In the beginning of the reign of Charles II., Morayshire became the scene of a violent fit of the great moral frenzy, and some of the most remarkable trials in the course of Scottish witchcraft took place there. The last justiciary trial for witchcraft in Scotland was that of Elspeth Rule, who was convicted in 1708, and banished. The last regular execution for this crime took place in Dornoch in 1722, when an old woman was condemned to death by David Ross, Sheriff of Caithness. It is difficult to compute the number of the victims of witchcraft in Scotland, but attentive inquirers make out that the black list would include upwards of four thousand persons! And by what a fate did they perish? Cruelly tortured while living, and dismissed from life by a living death amidst the flames! And for what? For an impossible crime. And who were the victims, and who were the executioners! The victims in most cases, were the aged, the weak, the deformed, the lame, and the blind—those, indeed, whom years and infirmities had doomed to poverty and wretchedness; yes, exactly that class of miserable beings for whom Acts of Parliament have now made comfortable provision—those unfortunate creatures for whose benefit our more enlightened rulers now provide houses of refuge, erect poorhouses like palaces, build large asylums, and endow charitable institutions of every kind. But who were the executioners? The wisest, the greatest, and the most learned of their time—men distinguished above their fellows for knowledge and intelligence—ministers of religion and of the law, kings, princes, and nobles.