But our more immediate concern, in the present instance, is with no frightful feudal baron, presiding over chains and dungeons, in the mysterious recesses of his own solitary moated tower. The offenders exposed in Peter Williamson's history, were grave, sober burghers--bailies and town-councillors of one of the most worshipful and respectable corporations in the United Kingdom--men of peace, staid in their demeanour, cautious in their walk of life--careful not to rub their smooth, well-brushed broad-cloth against any impure thing. Their proceedings had the fairest and most innocent appearance: men of industry and business themselves, keepers of their bonds and engagements, they were but somewhat rigid in exacting industry and punctual performance of obligations from others. "Kidnapping," "crimping," "deforcement," "slavery," were words unknown in their vocabulary,--they did but hire servants: it was nominally for a period of years, it might happen to be virtually for life; it might be to bear the burden, under a tropical sun, in the steaming swamps of the Antillas--still it was a mere contract. They would have been frightened by the name of a slave-ship, but they meekly acknowledged that they freighted vessels "in the servant trade," with "cargoes of boys." "For them alone did seethe A thousand men in troubles wide and dark: Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel, That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel." Many years had passed over the guilty traffic, ere an accident having disturbed the placid surface it assumed to the world, some men of honour, courage, and high station resolved to probe its mysteries; and discovered that the sleek burgesses, by their corporate authority, had been able noiselessly to accomplish as wide and devastating a tyranny as ever had been revealed by the dungeons of some mouldering baronial tower to frighten this world against feudality. Peter Williamson was born at Hirnley, in the parish of Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, the clergyman of which mentions him in the statistical account, along with the celebrated Father Innes, and Ross, the author of "the Fortunate Shepherdess," as one of the eminent men connected with his parish.[18] [18] _New Statistical Account_, Aberdeen, 1054.