_ a year, being more than one-third
of the gross amount of the duty levied at the Custom-house for the
revenue.
_Silk_.
Lord Kingston has upwards of 30,000 mulberry-trees growing upon one
estate in Ireland, and has already sent raw silk into the market.
* * * * *
SINGULAR ASSASSINATION IN KINCARDINESHIRE.
(_For the Mirror_.)
The fate of one of the sheriffs of this county, in former times,
merits notice, especially as connected with a ruin in the parish of
Eccliscraig, formerly a place of great strength, being erected on a
perpendicular and peninsulated rock, sixty feet above the sea, at the
mouth of a small rivulet. It was built in consequence of a murder
committed in the reign of James the First, and the circumstance
deserves to be recorded, as it affords a specimen of the barbarity of
the times. Melville, sheriff of Kincardineshire, had, by a vigorous
exercise of his authority, rendered himself so very obnoxious to the
barons of the county, that they had made repeated complaints to the
king. On the last of these occasions the king, in a fit of impatience,
happened to say to Barclay, of Mathers, "I wish that sheriff were
sodden and supped in brue." Barclay instantly withdrew, and reported
to his neighbours the king's words, which they resolved literally
to fulfil.
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