Criminal Letters, Patrick Duff of Carnousie, Esq; with Concourse of his Majesty’s Advocate; Against Lieutenant James Fyfe.

Notes

An indictment against James Fyfe on behalf of Patrick Duff, alleging perjury in his oath before voting in the contested Banffshire by-election of 1795. Duff was opposed to the Earl of Fife's control of the electoral roll and stood against the Earl's candidate in the by-election, but lost. The dissolution of Parliament for a general election looming, instead of submitting a petition to Parliament challenging the result, Duff instead brought this private prosecution against Lieutenant James Fyfe of Edinglassie, one of the electors. The by-election is the subject of an article by Alistair Mutch, 'A Contested Eighteenth-Century Election' (Northern Scotland, vol. 2 pp. 22-35), based on the records of it in the National Archives, though no copy of this printing has been traced elsewhere. The witnesses listed at the end include William Forbes, from whose collection this example comes.