[Sidenote: 1636.] A bark belonging to Dundee, carrying goods from Camphire, was overtaken near the mouth of the Firth of Forth by a storm, which obliged the master, after struggling with great difficulties, to run the vessel on shore in an inlet called Thornton Loch, near Dunbar. Immediately she was beset by a multitude of farmers, Dunbar tradesmen, and others, provided with horses and carts, who, cutting a hole in her side with axes, seized and took away her whole cargo. The enumeration of the articles gives some idea of what might constitute a grocer’s stock in those days, and speaks rather more strongly of comfort and luxury than many may be prepared for. There were ‘ten lasts of white pease, three lasts and a half of soap, four great pipes of “alme” [alum?] and three puncheons of “alme,” a ball of madder, three balls of galls, twenty hundred pund weight of sugar, ten trees [barrels] of white stiffin [starch], twenty trees of raisins of the sun, three trees of figs, [three] puncheons of Corse raisins, ten kinkens [kegs] of powder, twa small trees of brimstone, are thousand pund weight of tobacco, seven barrel pipes, four kinkens of indigo, four hundred pund of pepper, fifty pund of cannell [cinnamon], thirteen pund of maces, fifteen pund of saffron, twenty pund of nutmegs, ane thousand pund of ridbrissels (?), ten piece of Holland cloth, thirty-six pund of silk, ane steik of Spanish taffeta, three trees of capers, ane packet of pannis’ (?), and ‘four hundred pund of pewter vessel and stoups,’ besides ‘six hundred and fifty merks of ready gold and silver, being in a purse, with the haill abulyiements and clothing belonging to the company and equipage of the ship.’ Having carried off these articles, they proceeded to sell them to the country people, without any regard to the remonstrances of the master of the ship. ‘The like of whilk barbarous violence, committed in the heart of the country by people who ought to have respect for law and justice, has not been heard of; whereanent some exemplar and severe course ought to be ta’en, lest the oversight and impunity thereof make others to commit the like.’ It is gratifying to find the Council taking up the East Lothian wreckers in this spirit. They did proceed with great energy against such of the individuals accused as they found to be truly guilty, imposing on them severally certain fines, from fifty merks up to fifty pounds, in order to make up a proper compensation to the owners of the goods.--_P. C. R._