land. He was seized in England, and being sent to Scotland was, on the 5th of September, 1684, tortured with the thumbikens before the secret Committee of the Privy Council, in order to force him to reveal the names of the associates. An hour and a half of this cruel operation, during which the sweat streamed from his face, and some cries of agony were extorted, did not, however, render him subservient to the wishes of his inhuman tormentors, among whom the Earl of Perth, true to the infamy and atrocity of his character, stood conspicuous; urging the executioner to press the screws, while the Duke of Hamilton* and the Earl of Queensbury left the room unable any longer to witness the revolting spectacle. It was this same miscreant Perth, who sometime before, at the trial of Sir Hugh Campbell accused of rebellion, endeavored in his then capacity of Justice General, to urge on and lead a suborned witness who was unable to say any thing against the prisoner till he, the Justice General, was stopped by the jury; and this because he had obtained a promise of Sir Hugh's estate for his brother, provided Sir Hugh should be condemned. He was accustomed, as Burnet tells us, (vol. II, p. 249), the Duke of York when in Scotland had been, to behold the sufferings of those tortured before him, 'with an moved indifference, and with an attention as if he had been to look on some curious experiment.' Carstares, we have said, did not utter any confession when under the hands of the archinquisitor, though the passage quoted above from Mr. Hume's commentaries might lead the reader to that conclusion; as could also the first notice of his case by

* The Duke of Hamilton opposed torturings, alleging at this rate, they might without accusers or witnesses, take any person off the street and torture; and he retired and refused to be present, on this ground, that if the party should die in the torture the judges were liable for murder, or at least severely answerable.'-Fountainhall's Chronological Notes.

Lord Fountainhall, (vol. I, p. 302). It appears he was afterwards prevailed upon to give some information respecting Baillie of Jerviswood and others, under an express stipulation that he should not be brought forward as a witness, and that no use should be made of his communications at their trial;* but no faith was kept with him in this respect; and his declaration so obtained was, as Mr. Hume states, admitted as an adminicle of evidence in the shameful trial and condemnation of Mr. Baillie.

It would appear from Lord Fountainhall that the new torture of the thumbikens was looked upon as extremely cruel; and he adds that the privy council would have 'contracted some task' by the frequent use of it at this time, had they not succeeded in thereby extorting some confessions. He mentions, too, that in some of these successful cases it had proved its efficiency over the boots, because tried upon persons having small legs.t

After the revolution, the privy council of Scotland presented Mr. Carstares with the identical thumbikens with which he had been tortured in 1684.‡ This curious relic is, we are informed, still preserved by Mr. Dunlop, Banker in Greenock, grand nephew of the same Mr. Carstares, through whose means we have been enabled to give the figure of it which accompanies the account, and which the engraver has contrived to exhibit in such a way as to represent a picture of the thumbikens in action.

There is an anecdote handed down among the descendants of Mr. Carstares, in regard to this instrument, which we shall copy here, as we find it narrated in the fifth volume of the Statistical account of Scotland. ‘I have heard, Principal,' said King William to him, when he waited on his majesty after the revolution, that you * Fount. ibid, p. 326. M'Cormick's Life of Carstares, and Burnet, vol. II, P. 256. + Vol. II. p. 303.

+M'Cormick's Life of Carstares.

were tortured with something they call thumbikens ; pray what sort of instrument of torture is it?'-' I will show it you,' replied Carstares, 'the next time I have the honor to wait on your majesty.' The Principal was as good as his word. 'I must try them,' said the king! I must put in my thumbs here-now, Principal, turn the screw. O not so gently-another turn-another.— Stop! Stop! no more, another turn, I'm afraid, would make me confess anything.'

What share of truth there may be in this story we know not; but whatever King William's personal opinion of the use of the torture may have been, thus much is certain, that there is one case recorded in the proceedings of the privy council of Scotland which shows that the thumbikens were employed under the sanction of his sign manual, in the year 1690. This was in the case of Neville Pain or Payne, the person to whom George, Duke of Buckingham addressed his essay upon Reason and Religion. He was accused of having gone to Scotland to promote a jacobite plot, and was, in consequence of the king's warrant, already mentioned, 'put to the torture of the thumbikens,' but without making any disclosure.* This was, we believe, the last occasion on which this instrument was employed; but it was not till the year of the union that torture was expressly forbidden by the law in Scotland; the claim of right in 1689 having only declared, that using torture without evidence or in ordinary crimes, was illegal.'.

We shall here close these notices of the thumbikens, an instrument of vulgar sound, but well calculated, as we have seen, for terrible purposes, with this reflection,— that it is never useless to explore any piece of history which illustrates the state of manners and law,-which makes us acquainted with the heroic sufferings of our

* Rose's observation on Mr. Fox's Historical work, p. 179, 180.

forefathers, and the evil doings of their rulers,-which is calculated to sharpen our moral feelings against the abuses of power, or to show, what is more grateful, the solid advances made by our country in the acts of legislation and government.

EXECUTION OF RUMBOLD, THE PROJECTOR OF THE RYE-HOUSE PLOT.

Resuming our notices from Lord Fountainhall's diary, we have the following particulars, among others, of the plot which takes its name from the house in which the conspirators used to assemble.

'Phisitians have given in their verdict, that Mr. Rumbold was in hazard of death by his wounds, the council ordained the justice court to sit on him, 25th June, 1685; and 26th he was tried, and charged with a design to murder the late king at Ryhous, in April, 1683, which he positively denied thatt (was) sworn against him in England; yet the advocat part-frae that, lest it should have disparaged the credit of the English plot; and insisted on his associating with Argyle, and invading Scotland; and that he was with Campbell or Arkenlass, against the Athol men, where two or three of them were killed, which he confessed. And being asked if he was one of the masked executioners that were on the scaffold at the murder of King Charles the Ist, denyed it; but that he was one of Cromwell's regiment then, and was on horseback at Whitehall that day, as one of the guard about the scaffold. And that he was at Dunbar, Worcester, and Dundee, a lieutenant in Cromwell's army. He said Sir James Stuart, advocate, told them all would be ruined by Argyle's lingering in the Highlands, and not marching presently to Galloway. And being asked,

if he owned his majesty's authority, he craved leave to be excused, seeing he heeded neither offend them nor grate his own conscience, for they had enough to take his life; beside, his rooted opinion was for a republic against a monarchie; to pull down which he thought it a duty, and no sin; and on the scaffold began to pray for that party, but was interrupted; and said, if every hair in his head were a man, he would venture them all in that quarrel; he otherwise behaved discreetly enough, and heard the ministers, but took none of them to the scaffold. He was drawn on a hurdle thereto, then hoy sed up a little in the gallows by a pully, and hanghed a while, and let down not fullie dead, his breast ripped up, and his heart pulled out and thrown in the fire; then his head was strucke off, and his body cut in four quarters, and ordered to be affixed at Glasgow, Dumfries, New Galloway, and Jedburgh, and his head to be affixt on the west post of Edinburgh; but thereafter were, by order from the king, sent to England, to be affixt at London, where he was best known. The order came to Scotland 3d August, 1685.-Nota, he was tryet 25th, and execute 26th June, 1685.'

Punishment for mincing' the king's authority.'Some of the common prisoners that came with Argyle, are given by the council to Scot of Pitlochie and others, for the plantations. But some of them was more perverse than others, in mincing the king's authority, to the number of forty, ordered to have a piece of their lugg (ear) cut off; and the women disowning the king, to be burnt in the shoulder, that if any of them return, they might be known thereby, and hanged. 5th August, 1685.'

Execution of a drummer and a fencing master.—' A drummer was shot in Leith (for saying he could run his sword through all the Papists) by martial law; though