RECORDS OF THE BURGH OF LOCHMABEN. 115 
good and undoubted right to take the government and administra- 
tion of the burgh till Michaelmas next ; the Court had, therefore, 
dismissed the complaint in name of Robert Maxwell (who had 
been elected Provost) and others, and found them jointly and 
severally liable to Provost Dickson and the other complainers in 
expenses, which they modified to the sum of three hundred pounds 
sterling, besides the fees of extract, which amounted to £82 11s Od. 
Closely associated with the lawless proceedings before 
narrated, a notable trial took place in the High Court of 
Justiciary at Edinburgh in January, 1797, when eight men were 
charged with the masterful seizing, carrying off by violence, and 
detaining William Walls, a councillor of the Burgh of Loch- 
maben, with a view to influence the election of the member of 
Parliament there. The names of the accused persons were as 
follows: John Lindsay, writer and messenger at arms in Loch- 
maben; Duncan Henderson, residenter in Dumfries; John 
Henderson, his son; William Steedman, lately returned from 
America, and then residing at Lochmaben; John Dobie, son of 
John Dobie, late of Tundergarth ; John Lockerbie, residenter in 
Lochmaben ; Peter Forrester, joiner in Lochmaben; and James 
Thorburn, mason in Blackrig, near Lochmaben. Councillor 
Walls at the trial deponed that, being entitled to vote for a 
delegate from that burgh, he had, previous to the election, 
announced his intention of supporting Mr Millar’s interest, in 
opposition to that of Sir James Johnstone ; that Mr Lindsay, one 
of the accused, and who acted as agent for Sir James, had 
offered him £200 if he would take a walk with him on the day 
of election, which he rejected in the strongest terms, declaring 
that £2000 should not tempt him. It was then a common 
rumour in the burgh that Sir James’s friends had hinted if every 
other source failed them they were determined to carry off one of 
the voters of the other party. Knowing this, Walls took every 
precaution to prevent the contemplated outrage, and for greater 
security slept at the house of his son-in-law, William Neilson. 
On a Sunday afternoon following he was asked by his son-in-law 
to accompany him to a field near the town where they had some 
cattle. They accordingly went to the field, accompanied by 
William Graham, another councillor and voter in Lochmaben. 
When there a chaise made its appearance, and the driver came 
into the field and called to William Walls that a gentleman in 
