[A1641/7/36]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Supplication of Captain Forbes
My lords and others of the estates of parliament, to your lordships humbly means and shows I, your servant† Captain John Forbes, that where by virtue of an order of the committee of estates here at Edinburgh purchased at the instance of James Liddell, burgess of Edinburgh, am cast in prison within the tolbooth of Edinburgh, where I have lain this half year bygone and to this time no course taken for examination of the true cause of my imprisonment, whereby it might be known whether I be guilty or innocent of those things laid to my charge, but am suffered to lie still here in misery, I every day expecting when I shall starve for hunger. And whereas the committee of estates gave order to Archibald Sydserf, commissary depute, for giving me of one shilling in the day until the time that matter should be put to a trial for my sustentation, their lordships, knowing that I had nothing of my own to live on, the said Archibald Sydserf will on no way give me anything, neither has he given me any this month bygone, through which I suffer more intolerably than if I suffered on the place of execution. Therefore I humbly supplicate your lordships to take consideration of my miserable estate and to give order for trial and examination of the cause of my imprisonment, whereby according to my guiltiness or innocency I may either be punished or set at liberty. And to such time that trial and examination be made relating thereto, I humbly supplicate your lordships to give order to Archibald Sydserf, commissary depute, for furnishing of me of my maintenance only according to that measure that he did formerly by the order of the committee of estates, whereby I may not starve here in prison.
10 August 1641
This is ended this day as it stands in the records.