el
with all the intelligence and zeal that, earlier, had been so miserably
employed to the ruin and destruction of her fellow-creatures. It is to be
hoped that the coolness and reflection of maturity gave her grace to
repent of the sins of her girlhood, and that after-penitence wiped out the
terrible stains of youthful lying and murder.

MISCELLANEOUS.

That same year also Sir John Maxwell, of Pollok, and some other gentlemen,
were commissioned to try two poor women, Mary Millar and Elspeth M'Ewen,
and if guilty adjudge them to death; which they were found to be, and
adjudged accordingly; and a few months after, Margaret Laird--still in
Renfrewshire--was reputed to have been "under ane extraordinary and most
lamentable trouble, falling into strange and horrible fits, judged by all
who have seen her to be preternatural, arising from the devil and his
instruments." The suspected witches who were accused of troubling her,
were seized and put upon their trial. So was Mary Morrison, spouse of
Francis Duncan; but her husband petitioned so earnestly for her release
for sake of her "numerous poor family" starving in neglect at home, and
there being no kind of proof against her, she was at length released and
set at liberty. "The Lord-Advocate soon after reported to the Privy
Council a letter he had received from the Sheriff of Renfrewshire, stating
that 'the persons imprisoned in that county as witches are in a starving
condition, and that those who informed against them are passing from them,
and the sheriff says he will send them in prisoners to Edinburgh Tolbooth,
unless they be quickly tried.' His lordship was recommended to ask the
sheriff to support the prisoners till November next, when they would
probably be tried, and the charges would be disbursed by the treasury. A
distinct allowance of a groat a day was ordered on the 12th of January,
1699, for each of the Renfrewshire witches."[71]

In July of the same year, Ross-shire contributed a famous quota. Twelve
luckless creatures were reported at once as being guilty of the
"diabolical crimes and charms of witchcraft," and by the 2nd of January,
1700, two of them had confessed, and were sentenced to such arbitrary
punishment as the committee might think proper. "This is the first
appearance of an inclination in the central authorities to take mild views
of witchcraft," says Chambers; but we have not seen the last of capital
punishments, for on the 20th of November, 170