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266 Geo. Neilson
A highly interesting '
accompt of the and expenses'
extraordinary charge
from July, 1715, until October, 1716, details the
carriage of
'
great guns/ the powder horns for priming them,
the cartridge boxes, the leaden cannon balls, the messages sent
to raise the alarm or to bring '
accounts of the Pretender,' the
hire of horses, the building of barricades of stone,
*
divets,'
up-cast earth and timber, and a mighty digging of trenches by
militiamen and colliers cheered at their work by liberal allowance
of drink. Barricades and trenches at Gallowgate, Glasshouse,
Cowloan, and St. Tennoch's Bridge, Buns Wynd, Rottenrow,
Deneside, and the Merchants' Hospital are particularly mentioned.
Extensive work at Kirkintilloch Bridge, too, shows that the scheme
of defence was not limited to the city confines. Gunpowder (at a
cost of over 1000), firelocks, bayonets, drums, halberts, and 'a
feild
carriage
for a cannon for the toun '
are items of charge which
attest that the city stood well to its guns.
One adventure of interest before the rebellion broke out was
the seizure, among innocent chests and barrels, in a boat at the
Broomielaw, of 32 firelocks, 32 pistols, and 21
f
speir bayonets'
destined for '
nonjurors and disafected persons in the Highlands.'
The thoroughgoing preparations made to repel the
Pretender explain the unusual emphasis of the Act of Parliament
in 1716 granting to Glasgow a duty of two pence Scots
per pint of ale and beer in recognition of the c most cordial
and cheerful manner '
in which the city had acted in the crisis.
The Extracts for 1718-38 cover two decades of much less
public excitement in which the occurrences steadily grow more
prosaic and find more modern phrases to record them. But
there is still abundance of interest, and it is pleasant to note in
the proceedings what Mr. Renwick calls
*
the advent of our
earliest local historian.' In 1732 the minutes bear that 'John
M'Ure, writter, has compiled a book intitled The Ancient and
Moddern State of Glasgow which he is to cause print,' but his
*
'
petition
for a
gratification towards defraying his expenses
seems to have proved ineffectual to evoke a money grant,
notwithstanding
his work being dedicated to the Provost, Town
Council and Town Clerk. M'Ure guessed the population then
to be 30,000, an estimate nearly doubling the
figure Mr. Renwick
thinks probable.
There was progress in commerce, manufactories, and general
industries, but it was slow. Political unrest can hardly have
counted for much among the conditions that clogged advance.