The Privy Council took up this affair as a scandalous tumult and riot, and had Mr Hepburn brought before them, and condemned to give bond under a large forfeiture that he would henceforth live in the town of Brechin and within two miles of the same—a place where they of course calculated that he could do no harm, the inhabitants being so generally Episcopalian. Meanwhile, he was laid up in the Old Tolbooth, and kept there for nearly a month. There were people who wished to get in to hear him. There were individuals amongst his fellow-prisoners also anxious to listen to his ministrations. The Council denied the necessary permission. We hear, however, of Mr Hepburn preaching every Sunday from a window of his prison to the people in the street. He was then conducted to Stirling Castle, and kept in durance there for several months. It was three years before he was enabled to return to his Galloway flock.[183] The whole story reads like a bit of the history of the reign of Charles II. misplaced, with presbyteries for actors instead of prelates. [Sidenote: SEP.] A crew of English, Scots, and foreigners, under an Englishman named Henry Evory or Bridgman, had seized a ship of forty-six guns at Corunna, and had commenced in her a piratical career throughout the seas of India and Persia. Having finally left their ship in the isle of Providence, these pirates had made their way to Scotland, and there dispersed, hoping thus to escape the vengeance of the laws which they had outraged. The Privy Council issued a proclamation, commanding all officers whatsoever in the kingdom to be diligent in trying to catch the pirates, ‘who may probably be known and discovered by the great quantities of Persian and Indian gold and silver which they have with them,’ [Sidenote: 1696.] a hundred pounds of reward being offered for apprehending Bridgman, and fifty for each of the others.[184] [Sidenote: SEP.]