TRANSACTIONS. 139 
origin of this Wappinshaw he enters into a lengthened disquisition 
upon the authority of a “public and respected character in the 
town of Dumfries,” who informed him that “in the reign of King 
James the Sixth, and on some of his excursions in that part of 
the country, being in danger, the news reached the town of 
Dumfries. Accordingly the Seven Incorporated Trades of that 
town went to the assistance of his Majesty. This fresh supply of 
troops arriving in time was the means of rescuing him from the 
danger he was exposed to ; and so sensible was the King of this 
timely interference of his Dumfries subjects, to show his gratitude 
the more, and wishing to improve [them] in the use of arms, he 
complimented them with a silver tube something like a pistol 
barrel, now called a silver gun, with a charge to set apart a day 
annually to shoot for the said gun.” The writer then describes 
the march off to the Kingholm of the Trades, drums beating, 
colours flying, and « merry peal resounding from the famous 
Steeple. About six in the evening news arrived from what Mr 
Laing calls “the field of blood,” to the effect that two young men 
had been accidentally wounded, one of them mortally, which 
prompted the following effusion of the author’s muse : 
** Ah! thoughtless mortals think on this, 
Your folly and your shame ; 
O, turn your eyes and view the case, 
And sorrow for the same. 
Your precious time thus spent in vain, 
How can the thought you shun, 
That something’s lost—now, where’s the gain 
Got by your silver gun ? 
Is something lost? Yea, sure there is, 
More precious than the sun, 
Your brother’s blood is shed, and cries, 
Discharge the silver gun.” 
On the following (Sunday) morning he heard a sermon by Mr 
D. (probably Mr John Dunn, the Independent minister of that 
time), and in the afternoon a “ close and practical discourse ” from 
the Rev. Walter Dunlop, who seemed to him to be “a serious 
man.” Mr Laing describes the religious state of the town as not 
so favourable, “ according to his information,” as could be wished ; 
but adds that a few years previously “a worthy character,” he (Mr 
L.) trusts “with the same feeling spirit as the Apostle when he 
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