Transactions. 259 



love of power and self aggrandisement rather than the good of the 

 town. 



Unfortunately there is meagre mention of events of interest 

 to us which took place in the writer's time. Of I\ing James's 

 Provost and of the Revolution we gather the following : — In 

 1686 King James VII. arbitrarily discharged Burghs fi'om electing 

 their IMagistrates and Town Council ; and following on this he 

 himself nominated persons to these offices. John Maxwell of 

 Barncleuch in this way became Provost of Dumfries, who was 

 known afterwards as King James' Provost. He was descended 

 from a cadet of the House of KirkconneU. Being bred a lawyer 

 in Dumfries he became Town Clerk at the Revolution of 1660. 

 He acted as agent for the Earl of Nithsdale, by which lie gained 

 considerably. Being a professed Catholic he became, in 1681 or 

 1682, disqualified by the Test Act to continue as Town Clerk and 

 demitted that office after having arranged for a yearly pension of 

 £5 for life. In 1686 King James VII., as before mentioned, nomi- 

 nated him to be Provost of the Burgh, in which office he continued 

 till the Revolution of 1688, when he and his Council fled, but 

 being taken he was sent to Edinburgh and imprisoned there. His 

 Council granted him, instead of the usual Provost's allowance of 

 100 merks, a salary of 500 merks per annum in consideration of 

 his residing in the town and attending to its affairs. He sought 

 by his authority to embellish and ornament the town in which he 

 first drew breath by new buildings, causing those that were old 

 and waste to be rebuilt. The paving of the public streets was also 

 initiated by him, the work being brought in his time above the 

 Cross. He had a patent to be a senator of the Court of Session at 

 Edinburgh, for which he was well qualified by long practice and a 

 long head and subdolous wit. This Provost had a sour melancholic 

 command and authority to conciliate reverence and regard, and to 

 ingratiate the people, proceeded in appearance of strict justice more 

 and beyond many of his predecessors ; and in regard to his posi- 

 tion in the Council, he was sure to have a set of Councillors who, 

 he being King's Provost, only asked what said the Provost and 

 then it was so. 



At the Revolution in December, 1688, after King James had 

 gone away to France, the people of Dumfries and the country 

 about arose and burnt the Pope in effigy and took away the popish 

 books out of the popish houses in Galloway, with their priest's 

 vestments in crimson and velvet, and trinkets, and also carved 



