——— 
a 
Transactions. 93 
of the town of Selkirk by a mob from Galashiels and Melrose, aud some 
country people, with some of the people of the place. You will have 
heard what has been going on in other places better than I caninform you. 
I have been too much taken up with what has passed in this neighbourhood 
to attend to the reports from other quarters. Are such people to be trusted 
with arms after what has passed? That is for Government to determine. 
Examples, however, must be made of those who have so openly and out- 
rageously broken the law of the country, insulted and ill-used magistrates 
in the discharge of their duty, and set. at defiance all authority. I leave 
the Duchess of Buccleuch and daughters in the hands of my tenants. 
Where can they be better ; certainly not further north; perhaps further 
south would be better at this moment. They can from this place soon 
pass over the Borders. 
In a letter written five days later the Duke says— 
I have left the Duchess and family at Langholm in the safe custody of 
my tenants, who swear they will spill the last drop of their blood rather 
than that she or the family should receive insult or injury during their 
residence among them. This was communicated to the Duchess upon my 
leaving Langholm. 
On the 25th August there was a riot in Dumfries, and the 
windows of the School-house broken. On the lst September Mr 
David Staig, D.L., then Provost of Dumfries, wrote a letter from 
Dumfries to the Duke of Queensberry, the Lieutenant of Dum- 
friesshire, which was forwarded by him to the Home Secretary :— 
The opposition to the Militia Bill seems general throughout Scotland, 
and nowhere more than in this part of the country. There is not a 
Deputy-Lieutenant that has not been threatened with instant destruction. 
Sir Wm. Maxwell, Colonel Dirom, and Mr Graham of Mossknowe 
(Deputies) had a meeting the other day in their districts, and were most 
grossly insulted by an enraged mob, and before they were allowed to 
depart were forced to sign an obligation on stamped paper that they would 
proceed no further with their business. Sir Robert Grierson and Mr 
Dalziell of Glenz, Deputies, were forced to write similar obligations to 
save their lives and property. Mr Greig, a Deputy-Lieutenant at Moffat, 
was deforced, and his papers taken from him; but being supported by a 
party of dragoons in another parish yesterday, an attack was made upon 
them by a riotous mob, and a good deal of blood was shed, but I have not 
heard that any lives were lost. 
These disturbances caused delay in carrying out the provisions of 
the Militia Act, and a new Act had to be passed extending the 
time when the ballot was to take place. On the 4th May, 1798, 
at a meeting of the Court of Lieutenancy, presided over by the 
Earl of Dalkeith, and attended by 14 Deputy-Lieutenants, of 
