Series 2 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society

DISTRESSED CHURCH OF FRANCE IN 1622 185
French commissioner intended to visit Aberdeen, but
changed his mind. James Roberton, a regent of Glasgow
University, writing to Boyd of Trochrig, on the 4th of
April 1622, says: ‘ Monsr. Basnage, the commissioner
from France to gather contributions for the Protestants,
has writt to you. I wonder what holds him so long at
Edinburgh. He has given over his journey to Aberdeen,
and said to me he was going to Perth and Stirling and
thence to you. What I saw in him I shall show you at
meeting. Our ministers, that came home from Margaret
Wallace assize and burning [at Edinburgh], say he is to
be here yet. Our town has contribute 5000d. merks, the
bishop’s thousand will make it six ; I think he will produce
it for his promise sake.’ Apparently the contribution of
the town was not included in that of the presbytery
of Glasgow, which only amounted to £1040 Scots.1
From Basnage’s double receipt (in French and in the ver¬
nacular) which I have transcribed from the original (belong¬
ing to the Trustees of Sir William Fraser, K.C.B.), it is seen
that the sixteen churches of the presbytery of Haddington
raised £2305 Scots. The names are arranged in conformity
with their liberality, Haddington heading the list with
£666, 13s. 4d., and Morham, Barra, and Garvald closing it,
each with £13, 6s. 8d. It will be noticed that Keith-
Marischal and Keith-Humbie, which Scott says were
united in 1618,2 are entered separately, the former having
given £200 and the latter £15, 6s. 8d. When the items
are added together they amount, not to £2305, but to
£2304, 13s. 2d. No doubt some one in charge had given
the necessary 6s. lOd. to make the money even. Basnage
signed the discharge, in presence of four witnesses, on the
23rd of March 1622. The first of the four, N. Wduart,
1 Wodrow’s Collections upon the Lives of the Reformers, Maitland Club,
vol. ii., part i., pp. 167, 168.
2 Scott’s Fasti, 1866, vol. i. p. 339.