It contains three copper-plates, one representing Sir William on
horseback, and attended with guards as Lord Provost of Edinburgh,
superintending the unloading of one of his rich argosies. A second
exhibiting him as arrested, and in the hands of the bailiffs. A third
presents him dead in prison. The tract is esteemed highly valuable by
collectors of prints. The only copy I ever saw upon sale, was rated at
L30. (In London sales, copies have varied in price from L15 to L52: 10s.)
NOTE N.--Doomster, or Dempster, of Court.
The name of this officer is equivalent to the pronouncer of doom or
sentence. In this comprehensive sense, the Judges of the Isle of Man were
called Dempsters. But in Scotland the word was long restricted to the
designation of an official person, whose duty it was to recite the
sentence after it had been pronounced by the Court, and recorded by the
clerk; on which occasion the Dempster legalised it by the words of form,
"_And this I pronounce for doom._" For a length of years, the office, as
mentioned in the text, was held in commendam with that of the
executioner; for when this odious but necessary officer of justice
received his appointment, he petitioned the Court of Justiciary to be
received as their Dempster, which was granted as a matter of course.
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