THE TRIAL OF ANDREW M'KINLEY, BEFORE THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICIARY, ON THE 26TH JULY, 1817, FOR ADMINISTERING UNLAWFUL OATHS: WITH THE ANTECEDENT PROCEEDINGS AGAINST WILLIAM EDGAR, JOHN KEITH, AND ANDREW M'KINLEY. TAKEN IN SHORT HAND, BY JOHN DOW, Esq. W. S. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR MANNERS AND MILLER, EDINBURGH; AND SOLD BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, LONDON. 1818. NOTICE BY THE PUBLISHERS. THE Publishers are aware that a period unusually long has elapsed between the date of the trials and the publication of this Report. This delay, however, has been unavoidable; and from the intervening diminution of popular curiosity, will be chiefly or solely injurious to themselves. The cause and the justification of it will be found in their anxiety to render the report of these interesting proceedings accurate and authentic, by obtaining the revisal of the account of the opinions delivered from the Bench, and of the pleadings at the Bar. The principal delay occurred in obtaining the revisal of the pleadings for the pannels. In one instance,* one of the learned counsel for the pannels declined to revise the proof-sheets of the notes of the pleadings, and it was thought better to omit the speech altogether. With the exception of this omission, the following Report may be relied on as full and correct. The short-hand writer stated it to be his intention to prefix a preface, for the purpose of explaining certain circumstances which occur *See Proceedings of 26th May, page 2. red after the date of the trials, and in which he considered himself to be interested. After wait. ing for this prefatory notice for some time, in vain, the Publishers did not think themselves warranted in any longer withholding the publication on that account. CONTENTS. The Counsel for the Crown, and for the Pannel The Indictment against William Edgar and John Keith.... Desertion of the Diet against John Keith pro loco et tempore, II.-Proceedings on 19th May. |