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 King James’s 
Provost and of the Revolution we gather the following :—In 
1686 King James VII. arbitrarily discharged *Burghs from electing 
their Magistrates 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 Kirkconnell. 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 he 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 hada 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 mene 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 
