the chancellor came out, he got many huzzas at first; but at the Tron Kirk, some surmised to the mob that all this was but a sham; upon which they assaulted his coach, and broke the glasses, and forced him to come out and go into Mylne’s Square, and stay for a considerable time. ‘The three prisoners were brought with the Town-guards, accompanied with a vast mob. They went through all the Canongate, and out at the Water-port to Leith. There was a battalion of foot-guards, and also some of the horse-guards, drawn up at some distance from the place of execution. There was the greatest confluence of people there that ever I saw in my life, for they cared not how far they were off, so be it they saw. Green was first execute, then Simson, and last of all Mather. They every one of them, when the rope was about their necks, denied they were guilty of that for which they were to die. This indeed put all people to a strange demur. There’s only this to alleviate it, that they confessed no other particular sins more than that, even though they were posed anent their swearing and drunkenness, which was weel known.’[375] [Sidenote: SEP. 11.] The Scottish parliament was not much given to the patronising of literature. We have, indeed, seen it giving encouragement to Adair’s maps of the coasts, and Slezer’s views of the king’s and other mansions; but it was in a languid and ineffective way, by reason of the lack of funds. At this time, the assembled wisdom of the nation was pleased to pass an act enabling the town-council of Glasgow to impose two pennies (⅕th of a penny sterling) upon the pint of ale brewn and vended in that town; and out of this [Sidenote: 1705.] ‘gift in favours of the town of Glasgow,’ as it was quite sincerely called, there was granted three thousand six hundred pounds (£300 sterling) to Mr James Anderson, writer to her majesty’s signet, ‘for enabling him to carry on an account of the ancient and original charters and seals of our kings in copper-plates.’ Why the ale-drinkers of Glasgow should have been called upon to furnish the country with engraved copies of its ancient charters, was a question which probably no one dreamed of asking.