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THE

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,

AND

LITERARY MISCELLANY.

AUGUST 1817.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE INTRODUCTION INTO SCOTLAND, AND THE USE MADE THERE, OF THE INSTRU

MENT OF TORTURE CALLED THUM

BIKENS.

Ir history were hot full of the enormities which man has perpetrated upon man, under the sanction of established systems of religion and law, it would be difficult, in an enlightened age, to believe, that torture had ever been employed as an instrument of justice. We can enter into those mistaken feelings in regard to the nature and end of punishment, which have sometimes prompted men to inflict cruel torments upon the convicted perpetrators of great crimes; but there seems to be no apology in any good feeling of our nature, for the blind and brutal expedient of applying torture, in order to force the discovery of such crimes. In this case, there is not only a flagrant violation of every principle of justice and humanity, by the infliction of torment previous to conviction, but guilt and innocence are made wholly to depend upon the physical strength or resolution of the sufferer. It is nevertheless true, however, that almost all countries have, at one time or other, had recourse to this barbarous expedient; insomuch, that it would require a volume of no small size to describe even the instruments which have been employed in this

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savage mockery of judicial inquiry. In Scotland, where torture continued to be employed long after it was abandoned in England, there were two modes chiefly in use, the torture of the boots, and that of the thumbikens. The exquisite picture of the torturing of Macbriar, in the Tales of my Landlord, has made every one acquainted with the cruel process employed in the torture of the boots; and as we are enabled, through the kindness of Alexander Dunlop, Esq. banker in Greenock, grand-nephew of the celebrated Principal Carstares, who was tortured with the thumbikens in 1684, to present our readers with a figure of the instrument used upon that occasion; we have collected together a few particulars regarding its origin and employment in this country.

The thumbikens, as the name imports, was an instrument applied to the thumbs, in such a way as to enable the executioner to squeeze them violently; and this was often done with so much force as to bruise the thumb-bones, and swell the arms of the sufferer up to his shoulders. The thumbikens used in torturing Principal Carstares was an iron instrument fastened to a table with a screw, the

The materials of this picture are evidently drawn from the account given by Wodrow of the torturing of Mitchell, int the first volume of his History.

upper part of the instrument being squeezed down upon the thumbs by means of another screw, which the executioner pressed at the command of his employers.

"Her son

The torture of the boots occurs at an earlier period in our history than that of the thumbikens; and is mentioned in conjunction with some other torturing instruments, of which we have not been able to find any description in the writings of our antiquaries. Thus we read, that, in 1596, the son and daughter of Alison Balfour, who was accused of witchcraft, were tortured before her to make her confess her crime, in the manner following: was put in the buits, where he suffered fifty-seven strokes; and her daughter, about seven years old, was put in the pilniewinks." In the same case, mention is made, besides pilniewinks, pinniewinks or pilliwinks, of caspitaws or caspicaws, and of tosots, as instruments of torture. Lord Royston, in his manuscript notes upon Mackenzie's Criminal Law, conjectures, that these may have been only other names for the buits and thumbikens; and thus much seems certain, that in those times, there was some torturing device applied to the fingers, which bore the name of pilniewinks ; but it will immediately appear, that the most authentic accounts assign the introduction and use of the instrument known by the name of thumbikens, to a much later period.

"It has been very generally as serted," says Dr Jamieson, that part of the cargo of the invincible Armada was a large assortment of thumbikens, which, it was meant, should be employed as powerful arguments for convincing the heretics." The country of the inquisi

Maclaurin's Criminal Cases, Introduct. p. 35.

+ Quoted by Maclaurin, Ibid. p. 36. See Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable sorcerer, who was burned at Edinburgh in Januarie last, 1591.

Dictionary, v. Thumbikens. We wish the learned author would, before he publishes another edition of his Dictionary, extend his researches to the pilniewinks, caspicaws, and tosots, implements which he has wholly overlooked; though they seem to have been at one time as freely employed upon the persecuted witches, as the

tion was certainly a fit quarter from whence to derive so congenial an implement; but other accounts, as we have said, and these apparently unquestionable, assign it a later introduc tion, and from a quarter and by means of agents, very well fitted for the production and importation of such a commodity. In the journal of the proceedings of the Scotch Privy-Council kept by Lord Fountainhall, and partly published in that very curious collection called his Decisions, he takes occasion to mention the origin of the thumbikens, in his account of the various torturings inflicted in 1684, upon William Spence, a person who had been in the employment of the Earl of Argyll. Upon the 26th of July in that year, this unfortunate man was put to the torture of the boots, force him," as Fountainhall says, to reveal what he knew of the Earl's and other persons accessions to the late English fanatic plot, and the association and design of rising;" but as he would confess nothing at this time,

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he was put in General Dalyell's hands; and it was reported, that, by a hair shirt and prickings, as the witches are used, he was five nights kept from sleep, till he was turned half distracted." Spence's resolution did not, however, forsake him, for sometime after he had, with due consideration, doubtless, of Dalyell's fitness for the office, been placed in the fangs of that merciless persecutor; but, on the 7th of August, after being tried in vain with the thumbikens, in which "his thumbs were crushed," and being about to be again tortured in the boots, he then, says Fountainhall, became 66 frighted, and desired time, and he would tell what he knew; whereon, they gave him some time, and sequestrated him in the Castle of Edinburgh, as a place where he would be free from any bad advice to be ob stinate in not revealing." It is upon this occasion that Fountainhall mentions the origin of the thumbikens, stating, that this instrument was " a new invention used among the coliers upon transgressors, and discovered by General Dalyell and Drummond, they having seen them used in Muscovy."

The account which Bishop Burnet

thumbikens upon the persecuted Presbyterians.

Decisions, Vol. I. p. 299, 300.

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gives of the torturing of Spence, confirms the then recent use of the thumbi kens. "Spence," says he, "was struck in the boots, and continued firm. Then a new species of torture was invented; he was kept from sleep eight or nine nights. They grew weary of managing this; so a third species was in vented; little screws of steel were made use of, that screwed the thumbs with so exquisite a torment, that he sunk under it." This point, we think, is put beyond all doubt by the following act of the Privy Council in 1684, quoted in Wodrow's invaluable History. "Whereas there is now a new invention and engine called the thumbikens, which will be very effec tual to the purpose and intent foresaid, (i. e. to expiscate matters relating to the government); the Lords of his Majesty's Council do therefore ordain, that when any person shall by their order be put to the torture, that the boots and thumbikens both be applied to them, as it shall be found fit and convenient."

Thus, then, it seems clear, that the

History of the Sufferings of the Church

of Scotland, Vol. II. p. 347.

thumbikens, whether imported from abroad, or invented at home, was a mode of torture which had been only recently introduced, at the frightful period to which we have just been referring; a period well fitted, either for the reception or the production of any new device, calculated to extend the outrages of power over its unhappy victims. This being the case, we see no good reason for not going a step farther, and taking the account of its introduction which is given by Lord Fountainhall. It was upon the perse cuted Presbyterians that this species of torture was first inflicted; and who among all their persecutors was there more likely to enhance their sufferings by any new device, than the ruthless commanders, whom this Judge, their contemporary, points out as its authors?

It was during this atrocious persecution, when every right and feeling of humanity were trampled under foot, with a degree of wantonness and barbarity unparalleled in the annals of any other country, that the use of the torture reached its height. "To so great an extent," says Mr Hume in his Commentaries on the

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Observations on the Instrument called Thumbikens.

was this iniquity Criminal Law, carried in those days, that confessions obtained in this way were made use of as an evidence in modum adminiculi, towards the conviction even of third parties; the confession of William Carstares, for instance, against Baillie "Every one at all acof Jerviswood.' quainted with our history must know, that Mr Carstares, afterwards Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was deeply concerned in those unfortunate transactions, which brought Argyll to the scaffold in Scotland, and Russel and Sydney in England. He was seized in England, and being sent to Scotland, was, on the 5th of September 1684, + tortured with the thumbikens before the secret commit tee of the Privy Council, in order to force him to reveal the names and deAn hour and signs of his associates. 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 general infamy and atrocity of his character, stood conspicuous; urging the executioner to press the screws, while the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Queensberry 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, endeavoured, in his then capacity of Justice-General, to urge suborned witon and to lead a ness, 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 ob

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tained a promise of Sir Hugh's estate for his brother, provided Sir Hugh should be condemned. He was accus*the Duke tomed, as Burnet tells us of York when in Scotland had been, to behold the sufferings of those tortured before him " with an unmoved indifference, and with an attention, as if he had been to look on some curious experiment."+ Carstares, as we have said, did not utter any confession when under the hands of this arch inquisitor, though the passage quoted above from Mr Hume's Commentaries might lead the reader to that conclusion; as would also the first notice of his case by Lord Fountainhall. + It appears that he was afterwards prevailed upon to give some information affecting 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 Fountainhall, that the new torture of the thumbikens was looked upon as extremely cruel; and he adds that the Privy Council would have ed some tash" by the frequent use of it at this time, had they not succeeded in thereby extorting some confessions.

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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. ||

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 still preserved by Mr Dunlop, who has kindly enabled us to give the figure has conof it, which accompanies this article, engraver "Some doubted how and which the trived to exhibit in such a way as

See Hume's Commentaries, Vol. II. ch. 12.-Nothing can more clearly shew the darkness of men's minds in those dire times, as to the plainest principles of justice and evidence, than the following passage of Lord Fountainhall.

far testimonies extorted per torturam could be probative against third parties, seeing witnesses should be so far voluntary and spontaneous, as to be under no terrors of life or limb; but others judged them best to be credited then." Decisions, Vol. I. p. 303.

+Fountainhall's Decisions, Vol. I. p.

302.

M'Cormick's Life of Carstares, prefixed to his State Papers.

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to represent a picture of the thumbi kens 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 were tortured with something they call thumbikens; pray what sort of instrument of torture is it?" "I will shew it you," replied Carstares, "the next time I have the honour 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 any thing.”

What share of truth there may be in this story, we know not; but, whatever King William's personal opinion of the use of torture may have been, thus much is certain, that there is one case recorded in the proceedings of the Privy Council of Scotland, which shews that the thumbikens were employed under the sanction of his sign manual, in the year 1690. This was in the case of Neville Penn or Payne, the person to whom George Duke of Buckingham addressed his Essay upon Reason and Religion. He was aceused 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 law in Scotland; the Claim of Right in 1689 having only declared, "that the using torture without evidence, or in ordinary crimes, was illegal."

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We close these hasty memoranda of the history 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 forefathers, and the evil doings of their rulers, which is calculated to sharpen our moral feelings against the abuses of power, or to shew, what is more grateful, the solid advances made by our country in the arts of legislation and government.

ORIGINAL

LETTER FROM DAVID

HUME TO JOHN HOME, WITH SOME
ACCOUNT OF A RARE AND CURIOUS
TRACT CHARACTERIZED IN THAT
LETTER.

THE annexed letter from David Hume to the author of Douglas, with which the public is now, for the first time, presented, is both curious and interesting; curious, from its allusion to a clever jeu d'esprit, which appeared in Edinburgh in 1774, but which is now of the greatest rarity; and interesting, from the specimen it affords of that gay and easy humour which distinguished the familiar correspondence of this eminent writer. The small satirical tract to which the letter refers, is entitled, A Specimen of the Scots Review. It consists of thirty pages, neatly printed in octavo, but without the name of any printer or publisher. It professes to give a prospectus and a specimen of an intended new review; but the whole object seems to have been, to laugh at some individuals obnoxious to the writer, and particularly to ridicule the virulence, and to lower the pretensions of those who had signalized themselves by their attacks upon the philosophical writings of Mr Hume. A promise is held out, that this " archinfidel" is himself to be reviewed, in the first place; and next, "those authors who have waged an holy war against him;" of whom a list is given, with their characters, the delineation of which, in no very favourable colours, appears, as already mentioned, to have exhausted the main object of the piece, though one or two gentle hits are aimed at the historian himself.

"St Andrew's Square,
4th of June, 17746

"DEAR JOHN, The enclosed came to hand to-day, and, as I take it to be Rose's Observations on Mr Fox's His directed to you, I have sent it you. If torical. Work, p. 179, 180.

VOL. 1.

on opening it you find otherwise, you

B

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