Bailies of Edinburgh v. Heritors of East Lothian and Merse
Date: 20 February 1663 Case No. No 55.
Total devastation found to liberate from the tax of public maintenance.
Click here to view a pdf copy of this documet : PDF Copy
The bailies pursue these heritors for so much allowed of the maintainance of these shires, of the months of August and September 1650; and insisting on an act of litiscontestation in anno 1659, whereby the defenders having proponed a defence of total vastation, the same was found relevant. The defenders having now raised a review, alleged that they ought not to have been put to prove total vastation, seeing vastation was notour, these shires being the seat of the war, where the English army lay, which ought to have freed them, unless the pursuers had replied, that the heritors got rent that year, and had been burdened with the probation thereof. 2dly, The order of Sir John Smith's general commissary, and also of the provisors of the army, bearing the provisors to have furnished such provisions want witnesses, and might have been made up since they were out of their offices.
The Lords adhered to the act, and found the defence of total devastation yet relevant in this manner, that the heritors got no rent; and granted commission to receive witnesses, at the head burghs of the shires, for each particular heritor, to prove their particular devastations; and sustained the order of the general commissary, he making faith that he subscribed an order of the same tenor while he was in office.
