Poser 312 - Porteous Roll for Edinburgh, 1679

This week's poser is an excerpt from the Porteous Roll for Edinburgh contained in the High Court of Justiciary process papers. It dates from 1679 (National Records of Scotland, JC26/51/5 page 3) and deals with an accusation against James Gilchrist, merchant in Edinburgh. A Porteous Roll was a precursor of a criminal indictment; a list of accused persons to be tried before the High Court of Justiciary, with information about the offence and the location of the accused.

The passage mentioned the words victuall, dearth and indigent which, according to the Dictionary of the Scots Language mean "provisions, foodstuffs, staple goods, necessities, grain", "high prices " and "needy, poor" respectively. Watch out for the letter thorn, phonetic spellings, abbreviations and descending strokes interfering with letters in the line below.

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This week's question: What had James done and how did the City magistrates relieve the situation?

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Letter thorn
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Phonetic spelling

Answer to this week's poser