility as when I left it. The convention of Royall Burrows is next week to meet, in order to make their report to his Majesty in obedience to his late most gracious letter. I hope they will act as becomes Men so much indebted to his Majesty's goodness; but as I presume the Earl of Ilay, who is here, has acquainted the Ministers of any thing that may have hapned in this part of the Country worthy their observation, I shall not trouble you with any more on that subject. I beg you will be so good as to make my most sincere compliments to his Grace: he will easily pardon me for not troubling him with a letter, since I wrote to you. If his Grace has any. Commands for me, he knows my readiness to obey. Edinburgh, 29th October 1726. I am, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble Serv1. No. CXXVI. My Lord, The Duke of Newcastle to the Lord Advocate. Whitehall, Septem' 9th 1725. I HAD the honour of yo' Lord" of the 31" of last month, and am very much obliged to you for the assurance you give me of your assistance in the execution of His Maj Command with relation to Scotland. I am very glad I can now congratulate you upon the success with which your endeavours for His Majty's Service have been attended, in the happy prospect that we have of seeing very soon an entire end put to the disturbances that have of late appeared in so many shapes. As we are all here very sen sible sible of the part that yo' Lordp had acted throughout this whole proceeding, and of the ability and courage, that you have shewn to procure the execution of the Laws; yo' Lop may be assured, that I shall transmit a faithfull account to His Majty of your behaviour, which, I am sensible, you will think is the best Service I can do you. The Lords Justices are of opinion, that the prosecution of the four Brewers, who were committed, and were the principal Actors in the late combination, should be carryed on; & leave it to Lord Ilay and yo' Lop to direct in what manner it may be most ef fectually done. I have at present nothing else in command from the Lords Justices to your Lordp. I shall with pleasure receive whatever accounts you shall be pleased to send me of what passes in your parts of the Kingdom, and am with great truth, My Lord, Your Lops most obedient humble Servant, HOLLES NEWCASTLE. NOTE.-After a short confinement, Government thought fit to release the Magistrates of Glasgow without bringing them to trial. My Lord, No. CXXVII. The Duke of Newcastle to the Lord Advocate. Whitehall, July 16th 1726. I RECEIVED with the greatest pleasure the favour of your Lops Letter of the 7th instant, accompanying that in which the Lord Provost of Edinburgh inclosed the answer of the convention of the Royall Burroughs to His Majesty; and I laid it before the King; as also that which you wrote at the same time to Mr. Delafaye. I can assure you, His Majesty was extremely satisfyed with the good effect which the measure you suggested, of His Majesty's writing to that assembly, has had upon them; and that their Letter, and the turn of it, was very acceptable to His Majesty. The King has Commanded me to acquaint you, that the share you have had in contributeing to this good disposition in them is very acceptable to His Majesty; and His Majesty doubts not but you will be able to cultivate and improve it, to the honour and ease of the Government, and the quiet and welfare of the Country. I return you many thanks for the frequent accounts you take the trouble to send of what passes, and of the state of Affairs where you are, which the King reads with great satisfaction; and I beg you will be persuaded of the perfect sincerity and regard with which I am, My Lord, YOUR Letter, dated from Balnagown the 24th of November, I received, and shall do what I can about it. I am under some concern to find that our friend Sir John Gordon, of Enbo, is like to be drawn into the scrape about the false certificates of Arms in Sutherland. Some |