The infant library of the Faculty of Advocates having been [Sidenote: 1701.] burnt out of its original depository in the Parliament Square, a new receptacle was sought for it in the rooms under the Parliament House—the Faculty and the Edinburgh magistrates concurring in the request—and the Privy Council complied, only reserving the right of the high constable to view and search the place ‘the time of the sitting of parliament’—a regulation, doubtless, held necessary to prevent new examples of the Gunpowder Treason. [Sidenote: AUG. 27.] Lord Basil Hamilton, sixth son of the Duchess of Hamilton—a young man endeared to his country by the part he had taken in vindicating her rights in the Darien affair—lost his life by a dismal accident, leaving but one consolation to his friends, that he lost it in the cause of humanity. Passing through Galloway, with his brother the Earl of Selkirk and some friends, he came to a little water called the Minnick, swelled with sudden rain. A servant went forward to try the ford, and was carried away by the stream. Lord Basil rushed in to save the man, caught him, but was that moment dismounted, and carried off by the torrent; so he perished in the sight of his brother and friends, none being able to render him any assistance. It was a great stroke to the Hamilton family, to the country party, and indeed to the whole of the people of Scotland. Lord Basil died in his thirtieth year. On the evening of the next day, the Earl of Selkirk came, worn with travel, to the gate of Hamilton Palace, to tell his widowed mother of her irreparable loss. But, according to a story related by Wodrow, her Grace was already aware of what had happened. ‘On the Wednesday’s night [the night of the accident] the duchess dreamed she saw Lord Basil and Lord Selkirk drowned in a water, and she thought she said to Lady Baldoon [Lord Basil’s wife], “Charles and Basil are drowned,” Charles being the Earl of Selkirk. The Lady Baldoon, she thought, answered: “Lord Selkirk is safe, madam; there is no matter.” The duchess thought she answered: “The woman’s mad; she knows not her lord is dead;” and that she [Lady Baldoon] added: “Is Basil dead? then let James [the duke] take all: I will meddle no more with the world.” All this she [the duchess] told in the Thursday morning, twelve hours or more before Lord Selkirk came to Hamilton, who brought the first word of it.’[296] [Sidenote: DEC. 5.]