representation making a claim upon Glengarry’s estate, so that it became
necessary to call in the aid of the Lord Advocate to make up the
statement for the royal consideration.
[Sidenote: SEP. 16.]
The family of the Gordons of Gicht have already attracted our attention
by their troubles as Catholics under Protestant persecution, and their
tendency to wild and lawless habits. After two generations of silence,
the family comes up again in antagonism to the law, but in the person of
the husband of an heiress. It appears that the Miss Gordon of Gicht who
gave birth to George Lord Byron, was not the first heiress who married
unfortunately.
The _heretrix_ of this period had taken as her husband Alexander
Davidson, younger of Newton, who, on the event, became with his father
(a rich man) bound to relieve the mother of his bride—‘the old Lady
Gicht’—of the debts of the family, in requital for certain advantages
conferred upon him. The mother had married as a [Sidenote: 1704.] second
husband Major-general Buchan, who commanded the Cavalier army after the
death of Lord Dundee, till he was defeated by Sir Thomas Livingstone at
Cromdale. By and by, Alexander Davidson, under fair pretences, through
James Hamilton of Cowbairdie, borrowed from his mother-in-law her copy
of the marriage-contract, which had not yet been registered; and when
the family creditors applied for payment of their debts, he did not
scruple to send them, or allow them to go to the old Lady Gicht and her
husband for payment. They, beginning to feel distressed by the
creditors, sought back the copy of the contract for their protection;
but as no entreaty could induce Davidson to return it to Cowbairdie,
they were obliged at last to prosecute the latter gentleman for its
restitution.
Cowbairdie, being at length, at the instance of old Lady Gicht and her
husband, taken upon a legal caption, was, with the messenger, John Duff,
at the Milton of Fyvie, at the date noted, on his way to prison, when
Davidson came to him with many civil speeches, expressive of his regret
for what had taken place. He entreated Duff to leave Cowbairdie there on
his parole of honour, and go and intercede with General Buchan and his
wife for a short respite to his prisoner, on the faith that the contract
should be registered within a fortnight, which he pledged himself should
be done. Duff executed this commission successfully; but when he came
back, Davidson revoked his promise. It chanced that another gentleman
had meanwhile arrived at the Milton, one Patrick Gordon, who had in his
possession a caption against Davidson for a common debt of a hundred
pounds due to himself. Seeing of what stuff Davidson was made, he
resolved no longer to delay putting this in execution; so he took Duff
aside, and put the caption into his hand, desiring him to take Gicht, as
he was called, into custody, which was of course immediately done.
In the midst of these complicated proceedings, a message came from the
young Lady Gicht, entreating them to come to the family mansion, a few
miles off, where she thought all difficulties might be accommodated. The
whole party accordingly went there, and were entertained very hospitably
till about two o’clock in the morning (Sunday), when the strangers rose
to depart, and Davidson came out to see them to horse, as a host was
bound to do in that age, but with apparently no design of going along
with them. Duff was not so far blinded by the Gicht hospitality, as to
forget that he would be under a very heavy responsibility if he should
allow Davidson to slip through his fingers. Accordingly, [Sidenote:
1704.] he reminded the laird that he was a prisoner, and must come along
with them; whereupon Davidson drew his sword, and called his servants to
the rescue, but was speedily overpowered by the messenger and his
assistant, and by the other gentlemen present. He and Cowbairdie were,
in short, carried back as prisoners that night to the Milton of Fyvie.
This place being on the estate of Gicht, Duff bethought him next day
that, as the tenants were going to church, they might gather about their
captive laird, and make an unpleasant disturbance; so he took forward
his prisoners to the next inn, where they rested till the Sabbath was
over. Even then, at Davidson’s entreaty, he did not immediately conduct
them to prison, but waited over Monday and Tuesday, while friends were
endeavouring to bring about an accommodation. This was happily so far
effected, the Earl of Aberdeen, and his son Lord Haddo, paying off Mr
Gordon’s claim on Davidson, and certain relatives becoming bound for the
registration of the marriage-contract.
From whatever motive—whether, as alleged, to cover a vitiation in the
contract, or merely out of revenge—Davidson soon after raised a process
before the Privy Council against Cowbairdie, Gordon, and Duff, for
assault and private imprisonment, concluding for three thousand pounds
of damages; but after a long series of proceedings, in the course of
which many witnesses were examined on both sides, the case was
ignominiously dismissed, and Davidson decerned to pay a thousand merks
as expenses.[364]
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Cash being scarce in the country, a rumour arose—believed to be promoted
by malicious persons—that the Privy Council intended by proclamation to
raise the value of the several coins then current. The unavoidable
consequence was a run upon the Bank of Scotland, which lasted twenty
days, and with such severity, that at last the money in its coffers was
exhausted, and payments at the bank were suspended; being the only
stoppage or suspension, properly so called, which has ever taken place
in this venerable institution since its starting in 1695, down to the
present day, besides one of an unimportant character, to be afterwards
adverted to. ‘That no person possessed of bank-notes should be a loser,
by having their money lie dead and useless, the proprietors of the bank,
in a general meeting, declared all bank-notes then current to bear
interest from the day that payments [Sidenote: 1704.] were stopped,
until they should be called in by the directors in order to
payment.’[365]
[Sidenote: DEC. 19.]
The Court of Directors (December 19) petitioned the Privy Council to
send a committee to inspect their books, and ‘therein see the
sufficiency of the security to the nation for the bank-notes that are
running, and to take such course as in their wisdom they might think
fit, for the satisfaction of those who might have bank-notes in their
hands.’
Accordingly, a committee of Council, which included Lord Belhaven, the
President of the Court of Session, the Lord Advocate, and the
Treasurer-depute, met in the bank-office at two o’clock next day; and
having examined the accounts both in charge and discharge, found that
‘the bank hath sufficient provisions to satisfy and pay all their
outstanding bills and debts, and that with a considerable overplus,
exceeding by a fourth part at least the whole foresaid bills and debts,
conform to ane abstract of the said account left in the clerk of
Council’s hands for the greater satisfaction of all concerned.’[366]
This report being, by permission of the Privy Council, printed, ‘gave
such universal satisfaction, that payments thereafter were as current as
ever, and no stop in business, everybody taking bank-notes, as if no
stop had been for want of specie, knowing that they would at last get
their money with interest.
‘At this time, the Company thought fit to call in a tenth of stock
[£10,000] from the adventurers, which was punctually paid by each
adventurer [being exactly a duplication of the acting capital, which was
only £10,000 before]; and in less than five months thereafter, the
Company being possessed of a good cash, the directors called in the
notes that were charged with interest, and issued new notes, or made
payments in money, in the option of the possessors of the old notes. And
very soon the affairs and negotiations of the bank went on as formerly,
and all things continued easy until the year 1708.’[367]
[Sidenote: DEC.]
Notwithstanding the extreme poverty now universally complained of,
whenever a man of any figure or importance died, there was enormous
expense incurred in burying him. On the death, at this time, of Lachlan
Mackintosh of Mackintosh—that is, the chief of the clan Mackintosh—there
were funeral [Sidenote: 1704.] entertainments at his mansion in
Inverness-shire for a whole month. Cooks and confectioners were brought
from Edinburgh, at great expense, to provide viands for the guests, and
liquors were set aflowing in the greatest profusion. On the day of the
interment, the friends and dependants of the deceased made a procession,
reaching all the way from Dalcross Castle to the kirk of Petty, a
distance of four miles! ‘It has been said that the expense incurred on
this occasion proved the source of pecuniary embarrassments to the
Mackintosh family to a recent period.’[368]
In the same month died Sir William Hamilton, who had for several years
held the office of a judge under the designation of Lord Whitelaw, and
who, for the last two months of his life, was Lord Justice-clerk, and
consequently, in the arrangements of that period, an officer of state.
It had pleased his lordship to assign the great bulk of his fortune,
being £7000 sterling, to his widow, the remainder going to his heir,
Hamilton of Bangour, of which family he was a younger son. Lord Whitelaw
was buried in the most pompous style, chiefly under direction of the
widow, but, to all appearance, with the concurrence of the heir, who
took some concern in the arrangements, or at least was held as
sanctioning the whole affair by his presence as chief mourner. The
entire expenses were £5189 Scots, equal to £432, 8_s._ 4_d._ sterling,
being more than two years’ salary of a judge of the Court of Session at
that time. The lady paid the tradesmen’s bills out of her ‘donative,’
which was thought a singularly large one; but, by and by, marrying
again, she raised an action against Bangour, craving allowance for Lord
Whitelaw’s funeral charges ‘out of her intromission with the
executry’—that is, out of the proceeds of the estate, apart from her
jointure. The heir represented that the charges were inordinate, while
his inheritance was small; but this view of the matter does not appear
to have been conclusive, for the Lords, by a plurality, decided that the
funeral expenses of a deceased person ‘must be allowed to the utmost of
what his character and quality will admit, without regard to what small
part of his fortune may come to his heir.’[369] They did, indeed,
afterwards modify this decision, allowing only just and necessary
expenses; but, what is to our present purpose, they do not appear to
have been startled at the idea of spending as much as two years of a
man’s income in laying him under the soil.
[Sidenote: 1704.]
The account of expenses at the funeral of a northern laird—Sir Hugh
Campbell of Calder, who died in March 1716—gives us, as it were, the
anatomy of one of these ruinous ceremonials. There was a charge of £55,
15_s._ ‘to buy ane cow, ane ox, five kids, two wedders, eggs, geese,
turkeys, pigs, and moorfowl,’ the substantials of the entertainment.
Besides £40 for brandy to John Finlay in Forres, £25, 4_s._ for claret
to John Roy in Forres, £82, 6_s._ to Bailie Cattenach at Aberdeen for
claret, and £35 to John Fraser in Clunas for ‘waters’—that is,
whisky—there was a charge by James Cuthbert, merchant, of £407, 8_s._
4_d._ for ‘22 pints brandy at 48_s._ per pint, 18 wine-glasses, 6 dozen
pipes, and 3 lb. cut tobacco, 2 pecks of apples, 2 gross corks, one
large pewter flagon at £6, and one small at £3, currants, raisins,
cinnamon, nutmegs, mace, ginger, confected carvy, orange and citron
peel, two pair black shambo gloves for women,’ and two or three other
small articles. There was also £40 for flour, £39, 12_s._ to the cooks
and baxters, and ‘to malt brewn from the said Sir Hugh’s death to the
interment, sixteen bolls and ane half,’ £88. [Sir Hugh’s body lay from
the 11th to the 29th March, and during these eighteen days there had
been ale for all comers.] The outlay for ‘oils, cerecloth, and
frankincense,’ used for the body, was £60; for ‘two coffins, tables, and
other work,’ £110, 13_s._ 4_d._; for the hearse and adornments connected
with it (inclusive of ‘two mortheads at 40_s._ the piece’), £358. With
the expenses for the medical attendant, a suit of clothes to the
minister, and some few other matters, the whole amounted to £1647,
16_s._ 4_d._, Scots money.[370] This sum, it will be observed, indicates
a comparatively moderate funeral for a man of such eminence; and we must
multiply everything by three, in order to attain a probable notion of
the eating, the drinking, and the pomp and grandeur which attended Lord
Whitelaw’s obsequies.
The quantity of liquor consumed at the Laird of Calder’s funeral
suggests that the house of the deceased must have been, on such
occasions, the scene of no small amount of conviviality. It was indeed
expected that the guests should plentifully regale themselves with both
meat and drink, and in the Highlands especially the chief mourner would
have been considered a shabby person if he did not press them to do so.
At the funeral of Mrs Forbes of Culloden, or, to use the phrase of the
day, Lady Culloden, her son Duncan, who afterwards became Lord President
[Sidenote: 1704.] of the Court of Session, conducted the festivities.
The company sat long and drank largely, but at length the word being
given for what was called the _lifting_, they rose to proceed to the
burialground. The gentlemen mounted their horses, the commonalty walked,
and all duly arrived at the churchyard, when, behold, no one could give
any account of the corpse! They quickly became aware that they had left
the house without thinking of that important part of the ceremonial; and
Lady Culloden still reposed in the chamber of death. A small party was
sent back to the house to ‘bring on’ the corpse, which was then
deposited in the grave with all the decorum which could be mustered in
such anti-funereal circumstances.[371]
Strange as this tale may read, there is reason to believe that the
occurrence was not unique. It is alleged to have been repeated at the
funeral of Mrs Home of Billie, in Berwickshire, in the middle of the
eighteenth century.
In our own age, we continually hear of the vice of living for
appearances, as if it were something quite unknown heretofore; but the
truth is, that one of the strongest points of contrast between the past
and the present times, is the comparative slavery of our ancestors to
irrational practices which were deemed necessary to please the eye of
society, while hurtful to the individual. This slavery was shewn very
strikingly in the customs attending funerals, and not merely among
people of rank, but in the humblest grades of the community. It was also
to be seen very remarkably in the custom of pressing hospitality on all
occasions beyond the convenience of guests, in drinking beyond one’s own
convenience to encourage them, and in the customs of the table
generally; not less so in the dresses and decorations of the human
figure, in all of which infinitely more personal inconvenience was
submitted to, under a sense of what was required by fashion, than there
is at the present day.
[Sidenote: 1705. JAN.]
Roderick Mackenzie, secretary to the African Company, advertised what
was called _An Adventure for the Curious_—namely, a raffle for the
possession of ‘a pair of extraordinary fine Indian screens,’ by a
hundred tickets at a guinea each. The screens were described as being on
sight at his office in Mylne’s Square, but only by ticket (price 5_d._),
in order to prevent that pressure of the [Sidenote: 1705.] mob which
might otherwise be apprehended. In these articles, the public was
assured, ‘the excellence of art vied with the wonderfulness of nature,’
for they represented a ‘variety of several kinds of living creatures,
intermixed with curious trees, plants, and flowers, all done in raised,
embossed, loose, and coloured work, so admirably to the life, that, at
any reasonable distance, the most discerning eye can scarcely
distinguish those images from the real things they represent,’ Nothing
of the kind, it was averred, had ever been seen in Scotland before,
‘excepting one screen of six leaves only, that is now in the palace at
Hamilton.’[372]
[Sidenote: JAN. 5.]
A general arming being now contemplated under the Act of Security, it
became important that arms should be obtained cheaply within the
country, instead of being brought, as was customary, from abroad. James
Donaldson, describing himself as ‘merchant in Edinburgh,’ but identical
with the Captain Donaldson who had established the _Edinburgh Gazette_
in 1699, came forward as an enterpriser who could help the country in
this crisis. He professed to have, ‘after great pains, found out ane
effectual way to make machines, whereby several parts of the art and
calling of smith-craft, particularly with relation to the making of
arms, may be performed without the strength and labour of men, such as
blowing with bellows, boring with run spindles, beating with hammers,
[and] striking of files.’ He craved permission of the Privy Council to
set up a work for the making of arms in this economical way, with
exclusive privileges for a definite period, as a remuneration.
The Council remitted the matter to the deacon of the smiths, for his
judgment, which was very much putting the lamb’s case to the wolf’s
decision. The worshipful deacon by and by reported that James Donaldson
was well known to possess no mechanic skill, particularly in smith-work,
so that his proposal could only be looked upon as ‘ane engine to
inhaunce a little money to supply his necessity.’ The ordinary smiths
were far more fit to supply the required arms, and had indeed a right to
do so, a right which Donaldson evidently meant to infringe upon. In
short, Donaldson was an insufferable interloper in a business he had
nothing to do with. The Council gave force to this report by refusing
Donaldson’s petition.
Not satisfied with this decision, Donaldson, a few days later,
[Sidenote: 1705.] presented a new petition, in which he more clearly
explained the kinds of smith-work which he meant to facilitate—namely,
‘forging, boring, and beating of gun-barrels, cutting of files, [and]
grinding and polishing of firearms,’ He exhibited ‘the model of the
engine for boring and polishing of gun-barrels, and demonstrated the
same, so that their lordships commended the same as ingenious and very
practicable.’ He further disclaimed all idea of interfering with the
privileges of the hammermen of Edinburgh, his ‘motive being nothing else
than the public good and honour of his country,’ and his intention being
to set up his work in a different place from the capital. What he
claimed was no more than what had been granted to other ‘inventors of
engines and mechanical improvements, as the manufactures for wool and
tow cards, that for gilded leather, the gunpowder manufacture, &c.’
The Lords, learning that much of the opposition of the hammermen was
withdrawn, granted the privileges claimed, on the condition that the
work should not be set up in any royal burgh, and should not interfere
with the rights of the Edinburgh corporation.
[Sidenote: FEB. 2.]
Under strong external professions of religious conviction, rigorous
Sabbath observance, and a general severity of manners, there prevailed
great debauchery, which would now and then come to the surface. On this
evening there had assembled a party in Edinburgh, who carried drink and
excitement to such a pitch, that nothing less than a dance in the
streets would satisfy them. There was Ensign Fleming of a Scots regiment
in the Dutch service (son of Sir James Fleming, late provost of
Edinburgh); there were Thomas Burnet, one of the guards; and John, son
of the late George Galbraith, merchant. The ten o’clock bell had rung,
to warn all good citizens home. The three bacchanals were enjoying their
frolic in the decent Lawnmarket, where there was no light but what might
come from the windows of the neighbouring houses; when suddenly there
approaches a sedan-chair, attended by one or two footmen, one of them
carrying a lantern. It was the Earl of Leven, governor of the Castle,
and a member of the Privy Council, passing home to his aërial lodging.
Most perilous was it to meddle with such a person; but the merry youths
were too far gone in their madness to inquire who it was or think of
consequences; so, when Galbraith came against one of the footmen, and
was warned off, he answered with an imprecation, and, turning to Fleming
and Burnet, told them what [Sidenote: 1705.] had passed. Fleming said it
would be brave sport for them to go after the chair and overturn it in
the mud; whereupon the three assailed Lord Leven’s servants, and broke
the lantern. His lordship spoke indignantly from his chair, and Fleming,
drawing his sword, wounded one of the servants, but was quickly
overpowered along with his companions.
The young delinquents speedily became aware of the quality of the man
they had insulted, and were of course in great alarm, Fleming in
particular being apprehensive of losing his commission. After a month’s
imprisonment, they were glad to come and make public profession of
penitence on their knees before the Council, in order to obtain their
liberty.[373]
On a Sunday, early in the same month, four free-living gentlemen,
including Lord Blantyre—then a hot youth of two-and-twenty—drove in a
hackney-coach to Leith, and sat in the tavern of a Mrs Innes all the
time of the afternoon-service. Thereafter they went out to take a ramble
on the sands, but by and by returned to drinking at the tavern of a
Captain Kendal, where they carried on the debauch till eight o’clock in
the evening. Let an Edinburgh correspondent of Mr Wodrow tell the
remainder of the story. Being all drunk—‘when they were coming back to
Edinburgh, in the very street of Leith, they called furiously to the
coachman and post-boy to drive. The fellows, I think, were drunk, too,
and ran in on the side of the causey, dung down [knocked over] a woman,
and both the fore and hind wheel went over her. The poor woman cried;
however, the coach went on; the woman died in half an hour. Word came to
the Advocate to-morrow morning, who caused seize the two fellows, and
hath been taking a precognition of the witnesses ... it will be a great
pity that the gentlemen that were in the coach be not soundly fined for
breach of Sabbath. One of them had once too great a profession to [make
it proper that he should] be guilty now of such a crime.’[374]
The desire to see these scapegraces punished for what was called breach
of Sabbath, without any regard to that dangerous rashness of conduct
which had led to the loss of an innocent life, is very characteristic of
Mr Wodrow’s style of correspondents.
[Sidenote: FEB. 19.]
Donaldson’s paper, _The Edinburgh Gazette_, which had been established
in 1699, continued in existence; and in the intermediate [Sidenote:
1705.] time there had also been many flying broadsides printed and sold
on the streets, containing accounts of extraordinary occurrences of a
remarkable nature, often scandalous. The growing inclination of the
public for intelligence of contemporary events was now shewn by the
commencement of a second paper in Edinburgh, under the title of _The
Edinburgh Courant_. The enterpriser, Adam Boig, announced that it would
appear on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, ‘containing most of the
remarkable foreign news from their prints, and also the home news from
the ports within this kingdom, when ships comes and goes, and from
whence, which it is hoped will prove a great advantage to merchants and
others within this nation (it being now altogether neglected).’ Having
obtained the sanction of the Privy Council, he, at the date noted,
issued the first number, consisting of a small folio in double columns,
bearing to be ‘printed by James Watson in Craig’s Close,’ and containing
about as much literary matter as a single column of a modern newspaper
of moderate size. There are two small paragraphs regarding criminal
cases then pending, and the following sole piece of mercantile
intelligence: ‘LEITH, _Feb. 16_.—This day came in to our Port the _Mary
Galley_, David Preshu, commander, laden with wine and brandy.’ There are
also three small advertisements, one intimating the setting up of
post-offices at Wigton and New Galloway, another the sale of lozenges
for the kinkhost [chincough] at 8_s._ the box.
The superior enterprise shewn in the conducting of the _Courant_, aided,
perhaps, by some dexterous commercial management, seems to have quickly
told upon the circulation of the _Gazette_; and we must regret, for the
sake of an old soldier, that the proprietor of the latter was unwise
enough to complain of this result to the Privy Council, instead of
trying to keep his ground by an improvement of his paper. He insinuated
that Boig, having first undersold him by ‘giving his paper to the
ballad-singers four shillings [4_d._ sterling] a quire below the common
price, as he did likewise to the postmaster,’ did still ‘so practise the
paper-criers,’ as to induce them to neglect the selling of the
_Gazette_, and set forth the _Courant_ as ‘preferable both in respect of
foreign and domestic news.’ By these methods, ‘the _Courant_ gained
credit with some,’ though all its foreign news was ‘taken verbatim out
of some of the London papers, and most part out of _Dyer’s Letter_ and
the _London Courant_, which are not of the best reputation.’ He, on the
other hand, ‘did never omit any domestic news that he judged pertinent,
though he never meddled [Sidenote: 1705.] with matters that he had cause
to believe would not be acceptable [flattery to the Privy Council], nor
every story and trifling matter he heard.’
A triumphant answer to such a complaint was but too easy. ‘The
petitioner,’ says Boig, ‘complains that I undersold him; that my
_Courant_ bore nothing but what was collected from foreign newspapers;
and that it gained greater reputation than his _Gazette_. As to the
first, it was his fault if he kept the _Gazette_ too dear; and I must
say that his profit cannot but be considerable when he sells at my
price, for all my news comes by the common post, and I pay the postage;
whereas John Bisset, his conjunct [that is, partner], gets his news all
by the secretary’s packet free of postage, which is at least eight
shillings sterling a week free gain to them. As to the second, I own
that the foreign news was collected from other newspapers, and I suppose
Mr Donaldson has not his news from first hands more than I did. But the
truth is, the _Courant_ bore more, for it always bore the home news,
especially anent our shipping, which I humbly suppose was one of the
reasons for its having a good report; and Mr Donaldson, though he had a
yearly allowance from the royal burghs, never touched anything of that
nature, nor settled a correspondent at any port in the kingdom, no, not
so much as at Leith. As to the third, it’s left to your Grace and
Lordships to judge if it be a crime in me that the _Courant_ had a
greater reputation than the _Gazette_.’
Connected, however, with this controversy, was an unlucky misadventure
into which Boig had fallen, in printing in his paper a petition to the
Privy Council from Evander M‘Iver, tacksman of the Scots Manufactory
Paper-mills, and James Watson, printer, for permission to complete the
reprinting of an English book, entitled _War betwixt the British
Kingdoms Considered_. While these petitioners thought only of their
right to reprint English books ‘for the encouragement of the
paper-manufactory and the art of printing at home, and for the keeping
of money as much as may be in the kingdom,’ the Council saw political
inconvenience and danger in the book, and every reference to it, and at
once stopped both the _Courant_, in which the advertisement appeared,
and the _Gazette_, which piteously as well as justly pleaded that it had
in no such sort offended. It was in the course of this affair that
Donaldson complained of Boig’s successful rivalry, and likewise of an
invasion by another person of his monopoly of burial-letters.
After an interruption of three months, Adam Boig was allowed to resume
his publication, upon giving strong assurance of more [Sidenote: 1705.]
cautious conduct in future. His paper continued to flourish for several
years. (See under March 6, 1706.)
[Sidenote: MAR. 5.]
In the early part of 1704, the sense of indignity and wrong which had
been inspired into the national mind by the Darien disasters and other
circumstances, was deepened into a wrathful hatred by the seizure of a
vessel named the _Annandale_, which the African Company was preparing
for a trading voyage to India. This proceeding, and the subsequent
forfeiture of the vessel before the Court of Exchequer, were defensive
acts of the East India Company, and there can be little doubt that they
were grossly unjust. In the subsequent autumn, an English vessel, named
the _Worcester_, belonging to what was called the Two Million Company (a
rival to the East India Company), was driven by foul weather into the
Firth of Forth. It was looked upon by the African Company as fair game
for a reprisal. On the 12th August, the secretary, Mr Roderick
Mackenzie, with a few associates, made an apparently friendly visit to
the ship, and was entertained with a bowl of punch. Another party
followed, and were received with equal hospitality. With only eleven
half-armed friends, he that evening overpowered the officers and crew,
and took the vessel into his possession. In the present temper of the
nation, the act, questionable as it was in every respect, was sure to
meet with general approbation.
Before Captain Green and the others had been many days in custody,
strange hints were heard amongst them of a piratical attack they had
committed in the preceding year upon a vessel off the coast of Malabar.
The African Company had three years ago sent out a vessel, called the
_Speedy Return_, to India, with one Drummond as its master, and it had
never since been heard of. It was concluded that the people of the
_Worcester_ had captured the _Speedy Return_, and murdered its crew, and
that Providence had arranged for their punishment, by sending them for
shelter from a storm to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Vainly might it
have been pointed out that there was no right evidence for even the fact
of the piracy, still less for the _Speedy Return_ being the subject of
the offence. Truth and justice were wholly lost sight of in the
universal thirst for vengeance against England and its selfish
mercantile companies.
Green, the captain of the _Worcester_, Mather, the chief-mate, Reynolds,
the second-mate, and fifteen others, were tried at this date before the
Court of Admiralty, for the alleged crime of [Sidenote: 1705.] attacking
a ship, having English or Scotch aboard, off the coast of Malabar, and
subsequently murdering the crew—no specific vessel or person being
mentioned as the subjects of the crime, and no nearer date being cited
than the months of February, March, April, or May 1703. The jury had no
difficulty in bringing them in guilty, and they were all condemned to be
hanged on the sands of Leith, the usual place for the execution of
pirates.
The English government was thrown into great anxiety by this violent
proceeding, but they could make no effectual resistance to the current
of public feeling in Scotland. There the general belief in the guilt of
Green and his associates was corroborated after the trial by three
several confessions, admitting the piratical seizing of Drummond’s
vessel, and the subsequent murder of himself and his crew—confessions
which can now only be accounted for, like those of witches, on the
theory of a desire to conciliate favour, and perhaps win pardon, by
conceding so far to the popular prejudices. The queen sent down
affidavits shewing that Drummond’s ship had in reality been taken by
pirates at Madagascar, while himself was on shore—a view of the fact
which there is now ample reason to believe to have been true. She also
sent to the Privy Council the expression of her desire that the men
should be respited for a time. But, beyond postponement for a week, all
was in vain. The royal will was treated respectfully, but set aside on
some technical irregularity. When the day approached for the execution
of the first batch of the condemned, it became evident that there was no
power in Scotland which could have saved these innocent men. The
Council, we may well believe, would have gladly conceded to the royal
will, but, placed as it was amidst an infuriated people, it had no
freedom to act. On the fatal morning (11th April), its movements were
jealously watched by a vast multitude, composed of something more than
the ordinary citizens of Edinburgh, for on the previous day all the more
ardent and determined persons living within many miles round had poured
into the city to see that justice was done. No doubt can now be
entertained that, if the authorities had attempted to save the condemned
from punishment, the mob would have torn them from the Tolbooth, and
hung every one of them up in the street. What actually took place is
described in a letter from Mr Alexander Wodrow to his father, the
minister of Eastwood: ‘I wrote last night,’ he says, ‘of the uncertainty
anent the condemned persons, and this morning things were yet at a
greater uncertainty, for the current report was that ane express was
come for a reprieve. [Sidenote: 1705.] How this was, I have not yet
learned; but the councillors went down to the Abbey [Palace of Holyrood]
about eight, and came up to the Council-house about nine, against which
time there was a strange gathering in the streets. The town continued in
great confusion for two hours, while the Council was sitting, and a
great rabble at the Netherbow port. All the guards in the Canongate were
in readiness if any mob had arisen. About eleven, word came out of the
Council [sitting in the Parliament Square] that three were to be
hanged—namely, Captain Green, Mather, and Simson. This appeased the mob,
and made many post away to Leith, where many thousands had been
[assembled], and were on the point of coming up in a great rage. When
the chancellor came out, he got many huzzas at first; but at the Tron
Kirk, some surmised to the mob that all this was but a sham; upon which
they assaulted his coach, and broke the glasses, and forced him to come
out and go into Mylne’s Square, and stay for a considerable time.
‘The three prisoners were brought with the Town-guards, accompanied with
a vast mob. They went through all the Canongate, and out at the
Water-port to Leith. There was a battalion of foot-guards, and also some
of the horse-guards, drawn up at some distance from the place of
execution. There was the greatest confluence of people there that ever I
saw in my life, for they cared not how far they were off, so be it they
saw. Green was first execute, then Simson, and last of all Mather. They
every one of them, when the rope was about their necks, denied they were
guilty of that for which they were to die. This indeed put all people to
a strange demur. There’s only this to alleviate it, that they confessed
no other particular sins more than that, even though they were posed
anent their swearing and drunkenness, which was weel known.’[375]
[Sidenote: SEP. 11.]
The Scottish parliament was not much given to the patronising of
literature. We have, indeed, seen it giving encouragement to Adair’s
maps of the coasts, and Slezer’s views of the king’s and other mansions;
but it was in a languid and ineffective way, by reason of the lack of
funds. At this time, the assembled wisdom of the nation was pleased to
pass an act enabling the town-council of Glasgow to impose two pennies
(⅕th of a penny sterling) upon the pint of ale brewn and vended in that
town; and out of this [Sidenote: 1705.] ‘gift in favours of the town of
Glasgow,’ as it was quite sincerely called, there was granted three
thousand six hundred pounds (£300 sterling) to Mr James Anderson, writer
to her majesty’s signet, ‘for enabling him to carry on an account of the
ancient and original charters and seals of our kings in copper-plates.’
Why the ale-drinkers of Glasgow should have been called upon to furnish
the country with engraved copies of its ancient charters, was a question
which probably no one dreamed of asking.
In February 1707, the parliament, then about to close its existence,
ordered to Mr Anderson the further sum of £590 sterling, to repay him
for his outlay on the work, with a further sum of £1050 to enable him to
go on and complete it. This was done after due examination by a
committee, which reported favourably of the curious and valuable
character of his collections. Soon after, the parliament, in
consideration of the great sufferings of the town of Dundee in the time
of the troubles and at the Revolution, and of ‘the universal decay of
trade, especially in that burgh,’ granted it an imposition of two
pennies Scots on every pint of ale or beer made or sold in the town for
twenty-four years; but this _gift_ was _burdened_ with a hundred pounds
sterling _per annum_ for six years to Mr James Anderson, as part of the
sum the parliament had agreed to confer upon him for the encouragement
of his labours.[376]
[Sidenote: NOV.]
Died Alexander third Earl of Kincardine, unmarried, a nobleman of
eccentric character. His father, the second earl, is spoken of by Burnet
in the highest terms; his mother was a Dutch lady, Veronica, daughter of
Corneille, Lord of Sommelsdyk and Spycke. [Readers of Boswell will
remember his infant daughter Veronica, with whom Johnson was pleased, so
named from the biographer’s great-grandmother, Veronica, Countess of
Kincardine.] The earl now deceased, probably through his parental
connection with the Low Countries, had contracted the religious
principles of the Flemish saint or seeress, Antonia Bourignon, which,
like every other departure from pure Presbyterianism and the Westminster
Confession, were detested in Scotland. Wodrow tells us: ‘I have it from
very good hands, Lieutenant-colonel Erskine[377] and Mr Allan Logan,
[Sidenote: 1705.] who were frequently with him, that the late Earl of
Kincardine did fast forty days and nights after he turned Burrignianist,
[and] lived several years after. He was very loose before he turned to
these errors; and after a while being in them, he turned loose again,
and died in a very odd manner. Many thought him possessed. He would have
uttered the most dreadful blasphemies that can be conceived, and he told
some things done at a distance, and repeated Mr Allan Logan’s words,
which he had in secret, and told things it was impossible for anybody to
know.’[378]
The more active minds of the country continued constantly seething with
schemes for the promotion of industry, and the remedy of the standing
evil of poverty. In this year there was published an _Essay on the New
Project of a Land Mint_, which might be considered a type of the more
visionary plans. It rested on what would now be called one of the
commonplaces of false political economy. The proposed Land Mint was a
kind of bank for the issue of notes, to be given only on landed
security. Any one intending to borrow, say a thousand pounds of these
notes, pledged unentailed land-property to that amount, _plus_ interest
and possible expenses, undertaking to pay back a fifth part each year,
with interest on the outstanding amount, till all was discharged. It was
thought that, by these means, money would be, as it were, created; the
country would be spirited up to hopeful industrial undertakings;
and—everything requiring a religious aspect in those days—the people
would be enabled to resist the designs of a well-known sovereign,
‘aiming now at a Catholic monarchy;’ for, while Louis XIV. might become
sole master of the plate (that is, silver) of the world, what would it
matter ‘if we and other nations should substitute another money, equal
in all cases to plate?’ The only fear the author could bring himself to
entertain, was as to possible counterfeiting of the notes. This being
provided against by an ingenious expedient suggested by himself, there
remained no difficulty and no fear whatever.[379]
[Sidenote: 1706. MAR.]
Although the incessant violences which we have seen mark an early period
embraced by our Annals were no more, it cannot be [Sidenote: 1705.] said
that the crimes of violent passion had become infrequent. On the
contrary, it appeared as if the increasing licence of manners since the
Revolution, and particularly the increasing drunkenness of the upper
classes, were now giving occasion for a considerable number of homicides
and murders. We have seen a notable example of reckless violence in the
case of the Master of Rollo in 1695. There was about the same time a
Laird of Kininmont, who—partly under the influence of a diseased
brain—was allowed to commit a considerable number of manslaughters
before it was thought necessary to arrest him in his course.
Archibald Houston, writer to the signet in Edinburgh, acted as factor
for the estate of Braid, the property of his nephew, and in this
capacity he had incurred the diligence of the law on account of some
portion of Bishops’ rents which he had failed to pay. Robert Kennedy of
Auchtyfardel, in Lanarkshire, receiving a commission to uplift these
arrears, found it to be his duty to give Houston a charge of horning for
his debt.
[Sidenote: MAR. 20.]
One day, Kennedy and his two sons left their house in the Castle Hill of
Edinburgh, to go to the usual place of rendezvous at the Cross, when,
passing along the Luckenbooths, he was accosted by Mr Houston with
violent language, referring to the late legal proceedings. Kennedy, if
his own account is to be trusted, gave no hard language in return, but
made an effort to disengage himself from the unseemly scene, and moved
on towards the Cross. Houston, however, followed and renewed the brawl,
when it would appear that Gilbert Kennedy, Auchtyfardel’s eldest son,
was provoked to strike his father’s assailant on the face. The people
now began to flock about the party—Kennedy again moved on; but before he
had got many paces away, he heard the sounds of a violent collision, and
turned back with his cane uplifted to defend his son. It is alleged that
Kennedy fell upon Houston with his cane—he had no weapon on his
person—and while he did so, young Gilbert Kennedy drew his sword, and,
rushing forward, wounded Houston mortally in the belly. The unfortunate
man died a few days afterwards.[380]
Auchtyfardel’s share in this transaction was held to infer his liability
to an arbitrary punishment. Gilbert fled, and was outlawed, but
afterwards was permitted to return home, and in time he succeeded to his
father’s estate. We hear of him in [Sidenote: 1705.] 1730, as having
been brought by that sad act of his youth into a very serious and
religious frame of life. He was an elder of the church, and took great
care of the morals of his servants. A maid, whom he on one occasion
reproved severely, was led, by a diabolic spite, to mix some arsenic
with the bread and milk which she prepared for the family breakfast, and
the death of Houston had very nearly been avenged at the distance of
twenty-four years from its occurrence. Happily, through the aid of a
physician, the laird and his family escaped destruction.[381]
A case more characteristic of the age than that of young Auchtyfardel
occurred in the ensuing year. David Ogilvie of Cluny, having first
thrust himself upon a funeral-party at the village of Meigle, and there
done his best to promote hard drinking, insisted on accompanying two or
three of the gentlemen on their way home, though his own lay another
way. While proceeding along, he gave extreme annoyance to Andrew Cowpar,
younger of Lochblair, by practical jokes of a gross kind, founded on the
variance of sex in their respective horses. At length, Cowpar giving the
other’s horse a switch across the face, to make it keep off, Ogilvie
took violent offence at the act, demanded Cowpar’s whip under a threat
of being otherwise pistolled, and, on a refusal, actually took out a
pistol and shot his companion dead. The wretched murderer escaped
abroad.
In January 1708, Robert Baird, son of Sir James Baird of Sauchtonhall,
had a drinking-match in a tavern at Leith, where he particularly
insisted on his friend, Mr Robert Oswald, being filled drunk. On Oswald
resisting repeated bumpers, Baird demanded an apology from him, as if he
had committed some breach of good-manners. He refused, and thus a
drunken sense of resentment was engendered in the mind of Baird. At a
late hour, they came up to Edinburgh in a coach, and leaving the vehicle
at the Nether Bow, were no sooner on the street, than Baird drew his
sword, and began to push at Oswald, upon whom he speedily inflicted two
mortal wounds. He fled from the scene, leaving a bloody and broken sword
beside his expiring victim.
On the ground of its not being ‘forethought felony,’ Baird was some
years afterwards allowed by the Court of Justiciary to have the benefit
of Queen Anne’s act of indemnity.
[Sidenote: 1706. OCT.]
Early in this month, Scotland was honoured with a visit from [Sidenote:
1705.] the celebrated Daniel Defoe. His noted power and probity as a
Whig pamphleteer suggested to the English ministry the propriety of
sending him down for a time to Edinburgh, to help on the cause of the
Union. He came with sympathies for the people of Scotland, founded on
what they had suffered under the last Stuart reigns. Instead of
believing all to be barren and hopeless north of the Tweed, he viewed
the country as one of great capabilities, requiring only peace and
industry to become a scene of prosperity equal to what prevailed in
England. To this end he deemed an incorporating union of the two
countries necessary, and it was therefore with no small amount of
good-will that he undertook the mission assigned to him.
Even, however, from one regarding it so fraternally as Defoe, Scotland
was little disposed to accept a recommendation of that measure. It was
in vain that he published a complaisant poem about the people, under the
name of _Caledonia_, in which he commended their bravery, their
learning, and abilities. Vainly did he declare himself their friend,
anxious to promote their prosperity by pointing to improved agriculture,
to fisheries, to commerce, and to manufactures. The Edinburgh people saw
him daily closeted with the leaders of the party for the hated union,
and that was enough. His pen displayed its wonted activity in answers to
the objectors, and his natural good-humour seems never to have failed
him, even when he was assailed with the most virulent abuse. But his
enemies did not confine themselves to words: threats of assassination
reached him. His lodgings were marked, and his footsteps were tracked;
yet he held serenely on in his course. He even entered upon some little
enterprises in the manufacture of linen, for the purpose of shewing the
people what they might do for themselves, if they would adopt right
methods. It appears that, during the tumults which took place in
Edinburgh while the measure was passing through parliament, he was in
real danger. One evening, when the mob was raging in the street, he
looked out of his window to behold their proceedings, and was nearly hit
by a large stone which some one threw at him, the populace making a
point that no one should look over windows at them, lest he might
recognise faces, and become a witness against individual culprits.
Defoe spent sixteen months in Scotland on this occasion, rendering much
modest good service to the country, and receiving for it little
remuneration besides abuse. Amongst other fruits of his industry during
the period is his laborious work, [Sidenote: 1706.] _The History of the
Union of Great Britain_. One could have wished a record tracing the
daily life of this remarkable man in Scotland. “We only get an obscure
idea of some of his public transactions. One of the few private
particulars we have learned, is that he paid a visit to the Duke of
Queensberry at Drumlanrig, and by his Grace’s desire, took a view of his
estates, with a view to the suggestion of improvements.
Defoe revisited Scotland in the summer of 1708, on a mission the purpose
of which has not been ascertained; and again in the summer of 1709. His
stay on the last occasion extended to nearly two years, during part of
which time, in addition to constant supplies of articles for his
_Review_ in London, he acted as editor of the _Edinburgh Courant_
newspaper.[382] (See the next article).
[Sidenote: 1707. MAR. 6.]
In a folio published this day by Captain James Donaldson, under the
title of the _Edinburgh Courant Reviewed_, we learn that the _Edinburgh
Gazette_, which, as we have seen, was commenced in 1699, had now
succumbed to fate: damaged by the persevering policy of Adam Boig of the
_Courant_, the _Gazette_ ‘of late has been laid aside, as a thing that
cannot be profitably carried on.’
Donaldson here reviews the charges made against his paper, as to
partiality and staleness of news, defends it to some extent, but
practically admits the latter fault, by stating that he was about to
remedy it. He was going to recommence the _Edinburgh Gazette_ in a new
series, in which he would ‘take a little more liberty, and give stories
as they come,’ without waiting, as before, for their authentication,
though taking care where they were doubtful to intimate as much. The
_Gazette_ did, accordingly, resume its existence on the 25th of the same
month, as a twice-a-week paper. The first number contains three
advertisements, one of a sale of house-property, another of the wares of
the Leith glass-work, and a third as follows: ‘There is a gentleman in
town, who has an secret which was imparted to him by his father, an
eminent physician in this kingdom, which by the blessing of God cures
the Phrensie and Convulsion Fits. He takes no reward for his pains till
the cure be perfyted. He will be found at the Caledonian Coffee-house.’
In a series of the _Gazette_ extending from the commencement to the
140th number, published on the 2d September 1708, there is a remarkable
sterility of home-news, and anything that is [Sidenote: 1707.] told is
told, in a dry and sententious way. The following alone seem worthy of
transcription:
‘LEITH, _May 19_ [1707].—Last Saturday, about 50 merchant-ships, bound
for Holland, sailed from our Road, under convoy of two Dutch
men-of-war.’
‘EDINBURGH, _August 5_.—This day the Equivalent Money came in here from
South Britain, in thirteen waggons drawn by six horses.’
_Sep. 30._—‘_Dyer’s Letter_ says: Daniel de Foe is believed by this time
in the hands of justice at the complaint of the Swedish minister, and
now a certain man of law may have an opportunity to reckon with him for
a crime which made him trip to Scotland, and make him oblige the world
with another _Hymn to the Pillory_.’
Strange to say, less than three years after this date, namely, in
February 1710, the ‘unabashed Defoe’ was conducting the rival newspaper
in Edinburgh—the _Courant_—succeeding in this office Adam Boig, who had
died in the preceding month. The authority of Defoe for his editorship
appears in the following decree of the Town Council:
‘Att Edinburgh the first day of February
j^m. vij^c. and ten years:
‘The same day The Councill authorized Mr Daniel Defoe to print the
_Edinburgh Currant_ in place of the deceast Adam Bog Discharging hereby
any other person to print News under the name of the _Edinburgh
Currant_.’
The advertisements are also very scanty, seldom above three or four, and
most of these repeated frequently, as if they were reprinted
gratuitously, in order to make an appearance of business in this line.
The following are selected as curious:
_May 13, 1707._—‘This is to give notice to all who have occasion for a
black hersse, murning-coach, and other coaches, just new, and in good
order, with good horses well accoutred, that James Mouat, coachmaster in
Lawrence Ord’s Land at the foot of the Canongate, will serve them
thankfully at reasonable rates.’
‘Ralph Agutter of London, lately come to Edinburgh, Musical
Instrument-maker, is to be found at Widow Pool’s, perfumer of gloves, at
her house in Stonelaw’s Close, a little below the Steps; makes the
Violin, Bass Violin, Tenor Violin, the Viol de Gambo, the Lute Quiver,
the Trumpet Marine, the Harp; and mendeth and putteth in order and
stringeth all those instruments as fine as any man whatsoever in the
three kingdoms, or elsewhere, and [Sidenote: 1707.] mendeth the
Virginal, Spinnat, and Harpsichord, all at reasonable rates.’
_Oct. 16._—‘There is just now come to town the Excellent Scarburray
Water, good for all diseases whatsomever except consumption; and this
being the time of year for drinking the same, especially at the fall of
the leaf and the bud, the price of each chopin bottle is fivepence, the
bottle never required, or three shilling without the bottle. Any person
who has a mind for the same may come to the Fountain Close within the
Netherbow of Edinburgh, at William Mudie’s, where the Scarsburray woman
sells the same.’
_August 12, 1708._—‘George Williamson, translator [_alias_ cobbler] in
Edinburgh, commonly known by the name of Bowed Geordie, who swims on
face, back, or any posture, forwards or backwards; plums, dowks, and
performs all the antics that any swimmer can do, is willing to attend
any gentleman, and to teach them to swim, or perform his antics for
their divertisement: is to be found in Luckie Reid’s at the foot of
Gray’s Close, on the south side of the street, Edinburgh.’
In September 1707, it is advertised that at the Meal Girnel of Primrose,
oatmeal, the produce of the place, was sold at four pounds Scots the
boll for the crop of 1706, while the crop of the preceding year was £3,
13_s._ 4_d._; in the one case, 6_s._ 8_d._; in the other, 6_s._ 4_d._
sterling.
[Sidenote: APR. 9.]
The Master of Burleigh—eldest son of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a peer
possessed of considerable estates in Fife—had fallen in love with a girl
of humble rank, and was sent abroad by his friends, in the hope that
time and change of scene would save him from making a low marriage. He
was heard to declare before going, that if she married in his absence,
he would take the life of her husband. The girl was, nevertheless,
married to Henry Stenhouse, schoolmaster of Inverkeithing. The Master
was one of those hot-headed persons whom it is scarcely safe to leave at
large, and who yet do not in general manifest the symptoms that justify
restraint. Learning that his mistress was married, and to whom, he came
at this date with two or three mounted servants to the door of the poor
schoolmaster, who, at his request, came forth from amongst his pupils to
speak to the young gentleman.
‘Do you know me?’ said Balfour.
‘No.’
[Sidenote: 1707.]
‘I am the Master of Burleigh. You have spoken to my disadvantage, and I
am come to fight you,’
‘I never saw you before,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘and I am sure I never
said anything against you.’
‘I must nevertheless fight with you, and if you won’t, I will at once
shoot you.’
‘It would be hard,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘to force a man who never
injured you into a fight. I have neither horse nor arms, and it is
against my principles to fight duels.’
‘You must nevertheless fight,’ said the Master, ‘or be shot instantly;’
and so saying, he held a pistol to Stenhouse’s breast.
The young man continuing to excuse himself, Balfour at length fired, and
gave the schoolmaster a mortal wound in the shoulder, saying with savage
cruelty: ‘Take that to be doing with.’ Then, seeing that an alarm had
arisen among the neighbours, he rode off, brandishing a drawn sword, and
calling out: ‘Hold the deserter!’ in order to divert the attention of
the populace. The unfortunate schoolmaster died in a few days of his
wound.
The Master for a time escaped pursuit, but at length he was brought to
trial, July 28, 1709, and adjudged to be beheaded at the Cross of
Edinburgh, on the ensuing 6th of January. During this unusually long
interval, he escaped from the Tolbooth by changing clothes with his
sister. He was not again heard of till May 1714, when he appeared
amongst a number of Jacobite gentlemen at the Cross of Lochmaben, to
drink the health of James VIII. The family title had by this time
devolved on him by the death of his father; but his property had all
been escheat by sentence of the Court of Justiciary. His appearance in
the rebellion of 1715, completed by attainder the ruin of his family,
and he died unmarried and in obscurity in 1757.[383]
[Sidenote: APR. 25.]
A great flock of the _Delphinus Deductor_, or Ca’ing Whale—a cete about
twenty-five feet long—came into the Firth of Forth, ‘roaring, plunging,
and threshing upon one another, to the great terror of all who heard the
same.’ It is not uncommon for this denizen of the arctic seas to appear
in considerable numbers on the coasts of Zetland; and occasionally they
present themselves on the shores of Caithness and Sutherlandshire; but
to come so far south as the Firth of Forth is very rare: hence the
astonishment which the incident seems to have created. The contemporary
[Sidenote: 1707.] chronicler goes on to state: ‘Thirty-five of them were
run ashore upon the sands of Kirkcaldy, where they made yet a more
dreadful roaring and tossing when they found themselves aground,
insomuch that the earth trembled.’ ‘What the unusual appearance of so
great a number of them at this juncture [the union of the kingdoms] may
portend shall not be our business to inquire.’[384]
[Sidenote: AUG.]
The fifteenth article of the treaty of Union provided that England
should pay to Scotland the sum of £398,085, 10_s._, because of the
arrangement for the equality of trade between the two countries having
necessitated that Scotland should henceforth pay equal taxes with
England—a rule which would otherwise have been inequitable towards
Scotland, considering that a part of the English revenue was required
for payment of the interest on her seventeen millions of national debt.
It was likewise provided by the act of Union, that out of this
Equivalent Money, as it was called, the commissioners to be appointed
for managing it should, in the first place, pay for any loss to be
incurred by the renovation of the coin; in the second, should discharge
the losses of the African Company, which thereupon was to cease; the
overplus to be applied for payment of the comparatively trifling
state-debts of Scotland, and to furnish premiums to the extent of £2000
a year for the improvement of the growth of wool for seven
years—afterwards for the improvement of fisheries and other branches of
the national industry.
Defoe, who was now living in Scotland, tells how those who hated the
Union spoke and acted about the Equivalent. The money not being paid in
Scotland on the very day of the incorporation of the two countries, the
first talk was—the English have cheated us, and will never pay; they
intended it all along. Then an idea got abroad, that by the non-payment
the Union was dissolved; ‘and there was a discourse of some gentlemen
who came up to the Cross of Edinburgh, and protested, in the name of the
whole Scots nation, That, the conditions of the treaty not being
complied with, and the terms performed, the whole was void.’ At length,
in August, the money came in twelve wagons, guarded by a party of Scots
dragoons, and was carried directly to the Castle. Then those who had
formerly been loudest in denouncing the English for not forwarding the
money, became furious because [Sidenote: 1707.] it was come. They hooted
at the train as it moved along the street, cursing the soldiers who
guarded it, and even the horses which drew it. One person of high
station called out that those who brought that money deserved to be cut
to pieces. The excitement increased so much before the money was secured
in the Castle, that the mob pelted the carters and horses on their
return into the streets, and several of the former were much hurt.
It was soon discovered that, after all, only £100,000 of the money was
in specie, the rest being in Exchequer bills, which the Bank of England
had ignorantly supposed to be welcome in all parts of her majesty’s
dominions. This gave rise to new clamours. It was said the English had
tricked them by sending paper instead of money. Bills, only payable four
hundred miles off, and which, if lost or burned, would be irrecoverable,
were a pretty price for the obligation Scotland had come under to pay
English taxes. The impossibility of satisfying or pleasing a defeated
party was never better exemplified.
The commissioners of the Equivalent soon settled themselves in one of Mr
Robert Mylne’s houses in Mylne’s Court, and proceeded to apply the money
in terms of the act. One of their first proceedings was to send to
London for £50,000 in gold, in substitution for so much of paper-money,
that they might, as far as possible, do away with the last clamour. ‘Nor
had this been able to carry them through the payment, had they not very
prudently taken all the Exchequer bills that any one brought them, and
given bills of exchange for them payable in London.’[385] Defoe adverts
to a noble individual—doubtless the Duke of Hamilton—who came for
payment of his share of the African Company’s stock (£3000), with the
interest, and who refused to take any of the Exchequer bills, probably
thinking thus to create some embarrassment; but the commissioners
instantly ordered the claim to be liquidated in gold.
Notwithstanding all the ravings and revilings about the Equivalent,
Defoe assures us that, amongst the most malcontent persons he never
found any who, having African stock, refused to take their share of the
unhallowed money in exchange for it. Even the despised Exchequer bills
were all despatched so quickly, that, in six months, not one was to be
seen in the country.
Out of the Equivalent, the larger portion—namely, £229,611, 4_s._
8_d._—went to replace the lost capital of the African Company,
[Sidenote: 1707.] and so could not be considered as rendered to the
nation at large. For ‘recoining the Scots and foreign money, and
reducing it to the standard of the coin of England,’ £49,888, 14_s._
11⅙_d._ was expended. There was likewise spent out of this fund, for the
expenses of the commissioners and secretaries who had been engaged in
carrying through the Union, £30,498, 12_s._ 2_d._ After making sundry
other payments for public objects, there remained in 1713 but £16,575,
14_s._ 0½_d._ unexpended.[386]
We shall afterwards see further proceedings in the matter of the
Equivalent.
[Sidenote: OCT. 3.]
Walter Scott of Raeburn, grandson of the Quaker Raeburn who suffered so
long an imprisonment for his opinions in the reign of Charles II.,[387]
fought a duel with Mark Pringle, youngest son of Andrew Pringle of
Clifton. It arose from a quarrel the two gentlemen had the day before at
the head-court of Selkirk. They were both of them young men, Scott being
only twenty-four years of age, although already four years married, and
a father. The contest was fought with swords in a field near the town,
and Raeburn was killed. The scene of this melancholy tragedy has ever
since been known as _Raeburn’s Meadow-spot_.
Pringle escaped abroad; became a merchant in Spain; and falling, on one
occasion, into the hands of the Moors, underwent such a series of
hardships, as, with the Scottish religious views of that age, he might
well regard as a Heaven-directed retribution for his rash act.
Eventually, however, realising a fortune, he returned with honour and
credit to his native country, and purchased the estate of Crichton in
Edinburghshire. He died in 1751, having survived the unhappy affair of
Raeburn’s Meadow-spot for forty-four years; and his grandson, succeeding
to the principal estate of the family, became Pringle of Clifton.
The sixteenth article of the act of Union, while decreeing that a
separate mint should be kept up in Scotland ‘under the same rules as the
mint in England’—an arrangement afterwards broken through—concluded that
the money thereafter used should be of the same standard and fineness
throughout the United Kingdom. It thus became necessary to call in all
the existing coin of Scotland, and substitute for it money uniform with
that of England. It was at the same time provided by the act of Union,
that any [Sidenote: 1707.] loss incurred by the renewal of the coin of
Scotland should be compensated out of the fund called the
Equivalent.[388]
The business of the change of coinage being taken into consideration by
the Privy Council of Scotland, several plans for effecting it were laid
before that august body; but none seemed so suitable or expedient as one
proposed by the Bank of Scotland, which was to this effect: ‘The
Directors undertook to receive in all the species that were to be
recoined, at such times as should be determined by the Privy Council,
and to issue bank-notes or current money for the same, in the option of
the ingiver of the old species, and the Privy Council allowing a half
_per cent._ to the Bank for defraying charges;’[389] the old money to be
taken to the mint and coined into new money, which should afterwards
replace the notes.
Mr David Drummond, treasurer of the Bank, ‘a gentleman of primitive
virtue and singular probity,’ according to Thomas Ruddiman—a hearty
Jacobite, too, if his enemies did not belie him—had a chief hand in the
business of the renovation of the coin, about which he communicated to
Ruddiman some memoranda he had taken at the time.
‘There was brought into the Bank of Scotland in the year 1707:
Value in Sterling
Money.