Sir Robert Grierson of Lagg, the notable ‘persecutor,’ who had been not a little persecuted himself after the Revolution as a person dangerous to the new government, was now in trouble on [Sidenote: 1696.] a different score. He was accused of the crimes of ‘clipping of good money and coining of false money, and vending the samen when clipped and coined,’ inferring the forfeiture of life, land, and goods. It appears that Sir Robert had let his house of Rockhill to a person named John Shochon, who represented himself as a gunsmith speculating in new modes of casting lead shot and stamping of cloth. A cloth-stamping work he had actually established at Rockhill, and he kept there also many engraving tools which he had occasion to use in the course of his business. But a suspicion of clipping and coining having arisen, a search was made in the house, and though no false or clipped coin was found, the king’s advocate deemed it proper to prosecute both Shochon and his landlord on the above charge. [Sidenote: JUNE 22.] The two cases were brought forward separately at the Court of Justiciary, and gave rise to protracted proceedings; but the result was, that Sir Robert and Shochon appeared to have been denounced by enemies who, from ignorance, were unable to understand the real character of their operations, and the prosecution broke down before any assize had been called.[176] Shochon was residing in Edinburgh in 1700, and then petitioned parliament for encouragement to a manufactory of arras, according to a new method invented by him, ‘the ground whereof is linen, and the pictures thereof woollen, of all sorts of curious colours, figures, and pictures.’[177] ‘Lagg’—who had drowned religious women at stakes on the sands of Wigton—had the fortune to survive to a comparatively civilised age. He died in very advanced life, at Dumfries, about the close of 1733. [Sidenote: APR. 10.] Some printed copies of certain ‘popish books’—namely, _The Exposition of the True Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversy_, _An Answer to M. Dereden’s Funeral of the Mass_, and _The Question of Questions, which is, Who ought to be our Judges in all Differences in Religion?_—having been seized upon in a private house in Edinburgh, and carried to the lodging of Sir Robert Chiesley, lord provost of the city, the Privy Council authorised Sir Robert ‘to cause burn the said books in the back-close of the town council by the hand of the common executioner, until they be consumed to ashes.’ [Sidenote: 1696.] Six months later, the Privy Council ordered a search of the booksellers’ shops in Edinburgh for books ‘atheistical, erroneous, profane, or vicious.’