Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

Appendix 8:
National Archives of Scotland: JC26/305
Regarding the Maybole Trial of Sedition
The National Archives of Scotland contain detailed records of the Maybole Trial
of Sedition, including the Charges against John Andrew and Robert Ramsay,
Declarations and Exculpations of the Accused, and Witness Testimonies. The
entire proceedings occur from 30 June 1800 until 17 September 1800.
Criminal Letters/His Majesty’s Advocate/Against John Andrew September
1800 Ayr
At Maybole the Thirtieth day of June Eighteen Hundred Years. In consequence
of a warrant Granted by John Murdoch Esq. Sheriff Substitute of Ayrshire of
date the twenty Eighth of June Current on a petition at the instance of Robert
Aiken and James Hume Procurator fiscals of the County of Ayr. John Andrew
Shoemaker in Maybole being brought before the said Sheriff and examined
Declares that he was born in the Town of Maybole and has resided there the
most of his life time. That besides his employment he Kept a private School for
about Eighteen Months which he gave up about six weeks ago, That in the year
May and seventeen ninety three or May and ninety four to the best of his
remembrance he entered as a Mason with the Royal Arch Lodge at Ayr and was
raised there to the degree of Master Mason, That he afterwards joined the
Maybole Lodge No. 14 and continued therein until when he and some others of
the lodge understood that they could be further Instructed in Masonry by some
of the Members in St James’s lodge in Newton upon Ayr. That the declarent
along with Robert Ramsay right in new yards near Maybole accordingly went
and waited upon the Office bearers and some of the members of said St James’s
Lodge of Newton, and were instructed by them in some higher points of
Masonry than what they Knew before, particularly by Rodger McClellan then
Master and present Master of that lodge, which parts were Chair, Arch, Royal
Arch and Knight Templar.
That when they returned home several others of the Maybole lodge
applied to them to be instructed in the degree above mentioned but they declined
to do so until they should have the sanction of William Hugh Logan Surgeon in
Maybole the then Master of the Lodge. That the declarent upon this applied
privately to Wm. Logan who told him that if there was nothing wrong in it, and
for the Good of Masonry he had no objections to it upon which the declarent
gave it as his opinion answering what good it might do he could not say, but he
was certain it could do no harm.
Thereupon after this the Declarent had private Meetings with others of
the Members of the Loge No. 14. And he and the said Robert Ramsay with the
assistance of Wm. Moor an Irishman then weaver in Maybole, John Kelly
labourer at New Mills as he thinks, Several Members to be Arch, Royal Arch,
and Knights Templars, among whom were William Hamilton Mason and
Quintin Stewart Taylor both in Maybole and this was before they got either a