Elizabeth issued a proclamation regarding scarcity, 2d January 1586-7. She speaks of ‘foreseeing the general dearth of corn and other victuals, partly through the unseasonableness of the year past, whereby want hath grown more in some countries than in others, but most of all, generally, through the uncharitable greediness of great corn-masters, &c.’ This was the invariable cry on all occasions of dearth. All would be well if only those possessing grain would not reserve it in hope of higher prices. No one ever dreamed of that benefit which the modern political economist sees in the reservings of the corn-merchant--namely, an equalising of consumption over the whole period of the scarcity, as contrasted with the over-free use of the victual at first, and increased scarcity afterwards. Perhaps there was, after all, some grounds for the wrath at forestallers, for in former days, as we well know, there was less means of obtaining information regarding the extent of the failure of a crop than there is now, and those gentlemen, accordingly, were rather speculators on a possible, than on an ascertained case. They would hence appear as men aiming at the making of a scarcity where there was perhaps no great occasion for it. What offence greater, the poor public would naturally say, than that of deliberately trying to starve us! [Sidenote: 1587.] King James had lately sent Vans of Barnbarroch, and his own ex-preceptor, Peter Young, as ambassadors to Denmark, to negotiate a match with the daughter of Frederick II. He now (June 14, 1587) wrote to those gentlemen, ordering them to see to certain Scotch ships which had gone to Dantzic for grain, designing to carry it to other foreign ports for a profit: he demands that they shall not be passed by the _tollender_ at Elsinore, till the skippers enter into an obligation to bring the grain to Scotland, ‘for the relief of the puir and supply of the dearth and scarcity.’[150] How would a modern corn-merchant feel if his vessels were now stopped at the Sound with such a demand as this! Patrick Hamilton, brother of the Laird of Preston, and captain of Brodick Castle in Arran, was denounced rebel for not appearing before the king and Council, to answer a complaint of Abacuck Bisset, writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. It appears that Patrick, accompanied by two nephews, had attacked Mr Bisset in St Giles’s Kirk in Edinburgh, during the sitting of parliament, with a sword, and cut off ‘the haill fingers of his left hand.’ This Abacuck Bisset was clerk to Sir John Skene, Lord Clerk Register. He compiled a treatise entitled _The Rolment of Courtis, contenand the Auldest Lawis, Actis, Statutis, Constitutionis, and Antiquities of His Majesties Native and maist Ancient Realme of Scotland, as ane Frie Kingdome, &c._