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Villages. 700 inhabitants. The cotton manufacture has here been attempted; but the price of fuel is a grievous impedi

ment.

Gatehouse. The Gatehouse of Fleet has also had a rapid rise; its oldest house was an inn, which was built about forty years ago; but it now contains nearly 1200 inhabitants. It has been raised to its present size and population by the cotton manufacture, which is here established to a considerable extent. Loch Whinnion supplies the cotton mills with a copious stream of water; the channel for conveying which from the lake was cut through a considerable hill at no small expence. Coal is imported from England to be used as fuel. Mr Murray of Broughton is superior of the village; he has a beautiful modern house in the neighbourhood, surrounded by about 1000 acres of ground laid out in gardens and pleasure grounds.

Creetown.

Creetown has lately been erected into a borough of barony. It was formerly denominated the Ferry Town of Cree, from the ferry or passage boat constantly kept there. Creetown is beautifully situated at the upper part of Wigton Bay. Some manufactures have lately been in troduced there. A considerable number of vessels, employed in the coasting trade, belong to it, and it is rapidly increasing. Wigton Bay may be considered as the frith or estuary by which the river Cree falls into St George's Channel. It is navigable for about fifteen miles. It is about three miles broad for about six miles from its entrance, and then gradually diminishes as it extends into the country, and divides the shire of Wigton from the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. There is good anchorage in several places of the bay, but in particular a little below Creetown, to which a ship of 500 tons may come and ride in safety: it has a kind of soft blue clay bottom, and makes a very safe harbour. The illicit trade of smug

gling had for a considerable time so much occupied the Commerce attention and capitals of the most intelligent and enterpri-Smuggling sing part of the inhabitants of this district, to the total exclusion of trade and manufactures, that the idea of acquiring wealth in a commercial line, by fair and upright dealings, seemed altogether to be laid aside. Companies were formed solely with a view of aggrandizing their fortunes at the expence of the revenue; and in order the better to conceal their designs, every smuggler became a farmer; by which means he had always a number of men and horses at command. These, when acting in concert, could easily muster 300 or 400 men and horses, and were thereby perfectly able to set the revenue officers at defiance, and escort their goods through the country unmolested. It became a difficult matter to suppress such daring adventurers by land. Government, therefore, wisely increased its strength by sea, augmented the number of excise yachts, and placed hulks with armed men on different parts of the coast; and the consequence has been the almost total annihilation of that species of traffic. Some years ago the spirit of trade began to show itself, and produced the villages already mentioned; but they suffered considerable shocks by the late and present war.

The markets and fairs of this district are by no means Fair on a respectable footing; the English market being always resorted to with the whole cattle and sheep in the country. The only thing that deserves the name of a fair is held at Gatehouse and Kelton hill, where a few young cattle and cows are disposed of. There are in different parts of the country markets for goods, where servants are hired, and old horses occasionally sold.

Two great roads pass through the stewartry; the one Roads from Dumfries along the southern part of the county by Orrkirk, Twynholm, Gatehouse, Creetown, towards New

VOL. II.

Bb

Antiquities ton Stewart. This is the military road from England to

Abbey of
Sweetheart.

Hills castle.

Portpatrick. The other road passes through the northern part of the county by New Galloway, and joins the former at Newton Stewart, in Wigtonshire. This road is a continuation of that from Edinburgh by Leadhills, as the former may be considered as a continuation of the road from Edinburgh by Moffat and Dumfries.

The remains of antiquity in this county are still tolerably numerous, although the operation of building fences has considerably injured them.

The parish of New Abbey derives its name from a Cistertian monastery founded in the beginning of the thirteenth century by Devorgilla, or Donorguilla (for her name is very variously spelled), daughter of Allan lord of Galloway, wife to John Baliol lord of Castle Bernard, and mother of John Baliol king of Scotland. It was at first called the Abbey of Sweetheart, from her husband's heart having been embalmed, and placed in an ivory box bound with silver, which was built into the walls of the church near the altar; but the name was afterwards altered to that of New Abbey. The ruins of the abbey exhibit the remains of a beautiful lofty building of the light Gothic style of architecture: its church is 194 feet long, 102 feet broad at the cross, and 66 feet at the ends, with a tower upwards of 90 feet high. This structure stands in the middle of a fine level field of about 20 acres, called the precinct, enclosed by a stone wall eight or ten feet high, built of granite stones of great size; some of them, even near the top of the wall, seem to be no less than a ton weight.

The ruins of Hills castle are to be seen about three miles south-west from Dumfries. From the adjacent lake it is sometimes called Locbrutton. It was one of the strengths of the Douglas family when lords of Galloway.

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