Note 165 — BOOK XXII.

While the rulers were plundering the best in the land, solely because they were the best, they were no less anxious to protect those who were at least not the most worthy; but they were their own minions. The universal profligacy of manners which had been introduced at the Restoration, appears to have been followed by its natural consequence, an almost universal bankruptcy; for, when those who had wasted their substance in riotous living could no longer supply their waste by the plunder of the persecuted Presbyterians, they supported themselves for a while by the scarcely less dishonourable shift of living upon their creditors; then failing, and throwing themselves upon the crown. Fountainhall notices some such circumstances as mere matters of course:—“Provost George Drummond,” says he, “turnes bankrupt, as alsoe George Drummond, town-treasurer, [and] Drummond of Carlourie; and the Chancellor gets protections to them all, and to Skene of Hallyards in Louthian, and John Johnstoun of Poltoun;” and he adds, in the same business-like style, “William Seaton, in the life-guards, gets a gift of 5000 merks he had discovered resting to Argyle.”