Nearly about the same time, voluntary collections were ordained by the Privy Council, for erecting a bridge over the Dee at the Black Ford; for the construction of a harbour at Cromarty, ‘where a great quantity of the victual that comes to the south is loadened;’ and for making a harbour at Pennan, on the estate of William Baird of Auchmedden, in Aberdeenshire, where such a convenience was eminently required for the shelter of vessels, and where ‘there is likewise a millstone quarry belonging to the petitioner [Baird], from which the greatest part of the mills in the kingdom are served by sea.’ [Sidenote: 1703. NOV. 11.] Amidst the endless instances of misdirected zeal and talent which mark the time, there is a feeling of relief and gratification even in so small and commonplace a matter as an application to the Privy Council, which now occurs, from Mr William Forbes, advocate, for a copyright in a work he had prepared under the name of _A Methodical Treatise of Bills of Exchange_. The case is somewhat remarkable in itself, as an application by an author, such applications being generally from stationers and printers. [Sidenote: DEC.] Usually, in our day, the opposing solicitors in a cause do not feel any wrath towards each other. It was different with two agents employed at this time in the Court of Session on different interests, one of them being Patrick Comrie, who acted in the capacity of ‘doer’ for the Laird of Lawers. To him, one day, as he lounged through the Outer House, came up James Leslie, a ‘writer,’ who entered into some conversation with him about Lawers’s business, and so provoked him, that he struck Leslie in the face, in the presence of many witnesses. Leslie appealed to the court, on the strength of an old statute which decreed death to any one guilty of violence in the presence of the Lords, and Comrie was apprehended. There then arose many curious and perplexing questions among the judges as to the various bearings of the case; but all were suddenly solved by Comrie obtaining a remission of his offence from the queen.[339]