Findrac, a neighbouring proprietor, "knew several of James Williamson's children, and had heard it was the practice of some of the merchants of Aberdeen to kidnap young children, and send them to the plantations to be sold as slaves. He heard in the country that the said James Williamson or his wife had gone into Aberdeen, and one of their sons called Peter Williamson had followed; and that James Smith, saddler in Aberdeen, had picked up the said Peter; and the deponent heard he was either put in prison, or put on board a ship, till the ship sailed; it was the voice of the county that James Williamson and his wife regretted, or made a clamour for the loss of their son, not knowing what was become of him." The investigation brought to light some other cases, and gradually opened up the whole mystery of iniquity. One old woman, the miller's widow, who remembered that Peter "was sent into Aberdeen, to be under his aunts, his mother being dead, and that soon thereafter he was missing," said that in the parish of Aboyne "they were generally afraid to send their boys on errands to Aberdeen, for fear they should be carried off." Some witnesses remembered having in their youth made marvellous escapes; and Alexander Grigson, domestic at Aboyne Castle, had a story to tell, "that about twenty years ago, he and another boy were coming from the mill of Crathie, where they had been seeking their meat; and near to a birch wood, near to the Kirk of Crathy, three countrymen on horseback came up with them, but the deponent knew none of them; and they asked him and the other boy that was along with him, if they would go with them, and they would clothe them like gentlemen; but the deponent being elder than the other boy, made answer that they would not go along with them, for it struck the deponent in the head that perhaps he and the other boy were to be carried abroad, in respect a rumour prevailed in the country that young boys were carried abroad at that time." The men threatened force; and the boys, who could not fail then to have the blackest notions of their intentions, took to their heels while the kidnappers were tying their horses, and defied discovery in the recesses of the old forest of Mar, which, fortunately for them, skirted the road. This incident may have been a trick to frighten two country lads. Another, recorded by a chairman in Edinburgh, has a more business-like appearance. "In the year 1728 or 1729, he went to Aberdeen to see an uncle and an aunt, who lived there; and whilst he was there he was carried up to a house by a person whom he did not know, where he got a dram and a piece of biscuit, and was promised a new coat and great encouragement, if he would agree to go over to America with the other lads that were engaged to go there; that he signified his willingness to agree to the proposal; that upon this he was desired to go and come back to his breakfast again; but when he told this to some of the