Genealogy of the family of Forbes

XV
run by 200,Q00 beggars, not 150 years ago. This is one-fifth of
its population at that lime, and our only relief is the total im-
probability of the assertion : yet the laws enforced against these
masterly freebooters, seem to infer that the people had need of
every prompt measure to ensure their safety ffom the depreda-
tions and assaults of these vagabonds, masterly beggars, sorners,
&c. &c. &c. who infested the whole kingdom, and even kept the
towns in awe and alarm. — To come nearer the subject of our
publication, the times when Mr. Mathew Lumsden and Mr. W,
Forbes flourished (say from 1540 till 1700) were probably the
most wretched in Scottish history. Religious strife, long mino-
rities, civil war, fanaticism, usurpation and tyrannical reaction,
were constant in succession during these 160 years : so that at
last the country, torn to pieces by foreigners and its own chil-
dren, reached the lowest state of misery, poverty and decay.
The towns were almost deserted, is well as a great part of the
cultivated grounds ; the national spirit seemed quite withered
and perverted, as must ever be the case, after duplicity and cun-
ning have long been permitted with success to i^surp the place
of nobler qualities. Rapine and destruction were the arts of the
remote country districts, and these were ohly contrasted in the
towns aod more populous parts of the country by hypocritical pre-
tensions to religion and morose gravity, covering every species of
fraud, circumvention and chicanery. While the kingdom every
where exhibited these melancholy changes from the ancient cha-
racter and customs, the seats of justice were corrupt and tyran-
nical beyond any former examples ; the law arrived at what has
since been afBxed to the period, as its distinctive title, its
worst season ; and, to Use the official language of the times, a
great proportion of the judgments " stunk of iniquity." Having
by accident met with an ancient document descriptive of some of
the military proceedings in the Highlands, after the battle of
Dunbar had submitted the kingdom to Cromwell, we here insert it,
as it is a document liable to be little resorted to el5e^vhe^e, and
5» both ancient and curious.