Series 3 > Minutes of the Synod of Argyll, 1639-1651 (1652-1661) > 1639-1651

INTRODUCTION
ix
copy made at the Restoration was in Duncanson’s pos¬
session, but there is no reference to it in the Synod minutes
until 31st July 1752, when Robert Thomson, minister at
Killean and Kilkenzie, is noted as having produced it to
the Synod with an explanation that he had discovered it
among the papers of James Bowes, minister of the Lowland
congregation at Campbeltown, and a well-known corre¬
spondent of Woodrow’s. Bowes had died in 1749, and had
entered on his ministry at Campbeltown in 1694, three
years before Duncanson’s death. The Synod for many
years after 1752 seem to have taken no action with regard
to the manuscript, but in June 1769 it was agreed that it
should be transcribed, and a copy, probably executed at
that time, and consisting, like the original, of two sections,
is in the possession of the Synod. This copy has become
the sole authority for the proceedings of April 1639, April
1651 and October 1651, and for portions of the proceedings
of May 1640 and October 1650, the outside leaves of Dun¬
canson’s first section having since then become detached
or partially defaced. In this volume these portions of the
minutes are shown in a distinctive type.
In the course of time the eighteenth-century copy, being
written in a good hand and substantially bound, seems to
have come to be regarded as part of the records of the
Synod, and was exhibited to me as such when I first
obtained access to the Synod papers in 1927. It was quite
clear, however, from internal evidence that it was only a
copy of a copy, and, on making further enquiry, I discovered
that Duncanson’s original manuscript had been bound up
at the instance of some former clerk of Synod in a volume
entitled Scroll Minutes, which includes, in addition to a
number of actual Scroll minutes, the original record of
the Synod’s visitations of the Presbytery of Skye in 1695
and 1696, duly docqueted as approved by the General
Assembly.