This collection did not go on briskly, or come to any important effect. On the 26th of October 1583, nothing had been done beyond the collecting of £562, exclusive of what had been bestowed in expenses. Cook was dead, but his son had this sum in his hands, and was desirous of rendering it up under proper authority. It was found, however, that the unhappy captives at Algiers were removed from all earthly hardships, so that it was desirable to devote the money to some other object. By the king it was ordained in council that the sum resting with Cook’s son should be paid to the procurators of David Hume, shipper in Leith, who was now lying captive at Bordeaux. * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 12.] ‘Twa poets of Edinburgh, remarking some of his [the Earl of Morton’s] sinistrous dealing, did publish the same to the people by a famous libel written against him; and Morton, hearing of this, causit the men to be brought to Stirling, where they were convict for slandering ane of the king’s councillors, and were there baith hangit. The names of the men were William Turnbull, schoolmaster in Edinburgh, and William Scott, notar. They were baith weel beloved of the common people for their common offices.’--_H. K. J._ ‘Which was thought a precedent, never one being hanged for the like before; and in the meantime, at the scattering of the people, there were ten or twelve despiteful letters and infamous libels in prose, found, as if they had been lost among the people, tending to the reproach of the Earl of Morton and his predecessors.’--_Moy. R._ At the fall of Morton, less than two years after, when he was taken prisoner and conducted to Edinburgh Castle--‘as he passed the Butter Tron, a woman who had her husband put to death at Stirling for a ballad entitled _Daff and dow nothing_,[106] sitting down on her bare knees, poured out many imprecations upon him.’--_Cal._ * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 17.] During the night following this day, ‘there blew sic ane tempest at the herring drave of Dunbar, that threescore fisher-boats and three hundred men perished.’--_Moy._ REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1578-1585.