to be applied; but owing to the inexperience of the executioner, he was balked in this design, and Mr Carstairs was finally remanded without further injury.

Under the threat of a renewal of his sufferings, and the assurance, ratified by a decree of court, that whatever he told should not be employed against any individual, this gentleman subsequently communicated a few particulars, by which he saved himself, but which were used, without scruple, as an adminicle of proof against the unfortunate Baillie of Jerviswood. Carstairs, however, received much approbation from his party for his general conduct throughout the whole of these trying circumstances. He possessed at this time some secrets of great importance, which had been intrusted to him by Fagel, the celebrated Dutch minister, and a divulgence of which would have not only saved him from every other question, but procured him some considerable benefits from the government. From his concealing these, Fagel, as he himself assured Burnet, saw how faithful Carstairs was, and this was the foundation of the extraordinary confidence afterwards reposed in him by William III., who made him virtually, if not nominally, the viceroy of Scotland.

It is worthy of remark, that, after the Revolution, when Carstairs had come into high power, the privy-council, then composed of different persons, presented to him the identical instrument by which he had been so severely tortured a few years before. It is related that, being one day at court, the king said to him: 'I have heard, principal, that you were tortured with something they call thumbikens: pray what sort of an instrument of torture is it?' 'I will shew it you,' answered Carstairs, the next time I have the honour to wait on your Majesty. The principal was as good as his word. 'I must try them,' said the king: I must put in my thumbs here: now, principal, turn the screw. Oh, not so gently-another turn-another -Stop! stop! no more: another turn, I am afraid, would make me confess anything.'

It is curious to know that the addition of the thumbikens to the torturing apparatus of the privy-council gave a

shock to public feeling, and would have fixed some opprobrium upon the members of that all-powerful body, if they had not contrived thereby to gain a few confessionssuccess thus covering in some measure the atrocity of the means. We are indebted for this information to the painstaking Lord Fountainhall, who very coolly adds, that, in some of these successful cases, the thumbikens had proved their efficiency over the boots, because tried upon persons having small legs. It is not the least interesting circumstance connected with what is here related, that, after the Revolution, when Carstairs, and other sufferers under the iniquitous government of the latter Stuarts, were elevated to places of deserved honour, with the enjoyment of the highest popularity, the Earl of Perth was visited by a punishment, irregular it is true, and reprehensible in as far as it partook of popular violence and tyranny on the part of the government, but yet only a natural retribution in the course of circumstances for his odious cruelty. Leaving his house in Edinburgh a prey to the populace, and trembling for his life, he embarked in a small vessel at Burntisland, designing to follow King James to France. The vessel became an object of suspicion to some individuals at the neighbouring sea-port of Kirkcaldy, from which a boat was immediately launched with an armed company, and, the earl being overtaken, was detected under a mean disguise, stripped of everything he had, and thrown into the common prison of the latter burgh. There was not now a more wretched or abject man in the kingdom than he who had lately held its highest state-office. It appears to have been with some difficulty that he was rescued from the populace, and immured by the new government in Stirling Castle, where he endured a contemptuous captivity of four years, after which he became a fellow-exile with his unhappy master.

Notwithstanding that King William would appear to have been made acquainted with the nature of the torture used in Scotland, his accession did not produce an abandonment of the disgraceful practice. In the Claim of Right framed by the Scottish parliament in April 1689, it

is only declared that the using of torture, without evidence, or in ordinary crimes, is contrary to law. It requires no elaborate commentary to prove that, when there was evidence of extraordinary crimes, torture might still be lawfully used in Scotland, subsequently to the Revolution. There is at least one case in which the thumbikens were employed under the sign-manual of the new sovereign. This was the case of Neville Penn or Payne, the person to whom George Duke of Buckingham addressed his Essay on Reason and Religion. He was accused of having gone to Scotland to form a Jacobite plot, and was accordingly by virtue of the king's warrant, put to the thumbikens, but without making any disclosure. This was probably the last occasion of the use of torture in our country; but it was not till the year 1708, when the legislature of England and Scotland had become one, that the practice was theoretically abolished. An act of the British parliament, passed in that year for improving the union of the two kingdoms, was the legal deathblow of the system, by enacting, among other beneficial regulations, that no person accused of any crime in Scotland should thenceforward, under any circumstances, be liable to the torture.

ENSIGN MARTYN'S FIRST SCRAPE.

I was just nineteen when I saw myself gazetted to an ensigncy in Her Majesty's -th Highlanders. What a proud day that was for me! My kind, good parent, gave me carte blanche on that prince of all tailors, Buckmaster, and I hastened up to London, determined to avail myself of it to the utmost. My outfit was splendid. My epaulets would have suited a captain; my claymore was at least three inches longer, and my satin scarf six inches wider than the regulation: and I sent to Scotland for a Cairngorm brooch, as large as a saucer, to loop the

latter up with. Before I had time to shew off in my uniform, I was ordered to join the depôt of my regiment -then, alas! entombed in the depths of Ireland. With many a sigh I was obliged to relinquish dear Cheltenham in all its gaiety. One consolation, however, remained, which was the certainty that my departure would occasion the most profound grief to some half-a-dozen belles. On my arrival in Dublin, I devoted a few days to see all that was to be seen, and then started to join my depôt, which was quartered in Birr, or Parsonstown, as it is sometimes called, chiefly celebrated for a huge statue of the famous Duke of Cumberland, and a superabundance of young unmarried ladies. I was agreeably disappointed in the barracks, which are handsome and commodious. In truth, I must confess I had landed on the Green Isle with not a few of the English prejudices which are so generally entertained against Ireland. I was received with the utmost cordiality by my brother-officers, and for many weeks could not help feeling a slight degree of pride when a soldier saluted me. The well-appointed mess, too, had its charms, where all was light-hearted gaiety and badinage.

About a month after I had joined, I received by post the following letter:

'STOKWELL STREET, Glasko. July 3d, 1839.

MY DEREST LUVE- -A glad and a happie woman was I to sea you had suckseded in yure endeevors to get the apointmant you have bene so long trying about. Yure own name, two, in print. Yure mother was sore overcome with the joy. But just to think you ar at last an offisher. Wel, William dere, you were in the rite, I now sea, insteed of stayin hear, drawin teeth for a sixpense, and bleedin and blisterin for sometimes naething at al. I wood have wrote to you long ago, but thot you wood like some littel time to settel down, and get things made cumfortabel for mee in baraks. Rite to mee, my dere husband, and say when I am to cum to you, for I am weerying to sea you once more; four yeres is a long time

to leeve yure wife and bairns; but as our neeybor Jenny Haivers sais, a' is for the best. Yure mother is quite wel; only her site not quite as it used to bee. No more at present, but hopping too here from you sune.-Yure luving wife, til deth, ISABELLA MARTIN.

The babby's ar wel.'

This elegant epistle, directed to Mr William Martin, Esq. -th regiment, Parsonstown, was folded in a most original manner, and closed with a red wafer, which bore the unique and humble impression of a thimble. I examined the precious morceau minutely, and was not long in determining from whom it came. 'Some more of Lacy's confounded tricks: another of his numerous hoaxes,' I exclaimed; and I resolved to answer it in manner conforming. As nearly as I can recollect, I wrote as follows:

'ADORABLE ISABELLA - Your letter has given the greatest pleasure to your too long separated husband. Come, dearest, immediately, and complete my happiness. Without thee, life even in a barrack-room-embellished as it always is with unpapered walls, two wooden chairs, one small table, and half a poker-could not be long supportable. In the midst of my brother-officers, a set of unfeeling youths, who dance, ride, fish, shoot, and smoke cigars, without a single thought of matrimony, I only sigh and think of thee-thee whose elegance and accomplishments I have never seen equalled in all my wanderings. Come, then, my angel, and never more be parted from-Your ever-affectionate husband,

WILLIAM MARTYN.

Mrs William Martin, Stockwell Street, Glasgow.'

This rhapsody I carefully consigned to the lettersergeant, being quite confident it would soon find its way back to the author of Isabella's fond effusion. At mess that evening I fancied I detected a lurking smile of intelligence pass between Lacy and Power: I kept my own counsel, however, quite pleased with having paid them off with their own coin. A few weeks elapsed,