Agnews of Lochnaw

264 THE EIGHTH .HEREDITARY SHERIFF. [1628.
" Also he took from Hew Kennedy in Ariehenien for sitting
Sheriff upon the service of Anna Hathorne as heir to umquhile
Hew Hathorne, her Father twenty merks ; his clerk twenty
pounds for the retour.
" The same day he took other ten merks from a merchant
boy called Thomas M'Crakane in Stranraver for sitting Sheriff
to serve him general heir to his umquhile Father.
" He apprehended lately, in the month of July, 1628 years,
a common thief, called Eoss, who stole many nolt out of Carrick,
especially part of them from John Kennedy Younger of Knock-
daw and from divers others. Another thief sold the same in
Kirkcolm, which goods the Sheriff intromitted with and appre-
hended the thief; whereupon young Knockdaw followed the
(first) thief and his goods and apprehended him, and desired
justice of him before the Sheriff, and offered to find caution to
pursue the thief to the death. The Sheriff refused and gave
young Knockdaw some of his own goods back, detained the rest,
transacted with the thief and let him go free to Ireland," etc.
These charges the Sheriff was fortunately able to answer to
the satisfaction of the Lords of the Council ; and that he stood
high in the estimation of his neighbours is evident from the fact,
that in the following Parliament (said to have been the first in
which the principles of election were at all generally thought of)
he was unanimously chosen to represent the county.
Even at the period of the accession of Charles I., although it is
said that agriculture was retrograding, that the native forest had
entirely disappeared, and with it deer, roe, and the swine which
had formerly run wild in the woods ; yet the state of Galloway
was by no means wretched, as it became in the following reigns,
and the baronage were by no means in bad case. On this subject
we are able to give the impressions of an intelligent visitor, with
no predispositions in favour of the county.
William Lithgow, the celebrated traveller, after having seen
more of the world than most of his contemporaries, and having
traversed the province in its length and breadth, bears an agree-
able testimony to the condition of our ancestors.