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to desist ”; the other summoning Colonel Andrew Ramsay
to appear before the Council “to hear and see His
Majesty’s will in respect to the men of war enlisted under
his pay.” Next day the Lords of the Council ordered
u officers of arms to pass command and charge the
master-owners of shippes and mariners of vessels freighted for
the transport of soldiers to Sweden, that they bring in
their ships to the harbour of Leith and there suffer them
to lie.” On the fifteenth of August, two other acts were
promulgated, ordering “ that the companies of men lately
enlisted under Ramsay and others should be broken up
and in no wise be transported to Sweden,” and that “the
companies under Col. Ramsay should be disbanded and
landed, one half at Leith, the other at Burntisland.”1
These acts give us a very important insight into the
method of recruiting then practised, although, since they
are not unbiassed, the necessary allowance for high
colouring must be made. They state, amongst other
matters, that Sir Robert Ker had apprehended in the
middle shires (i.e. the Border counties) a number of
malefactors whom he intended for the service of Sweden;
secondly, that the officers had violently pressed and taken
a great many honest men’s sons and carried them to their
ships against their will (!), so that there is such a fear
and dread arising among the people that none of them
dare travel unless they be able to resist their violence, and
divers young fellows who were resolved to come to these
parts, “ to have waited upon the harvest and cut down
the corn,” are afraid to come. In the charge against
Ker and Sinclair it is further alleged “ that honest men’s
bairns are detained on board ship as slaves and captives (!) ”
Anybody disobeying these acts of the Council was
threatened with the penalty of death. The levies were
1 The documents are printed in MichelPs book.
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