[A1706/10/64]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
To his grace her majesty's high commissioner and the right honourable the estates of parliament, the petition of William Bain, brother-german to the deceased James Bain, her majesty's master-wright.
Humbly shows,
That the deceased James Bain in his lifetime having often applied to former sessions of parliament for payment of that just debt found due to him by the third session of the first parliament of King William of blessed memory for timber, plaster and workmanship furnished and wrought by him to her majesty's palace of Holyrood House, castle of Edinburgh, etc., nothing could be obtained but recommendations to her majesty and royal predecessors and to her majesty's treasury for subsistence in the meantime, and last of all upon the last recommendation the lords of treasury granted him precept for £100 sterling towards his present subsistence, which is not yet paid.
After his death, your petitioner did apply to the last session of parliament, and all that was obtained was £200 sterling appointed to be paid out of the seven or eight months' cess laid on in the last parliament, which is more than now exhausted by your petitioner's attendance and payment of the funerals and other necessary debts of his brothers. And having applied to this present session of parliament to have a share out of the equivalent after payment of the public debts already ranked, or out of any other effectual fund that should be judged fit for payment of the sum of £81,769 found due by the parliament as said is, with the annualrents thereof since that time, but your grace and honourable estates could not fall upon a method to let me have a share of the said equivalent, or any other effectual fund for payment thereof, only have recommended your petitioner to her majesty for this effect.
Your petitioner shall not now resume what has been represented anent his circumstances and condition and anent the justice of his debt and the misery he is involved in through the non-payment thereof, only shall lay before your grace and honourable estates of parliament the extremity of discredit and distress your petitioner is now put to by his brother's creditors for payment of the just and lawful debts resting to them, and through the loss of my own trade in giving attendance to this affair. And seeing I am disappointed of all means of subsistence or anything else to defray these debts,
May it therefore please your grace and honourable estates of parliament to take your petitioner's most deplorable case and circumstances into your serious consideration, and to grant me some competent allowance towards my necessary subsistence, quarterly, out of some effectual fund, until her majesty be pleased to grant an effectual fund for payment of the whole aforesaid debt.
And your petitioner shall ever pray.
†Edinburgh, 25 March 1707
Her majesty's high commissioner and estates of parliament, having considered this petition, they seriously recommend the petitioner to her majesty to grant to him some competent allowance toward his necessary subsistence out of some effectual fund until her majesty shall be pleased to grant an effectual fund for payment of his whole debt mentioned within.
[James Ogilvy, earl of] Seafield, chancellor, in the presence of the lords of parliament