46 Notes and Sketches. 



of " the ill years," states that, in 1698, in addition to those 

 " very meanly provided for by the Church boxes," there 

 were in Scotland " two hundred thousand people begging 

 from door to door." He says the number had perhaps 

 been doubled by "the present distress," which it is likely 

 was quite true, though his gross estimate is probably 

 higher than the actual number. Of the general aspect 

 of things, Fletcher says it was fitted to stir the mind 

 with the two powerful emotions of terror and compas- 

 sion " because from unwholesome food diseases are so 

 multiplied among the poor people, that if some course 

 be not taken, this famine may very probably be followed 

 by a plague." And what man was there, if he had any 

 compassion, who would not grudge himself " every 

 nice bit, and every delicate morsel he puts in his mouth, 

 when he considers that so many are already dead, and 

 so many at that minute struggling with death, not for 

 want of bread but of grains," which he was credibly 

 informed had been used by some families in the pre- 

 ceding year. The least unnecessary expenditure on 

 household things or personal finery must, he adds, 

 " reproach us with our barbarity, so long as people born 

 with natural endowments, perhaps not inferior to our 

 own, and fellow-citizens, perish for want of things ab- 

 solutely necessary to life." 



It throws a curious light on the legislation of the 

 time to find that, in 1701, only a year or two after 

 this terrible suffering from actual famine, a Govern- 

 ment commission was issued commanding that all 

 loads of grain which might be brought from Ireland 

 into the west of Scotland should be staved and sunk. 



The next most remarkable year of scarcity was 

 1740. A great frost, with " deep and untimely snow," 

 occurred in early spring. The principal rivers in 

 Scotland were frozen over, water mills stopped, and 

 ships frozen in in some of the harbours. Loch Lomond 

 was frozen over from Luss to Buchanan, so as to bear 

 men and cattle. The Forth was frozen over above 



