The friends of the deceased nevertheless continued to suspect the stepson, and caused him to be apprehended and thrown into Aberdeen jail. He lay there unaccused for three months, ‘to the ruin of himself and his small family,’ till at length they agreed to have him charged before the Commissioners of Justiciary for the Highlands. Hereupon (March 6, 1699) he petitioned the Privy Council for trial before the High Court of Justiciary; which was granted.[238] What was the upshot of the affair does not appear. [Sidenote: NOV. 29.] It was reported by the Lord Advocate to the Privy Council that there had just been put into his hand _a challenge at sharps_, which had been sent by one fencing-master to another, ‘to be performed in the face of the school.’ He was told ‘it was but a business of sport, and that there was no hazard in it.’ Nevertheless, the Council recommended his lordship to inquire further into the matter, and report, or act as he might think of it.[239] [Sidenote: DEC. 1.] Mr George Brown, a minister under banishment from Edinburgh [Sidenote: 1698.] on account of the performance of irregular marriages, came before the Privy Council for their favour in behalf of an instrument he had invented—called _Rotula Arithmetica_—‘whereby he is able to teach those of a very ordinary capacity who can but read the figures, to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, though they are not able otherwise readily to condescend [specify] whether seven and four be eleven or twelve.’ This instrument he set forth as calculated ‘for freeing the mind from that _rack of intortion_ to which it is obliged in long additions, as some honourable persons of their Lordships’ number (with whom he had the honour to converse on that head) are able to instruct.’ The Lords treated this arithmetical nonjurant relentingly, and both gave him a copyright in the _Rotula_ for fourteen years, and allowed him to return to Edinburgh. On the 13th December 1698, the Lords of the Council recommended the Lords of the Treasury to give ‘a reasonable allowance to Mr George Brown, minister, to be ane encouragement to him for his inventing and making of his _Rotula Arithmetica_.’ His arithmetical machine comes up again three or four times in the Privy Council books during the next few years. [Sidenote: DEC. 22.]