CHAP. IX. 



ABERDEEN SLAVE TRAFFIC. 



401 



than the witches, being accustomed to enter the place and 

 make an onslaught upon the citizens, according as local 

 rage and thirst for spoil might incline them. On one 

 of such occasions, eighty of the inhabitants were killed 

 and wounded. 1 Down even to the middle of last cen- 

 tury the Aberdonian notions of personal liberty seem to 

 have been very restricted; for between 1740 and 1746 

 we find that persons of both sexes were kidnapped, put 

 on board ships, and despatched to the American planta- 

 tions, where they were sold for slaves. Strangest of 

 all, the men who carried on this slave trade were local 

 dignitaries, one of them being a town's baillie, another 

 the town-clerk depute. Those kidnapped ' were openly 

 " driven in flocks through the town, like herds of sheep, 

 under the care of a keeper armed with a whip." 2 

 So open was the traffic that the public workhouse was 

 used for their reception until the ships sailed, and when 

 that was filled, the tolbooth or common prison was made 

 use of. The vessels which sailed from the harbour for 

 America in 1743 contained no fewer than sixty-nine 

 persons ; and it is supposed that, in the six years during 

 which the Aberdeen slave trade was at its height, about 

 six hundred were transported for sale, very few of whom 

 ever returned. 3 



This slave traffic was doubtless stimulated by the 

 foreign ships now beginning to frequent the port ; for 



1 Robertson's ' Book of Bon- Accord.' 



2 Ibid., quoted in .TurrefFs ' Anti- 

 quarian Gleanings,' p. 222. 



3 One of them, however, did re- 

 turn Peter Williamson, a native of 

 the town, sold for a slave in Penn- 

 sylvania, "a rough, ragged, humle- 

 headed, long, stowie, clever boy," 

 who, reaching York, published an 

 account of the infamous traffic, in a 

 pamphlet which excited extraordinary 

 interest at the time, and met with 

 a rapid and extensive circulation. 

 But his exposure of kidnapping gave 

 very great offence to the magistrates, 



VOL. IT. 



who dragged him before their tribunal 

 as having " published a scurrilous and 

 infamous libel on the corporation," 

 and he was sentenced to be impri- 

 soned until he should sign a denial of 

 the truth of his statements. He 

 brought an action against the corpora- 

 tion for their proceedings, and ob- 

 tained a verdict and damages; and 

 he further proceeded against Baillie 

 Fordyce (one of his kidnappers), and 

 others, from whom he obtained 2001. 

 damages, with costs. The system was 

 thus effectually put a stop to. 



2 D 



