144 SomE LETTERS OF PATRICK MILLER. 
fortune in Turkey rhubarb, and used it to buy Carnsalloch. His 
eldest son, Peter (of Carnsalloch), was M.P. for Kirkeudbright a 
little before this date, 1782-86, and it is not unlikely that Johnston, 
perfumer, was a very near relation of the laird of Carnsalloch.) 
While in London, his captors tried to induce Walls to sign a paper 
declaring that his trip was voluntary and made on business. He 
refusea to comply. Johnston, unwilling to lodge the party longer, 
recommended them to an acquaintance at Leatherhead, in Surrey, 
which they reached on the 30th. There they kept him till 3rd July. 
Meanwhile George Williamson, messenger of the Court of Justiciary, 
armed with a warrant, was in pursuit, and overtook the captive about 
twenty miles beyond London, at Leatherhead, and arrived back in 
Dumfries with him on the evening of 5th July (S.M., 52, 359). 
Lindsay, Lockerbie, Forrest, and Thorburn appeared on the 31st 
January, 1791, to thole their assize. The defence was that Walls had 
abseonded willingly, to escape a promise which was repugnant to him. 
The jury found Lindsay, Lockerbie, Forrest, and Thorburn guilty. 
The last three were condemned to be whipt through the streets of 
Edinburgh on Wednesday, February 23, and, after three weeks’ 
liberty to settle their affairs, to banish themselves furth of Scotland 
for seven years. Lindsay was fined £50, with three months’ im- 
prisonment and seven years’ banishment (S.M., 53, 46). 
Lest anyone should regard this incident as an isolated and very 
exceptional outbreak, two other similar cases may be cited. In the 
same year, 29th September, 1790, at the election of magistrates for 
Lochmaben, one of the magistrates was suddenly seized on pretence 
of legal diligence for a debt and carried off to Annan jail. It was 
only there that particulars of the debt were produced. It amounted 
to £6 or £7, and it was settled at once. Probably the election was 
over by this time, but there is no information on the point (S.M., 
52, 515). 
The other case resembles that of Walls, and relates to the election 
for Dumfries County. Charles Charteris of Amisfield, freeholder in 
Dumfriesshire, was reported upon in 1788 as: ‘* Old. Not rich. 
Thought will go with the Duke of Queensberry ’’ (Polit. State, 102). 
In view of the election on 24th July, he was abducted on the 23rd or 
very early on the 24th. The panels in the case in the Court of 
Justiciary on Monday, 24th January, 1791, are given as follows:— 
Dunean Henderson, Bridgend; John, his son; John Brayen, 
mason in Dumfries; Jas. Walker, boot-catch to Mary Bushbie, widow 
of John M‘Vitie, innkeeper, Dumfries; Peter Forrest, Lochmaben. 
The accusation runs that they did on the above date break or 
enter into the house of Moraria Charteris, widow of Pat. M‘Kie of 
Drumbowie, in the Friars’ Vennel, some by a window by means of a 
ladder, and opened the doors to the others. Some had sticks or 
bludgeons in their hands. Charteris, then in bed, they dragged out 
