50 Notes and Sketches. 



advanced season of the year, a very large part of the 

 crop was in many parts still uncut down, and conse- 

 quently in imminent hazard." At same time, there was 

 " but a very small quantity of meal in town for supply 

 of the inhabitants." The chief magistrate further stated 

 that his Monthly Committee had thought it right to 

 confer with some of the principal traders as to a speedy 

 supply of meal, and a subscription had been set on foot 

 "with considerable success." What further happened 

 was, that the Council voted a donation of three hundred 

 guineas out of the town's funds to aid the citizens' sub- 

 scription. A " proper person," Eobert Gibbons to wit, 

 was next appointed to proceed southward to purchase 

 grain or meal to the extent of 1000 bolls, to be got 

 through British or foreign ports ; only it was the deter- 

 mination of the general meeting by which the appoint- 

 ment was made " that the encouragement to be given 

 for importing grain be confined to grain imported for 

 the sole purpose of being converted into meal." 



This was in November, and as stated early in that 

 month. By and by matters were getting more serious, 

 and the pinch of actual famine seemed likely to be felt 

 with some severity. On the last day of December, 

 1782, the famishing country people " could get no 

 meal in Aberdeen, as the citizens were afraid of a famine, 

 and a poor man in the district of Garioch could find 

 none in the country the day after." In November oat- 

 meal sold at thirteen pence to fifteen pence a peck ; at 

 the market held on the first Friday of January, 1783, it 

 rose to "the enormous price of twenty pence per peck." 

 In that month the Aberdeen Bank and the Bank of 

 Scotland offered each an advance of 3000 for twelve 

 months, free of interest, " for the relief of the poor in 

 both the new and old town," which advances were ac- 

 cepted, and no doubt largely used, as we find that by the 

 beginning of the month of March 900 had been "given 

 off by the magistrates" to importers of grain, and a com- 

 mittee of nineteen, who had been appointed for " man- 



