"When the boys were marching up to the barn, the deponent kept pace with the overseer, who followed immediately after the boys, entreating of him to get liberty to speak to his son; who answered him that he should get leave to speak to him by-and-by, when they were come to the barn; but when they came there the overseer locked the door, and refused the deponent access; _that he never saw his son after this_. That the deponent in passing through the town of Aberdeen, after his son was so locked up from him, was told by several tradespeople, and others to whom he had told the story of his son, that it would be in vain for him to apply to the magistrates to get his son liberated, because some of the magistrates had a hand in those things, as well as the said John Burnet; upon which the deponent went home." A very characteristic record of these transactions still remained in the books and accounts of the parties implicated. Among these documents, one of the witnesses, denominated "Walter Scott, writer to the signet," produces "the ship book," apparently the same which some of the witnesses more descriptively call "the kidnapping book." It is needless to say whose father it was who possessed this curious document. The investigation occurred in 1762--nine years before the birth of Sir Walter; and it was perhaps one of the last ideas that would have ever occurred to his respectable parent, that it was worth while communicating to his offspring any information from a mere merchant's account book, which had been placed in his hands in the usual routine of his business, and probably afterwards forgotten. Yet what a lively history might have been woven out of its dry materials, had it remained among the other lumber in George Square, to be rummaged out by the lame boy! Mr Scott was the agent for the kidnappers. It is satisfactory to observe that he appears to have been too honest an agent for their purposes; for we find that he transmitted to them this book by post, in order that it might be exhibited in the course of the arbitration, to which we shall hereafter allude; but his employers knew their own interest too well to produce it, until they were subsequently compelled to do so. The extracts from the books transferred to the papers before us, are of course those only which have some reference to the case of Peter Williamson; thus-- "Jan. 8, 1743. To a pair of stockings s. d. to Peter Williamson 0 6 To a woollen cap to ditto 0 5 13, To five days of ditto 1 3 And a more emphatical entry-- "To the man that brought Williamson 1 6