On the 16th July 1706, a committee of Council took into consideration the verdict in the case of the two Rattrays, and finding it ‘agreeable to the probation,’ ordained the men to be executed, under the care of the magistrates of Inverness, on the last Wednesday of September next to come. This order is subscribed by Montrose, Buchan, Northesk, Forfar, Torphichen, Elibank, James Stewart, Gilbert Elliot, and Alexander Douglas. [Sidenote: AUG. 25.] The functions of the five Lords Commissioners of Justiciary being of the utmost importance, ‘concerning both the lives and fortunes of her majesty’s lieges,’ the parliament settled on these [Sidenote: 1704.] officers a salary of twelve hundred pounds Scots each, being about one hundred pounds sterling.[360] They had previously had the same income nominally, but being payable by precept of the commissioners of the treasury, or the cash-keeper, it was, like most such dues, difficult to realise, and, perhaps, could scarcely be said to exist. At this time, the fifteen judges of the Court of Session had each two hundred pounds sterling per annum, the money being derived from a grant of £20,000 Scots out of the customs and interest on certain sums belonging to the court.[361] Five of them, who were lords of the criminal court also, were, as we here see, endowed with a further salary, making three hundred in all. The situation of president—‘ane imployment of great weight, requiring are assiduous and close application,’ says the second President Dalrymple[362]—had usually, in addition to the common salary, a pension, and a present of wines from the Treasury, making up his income to about a thousand a year. By the grace of Queen Anne, after the Union, the puisne judges of the Court of Session got £300 a year additional, making five hundred in all;[363] and this was their income for many years thereafter, the president continuing to have one thousand per annum. In the salaries of the same officers at the present day—£3000 to a puisne civil judge, with expenses when he goes on circuit; £4800 to the President; and to the Lord Justice-clerk, £4500—we see, as powerfully as in anything, the contrast between the Scotland of a hundred and fifty years ago, and the Scotland of our own time. [Sidenote: AUG. 30.]