230 SCOTLAND. 



England. They took cognizance of all breaches of the king's peace ; 

 and they were required to have clerks to register depositions and mat- 

 ters of fact, as well as verdicts of jurors ; the office, however, is at pre- 

 sent, much disused in Scotland. 



The legal punishments in Scotland are nearly the same as in England, 

 'only that of beheading is performed by an instrument called the maiden, 

 which resembles the French guillotine ; and of which the model was 

 brought from Halifax in England, to Scotland, by the regent, earl 

 Morton ; where it was first used for the execution of himself. 



From the above short view of the Scotch laws and institutions, it is 

 plain that they were radically the same with those of the English. The 

 latter allege, indeed, that the Scots borrowed the contents of their Re- 

 giam Magestatem, their oldest law-book, from the work of Glanville, 

 who was a judge under Henry II, of England. The Scots, on the other 

 hand, say that Glanville's work was copied from their Regiam Mages- 

 tatem, even with the peculiarities of the Tatter, which do not now, and 

 never did, exist in the laws of England. 



The royal burghs in Scotland form, as it were, a commercial parlia- 

 ment, which meets once a year at Edinburgh, consisting of a represen- 

 tative from each burgh, to consult upon the common good of the whole. 

 Their powers are extensive ; and before the Union they made laws, re- 

 lating to shipping, to masters and owners of ships, to mariners and 

 merchants by whom they were freighted ; to manufactures, such as 

 plaiding, linen, and yarn ; to the curing and packing of fish, salmon, 

 and herrings, and to the importing and exporting several commodities. 

 The trade between Scotland and the Netherlands was subject to their 

 regulation ; they fixed the staple port, which was formerly at Dort, 

 and afterwards at Campvere. Their conservator is indeed nominated 

 by the crown ; but then their convention regulates his power, approves 

 his deputies, and appoints his salary : so that in truth the whole staple 

 trade is subjected to their management. Upon the whole, this is a very 

 singular institution, and sufficiently proves the vast attention which the 

 government of Scotland formerly paid to trade. It took its present form 

 in the reign of James III, 1487, and had excellent consequences for the 

 benefit of commerce. 



The conformity between the practice of the civil law of Scotland, 

 and that in England, is remarkable. The English law reports are of 

 the same nature with the Scotch practice ; and their acts of sederunt 

 answer to the English rules of court; the Scottish wadsetts and rever- 

 sions, to the English mortgages and defeasances ; their poinding of 

 goods, after letters of horning, is much the same as the English exe- 

 cutions upon outlawries ; and an appeal against the king's pardon, in 

 cases of murder, by the next of kin to the deceased, is admitted in Scat- 

 land as well as in England. Many other usages are the same in both 

 kingdoms. There was in particular an ancient custom, which proves 

 the similarity between the English and Scottish constitutions. In old 

 times, all the freeholders in Scotland met together in presence of the 

 king, who was seated on the top of a hillock, which, in the old Scottish 

 constitution, was called the Moot, or Mute-hill ; all national affairs were 

 here transacted, judgments given, and differences ended. This Moot- 

 hill was probably of the same nature as the Saxon Folcmote, and sig- 

 nified only the hill of meeting. 



Order of the thistle. ...This is a military order instituted, as the 

 Scotch writers assert, by their king Achaius, in the ninth century, up- 



