302 History of Animal Plagttes. 



into execution his Majesty's Orders of Council, made for prevent- 

 ing:; the spreading of contagious distemper amongst the horned 

 cattle, and for rendering the same valid and effectual, and for 

 preventing suits in consequence thereof, and to authorize the 

 continuing, extending, and executing the same for a further 

 time. Dr Cullen's Memoir concerning the contagious disease 

 affecting the horned cattle, contains a notice of this indemni- 

 fication. 'The sheriff'-substitute and justices of peace of BanflT- 

 shire met at Portsoy on Friday, September 14th, 1770, and 

 made a dividend of ^799 lis. id., issued from the tenancy 

 upon the first certificate to the proprietors of the cattle which 

 had been slaughtered in order to prevent the spreading of the 

 contagious distemper then raging among them; as also to all 

 others who had been in advance of money upon the same 

 account.' ^ 



At the court of St James's, September 14th, 1770, present 

 the King in council, an order was issued, in consequence of the 

 contagion among horned cattle having broken out at a village 

 called Werlpen, between Furness and Newport, about four 

 leagues from Ostend, in Flanders, and supposed to have come 

 from the side of Berg St Wenon, about two leagues from Dun- 

 kirk, where it actually was. This order prohibited the import- 

 ation of any cattle, or of any manner of hides or skins, horns 

 or hoofs, or any other part of any cattle or beast, from Dunkirk or 

 any other part of Flanders, or from any of the places mentioned in 

 the aforesaid order of May 26th, 1769, into the kingdom of Great 

 Britain and Ireland.^ This aforesaid order referred to a new 

 outbreak of the disease in the Netherlands in 1768, and pro- 

 hibited the importation of cattle and hides from thence, as also 

 from Denmark, Sweden, Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Ham- 

 burg. In December, 1769, the importation of hay and straw 

 had been prohibited. 



Towards the end of 1770, an Indemnity Act was passed, as 

 it appeared ' there was no legal power to give these orders ' — 

 alluding to those issued in February, granting compensation for 

 slaughtered cattle, 



^ The Scots' Magazine, vol. xxxii. p. 517. J. Gantgec. The Cattle Plague, 

 p. 302. 2 ii3ij_ 



