stance of popular bigotry
occurred at Pittenweem. A strolling vagabond, who affected fits, laid an
accusation of witchcraft against two women, who were accordingly seized
on, and imprisoned with the usual severities. One of the unhappy
creatures, Janet Cornfoot by name, escaped from prison, but was
unhappily caught, and brought back to Pittenweem, where she fell into
the hands of a ferocious mob, consisting of rude seamen and fishers. The
magistrates made no attempts for her rescue, and the crowd exercised
their brutal pleasure on the poor old woman, pelted her with stones,
swung her suspended on a rope betwixt a ship and the shore, and finally
ended her miserable existence by throwing a door over her as she lay
exhausted on the beach, and heaping stones upon it till she was pressed
to death. As even the existing laws against witchcraft were transgressed
by this brutal riot, a warm attack was made upon the magistrates and
ministers of the town by those who were shocked at a tragedy of such a
horrible cast, There were answers published, in which the parties
assailed were zealously defended. The superior authorities were expected
to take up the affair, but it so happened; during the general
distraction of the country concerning the Union, that the murder went
without the investigation which a crime so horrid demanded. Still,
however, it was something gained that the cruelty was exposed to the
public. The voice of general opinion was now appealed to, and in the
long run the sentiments which it advocates are commonly those of good
sense and humanity.

The officers in the higher branches of the law dared now assert their
official authority and reserve for their own decision cases of supposed
witchcraft which the fear of public clamour had induced them formerly to
leave in the hands of inferior judges, operated upon by all the
prejudices of the country and the populace.

In 1718, the celebrated lawyer, Robert Dundas of Arniston, then King's
Advocate, wrote a severe letter of censure to the Sheriff-depute of
Caithness, in the first place, as having neglected to communicate
officially certain precognitions which he had led respecting some recent
practices of witchcraft in his county. The Advocate reminded this local
judge that the duty of inferior magistrates, in such cases, was to
advise with the King's Counsel, first, whether they should be made
subject of a trial or not; and if so, before what court, and in what
manner, it