Smuggling. 187 



blood streaming in torrents from his wounds, the poor 

 fellow got to his feet and staggered on to Kirkton of 

 Slains, distant nearly a quarter of a mile, where he 

 expired in the course of a few minutes, his last words 

 being, " If a' had been as true as I was, the goods wud 

 'a been safe, an' I wudna hae been bleedin' to death." 

 His age was but thirty-eight. The men who were the 

 cause of his death were tried on a charge of murder, 

 but were acquitted. 



At the Aberdeen Circuit Court of Justiciary, in 

 September, 1827, my Lords Pitmilly and Alloway tried 

 a somewhat notorious culprit, in the person of Malcolm 

 Gillespie, officer of excise, whom the jury found guilty 

 of forgery, and who was sentenced to be hanged ; a 

 sentence which was duly carried out, on the ensuing 

 1 6th of November. During the period of his incarce- 

 ration, Gillespie had employed part of his time in writ- 

 ing an account of his experiences as an excise officer, 

 during nearly twenty-eight years. His story is 

 marked perhaps by a little of the braggadocia spirit, 

 but enough is known independently, to enable us to 

 shape the story to about its proper dimensions, and 

 obtain a reliable glimpse or two of the actual state of 

 matters. Malcolm Gillespie, who was a native of 

 Dunblane, and apparently of respectable parentage, 

 had entertained the wish to serve in the army, but 

 was disappointed in getting into active service through 

 the declinature of his relatives to buy him a commis- 

 sion a matter probably to be regretted, as the man 

 most clearly had in him qualities that would have 

 been of value where hard fighting was going on. 

 After a short experience as a recruiting agent, he 

 turned his energies in another direction by joining 

 the Excise. Gillespie's service was at first on the 

 coast, and latterly inland. When stationed at the 

 fishing village of Collieston, on the Buchan coast, in 

 1801, he states that upwards of 1000 ankers of foreign 

 spirits were landed in that region every month. He 



