Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland .. - National Library of Scotland

-PAISLEYtlieir common Imrse being then so miserably reduced tliattbey could not entertain liim with tliat sumptuousnessbefitting tlieir respective estates.' The next visit of amember of tlio royal family was that paid by the lateDuke of Albany, when at Blythswood House, in 1875.In 1588 and again in 1602 tlie town suffered severelyfrom the plague ; and the gates, of which there were thenfive—one at the Bridge, one at the foot of St MirenStreet, one in High Street, one in Moss Street, and onein the School Wynd—were guarded with great vigilance,while no person was allowed to admit any one into thetown by the gardens behind the houses. There wasanother outbreak of plague in 1645. In 1649 the townseems to have furnished a troop of horse for service inthe army that was defeated at Dunbar, and subsequentlythe magistrates again provided six troopers for serviceagainst the English — proceedings which procured for theinhabitants the presence of a garrison of Cromwelliansoldiers, whose support seems to have been felt as a veryheavy burden. Paisley does not seem to have sufferedso much as other places in the west during the Covenantingtroubles, but the Cross was the scene in 1685of the death of two farmers named Algie and Park fromthe neighbouring parish of Eastwood, who were executedfor refusing to take the oath of abjuration. They wereburied at the Gallowgreen, near the foot of MaxwelltonStreet ; but when it was to be built on in 1779 theirremains were removed to Broomlands burying-ground,which now forms part of the cemetery, and an obeliskwas there erected to their memory in 1835. Between1677 and 1697 a considerable number of reputedwitches were executed, but none of the cases exceptthat afterwards alluded to are of any general note.With the rest of the west the district hailed the Revolutionof 16SS with great eagerness, and furnished its quotato the Renfrewshire men who went to Edinburgh to supportthe Convention. There is no record of the'behaviourof the burgh in connection with the Union in 1707, but in1715 we find a number of the townsmen binding themselvesto raise and maintain a body of men because' considering the immenent danger we are in from thethreatned invasion of the Pretender, and the dangerfrom many within our own bossoms that are to joynwith him, ... it lyes upon all honest men as theirindespensable duty to provid tymously for the defenceof our Soveraign and our own sacred and civileinterests. ' In August of the same year a guard of 20men was set every night, two flags were purchased, anda number of muskets, and 20 men were sent to theDuke of Argyll at Stirling, and one hundred and twentyPaisley Volunteers also joined the expedition againstthe Macgregors [see LooH Lomond]. During the rebellionof 1745 Paisley raised a company of militia toaid the Hanoverian forces, and was in consequence fined£1000 by Prince Charles Edward when he was atGlasgow, £500 of which was paid. From this time till1819 the history of the town is connected with the developmentof trade, but in that year a body of Chartistsfrom Glasgow, who had been attending a great reformmeeting at Meiklerigs Moor, attempted to march throughthe town with flags contrary to an order of the magistrates.The police interfered, and serious rioting ensued,lasting for several days. The Paisley Chartists took anactive part in the Unions and in the intended rising on1 April 1820, and many of them had in consequence toflee to America. Except the outbreaks of cholera in1832, 1834, and 1848, and the troubles thereby occasioned,the subsequent history of the place may be saidto be trading and niunicipahThe town is the Greysley' 'of Alexander Smith's storyof Alfred Hagart's HoiLsehold, where the town, as itappeared 50 years ago, and as in some respects it stillappears, is thus described ': Greysley had no variety ofoccupation. It was to all intents and purposes a weavingtown. During the entire day, in the old-fashioned,crooked side-streets, the monotonous click of the loomand the sharp whir of the shuttle were continuallyheard. While trade was brisk, Greysley stuck to itswork and lived well ; when depressed it stood in groups83PAISLEYabout the market-place and the corners of the streets,and in the evenings read and argued over the fiercest ofpolitical newspapers. Thirty years ago trade was gooJ ;and in the spring and summer evenings the weaver,having comfortably dined, bird-nested or botanised,and later still discussed European and local politics incozy taverns, went to bed with the idea that he was themost intelligent of human beings, and that Greysleygenerally was the axis on which the world revolved.In the eastern extremity of the town was an old abbeywith old graves about it, and at night the moon silveredvery prettily the broken arches and the fine traceries ofthe main window. Past the abbey, across the bridge,through the market-place and away westward, ran theprincipal street, till it disappeared in a sort of opensuburb of houses of one story, across whose windowpanesfestoons of birds' eggs were hanging, and onwhose window-sills flowers were blowing in summer,and where loom and shuttle were constantly heard. Inthe market-place was an inn, a picture of a ferociousSaracen, with a crooked scimitar, stuck upon the frontof it like a hatchment ; and on market days, at the openwindows, groups of rosy-faced farmers were continuallysmoking and drinking ale. Beside the inn was a tallsteeple, with a dial with gilded hours ; and on a parapetbeneath the clock, Roman candles were displayed—thegrown-up inhabitants could remember—on great occasions,when a prince was born, or when Lord Wellingtongained another victory in Spain. Then Greysley had ariver which came flowing into it very prettily from themoors ; and at the entrance to the town, flanked oneither side by flour-mills, where meal was continuallyflying about, said river tumbled with creditable noiseand foam over a ridge of rocks. These rocks were regardedby the inhabitants with pride, and great was theuproar when the river came down after a day's rain, orbetter still, when a six weeks' frost broke up, and theboards of ice were wedged and jammed and crushed andbroken there. The river came into Greysley with abold look enough, but after its fall over the rocks it lostspirit, and sneaked through the town in a broad, shallowstream, which carters and their horses forded on occasion; at the further end of the town stood a small disconsolatequay, which seemed always waiting for vesselsthat never came. The scenery around Greysley wasdistinctly pretty. To the south rose a range of greenhills, and one with a taste for the picturesque couldhardly employ his time better than by walking to thesummit, and sitting down there for an hour. Therecould he see Greysley at his feet, blurred with smoke,with church spires and one or two tall chimneys stickingout of it. Beyond, the Hawkshead [Glasgow] river onits way to the sea ; in the other direction, to the northeast,the great smoky stain of Hawkshead ; and ifpossessed of a glass, he could discern the canal thatconnected that city with Greysley, and perhaps on itsway the long white passage-boat drawn by trottinghorses, and the black caps and scarlet jackets of theriders. He would see also woods and an old castle orso, a score of gentlemen's seats, and farm-houses withoutnumber, with the yellow stacks of last year yet standingin the comfortable yards. And he would be touchedby the silence and movelessness of the mighty landscape,for at the distance of a few miles man is invisible,the noise of his tools is unheard, his biggest citiesbecome smoky ant-hills ; and at the distance of a few!'yearsManufaclwcs and Trade.—The grant of erection ofPaisley as a burgh of barony is interesting, as giving ussome knowdedge of the commoner articles then boughtand sold in the place, but we have little more indicationof them till the close of the 17th century. In 1695 thepopulation is given as 2200, and about the same timePrincipal Dunlop tells us in his Description of RenfrewsMre that by the river boats came ' to Paisley withHighland timber and slates—6000 in a boat—fish of allsorts, and return with coal and lime.' There must toohave beeu manufactures by this time, for Crawford,whose History of Renfrewshire was published in 1710,149