l and pleasure of his majesty, whose deputies and
agents I have ever considered all inferior magistrates to be,
administering and exercising, as they do, their power and authority in
his royal name.

The ways and means, however, by which this was brought to pass, supply
matter for another chapter; and after this, it is not my intent to say
any thing more concerning my principles and opinions, but only to show
forth the course and current of things proceeding out of the affairs, in
which I was so called to form a part requiring no small endeavour and
diligence.

CHAPTER IV--THE GUILDRY

When, as is related in the foregoing chapter, I had nourished my
knowledge of the council into maturity, I began to cast about for the
means of exercising the same towards a satisfactory issue. But in this I
found a great difficulty, arising from the policy and conduct of Mr
Andrew M'Lucre, who had a sort of infeftment, as may be said, of the
office of dean of guild, having for many years been allowed to intromit
and manage the same; by which, as was insinuated by his adversaries, no
little grist came to his mill. For it had happened from a very ancient
date, as far back, I have heard, as the time of Queen Anne, when the
union of the kingdoms was brought to a bearing, that the dean of guild
among us, for some reason or another, had the upper hand in the setting
and granting of tacks of the town lands, in the doing of which it was
jealoused that the predecessors of Mr M'Lucre, no to say an ill word of
him, honest man, got their loofs creeshed with something that might be
called agrassum, or rather, a gratis gift. It therefore seemed to me
that there was a necessity for some reformation in the office, and I
foresaw that the same would never be accomplished, unless I could get Mr
M'Lucre wised out of it, and myself appointed his successor. But in this
lay the obstacle; for every thing anent the office was, as it were, in
his custody, and it was well known that he had an interest in keeping by
that which, in vulgar parlance, is called nine points of the law.
However, both for the public good and a convenience to myself, I was
resolved to get a finger in the dean of guild's fat pie, especially as I
foresaw that, in the course of three or four years, some of the best
tacks would run out, and it would be a great thing to the magistrate that
might have the disposal of the new ones. Therefore, without seeming to
have any foresight