Instances of the capture of Scottish mariners by Barbary rovers, and of
charitable efforts at home to redeem them from a cruel slavery, have
been already intimated as numerous. At this time, we are informed of
one which must have formed a powerful appeal to the humane bosom. A
ship called the _John_ of Leith, commanded by John Brown, and having
ten sailors on board, is quietly proceeding on a mercantile voyage
from London to Rochelle. Near the coast of France, it encounters three
Turkish men-of-war, who give chase from sunrise to sundown, and at last
take and sink the vessel, after easing her of her crew and all her
valuable goods.
The poor skipper Brown and his ten men, being carried to Sallee,
were taken to market and sold as slaves. Each bearing iron chains to
the weight of eighty pounds, the eleven men were employed all day in
grinding in a mill, with nothing to eat but a little dusty bread. ‘In
the night, they are put in foul holes, twenty foot under the ground,
where they lie miserably, looking nightly to be eaten with rottens
and mice.’ It was further stated, that ‘being but a company of poor
seafaring men, having nothing but their hires whereby to redeem
themselves, and their kin are so mean and unworthy as they will do
nothing in that errand, their thraldom and misery will be perpetual
unless they be assisted and helped by the charitable benevolence of his
majesty’s good subjects.’
The Privy Council, looking kindly on the wretched state of the men,
recommended a contribution in their behalf throughout Lothian, Berwick,
Stirling, and Fife, under the care of ‘John Brown and Walter Ross,
indwellers in Preston.’
[Sidenote: 1636.]
In the ensuing month, the Privy Council had in their hands a
supplication from James Duncher, setting forth his pitiful estate as a
prisoner among the Turks in Algiers. He had been kept for a long time
there, forced to carry water on his back through the town, ‘with an
iron chain about his leg and round his middle, instead of sark, hose,
and shoes;’ and no food ‘but four unce of bread daily, as black as
tar,’ while obliged to endure ‘forty or threescore of stripes with are
rope of four inches great upon his naked body, sometimes on his back,
and sometimes on his belly.’ ‘When the ship is to go to the sea, he
must go perforce and sustein the like misery there, and all because he
will not renunce his faith in Christ and become ane Turk.’ His cruel
masters having offered to liberate him for twelve hundred merks, he now
entreated the Privy Council to recommend his case to the charity of his
fellow-countrymen, that that sum might be raised and sent to him. The
Council looked kindly on this sad petition, and appointed a collection
to be made in the sheriffdoms of Edinburgh and Berwick, the proceeds to
be handed to ‘David Corsaw in Dysart, uncle of the supplicant,’ who had
undertaken to administer the money for Duncher’s relief.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN. 27.]
[Sidenote: 1636.]
A bark belonging to Dundee, carrying goods from Camphire, was overtaken
near the mouth of the Firth of Forth by a storm, which obliged the
master, after struggling with great difficulties, to run the vessel
on shore in an inlet called Thornton Loch, near Dunbar. Immediately
she was beset by a multitude of farmers, Dunbar tradesmen, and others,
provided with horses and carts, who, cutting a hole in her side with
axes, seized and took away her whole cargo. The enumeration of the
articles gives some idea of what might constitute a grocer’s stock in
those days, and speaks rather more strongly of comfort and luxury than
many may be prepared for. There were ‘ten lasts of white pease, three
lasts and a half of soap, four great pipes of “alme” [alum?] and three
puncheons of “alme,” a ball of madder, three balls of galls, twenty
hundred pund weight of sugar, ten trees [barrels] of white stiffin
[starch], twenty trees of raisins of the sun, three trees of figs,
[three] puncheons of Corse raisins, ten kinkens [kegs] of powder, twa
small trees of brimstone, are thousand pund weight of tobacco, seven
barrel pipes, four kinkens of indigo, four hundred pund of pepper,
fifty pund of cannell [cinnamon], thirteen pund of maces, fifteen pund
of saffron, twenty pund of nutmegs, ane thousand pund of ridbrissels
(?), ten piece of Holland cloth, thirty-six pund of silk, ane steik of
Spanish taffeta, three trees of capers, ane packet of pannis’ (?), and
‘four hundred pund of pewter vessel and stoups,’ besides ‘six hundred
and fifty merks of ready gold and silver, being in a purse, with the
haill abulyiements and clothing belonging to the company and equipage
of the ship.’ Having carried off these articles, they proceeded to sell
them to the country people, without any regard to the remonstrances
of the master of the ship. ‘The like of whilk barbarous violence,
committed in the heart of the country by people who ought to have
respect for law and justice, has not been heard of; whereanent some
exemplar and severe course ought to be ta’en, lest the oversight and
impunity thereof make others to commit the like.’
It is gratifying to find the Council taking up the East Lothian
wreckers in this spirit. They did proceed with great energy against
such of the individuals accused as they found to be truly guilty,
imposing on them severally certain fines, from fifty merks up to fifty
pounds, in order to make up a proper compensation to the owners of the
goods.--_P. C. R._
In July 1636, the Council dealt with a case of wrecking which strongly
illustrates the state of morals in the Western Islands. The _Susanna_,
a bark of twenty-four tons, was proceeding, in December 1634, from the
port of St Malo, in France, to Limerick, with wines and other goods
to the value of a thousand pounds, when she twice encountered stormy
weather, and by force of winds and waves, was carried to an inlet in
one of the Hebrides. Having lost their boat, the mariners made signs to
the people on shore, who presently came on board, armed with swords,
pikes, and crossbows, ‘and demanded of the company of the bark what
they would give to bring the bark into are harbour.’ It was agreed by
the distressed crew, that a butt of sack and a barrel of raisins should
be given for that service and for some provisions of which they stood
in need. Then the islanders cut the ship’s cable and brought her to
land.
The master and his crew expected here to find kindly entertainment and
to be in full security; but, instead of this, a great number of people,
of whom the captain of the Clanranald and the Laird of Castleborrow
were the chief (three hundred in all, it is said), came down upon them
in armed fashion, and furnished with barrels and other conveniences;
‘drank and drew out the wine day by day, carried away all their goods
and merchandise,’ and even robbed the strangers of their wearing
apparel, ‘as weel that upon their bodies as whilk was in the bark.’ By
threats and ill-usage, they also obliged a young man, a member of the
crew, to assume the character of factor of the vessel, and make a mock
sale of her merchandise, ‘in consideration of a sowm of money, although
he received nane.’ Finally, under a threat of being sent with the crew
‘to the savages that dwells in the mayne,’ the owner was compelled to
accept eight pounds for the vessel, though it was worth a hundred and
fifty; and then the crew found it necessary to get away as best they
could, for fear of their lives.
[Sidenote: 1636.]
The Council summoned the accused persons, and on their failing to
appear, denounced them as rebels.--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JAN.]
A difficulty occurring about the election of magistrates for Aberdeen,
a _leet_ was sent to the Privy Council, who selected out of it
Alexander Jaffray, a distinguished merchant, whom we shall meet again
in this chronicle. ‘Many lichtlied both the man and the election, not
being of the old blood of the town, but the oy [grandson] of ane baxter
[baker], and therefore was set down in the provost’s dais, before his
entering, are baken pie, to sermon. This was done divers times; but he
miskenned [overlooked] all, and never quarrelled the samen.’--_Spal._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: APR. 1.]
On the application of Mr William Gordon, professor of medicine and
anatomy in the university of Aberdeen, who had hitherto been obliged
to illustrate his lessons by dissecting beasts, the Privy Council gave
warrant to the sheriffs and magistrates of Aberdeen to allow him the
bodies of a couple of malefactors for the service of his class, if
such could be had, but, failing these, the bodies of any poor people
who might die in hospitals or otherwise, and have no friends to take
exception; this being with the approbation of the Bishop of Aberdeen,
chancellor of the university.[69]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 27.]
[Sidenote: 1636.]
This was a terrible day for the _broken men_ who had for the last few
years been carrying on such wild proceedings in Morayland and other
districts bordering on the Highlands. Lord Lorn--who soon after, as
Marquis of Argyle, became the leader of the Covenanting party--had
exerted himself with diligence to put down the system of robbery and
oppression by which the country had been so long harassed; and he
had succeeded in capturing ten of the most noted of the catterans,
including one whose name enjoys a popular celebrity even to the present
day. This was Gilderoy or Gillieroy; such at least was his common
appellation--a descriptive term signifying the Red Lad--but he actually
bore the name of Patrick Macgregor, being a member of that unhappy clan
which the severity of the government had driven to desperate courses
about thirty years before. Another of the captured men was John Forbes,
who seems to have been the _fidus Achates_ of the notorious outlaw,
James Grant. A natural son of Grant was also of the party. These ten
men were now brought to trial in Edinburgh.
It was alleged of Gilderoy that he and his band had for three years
past _sorned_ ‘through the haill bounds of Strathspey, Braemar, Cromar,
and countries thereabout, oppressing the common and poor people,
violently taking away from them their meat, drink, and provision,
and their haill guids.’ They had taken fifteen nolt from one farm in
Glenprosen; had lain for days at Balreny, eating up the country, and
possessing themselves of whatever they could lay hands on, and in some
instances they had carried off the goodman himself, or the man and wife
together, in order to extort money for their ransom. One of the charges
leads us to the romantic scenery of Loch Lomond, where there is an
island called Inchcailloch (Women’s Island), from having been the seat
of a nunnery in ancient times. Gilderoy, in company with his brother,
John Dhu Roy, and his half-brother, John Graham, had come to William
Stewart’s house in this island, and taken from it ‘the whole insight
plenishing, guids, and geir,’ besides the legal papers belonging to the
proprietor. There had also been a cruel slaughter of one of the Clan
Cameron. The other men were taxed with offences of a similar kind.
If the doom of the ten catterans was duly executed--and we know nothing
to the contrary--they were all, two days after, drawn backwards on
a hurdle to the Cross, and there hanged, Gilderoy and John Forbes
suffering on a gallows ‘ane degree higher’ than that on which their
companions suffered, and further having their heads and right hands
struck off for exhibition on the city ports.[70]
Gilderoy, as is well known, attained a ballad fame. There is a
broadside of the time, containing a lament for him by his mistress, in
rude verses not altogether devoid of pathos. She says:
‘My love he was as brave a man
As ever Scotland bred,
Descended from a Highland clan,
A catter to his trade.
No woman then or womankind
Had ever greater joy
Than we two when we lodged alone,
I and my Gilderoy.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1630.]
There is something almost fine in the close of the piece:
‘And now he is in Edinburgh town,
’Twas long ere I came there;
They hanged him upon a pin,
And he wagged in the air:
His relics they were more esteemed
Than Hector’s were at Troy--
_I never love to see the face
That gazed on Gilderoy_.’
A various version of this doleful ditty appears in _A Collection of Old
Ballads_ (London, printed for J. Roberts, &c., 1724). It contains some
stanzas not quite consistent with modern taste, and takes such a view
of the offences of the hero as might be expected from a woman and a
mistress:
‘What kind of cruelty is this,
_To hang such handsome men_!’
As it breathed, however, a strain of natural feeling, it attracted
the attention of Lady Wardlaw, the authoress of the fine ballad of
_Hardiknute_, and by her was put into such an improved form as may be
said to have rendered the name of Gilderoy classical.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: JULY 28.]
A petition given in to the Privy Council by the parishioners of
Denny, craving assistance to rebuild a bridge which had been carried
away by a ‘speat’ of the Carron, stated the circumstances of the
accident in terms which illustrate the power of running-water in a
remarkable manner. The tempest, it was said, exceeded all that could be
remembered, ‘by the violence whereof not only houses, with men, wives,
and bairns, were pitifully carried away and drowned, but great craigs
and rocks were rent, and huge parts of the same, of forty foot of
length and above, carried with the violence of the speat, above four or
five pair of butts length from the craig, within the water of Carron,
to the dry land.’--_P. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AUG. 3.]
Lady Rothiemay, after a long detention under caution, was this day
subjected to trial for giving encouragement to the Frendraught spoilers
two years before. There seems to have been a disposition to look
lightly on the offence of a woman who had had the deaths of a husband
and a son to excite her feelings, and the charge, after being twice
delayed, was finally allowed to fall to the ground.
[Sidenote: 1636.