Poor McLeish and Ferguson, declared deserters. There are orders to search for them and for them to be “used as such”, whatever that means. Excerpt taken from: Caledonian Mercury, 6 Jan. 1800. British Library Newspapers, accessed via National Library of Scotland membership.

I would love to know more about the intricacies of this. I thoroughly enjoy the cautiously polite wordiness, and the use of the term ‘denude‘, as used within Scots law. Excerpt taken from: Caledonian Mercury, 6 Jan. 1800. British Library Newspapers, accessed via National Library of Scotland membership.

One marriage, three deaths, one shipwreck. That ratio is not good. Excerpt taken from: Caledonian Mercury, 6 Jan. 1800. British Library Newspapers, accessed via National Library of Scotland membership.

I regret to inform you that, if you frequent the premises of any of the master hair-dressers in or about Edinburgh, then from hereon in your appointments will be subject to a small rise in price. Excerpt taken from: Caledonian Mercury, 6 Jan. 1800. British Library Newspapers, accessed via National Library of Scotland membership.

According to Merriam-Webster, the first use of the word ‘ruffian’ was in approximately 1525. The Gutenberg printing press had been invented less than one hundred years before. These are two entirely distinct facts. Excerpt taken from: Caledonian Mercury, 6 Jan. 1800. British Library Newspapers, accessed via National Library of Scotland membership.

This “small octavo, ornamented with engravings”, written by THOMAS CAMPBELL, is offered for sale for 6s. This is the second edition, and has been corrected and enlarged. Various other literary delights may also be had, not least Lady Grange’s epistle, written “during her confinement in the Island of St Kilda”. And “speedily will be published, …