In the course of the year 1682, the jealousy aroused by Claverhouse’s appointment as Sheriff-Principal of Wigtownshire, and by the special power bestowed upon him to hold criminal courts, culminated in an open quarrel between him and the family of Stair, of which the head was Sir James Dalrymple, who, but a short time previously, had fallen into disgrace, and had been virtually deposed from his office of President of the Court of Session, for not conforming with the Test Act. According to the summary given of the case by Fountainhall, who was one of the counsel for the Stair family, Captain Graham of Claverhouse having imprisoned some of the Dalrymples’ tenants in Galloway for absenting themselves from the parish church and attending conventicles, Sir John, the ex-president’s son, took up the matter, and presented a bill of suspension to the Privy Council, alleging that he, as heritable Bailie of the Regality of Glenluce, within which the peasants lived, had already taken cognizance of their case; and that Claverhouse, not being the first attacher, was precluded by the limitations and restrictions of his commission, from taking action in the matter, and had no claim to the ‘casualities and emoluments of the fine.’ Claverhouse replied that it was he who had first cited the offenders, and that Sir John’s action was collusive. When the matter was first brought before the Privy Council, it was ordained that the imprisoned tenants should be set at liberty, after consigning their fines, which Fountainhall denounces as ‘most exorbitant,’ into the hands of the clerk. The point of jurisdiction was reserved; but in the meantime, the Council administered a reprimand to the Dalrymples, and told them in very plain terms, that ‘heritable Bailies and Sheriffs who were negligent themselves in putting the laws in execution, should not offer to compete with the Sheriffs commissioned and put in by the Council, who executed vigorously the King’s law.’