REIGN OF GEORGE I.: 1714–1727.

The Tory ministry of Anne, which had certainly meditated some attempt at

the restoration of the Stuart line, were paralysed, as we have seen, by

her death, and allowed the accession of George of Hanover to take place

without opposition. The new king had no sooner settled himself in

London, than he displaced the late queen’s advisers, and surrounded

himself with the Whigs, whom he knew to be his only true friends. The

sharpness of this proceeding, added to the general discontent, produced

an almost immediate insurrection. Two of the ex-ministers—the Duke of

Ormond and Lord Bolingbroke—went to France, and attached themselves to

the exiled court. The Earl of Mar, after in vain attempting to obtain

the favour of King George, repaired to his native country, and, on the

6th of September 1715, set up the standard of rebellion in

Aberdeenshire, although he is said to have had no commission to that

effect from the rival prince. This nobleman, who had acted as Secretary

of State under the late government, was speedily surrounded with

hundreds of armed men, chiefly of the Highland clans, who were willing

to be led by him to battle.

The government had at this time only a few regiments in Scotland, not

exceeding in all fifteen hundred men, and these could not be

concentrated in one place, without leaving the rest of the country

exposed. They were, however, put under the command of the Duke of

Argyle, a young soldier who had served under Marlborough, and at one

time commanded the British troops in Spain. The government could not

well spare more men for service in Scotland, as England, being

threatened with a corresponding invasion from France, required a large

number of the disposable troops for its own defence, and also for the

purpose of preventing a rising among the native Jacobites. An attempt

was made to surprise Edinburgh Castle in behalf of the Chevalier, and it

would have in all likelihood succeeded, but for the folly of one or two

of the conspirators. By this enterprise, if successful, the Duke of

Argyle must have been disabled for keeping together his small army, and

the whole of the south of Scotland would at once have fallen into the

hands of the insurgent general, if he had been gifted with common energy

to take it into his possession.

Mar entered Perth on the 28th of September, having with him about five

thousand horse and foot, fully armed. Among his Highland adherents were

the chieftains of Clanranald and Glengarry, the Earl of Breadalbane, and

the Marquis of Tullibardine (eldest son of the Duke of Athole), all of

whom brought their clansmen into the field. Among the Lowland Jacobites

who had already joined him were the Earls of Panmure and Strathmore,

with many of the younger sons of considerable families. On the 2d of

October, a party of his troops performed the dexterous exploit of

surprising a government vessel on the Firth of Forth opposite to

Burntisland, and taking from it several hundred stand of arms, which it

was about to carry to the north, for the purpose of arming the Whig Earl

of Sutherland against his Jacobite neighbours. This gave a little

_éclat_ to the enterprise.

The government, in order to encourage loyalty at this dangerous crisis,

obtained an act, adjudging the estates of the insurgents to such

vassals, holding of them, as should remain at peace. The state-officers

were also very active in apprehending suspected persons, especially in

England. Some gentlemen in the northern counties, fearing that this

would be their fate, met on the 6th of October at Rothbury, and soon

increased to a considerable party. Among them were Mr Forster, member of

parliament for Northumberland, and Lord Widdrington. They made an

advance to Newcastle, but were deterred from attacking it. They then

concentrated themselves at Hexham, and opened a communication with Lord

Mar. About the same time, the Viscount Kenmure, and the Earls of

Nithsdale, Wintoun, and Carnwath appeared in arms in the south of

Scotland, with a considerable band of followers, and a junction was soon

after effected between the two parties.

As the Earl of Mar was loath to leave the Highlands, where immense bands

were mustering to join him, he resolved to make no attempt upon the Duke

of Argyle, who had now posted his small force at Stirling Bridge, which

forms the only free pass between the north and south of Scotland. The

earl, however, thought it expedient to send a detachment of upwards of

two thousand of his infantry across the Firth of Forth, in order to

co-operate with him, when the proper time should arrive, by falling upon

the duke in flank. This party was placed under the command of Brigadier

Mackintosh of Borlum, an old officer, who had been regularly trained

under Marlborough. By making a feint at Burntisland, to which point they

attracted the war-vessels on the firth, about sixteen hundred got safely

over to East Lothian, and immediately marched upon Edinburgh, which was

then defenceless. The provost, however, had time to call the Duke of

Argyle to his aid, who entered the west gate of the city with five

hundred horse, at the same time that Mackintosh was approaching its

eastern limit. The insurgent chief turned aside to Leith, and barricaded

his men in the old dismantled citadel of Cromwell. There he was called

to surrender next day by the duke, but returned a haughty defiance, and

the assailing party had to retire to wait for cannon. The brigadier took

the opportunity that night to march back to East Lothian, where for a

day or two he garrisoned Seton House, the princely seat of the Earl of

Wintoun. The Duke of Argyle was obliged to leave him unmolested, in

order to return to Stirling, upon which he learned that the Earl of Mar

was marching with his whole force. The insurgent general was in reality

only anxious to call him off from the party under Mackintosh. The

capital being now protected by volunteers, that officer, in obedience to

the commands of the Earl of Mar, marched to Kelso, where he formed a

junction with the English and Lowland cavaliers.

There were now two Jacobite armies in Scotland—one at Perth, and another

at Kelso. It was the obvious policy of both to have attempted to break

up the Duke of Argyle’s encampment, which was the sole obstacle to their

gaining possession of Scotland; but this the Earl of Mar either found

inconvenient or imprudent, and the party at Kelso was soon diverted to

another scene of action. After a delay of some days, and much unhappy

wrangling among themselves, it was determined by the leaders of this

body to march into the west of England, where, as the country abounded

with Jacobites, they expected to raise a large reinforcement. They

therefore moved along the Border by Jedburgh, Hawick, and Langholm,

followed by a government force much inferior to themselves in numbers,

under the command of General Carpenter. On the 31st of October they

entered England, all except a few hundred Highlanders, who had

determined to go home, and who were mostly seized by the country people

upon the march.

Hitherto, the insurrection had been a spontaneous movement of the

friends of the Chevalier, under the self-assumed direction of the Earl

of Mar. It was now put into proper form by the earl receiving a

commission as generalissimo from the royal personage in whose behalf he

was acting. Henceforth the insurgent forces were supported by a regular

daily pay of threepence in money, with a certain quantity of provisions,

the necessary funds being raised by virtue of the earl’s commission, in

the shape of a land-tax, which was rendered severer to the enemies than

to the friends of the cause. The army was now increased by two thousand

five hundred men brought by the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of the

Duke of Gordon, and nearly four thousand who arrived, under the charge

of the Earl of Seaforth, from the North Highlands. Early in November,

there could not be fewer than sixteen thousand men in arms throughout

the country for the Stuarts, a force tripling that with which Prince

Charles penetrated into England at a later and less auspicious period.

Yet even with all, or nearly all this force at his command, the Earl of

Mar permitted the Duke of Argyle to protect the Lowlands and the capital

with about three thousand men.

At length, on the 10th of November, having gathered nearly all the

forces he could expect, he resolved to force the pass so well guarded by

his opponent. When the Duke of Argyle learned that Mar was moving from

Perth, he resolved to cross the Forth and meet his enemy on as

advantageous ground as possible on the other side, being afraid that the

superior numbers of the insurgents might enable them to advance upon

more points of the river than he had troops to defend. He drew up his

forces on the lower part of a swelling waste called the Sheriffmuir,

with the village of Dunblane in his rear. His whole force amounted to

three thousand three hundred men, of whom twelve hundred were cavalry.

Mar, reinforced on the march by the West Highland clans under General

Gordon, advanced to battle with about nine thousand men, including some

squadrons of horse, which were composed, however, of only country

gentlemen and their retainers. Although the insurgents thus greatly

outnumbered their opponents, the balance was in some measure restored by

Mar’s total ignorance of the military art, and the undisciplined

character of his troops; while Argyle, on the other hand, had conducted

armies under the most critical circumstances, and his men were not only

perfectly trained, but possessed that superiority which consists in the

mechanical regularity and firmness with which such troops must act. On

the night of the 12th, the two armies lay within four miles of each

other. Next morning, they were arranged by their respective commanders

in two lines, the extremities of which were protected by horse. On

meeting, however, at the top of the swelling eminence which had been

interposed between them, it was found that the right wing of each

greatly outflanked the left wing of the other army. The commanders, who

were stationed at this part of their various hosts, immediately charged,

and as in neither case there was much force opposed to them, they were

both to some extent successful. The Duke of Argyle beat back the left

wing of the insurgents, consisting of Highland foot and Lowland cavalry,

to the river Allan. The Earl of Mar, in like manner, drove the left wing

of the royal army, which was commanded by General Whitham, to the Forth.

Neither of these triumphant parties knew of what was done elsewhere, but

both congratulated themselves upon their partial success. In the

afternoon, the Earl of Mar returned with the victorious part of his army

to an eminence in the centre of the field, whence he was surprised, soon

after, to observe the Duke of Argyle leading back the victorious part of

his army by the highway to Dunblane. The total want of intelligence on

each side, and the fear which ignorance always engenders, prevented

these troops mutually from attacking each other. The duke retired to the

village; the earl drew off towards Perth, whither a large part of his

army had already fled in the character of defeated troops: and thus the

action was altogether indecisive. Several hundreds were slain on both

sides; the Earl of Strathmore and the chieftain of Clanranald fell on

the side of the insurgents; the Earl of Forfar on that of the royalists.

The Duke of Argyle reappeared next morning on the field, in order to

renew the action; but finding that Mar was in full retreat to Perth, he

was enabled to retire to Stirling with all the spoils of the field, and

the credit of having frustrated the design of the insurgent general to

cross the Forth. Even that part of his army which was discomfited by the

Earl of Mar, had nevertheless become possessed of the principal standard

of the enemy.

This day was fatal to the cause of the Chevalier in another part of the

kingdom. The large party of united Scots and English, under Forster, had

penetrated to Lancashire, without gaining any such accessions of force

as had been expected. On the 12th of November they were assailed in the

town of Preston by a considerable force under General Willis, who had

concentrated the troops of a large district in order to oppose their

march. For this day, they defended themselves effectually by barricading

the streets; but next day the enemy was increased by a large force under

General Carpenter, and the unfortunate Jacobites then found it necessary

to surrender, upon the simple condition that they should not be

immediately put to the sword. Forster, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Wintoun, and

Mackintosh, with upwards of a hundred other persons of distinction,

including a brave and generous young nobleman, the Earl of Derwentwater,

were taken prisoners. The common men, in number about fourteen hundred,

were disposed about the country in prisons, while their superiors were

conducted to London, and, after being exposed in an ignominious

procession on the streets—a mark of the low taste as well as of the

political animosity of the time—imprisoned in Newgate on a charge of

high treason.

The affairs of the Chevalier now began to decline in Scotland. The Earl

of Sutherland, having established a garrison at Inverness, afforded to

the Earl of Seaforth and the Marquis of Huntly an excuse for withdrawing

their forces from Perth. Some of the other clans went home to deposit

their spoil, or because they could not endure to be taunted for their

bad behaviour at Sheriffmuir. The army being thus reduced to about four

thousand men, various officers began to think of capitulating with the

Duke of Argyle. To this there was one serious objection. In compliance

with a pressing invitation which they had despatched in better times,

they were daily expecting their prince to arrive amongst them.

Nevertheless, the Earl of Mar was compelled to open a negotiation with

the royalist general. In answer to their message, the duke informed them

that he had no power to treat with them as a body, but would immediately

send to court to ask for the required instructions. They were in this

posture when the unfortunate son of James VII. landed (December 22) at

Peterhead, and advanced to the camp to put himself at their head. The

Earl of Mar and some other officers went to Fetteresso to meet him, and

to apprise him of the present state of his affairs. Although greatly

dejected by what he heard, and much reduced in health by a severe ague,

he resolved to establish himself in royal state at Perth, in the hope of

reanimating the cause. Advancing through Brechin and Dundee, he entered

Perth in a ceremonious manner on the 9th of January; but he could not

conceal his mortification, on finding how much his forces were reduced

in number. It was, nevertheless, determined that he should be crowned at

Scone on the 23d. If he was disappointed with his adherents, they were

no less so with him. Whether from natural softness of character, or

through the influence of his late malady, or from despair of his present

circumstances, he appeared exceedingly tame and inanimate; quite the

reverse, in every respect, of the bold and stirring chief required for

such an enterprise.

The Duke of Argyle, having now received large reinforcements from

England, besides three thousand Dutch troops, sent in terms of the

treaty of Utrecht, found himself as superior in numbers to the Earl of

Mar as that general had been to him in the early part of the campaign.

On the 23d of January, the day on which the Chevalier was to have been

crowned, the royalist troops commenced their march upon Perth, through

deep snow. To retard their progress, all the villages upon the road were

burned by the insurgents. It was now debated at Perth whether they ought

to remain within the town and defend themselves against the royal

forces, who, in this weather, must suffer severely in the fields, or to

march northward and disperse. A great part of the clans were anxious in

the highest degree for a battle with the duke; but the safety of the

Chevalier’s person was a consideration which precluded all desperate

hazards. It was resolved to vacate Perth. Accordingly, on the 30th of

January, a day ominous to the House of Stuart, from its being the

anniversary of the death of Charles I., the remains of the Highland army

deployed across the river, then covered with thick ice, and marched to

Dundee. The duke entered the town with his vanguard, only twelve hours

after the rear-guard of the insurgents had left it. But the state of the

roads rendered it impossible for him, with all the appurtenances of a

regular army, to overtake the light-footed mountaineers. He followed on

their track towards Aberdeen, at the distance of one or two marches

behind them. At Montrose, the Chevalier and the Earl of Mar provided for

their own safety by going on board a French vessel. The army, which had

been fast declining by the way, was finally disbanded on the 7th of

February at Aberdeen, after which every man shifted for himself. Thus

ended the insurrection of 1715, an enterprise begun without concert or

preparation, and which languished so much throughout all its parts, that

it could hardly be considered in any other light than as an appearance

of certain friends of the House of Stuart in arms.

The Earl of Derwentwater and the Viscount Kenmure were the only

individuals of distinction who suffered death for this rebellion. They

were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 24th of February. All the rest of the

noblemen and gentlemen taken at Preston either made their escape from

Newgate, which on this occasion manifested a peculiar irretentiveness,

or were pardoned. About twenty inferior persons were executed. There

were, however, at least forty families of distinction in Scotland whose

estates were forfeited. It is to be mentioned, to the honour of the

Argyle family, that they counselled lenient measures, and set the

example by not taking advantage of the law against such of their vassals

as had forfeited their estates into their hands as superiors.

The miserable failure of this effort for the House of Stuart, and its

dismal consequences, neither allayed the wishes nor extinguished the

hopes of the Jacobite party. Firm in the principle of hereditary right,

convinced that the prosperity and happiness of the country could only be

secured through their legitimate prince, seeing in every shortcoming and

error of the reigning house and ministry confirmation of their

doctrines, they never once faltered in believing that a restoration was

worthy of a civil war. They only admitted now, that, for success, the

assistance of some foreign state was indispensable.

Unfortunately for the hopes of the party, the favour of France for the

Stuart cause was at this time lost, in consequence of the necessity

which the Regent Orleans felt himself under of cultivating the alliance

of Britain, that he might strengthen himself against the Spanish branch

of the House of Bourbon. Even a home could no longer be afforded by

France for the unfortunate son of James VII.; and it now occurs, as a

curious instance of the vicissitudes of fortune among historical

persons, that the diplomate who negotiated for his expulsion beyond the

Alps (the Earl of Stair) was the grandson of one whom James VII. had

driven to Holland little more than thirty years before.

Rather oddly, while the Stuart party lost France, prospects opened to

them in quarters wholly new. It pleased the half-crazed Charles XII. of

Sweden to take umbrage at George I. for aid given to some of his

enemies; and he formed the resolution to dethrone the British monarch,

and replace his rival. There was only a total want of ships of war and

transports for effecting this object. Even from the great rival of the

Swede, Peter of Russia, some hopes were at one time entertained. At

length, Spain, under the ambitious politics of her celebrated minister

Alberoni, found it for her interest to take up in a decided manner the

cause of the Stuart. In spring 1719, an expedition, comprehending a few

companies of infantry and a considerable quantity of arms, passed from

St Sebastian to the isle of Lewis, under the care of the Earl Marischal

and the Marquis of Tullibardine, designing to raise and arm the Highland

clans. A landing was effected in Loch Alsh amongst the friendly

Mackenzies, whose chief, the Earl of Seaforth, accompanied the

expedition, and very quickly there were a thousand natives in arms, in

addition to the Spanish companies. But a foreign force of such a trivial

character was quite insufficient to induce a general rising. While the

Jacobite chiefs lingered in Glenshiel, with only about fifteen hundred

men in arms, a government force of rather superior numbers was conducted

northward by General Wightman. It would have been easy to prevent this

force from entering the Mackenzie country; but no attempt to that effect

was made. The two parties came into conflict on the 11th of June, and

the royal commander had 142 men killed and wounded, without

accomplishing a decisive victory. It was seen, however, by the Jacobite

chiefs, two of whom were wounded, that nothing more could be effected at

present; and it was therefore arranged that the Spanish troops should

next day surrender themselves, while the Highlanders should disperse.

General Wightman was happy to carry southwards 274 Spanish prisoners,

without attempting to inflict any punishment upon the rebels.

For some years afterwards, the agents of the Stuart prince were actively

engaged in keeping up his interest in Scotland. A large proportion of

the Highland clans and of the Lowland nobility and gentry, along with

the entire body of the Episcopalian clergy, were his friends; but with

the great bulk of the Presbyterian middle classes his pretensions found

little favour, and in the constantly increasing comfort of the people

through the pursuits of peaceful industry his chance was always becoming

less. Having married a Polish princess, he became in 1720 the father of

a prince named Charles Edward, who was destined to make one last and

brilliant, but unsuccessful effort for the restoration of the family.

King George I., dying in June 1727, was quietly succeeded by his son

George II., with little change in the Whig set of statesmen by which the

affairs of the country had long been conducted. During the latter years

of the first Hanover sovereign, the Duke of Argyle and his brother, the

Earl of Ilay, were the men of chief influence in Scotland. It was a

period remarkable in several respects, but particularly for the first

decided development of the industrial energies of the people, and for

considerable changes in their manners and habits. For a number of minor

incidents, verging or trenching on the domain of political history,

reference must be made to the chronicle.

[Sidenote: 1714. OCT.]

The strong sense of religious duty at this time connected with the

observance of Sunday, is strikingly shewn in the conduct of the

deputation sent by the Church of Scotland to present a loyal address to

George I. on his accession. Reaching Barnby Moor on a Saturday night,

and finding there was no place of public worship which they were ‘clear’

to attend within a reachable distance, ‘we resolved,’ says Mr Hart, ‘to

spend the Lord’s Day as well as we could. So each having retired alone

for some time in the morning, we breakfasted about ten of the clock, and

after that Messrs Linning, Ramsay, Adams, Mr Linning’s man, and I, did

shut our chamber-door, and went about worship. I read, sung, and prayed,

and then we retired again to our several chambers, and met about two of

the clock, and Mr Ramsay read, sung, and prayed; and after that we

retired to our several chambers, and met between four and five, supped,

and, after supper, Mr Linning read, sung, and prayed, and after we had

sat a while we retired, and so prepared for bed. Thus we spent the

Lord’s Day at Barnby Moor.’

It may be imagined that no small distress was given to the clergy

generally two years after, when it was reported that Mr William Hamilton

and Mr William Mitchell, in returning recently from London, had

travelled post on a Sabbath-day, with the horn sounding before them. The

presbytery of Edinburgh took up the case in great grief and concern, and

called the two reverend brethren to give an explanation of their

conduct, which fortunately they were able to do very satisfactorily.

Arriving at Stilton on a Saturday night, and finding there was no

accommodation for the next day but in a public-house, while there was no

place where they could rightly join in worship nearer than Stamford—that

is to say, no Presbyterian or dissenting meeting-house—they had been

induced to start on their journey to the latter place next morning,

when, as they were upon post-horses, it was a matter of course, and

needful for safety, that they should have a boy going before to blow a

horn. The presbytery was satisfied; but one strenuous brother, Mr James

Webster, who was not distinguished by a charitable temper, or much

moderation of words, broke out upon them on this score in his pulpit—not

in a sermon, but in the course of his prayer—and was rebuked on this

account by the presbytery.[467]

[Sidenote: 1715. FEB.]

For many years after the Revolution, the sombre religious [Sidenote:

1715.] feelings of the community forbade even an attempt at the revival

of theatrical performances. If there was anywhere an inclination to see

Shakspeare, Otway, Congreve, or Addison, put into living forms on the

stage, it was restricted to the same obscurity in the breast which

entertained it, as devotion to the mass or doubts regarding witchcraft.

The plays and other examples of light literature of the age of Anne did

at length begin to find their way from London to Edinburgh, there to

meet a not wholly ungenial reception from at least that portion of

society which professed Episcopacy, not to speak of a certain minority

of the gay, who have usually contrived to exist even amidst the most

gloomy puritanism. Time, moreover, was continually removing the stern

men of the seventeenth century, to be replaced by others of gentler

convictions. The natural love of amusement began to assert itself

against the pride of asceticism and self-denial. Englishmen were

constantly coming in as government officers, or in pursuit of business,

and bringing with them new ideas. Thus it came to pass that, about the

beginning of the Hanover dynasty, Scotland began to think that it might

indulge now and then in a little merriment, and no great harm come of

it. It must be owned, however, that during much of the eighteenth

century, there was great truth in a simile employed in the preface to a

play published in Edinburgh in 1668, which likened the drama in Scotland

to ‘a swaggerer in a country church.’[468]

The very first presentment of any public theatricals that can be

authenticated, occurred in the early part of 1715, just before the

breaking out of the unfortunate insurrection. We know little about it

besides that a corps was then acting plays at the Tennis Court, near

Holyrood Palace.[469]

‘We have now,’ says a contemporary letter-writer, ‘got a playhouse set

up here in the Tennis Court, to the great grief of all sober good

people; and I am surprised to see such diversions as tend so much to

corrupt men’s manners patronised and countenanced by some of whom I

expected better things.... Mr Webster and several other ministers have

given a testimony against them; and for so doing are mocked by a great

many that [Sidenote: 1715.] you would scarce suspect. Particularly, Mr

Webster is very much cried out against for saying no more but that

whoever in his parish did attend these plays should be refused tokens to

the sacrament of the Supper.’[470]

The presbytery of Edinburgh was alive to the danger of allowing

stage-plays to be acted within their borders, and adverted to the

Canongate theatricals in great concern on the 23d of March 1715. ‘Being

informed,’ they said, ‘that some comedians have lately come to the

bounds of this presbytery, and do act within the precincts of the Abbey,

to the great offence of many, by trespassing upon morality and those

rules of modesty and chastity which our holy religion obligeth all its

professors to a strict observance of, therefore the presbytery

recommends to all their members to use all proper and prudent methods to

discourage the same.’[471] It is at the same time rather startling to

find that three of the ministers who went as a deputation to pay the

respects of the Church of Scotland to George I. on his accession in

1714—namely, Mitchell, Ramsay, and Hart—went at Kendal to see the comedy

of _Love for Love_ acted.

[Sidenote: APR. 22.]

A celebrated total eclipse of the sun, which happened about nine o’clock

in the morning of this day, made a great impression in Scotland, as in

other parts of Europe, over which the entire shadow passed. The darkness

lasted upwards of three minutes, during which the usual phenomena were

observed among the lower animals. The Edinburgh bard, Allan Ramsay,

heralded the event with a set of verses, embracing all the commonplaces

connected with it; adding,

‘The unlearned clowns, who don’t our era know,

From this dark Friday will their ages shew,

As I have often heard old country men

Talk of Dark Monday[472] and their ages then.’

Whiston, in his _Memoirs_, relates what will be to philosophical persons

an amusing anecdote of this eclipse. When the accounts of it were

published beforehand in the streets of London, telling when it would

commence, and that it would be total, a Mohammedan envoy, from Tripoli,

thought the English people were distracted [Sidenote: 1715.] in

pretending to know what God Almighty would do; which his own countrymen

could not do. ‘He concluded thus, that God Almighty would never reveal

so great a secret to us unbelievers, when he did not reveal it to those

whom he esteemed true believers. However, when the eclipse came exactly

as we all foretold, he was asked again what he thought of the matter

now; his answer was, that he supposed we knew this by _art magique_;

otherwise he must have turned Christian upon such an extraordinary event

as this was.’

[Sidenote: JULY.]

Mr James Anderson, so honourably known as editor of the _Diplomata

Scotiæ_, was rewarded for his public services by the appointment of

Deputy Postmaster-general, in place of George Mein. A mass of his

correspondence, preserved in the Advocates’ Library, makes us acquainted

with the condition in which he found postal matters, and the

improvements which he effected during two or three subsequent years.

We learn that the horse-posts which existed many years back on some of

the principal roads, had, ere this time, been given up, and foot-runners

substituted, excepting perhaps upon what might be called the _aorta_ of

the system, from Edinburgh to Berwick. In this manner direct bags were

conveyed as far north as Thurso, and westwards to Inverary. There were

three mails a week from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and three in return; the

runners set out from Edinburgh each Tuesday and Thursday, at twelve

o’clock at night, and on Sundays in the morning, and the mails arrived

at Glasgow on the evening of Wednesday and Friday, and on the forenoon

of Monday. For this service the Post-office paid £40 sterling per annum,

but from the fraudulent dealing of the postmaster of Falkirk, who made

the payments, the runners seldom received more than from £20 to £25.

‘After his appointment, Mr Anderson directed his attention to the

establishment of horse-posts on the western road from Edinburgh. The

first regular horse-post in Scotland appears to have been from Edinburgh

to Stirling; it started for the first time on the 29th November 1715. It

left Stirling at two o’clock afternoon, each Tuesday, Thursday, and

Saturday, and reached Edinburgh in time for the night-mail to England.

In March 1717, the first horse-post between Edinburgh and Glasgow was

established, and we have the details of the arrangement in a memorial

addressed to Lord Cornwallis and James Craggs, who jointly filled the

office of Postmaster-general of Great Britain. [Sidenote: 1715.] The

memorial states that the “horse-post will set out for Edinburgh each

Tuesday, and Thursday, at eight o’clock at night, and on Sunday about

eight or nine in the morning, and be in Glasgow (a distance of

thirty-six miles by the post-road of that time) by six in the morning on

Wednesday and Friday in summer, and eight in winter, and both winter and

summer will be on Sunday night.” There appears to have been a good deal

of negotiation connected with the settlement of this post, in which the

provost and bailies of Glasgow took part. After some delay, the matter

appears to have been arranged to the satisfaction of all parties.

‘A proposition was made at this time to establish a horse-post between

Edinburgh and Aberdeen, at a cost of £132, 12_s._ per annum, to

supersede the foot-posts, which were maintained at a cost of £81, 12_s._

The scheme, however, appears not to have been entertained at that time

by the Post-office authorities.

‘In the year 1715, Edinburgh had direct communication with sixty

post-towns in Scotland, and in the month of August the total sum

received for letters passing to and from these offices and Edinburgh,

was £44, 3_s._ 1_d._ The postage on letters to and from London in the

same month amounted to £157, 3_s._ 2_d._, and the postage for letters

per the London road, amounted to £9, 19_s._, making the total sum for

letters to and from Edinburgh, during that month, amount to £211, 5_s._

3_d._—equal to £2535, 3_s._ per annum.

‘In 1716, the Duke of Argyle, who had then supreme control in Scotland,

gave orders to Mr Anderson to place relays of horses from Edinburgh to

Inverness, for the purpose of forwarding dispatches to, and receiving

intelligence from, the army in the Highlands under General Cadogan.

These posts worked upon two lines of roads—the one went through Fife,

and round by the east coast, passing through Aberdeen; the other took

the central road viâ Perth, Dunkeld, and Blair Athole. These horse-posts

were, however, discontinued immediately after the army retired.’[473]

In October 1723, the authorities of the Edinburgh Post-office announced

a thrice-a-week correspondence with Lanark, by means of the horse-post

to Glasgow, and a runner thence to Lanark. The official _annonce_

candidly owns: ‘This at first sight appears far about’ (it was

transforming a direct distance of thirty-one miles into sixty-six). But

‘the Glasgow horse-post running all [Sidenote: 1715.] night makes the

dispatch so quick, that the letters come this way to Lanark in twenty,

or at most twenty-two hours, and from Lanark to Edinburgh in twenty-four

hours at most.’

[Sidenote: JULY 18.]

Two Renfrewshire gentlemen, of whose previous dealings with each other

in friendship or business we get but an obscure account, came to a

hostile collision in Edinburgh. Mr James Houston, son of the deceased

Sir Patrick Houston of that Ilk, was walking on a piece of pavement

called the Plainstones, near the Cross, when Sir John Shaw of Greenock

came up with a friend, and the two gentlemen, designedly or not,

slightly jostled each other. Mr Houston put his hand to his sword, but

had not time to draw it before Sir John fell a-beating him about the

head and shoulders with his cane, which, however, flying out of his

hand, he instantly took to his sword, and before the bystanders could

interfere, passed it twice through Mr Houston’s body.

It was at first thought the man was slain outright; but he was surviving

in a sickly state in the ensuing January, when he raised a criminal

prosecution against the knight of Greenock, and succeeded in obtaining

from him a solatium to the amount of five hundred pounds.[474]

[Sidenote: SEP.]

On the breaking out of the Rebellion this month, there was a run upon

the Bank of Scotland, rather encouraged by the directors than otherwise,

from a desire to escape the responsibility and danger of keeping money

during such a critical time. When the whole coin was drawn out, the Bank

rendered up about thirty thousand pounds of public money which lay in

its hands, that it might be lodged in the Castle, and then very calmly

stopped payment, or rather discontinued business, intimating that their

notes should bear interest till better times should return. In May 1716,

the troubles being over, the Bank began to take in their notes and

resume business as usual.[475]

[Sidenote: SEP. 29.]

At this crisis, when a formidable insurrection was breaking out, the

officers intrusted with the support of the government were not in the

enjoyment of that concord which is said to give strength. The

Justice-clerk (Cockburn of Ormiston) was on bad terms with both the Earl

of Ilay and the Lord Advocate, Sir David [Sidenote: 1715.] Dalrymple.

The animosity between two of these men came to a consummation which

might be said to prefigure the celebrated wig-pulling of Sir Robert

Walpole and Lord Townshend. The Earl of Ilay writes at this date from

Edinburgh: ‘There has happened an accident which will suspend the

Justice-clerk’s fury against me; for he and the King’s Advocate have had

a _corporal dispute_; I mean literally, for I parted them.’[476]

[Sidenote: OCT. 18.]

In a letter of this date, written at Musselburgh by the Rev. J.

Williamson, minister of that place, some recent domestic events are

alluded to—as ‘the lamentable murder of Doctor Rule last week by

Craigmillar’s second son, and the melancholy providence of a jeweller’s

servant, who was under some dejection for some time, and did, on Monday

last, immediately after sermon, at Leith, run into the sea deliberately,

and drown himself.’ There had been a new election of Scots peers at

Holyrood for the first parliament of the new reign, and they were all of

one sound loyal type—‘a plain evidence of our further slavery to the

English court.’ In reference to this, a fruit-woman went about the

Palace-yard, crying: ‘Who would buy good pears, old pears, new pears,

fresh pears—rotten pears, sixteen of them for a plack!’[477]

[Sidenote: DEC. 28.]

Died, William Carstares, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, noted

as having been the intimate friend of King William, and his adviser

about all Scottish affairs; for which reason, and his influence over the

fortunes of the church, he was popularly known by the name of _Cardinal

Carstares_. It must ever be considered a great honour to the Church of

Scotland to have had the affectionate support of such a man. A sufferer

under the severities of the pre-Revolution government, he inclined, when

his day of power came, to use it with moderation. His temperate counsels

and practice are believed to have had a great effect in smoothing the

difficulties which at first surrounded the Presbyterian establishment.

His probity and disinterestedness have been above all question. King

William said ‘he had known him long and well, and he knew him to be an

Honest Man.’ In the midst of the contentious proceedings of this period,

to light upon the gentle prudence, the unostentatious worth, and the

genial unselfishness of Carstares, has the effect of a fine, soothing

[Sidenote: 1715.] melody amidst discord. There are a few anecdotes of

this eminent man, which no one can read without feeling his heart

improved.

A newly widowed sister coming from the country to see him, when he was

engaged in consultations of importance with some of the officers of

state, he instantly left these personages and came to her; insisted,

against her remonstrances, on staying a short while with her, and giving

her a prayer of consolation; then, having appointed a more leisurely

interview, he returned with the tears scarcely effaced from his

countenance, to his noble company.

His charities, which were truly diffusive, were often directed to the

unfortunate Episcopal clergy. One, named Caddell, having called upon

him, he observed that the poor man’s clothes were worn out, and

discreditable to his sacred calling. Instantly ordering a suit to be

prepared for a man of Caddell’s size, he took care to have them first

tried upon his own person when his friend next waited upon him. ‘See,’

said he, ‘how this silly fellow has misfitted me! They are quite useless

to me. They will be lost if they don’t fit some of my friends. And, by

the by, I daresay they might answer you. Please try them on, for it is a

pity they should be thrown away.’ Caddell, after some hesitation,

complied, and found that the clothes fitted him exactly. With his

hard-wrung permission, they were sent home to him, _and he found a

ten-pound note in one of the pockets_.

It is said that many of the ‘outed’ clergy were in the custom of

receiving supplies, the source of which they never knew till Mr

Carstares’s death. At his funeral, two men were observed to turn aside

together, quite overcome by their grief. Upon inquiry, it was found they

were two nonjurant ministers, whose families, for a considerable time,

had been supported by the benefactions of him they were laying in the

grave.[478]

If the partisans of particular doctrines and formulæ were to try

occasionally upon each other the effect of kindly good offices such as

these, might they not sometimes make a little way with their opponents,

instead of merely exasperating and hardening them, as, under existing

circumstances, they almost invariably do?

[Sidenote: 1716. APR. 21.]

John Kellie, corporal in the Earl of Stair’s regiment, was put into the

Edinburgh Tolbooth for killing John Norton, sergeant of [Sidenote:

1716.] the same regiment, in a duel near Stirling. He was liberated at

the bar, on the 23d July ensuing.[479]

The fighting of duels by private soldiers, now never heard of, seems

then to have been not uncommon. The _Edinburgh Courant_ of February 16,

1725, states: ‘This morning, two soldiers of the regiment that lies in

the Canongate were whipped for fighting a duel.’

[Sidenote: MAY 21.]

The Whig government of George I., having now got the lay Jacobites

effectually put down, bethought itself of the clergy of the defeated

party, the Episcopalians, who had made several active demonstrations

during the late insurrection, and constantly stood in a sort of negative

rebellion, in as far as they never prayed for the king _de facto_. Under

a prompting from a high quarter, the Commissioners of Justiciary now

ordered the advocate-depute, Duncan Forbes, to proceed against such of

the Episcopal clergy in Scotland as had not prayed for King George, or

otherwise obeyed the late Toleration Act by registering orders from a

Protestant bishop. The consequent proceedings reveal to us a curious

view of the condition of Episcopacy at that time in Edinburgh—at once

comprehending a large number of clergy, and existing in the greatest

obscurity.

There were Mr William Abercrombie and Mr David Freebairn, Mr Robert

Marshall and Mr William Wylie, each described as ‘preacher in the

Episcopal meeting-house in Bailie Fyfe’s Close;’ Mr George Johnston, Mr

Robert Keith, and Mr Andrew Lumsdain, severally described as ‘preacher

in the Episcopal meeting-house in Barrenger’s Close;’ Mr Jasper Kellie,

‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house below the Fountain-well;’ Mr

Thomas Rhind, ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Sandilands’

Close;’ Mr George Grahame, ‘preacher and user of the English Liturgy in

his own house, to which many do resort as an Episcopal meeting-house, in

Canongate-head;’ Mr Andrew Cant, Mr David Lambie, Mr David Rankine, and

Mr Patrick Middleton, ‘preachers in the Episcopal meeting-house in

Skinner’s Close;’ Mr Henry Walker and Mr Patrick Home, each described as

‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Todrig’s Wynd;’ Mr Robert

Calder, ‘preacher, sometimes in Edinburgh, sometimes in Tranent’ [the

reputed author of _Scots Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed_]; Mr William

Milne and Mr William Cockburn, [Sidenote: 1716.] ‘preachers in the

Episcopal meeting-house in Blackfriars’ Wynd’ [the latter probably he

who had lately been chased by the mob out of Glasgow]; Mr James Walker,

‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Dickson’s Close;’ Mr

Alexander Sutherland, senior, and Mr Robert Chein, ‘preachers in the

Episcopal meeting-house at the back of Bell’s Wynd.’ Thus, we see there

were ten places of worship in Edinburgh—all in retired situations, and,

strange to say, all within two hundred yards or so of each other; having

in all twenty-two ministers; being considerably more than the number of

the Established clergy then in Edinburgh; but in what poverty they lived

may be partly inferred from the fact, that Thomas Ruddiman, the

grammarian, when attending an Episcopal meeting-house in Edinburgh in

1703, paid only ‘forty shillings’ (3_s._ 4_d._) for his seat for two

years.[480]

Besides the twenty-two Edinburgh clergy, there were Mr Arthur Miller,

‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Leith,’ and Mr Robert Coult

and Mr James Hunter, ‘Episcopal preachers in Mussleburgh,’ all involved

in the same prosecution.

The result of their trial was a sentence, applicable to all except Mr

William Cockburn, forbidding them to exercise their ministerial

functions till they should have fulfilled the requirements of the law,

and amerciating them in twenty pounds each for not praying for King

George. The only visible difference between the old persecutions and

this was, that there was a populace to howl in the one case, and not in

the other. However, the authorities were humane. The magistrates of

Edinburgh were content to see that letters of ordination were

registered. When the Prince of Wales, acting as regent, some time after

sent them a secretary of state’s letter, complaining that the sentence

was not fully carried out—the object being to compel a praying for his

father—the magistrates applied for instructions to the commissioners of

Justiciary, and were told that, having once passed sentence, the court

could do nothing more in the case. So the Episcopal meeting-houses in

Bailie Fyfe’s, Barrenger’s, Sandilands’, and other closes went on as

before.[481]

[Sidenote: AUG.]

William Mure of Caldwell travelling with a party of friends from

Edinburgh to Ross-shire, came the first stage—namely, to the

Queensferry—in a coach, and afterwards proceeded on horseback. Writing

an account of his journey to his wife, from [Sidenote: 1716.] Chanonry,

August 30, he says: ‘We came in coach to the Ferry on Friday; and though

we were once overturned, yet none of us had any misfortune.’ Probably Mr

Mure considered himself as getting off very well with but one overturn

in a coach-journey of eleven English miles. He goes on: ‘We came that

night to Perth, where the Master of Ross and Lady Betty met us. On

Saturday, we came to Dunkeld, and were all night with the Duke of

Athole. On Sunday, after sermon, we left the ladies there, and came to

the Blair.’ The ladies probably had scruples about Sunday travelling;

but Mr Mure, although a man of notedly religious character, appears to

have had none. ‘On Monday,’ he adds, ‘we made a long journey, and went

to Glenmore, where my Lord Huntly’s fir-woods are. On Tuesday, we came

to Kilravock’s house [Kilravock], and yesternight came here, which is

the first town in the shire of Ross.’[482] Thus a journey of about 170

miles occupied in all six days.

In April 1722, the king being about to visit Hanover, certain Scottish

lords, amongst others, were appointed to attend him. It is intimated in

a London paper of April 28,[483] that they set out from Edinburgh for

this purpose on the previous Monday, the 23d; and ‘the roads being laid

with post-horses, they are expected here as to-morrow.’ That is, the

journey would occupy in the way of posting from Monday to Sunday, or

seven days. It was one day more than the time occupied in a journey from

London to Edinburgh by the Duke of Argyle in September 1715, when he

posted down in the utmost haste, with some friends, to take command of

the troops for the resistance to the insurgent Earl of Mar.

It appears that about this time there were occasional packet-ships, by

which people could travel between Edinburgh and London. In 1720, the

_Bon Accord_, Captain Buchanan, was advertised as to sail for London on

the 30th June, having good accommodation for passengers, and ‘_will keep

the day, goods or no goods_.’ Two years later, the ‘_Unity_ packet-boat

of Leith’ was in like manner announced as to proceed to London on the

1st September, ‘goods or no goods, wind and weather serving, having good

accommodation for passengers, and good entertainment.’ The master to be

spoke with in the Laigh Coffee-house.[484] But this mode of transit was

occasionally attended with vicissitudes [Sidenote: 1716.] not much less

vexatious than those of the pious voyager of the _Æneid_. For example,

we learn from a paragraph in an Edinburgh newspaper, on the 15th

November 1743, that the Edinburgh and Glasgow packet from London, ‘after

having great stress of weather for _twenty days_, has lately arrived

safe at Holy Island, and is _soon_ expected in Leith harbour.’

During the decade 1720–30, return chaises for London, generally with six

horses, are occasionally advertised. The small amount of travelling

which then prevailed is marked by the fact, that we find such a

conveyance announced on the 11th of May to set out homeward on the 15th

or 16th, and on the 18th re-advertised as to go on the 2d or 3d of June,

no one having come forward in the interval to take advantage of the

opportunity. We find, however, in 1732, that a periodical conveyance had

at length been attempted. The advertisement states, ‘that the Stage

Coach continues to go from the Canongate for London, or any place on the

road, every Wednesday fortnight. And if any gentleman want a _by-coach_,

they may call at Alexander Forsyth’s, opposite to the Duke of

Queensberry’s Lodging, where the coach stands.’

In May 1734, a comparatively spirited effort in the way of travelling

was announced by John Dale and three other persons—namely, a coach to

set out towards the end of this week [pleasant indefiniteness!] for

London, or any place on the road, to be performed in nine days, or three

days sooner than any other coach that travels the road.’

The short space between the two populous towns of Edinburgh and Leith

must have been felt as a particularly favourable field for this kind of

enterprise; and, accordingly, a ‘Leith stage’ was tried both in 1610 and

1660,[485] but on both occasions failed to receive sufficient

encouragement. In July 1722, we are informed that, on the 9th instant,

‘two stage-coaches are to begin to serve betwixt Edinburgh and Leith,

and are to go _with or without company_ every hour of the day. They are

designed to contain six persons, each paying threepence during the

summer, and fourpence during the winter for their fare.’

[Sidenote: SEP. 1.]

This day met at Edinburgh a set of commissioners appointed under a late

act ‘to inquire of the estates of certain traitors, and of popish

recusants, and of estates given to superstitious uses, in order to raise

money out of them for the use of the public.’ The [Sidenote: 1716.]

first and most prominent object was to appropriate the lands of the

Scottish nobles and gentlemen who had taken part in the late

insurrection for the House of Stuart. Four out of the six commissioners

were Englishmen, members of the House of Commons, and among these was

the celebrated Sir Richard Steele, fresh from the literary glories he

had achieved in the _Tatler_, _Spectator_, and _Guardian_, from his

sufferings in the Whig cause under Anne, and the consolatory honours he

attained under the new monarch.

It was a matter of course that strangers of such distinction should be

honoured in a city which received few such guests; and doubtless the

government officials in particular paid them many flattering attentions.

But the commissioners very soon found that their business was not an

easy or agreeable one. There was in Scotland plenty of hatred to the

Jacobite cause; but battling off its adherents at Sheriffmuir, and

putting down its seminaries, the Episcopal chapels, was a different

thing from seeing an order come from England which was to extinguish the

names and fortunes of many old and honourable families, and turn a

multitude of women and children out of house and home, and throw them

upon the charity of their friends or the public. Most of the

unfortunates, too, had connections among the Whigs themselves, with

claims upon them for commiseration, if not assistance; and we all know

the force of the old Scottish maxim—eternal blessings rest on the

nameless man who first spoke it!—that _bluid is thicker than water_.

It was with no little surprise and no little irritation that these

English Whig gentlemen discovered how hard it was to turn the forfeited

estates into money, or indeed to make any decent progress at all in the

business they came about. The first and most vexatious discovery they

made was, that there was a code of law and frame of legal procedure

north of the Tweed different from what obtained to the south of it. The

act was framed with a regard to the practices of English law, which were

wholly unknown and could not be recognised in Scotland. Then as to

special impediments—first came the Scotch Court of Exchequer, with a

claim under an act of the preceding year, imposing a penalty of five

hundred pounds and loss of liferents and whole movables on every

suspected man who did not deliver himself up before a certain day: all

of the men engaged in the late insurrection had incurred this penalty;

the affair came under the Exchequer department; and it was necessary to

discriminate between what was forfeited by the one act and what was

forfeited by the other. [Sidenote: 1716.] There was something more

obstructive, however, than even the Scottish Exchequer. The

commissioners discovered this in the form of a body called the Court of

Session, or, in common language, ‘the Fifteen,’ who sat periodically in

Edinburgh, exercising a mysterious influence over property throughout

the country, and indulging in certain phrases of marvellous potency,

though utterly undreamed of in Southern Britain. Here is how it was. The

act had, of course, admitted the preferable claims of the creditors of

the traitors, and of those who had claims for marriage and other

provisions on their estates. On petitions from these persons—in whose

reality the commissioners had evidently a very imperfect faith—this

Court of Session had passed what, in their barbarous jargon, they called

_sequestrations_ of the said estates, at the same time appointing

factors to uplift the rents, for the benefit of the aforesaid persons in

the first place, and only the commissioners in the second. What further

seemed to the commissioners very strange was, that these factors were

all of them men notedly disaffected to the Revolution interest, most of

them confidential friends, some even the relatives, of the forfeited

persons, and therefore all disposed to make the first department of the

account as large, and the second as small, as possible. Nor was even

this all, for, as had been pointed out to them by some of the

Established clergy of Forfarshire, these factors were persons dangerous

to the government. For example, Sir John Carnegie of Pitarrow, factor on

the Earl of Southesk’s estate, was the man who, on the synod of Angus

uttering a declaration in 1712 for the House of Hanover, had caused it

to be burned at the head burgh of the shire. John Lumsdain, who was

nominated to the charge of the estates of the Earl of Panmure, had

greatly obstructed the establishment of the church in the district, and

proved altogether ‘very uneasy to presbyteries and synods.’ Suppose the

unruly king of Sweden should land on the east of Scotland, there were

all the tenants of those large estates in the obedience of men who would

hail his arrival and forward his objects!

The general result was, that the commissioners found themselves stranded

in Edinburgh, as powerless as so many porpoises on Cramond sands, only

treated with a little more outward respect. One proposal, indeed, they

did receive (January 1717), that seemed at first to be a Scottish

movement in their favour—namely, an offer from the Lord Advocate (Sir

David Dalrymple), _with their concurrence_, to commence actions in the

Court of Session for [Sidenote: 1716.] determining the claims of

creditors; but, seeing in this only an endless vista of vexatious

lawsuits, they declined it, preferring to leave the whole matter to be

disposed of by further acts of the legislature.[486]

[Sidenote: SEP. 3.]

By virtue of the treason-law for Scotland, passed immediately after the

Union, the government this day suddenly removed eighty-nine rebel

prisoners from Edinburgh to Carlisle, to be there tried by English

juries, it being presumed that there was no chance of impartiality in

Scotland. The departing troop was followed by a wail of indignant lament

from the national heart. Jacobites pointing to it with mingled howls and

jeers as a proof of the enslavement of Scotland—Whigs carried off by

irresistible sympathy, and unable to say a word in its defence—attested

how much the government did by such acts to retard the desirable

amalgamation of the two nations. Under the warm feeling of the moment, a

subscription was opened to provide legal defences for the unfortunate

Scotsmen, and contributions came literally from all sorts and conditions

of men. Even the Goodman of the Tolbooth gave his pound. The very

government officials in some instances were unable to resist an appeal

so thrilling.

The list includes the names of nineteen of the nobility—namely, Errol,

Haddington, Rosebery, Morton, Hopetoun, Dundonald, Moray, Rutherglen,

Cassillis, Traquair, March, Galloway, Kinnoull, Eglintoune, Elibank,

Colville, Blantyre, Coupar, and Deskford, all for considerable sums.

Amongst other entries are the following: Lady Grizel Cochrane, £6,

9_s._; the Commissioners of Excise, £7, 10_s._ 6_d._; Mr George

Drummond, Goodman of the Tolbooth [Edinburgh], £1; John M‘Farlane,

Writer to the Signet, 10_s._ 9_d._; the Merchant Company, £5; the

Incorporation of Goldsmiths, £5; the Incorporation of Tailors, £5; the

Incorporation of Chirurgeons, £5; the four Incorporations of Leith

(aggregate), £53, 16_s._ 7_d._; the Episcopal Clergy of Edinburgh, £8,

8_s._; Magistrates of Haddington (and collected by them), £28; Society

of Periwigmakers in Edinburgh, £24, 4_s._ 3_d._; Inhabitants of

Musselburgh, Inveresk, and Fisherrow, £20; collected by Lady Grizel

Cochrane, at Dumbarton, £30; Colonel Charteris’s lady, £5, 7_s._ 6_d._;

collected by Lady Grizel Cochrane, from sundry persons specified,

£180.[487]

[Sidenote: 1716.]

To do the government justice, the rebel prisoners were treated mildly,

not one of them being done to death, though several were transported. An

attempt was made, two years later, by a commission of Oyer and Terminer

sent into Scotland, to bring a number of other Jacobite delinquents to

punishment. It sat at Perth, Dundee, and Kelso, without being able to

obtain true bills: only at Cupar was it so far effective as to get bills

against Lord George Murray, of the Athole family; Sir James Sharpe,

representative of the too famous archbishop; Sir David Threipland of

Fingask; and a son of Moir of Stonywood; but it was to no purpose, for

the trials of these gentlemen were never proceeded with.[488]

[Sidenote: OCT. 2.]

Captain John Cayley (son of Cornelius Cayley of the city of York), one

of the commissioners of his majesty’s customs, was a conspicuous member

of that little corps of English officials whom the new arrangements

following on the Union had sent down to Scotland. He was a vain gay

young man, pursuing the bent of his irregular passions with little

prudence or discretion. Amongst his acquaintance in Edinburgh was a

pretty young married woman—the daughter of Colonel Charles Straiton,

well known as a highly trusted agent of the Jacobite party—the wife of

John M‘Farlane, Writer to the Signet, who appears to have at one time

been man of business to Lord Lovat. Cayley had made himself notedly

intimate with Mr and Mrs M‘Farlane, often entertained them at his

country-house, and was said to have made some valuable presents to the

lady. To what extent there was truth in the scandals which connected the

names of Commissioner Cayley and Mrs M‘Farlane, we do not know; but it

is understood that Cayley, on one occasion, spoke of the lady in terms

which, whether founded in truth or otherwise, infinitely more condemned

himself. Perhaps drink made him rash; perhaps vanity made him assume a

triumph which was altogether imaginary; perhaps he desired to realise

some wild plan of his inflamed brain, and brought on his punishment in

self-defence. There were all sorts of theories on the subject, and

little positively known to give any of them much superiority over

another in point of plausibility. A gentleman,[489] writing from

Edinburgh the second day after, says: ‘I can hardly offer you anything

but matter of fact, which was—that [Sidenote: 1716.] upon Tuesday last

he came to her lodging after three o’clock, where he had often been at

tea and cards: she did not appear till she had changed all her clothes

to her very smock. Then she came into a sort of drawing-room, and from

that conveyed him into her own bedchamber. After some conversation

there, she left him in it; went out to a closet which lay at some

distance from the chamber; [thence] she brought in a pair of charged

pistols belonging to Mr Cayley himself, which Mr M‘Farland, her husband,

had borrowed from him some days before, when he was about to ride to the

country. What further expressions there were on either side I know not;

but she fired one pistol, which only made a slight wound on the

shackle-bone of his left hand, and slanted down through the floor—which

I saw. The other she fired in aslant on his right breast, so as the

bullet pierced his heart, and stuck about his left shoulder-blade

behind. She went into the closet, [and] laid by the pistols, he having

presently fallen dead on the floor. She locked the door of her room upon

the dead body, [and] sent a servant for her husband, who was in a

change-house with company, being about four afternoon. He came, and gave

her what money he had in the house, and conducted her away; and after he

had absented himself for about a day, he appeared, and afterwards

declared before the Lords of Justiciary he knew nothing about it till

she sent for him.... I saw his corps after he was cereclothed, and saw

his blood where he lay on the floor for twenty-four hours after he died,

just as he fell, so as it was a difficulty to straight him.’[490]

Miss Margaret Swinton, a grand-aunt of Sir Walter Scott, used to relate

to him and other listeners to her fireside-tales,[491] that, when she

was a little girl, being left at home at Swinton House by herself one

Sunday, indisposed, while all the rest of the family were at church, she

was drawn by curiosity into the dining-room, and there saw a beautiful

female, whom she took for ‘an enchanted queen,’ pouring out tea at a

table. The lady seemed equally surprised as herself, but presently

recovering self-possession, addressed the little intruder kindly, in

particular desiring her to speak first to her mother _by herself_ of

what she had seen. Margaret looked for a moment out of the window, and,

when she turned about, the enchanted queen was gone! On the return of

the family, she spoke to her mother of the vision, was praised for her

discretion, and desired to keep the matter from all other [Sidenote:

1716.] persons—an injunction she strictly followed. The stranger was Mrs

M‘Farlane, who, being a relative of the family, had here received a

temporary shelter after the slaughter of Captain Cayley. She had

vanished from Margaret Swinton’s sight through a panel-door into a

closet which had been arranged for her concealment. The family always

admired the sagacity shewn in asking Margaret to speak to her mother of

what she had seen, but to speak to her _alone_ in the first instance, as

thus the child’s feelings found a safe vent. It will be remembered that

Scott has introduced the incident as part of his fiction of _Peveril of

the Peak_.

In the ensuing February, criminal letters were raised against Mrs

M‘Farlane by the Lord Advocate, Sir David Dalrymple, and the father and

brother of the deceased, reciting that ‘John Cayley having, on the 2d of

October last, come to the house of John M‘Farlane in order to make a

civil visit, she did then and there shoot a pistol at John Cayley, and

thereby mortally wounded him.’ Not appearing to stand her trial, she was

declared outlaw.[492] Sir Walter Scott states it as certain, that she

was afterwards enabled to return to Edinburgh, where she lived and

died;[493] but I must own that some good evidence would be required to

substantiate such a statement.

The romantic nature of the incident, and the fact of the sufferer being

an Englishman, caused the story of Mrs M‘Farlane to be famed beyond the

bounds of Scotland. Pope, writing about the time to Lady Mary Wortley

Montagu, breaks out thus: ‘Let them say I am romantic; so is every one

said to be that either admires a fine thing or does one. On my

conscience, as the world goes, ’tis hardly worth anybody’s while to do

one for the honour of it. Glory, the only pay of generous actions, is

now as ill-paid as other just debts; and neither Mrs Macfarland for

immolating her lover, nor you for returning to your lord, must ever hope

to be compared to Lucretia or Portia.’[494]

[Sidenote: OCT. 20.]

A newspaper which enjoyed a temporary existence in Edinburgh[495]—each

number consisting of five small leaves—is vociferous with the

celebrations of the anniversary of King George’s coronation in

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Perth, and other Scottish towns. Ten days

later, it proclaims with equal vehemence the [Sidenote: 1716.]

rejoicings in the same places in honour of the birthday of the Prince of

Wales. Paradings and firings of musketry by the troops, drinkings of

loyal toasts from covered tables at the Cross, bonfires, ringings of

bells, form the chief demonstrations. And it is notable that in Dundee,

Brechin, and Aberdeen, which we know to have been in those days full of

Jacobites, the symptoms of loyalty to Hanover are by many degrees the

most ostentatious, there being the more need of course for the friends

of the reigning house to exert themselves. In Dundee (where in reality

the Jacobites were probably two to one), ‘everybody looked cheerful, and

vied who should outdo other in rejoicing, except some few of our

Jacobite neighbours, who, being like owls, loved darkness; but care will

be taken that they spared not their money by being singular.’

Loyalty is altogether a paradox, appearances with it being usually in

the inverse ratio of its actual existence, and the actuality in the

inverse ratio of the deserving. No monarch ever enjoyed so much of it as

Charles I. Since the days of his sons, when the bulk of the people of

Scotland felt themselves under a civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, the

demonstrations at market-crosses on royal birthdays had not been so

violent as now, when a new family, about whom nobody cared or could

care, occupied the throne. Nor did these again become equally loud till

the time of George III., when Wilkes prosecutions, losses of American

colonies, and unjustifiable wars with French reformers, made loyalty

again a needful article, and king’s-health-drinkings in the highest

degree desirable. On the other hand, when rulers are truly worthy of a

faithful affection on the part of their people—as in our happy age—one

never hears the word loyalty mentioned.

All through the reign of the first George and a great part of that of

his successor, the newspaper estimate of human character seems to have

had but one element—the attachment of the individual to ‘our present

happy establishment in church and state.’ At the end of every paragraph

announcing a choice of magistrates in Scotland, it is pointedly stated

that they are all friends of the Hanover succession. Such things are, of

course, simply the measure of the extent of hatred and indifferency with

which the happy establishment and dynasty were regarded, as well as of

the danger in which it was the fate of both to exist, from the eagerness

of many to get them destroyed.

The same newspaper, while telling us of such grave things as Scottish

nobles and gentlemen waiting in the Tower and in [Sidenote: 1716.]

Carlisle Castle for death or for life, as an incensed government might

please to dictate, gives us other notices, reminding us of the affecting

truism breathed from every sheet of the kind in our own day, that all

the affairs of human life, the serious, the comic, the important, the

trivial, are constantly going on shoulder to shoulder together. We

glance from a hard-wrung pardon for a dozen rebels, or an account of the

execution of Sergeant Ainslie, hung over the wall of Edinburgh Castle

for an attempt to render the fortress up to the Jacobites—to the let of

the lands of Biggarshiels, which ‘sow above eighty bolls of oats,’ and

have a good ‘sheepgang’ besides—or to David Sibbald’s vessel, the _Anne_

of Kirkcaldy, which now lies in Leith harbour for the benefit of all who

wish to transport themselves or their goods to London, and is to sail

with all expedition—or to the fact that yesterday the Duke of Hamilton

left Edinburgh for his country-seat, attended by a retinue of

gentlemen—or to an announcement of Allan Ramsay’s forthcoming poem of

the _Morning Interview_—for all these things come jostling along

together in one month. Nor may the following quaint advertisement be

overlooked:

‘A young gentlewoman, lately come from London, cuts hair extremely well,

dresses in the newest fashion, has the newest fashioned patterns for

beads, ruffles, &c., and mends lace very fine, and does all sort of

plain work; also teaches young gentlewomen to work, and young women for

their work. She does all manner of quilting and stitching. All the

ladies that come to her on Monday and Thursday, have their hair cut for

sixpence; at any other time, as reasonably as any in town; and dresses

the beads on wires cheaper than any one. She lodges in the Luckenbooths,

over against the Tolbooth, at one Mr Palmer’s, a periwig-maker, up one

pair of stairs.’[496]

Since the Revolution, there had been a constant and eager pressure

towards commerce and manufactures as a means of saving the nation from

the wretched poverty with which it was afflicted. But as yet there had

been scarcely the slightest movement towards the improvement of another

great branch of the national economy—namely, the culture of the ground.

The country was unenclosed; cultivation was only in patches near houses;

farm establishments were clusters of hovels; the rural people, among

whom the distinction of master and servant was [Sidenote: 1716.] little

marked, lived in the most wretched manner. A large part of rent was paid

in produce and by services. Old systems of husbandry reigned without

disturbance. Little had yet been done to facilitate communications in

the country by roads, as indeed little was required, for all goods were

carried on horseback.

The first notable attempt at planting was by Thomas, sixth Earl of

Haddington, about the time of the Union. From a love of common country

sports, this young nobleman was called away by his wife, a sister of the

first Earl of Hopetoun, who desired to see him engaged in planting, for

which she had somehow acquired a taste. The domain they had to work upon

was a tract of low ground surrounding their mansion of Tyninghame,

composing part of the coast of the Firth of Forth between North Berwick

and Dunbar. Their first experiment was upon a tract of about three

hundred acres, where it was believed that no trees could grow on account

of the sea-air. To the marvel of all, Lord Haddington included, the

_Binning Wood_, as it was called, soon became a beautiful sylvan domain,

as it continues to this day. To pursue his lordship’s own recital: ‘I

now took pleasure in planting and improving; but, because I did not like

the husbandry practised in this country, I got some farmers from

Dorsetshire. This made me divide my ground; but, as I knew the coldness

of the climate, and the bad effects the winds had, I made stripes of

planting between every enclosure, some forty, fifty, or sixty feet

broad, as I thought best.... From these Englishmen we came to the

knowledge of sowing and the management of grass-seeds. After making the

enclosures, a piece of ground that carried nothing but furze was

planted; and my wife, seeing the unexpected success of her former

projects, went on to another.... There was a warren of four hundred

acres, vastly sandy [near the mouth of the Tyne]. A gentleman who had

lived some time at Hamburg, one day walking with her, said that he had

seen fine trees growing upon such a soil. She took the hint, and planted

about sixty or seventy acres of warren. All who saw it at the time

thought that labour and trees were thrown away; but to their amazement,

they saw them prosper as well as in the best grounds. The whole field

was dead sand, with scarce any grass on it; nor was it only so poor on

the surface, but continued so some yards down.’[497] Such was the origin

of the famous Tyninghame Woods, which now present eight hundred acres of

the finest timber in [Sidenote: 1716.] the country. By means of his

Dorsetshire farmers, too, Lord Haddington became the introducer of the

practice of sowing clover and other grass-seeds.

Another early improver of the surface was Sir Archibald Grant of

Monymusk (second baronet of the title), whose merits, moreover, are the

more remarkable, as his operations took place in a remote part of the

north. ‘In my early days,’ says he, ‘soon after the Union, husbandry and

manufactures were in low esteem. Turnips [raised] in fields for cattle

by the Earl of Rothes and very few others, were wondered at. Wheat was

almost confined to East Lothian. Enclosures were few, and planting very

little; no repair of roads, all bad, and very few wheel-carriages. In

1720, I could not, in chariot, get my wife from Aberdeen to Monymusk.

Colonel Middleton [was] the first who used carts or wagons there; and he

and I [were] the first benorth Tay who had hay, except very little at

Gordon Castle. Mr Lockhart of Carnwath, author of Memoirs, [was] the

first that attempted raising or feeding cattle to size.’[498]

‘By the indulgence of a very worthy father,’ says Sir Archibald, ‘I was

allowed [in] 1716, though then very young, to begin to enclose and

plant, and provide and prepare nurseries. At that time there was not one

acre upon the whole estate enclosed, nor any timber upon it but a few

elm, sycamore, and ash, about a small kitchen-garden adjoining to the

house [a very common arrangement about old Scotch country

mansion-houses], and some straggling trees at some of the farmyards,

with a small copsewood, not enclosed and dwarfish, and browsed by sheep

and cattle. All the farms [were] ill-disposed and mixed, different

persons having alternate ridges; not one wheel-carriage on the estate,

nor indeed any one road that would allow it; and the rent about £600

sterling per annum, [when] grain and services [were] converted into

money. The house was an old castle, with battlements and six different

roofs of various heights and directions, confusedly and inconveniently

combined, and all rotten, with two wings more modern of two stories

only, the half of the windows of the higher rising above the roofs; with

granaries, stables, and houses for all cattle and the vermin attending

them close adjoining; and with the heath and muir reaching in angles or

gushets to the gate, and much heath near. What land was in culture

[Sidenote: 1716.] belonged to the farms, by which their cattle and dung

were always at the door. The whole land [was] raised and uneven, and

full of stones, many of them very large, of a hard iron quality, and all

the ridges crooked in shape of an S, and very high, and full of noxious

weeds, and poor, being worn out by culture, without proper manure or

tillage. Much of the land and muir near the house [was] poor and boggy;

the rivulet that runs before the house in pits and shallow streams,

often varying channel, with banks always ragged and broken. The people

[were] poor, ignorant, and slothful, and ingrained enemies to planting,

enclosing, or any improvements or cleanness; no keeping of sheep or

cattle, or roads, but four months, when oats and bear (which was the

only sorts of their grain) was on ground. The farmhouses, and even

corn-mills, and manse and school, [were] all poor, dirty huts,

[occasionally] pulled in pieces for manure, or [which] fell of

themselves almost each alternate year.’[499]

By Sir Archibald’s exertions, Monymusk became in due time a beautiful

domain, well cultivated and productive, checkered with fine woods, in

which are now some of the largest trees to be seen in that part of

Scotland.

There is reason to believe that the very first person who was effective

in introducing any agricultural improvements into Scotland was an

_English lady_. It was in 1706—the year before the Union—that Elizabeth

Mordaunt, daughter of the famous Earl of Peterborough, married the

eldest son of the Duke of Gordon, and came to reside in Scotland. A

spark of her father’s enterprising genius made her desire to see her

adopted country put on a better aspect, and she took some trouble to

effect the object, by bringing down to some of her father-in-law’s

estates English ploughs, with men to work them, and who were acquainted

with the business of _fallowing_—heretofore utterly unknown in Scotland.

Her ladyship instructed the people of her neighbourhood in the proper

way of making hay, of which they were previously ignorant; and set an

example in the planting of muirs and the laying out of gardens. Urged by

her counsels, during the first twenty years of her residence in

Scotland, two Morayland proprietors, Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonston,

and a gentleman named Dunbar, and one Ross-shire laird, Sir William

Gordon of Invergordon, set about the draining and planting of their

estates, and the introduction of improved modes of culture, including

the sowing of French [Sidenote: 1716.] grasses.[500] It is rather

remarkable that Scotland should have received her first impulse towards

agricultural improvements from England, which we have in recent times

seen, as it were, sitting at her feet as a pupil in all the various

particulars of a superior rural economy.

[Sidenote: NOV.]

We are informed that, after the close of the Rebellion, owing to the

number of people cast loose thereby from all the ordinary social bonds,

‘thefts, robberies, rapines, and depredations became so common [in the

Highlands and their borders], that they began to be looked upon as

neither shameful nor dishonourable, and people of a station somewhat

above the vulgar, did sometimes countenance, encourage, nay, head gangs

of banditti in those detestable villanies.’ The tenants of great

landlords who had joined the Whig cause were particularly liable to

despoliation, and to this extent the system bore the character of a kind

of guerilla warfare. Such a landlord was the Duke of Montrose, whose

lands lying chiefly in the western parts of Perth, Stirling, and

Dumbarton shires, were peculiarly exposed to this kind of rapine. His

Grace, moreover, had so acted towards Rob Roy, as to create in that

personage a deep sense of injury, which the Highland moral code called

for being wreaked out in every available method. Rob had now constituted

himself the head of the broken men of his district, and having great

sagacity and address, he was by no means a despicable enemy.

At the date noted, the duke’s factor, Mr Graham of Killearn, came in the

usual routine, to collect his Grace’s Martinmas rents at a place called

Chapel-eroch, about half-way between Buchanan House and the village of

Drymen. The farmers were gathered together, and had paid in about two

hundred and sixty pounds, when Rob Roy, with twenty followers, descended

upon the spot from the hills of Buchanan. Having planted his people

about the house, he coolly entered, took Mr Graham prisoner, and

possessed himself of the money that had been collected, as well as the

account-books, telling the factor that he would answer for all to the

duke, as soon as his Grace should pay him three thousand four hundred

merks, being the amount of what he professed himself to have been

wronged of by the havoc committed by the duke upon his house at

Craigrostan, and subsequently by the burning [Sidenote: 1716.] of his

house at Auchinchisallen by the government troops. Mr Graham was

permitted to write to the duke, stating the case, and telling that he

was to remain a prisoner till his Grace should comply with Rob’s

demands, with ‘hard usage if any party are sent after him.’

Mr Graham was marched about by Rob Roy from place to place, ‘under a

very uneasy kind of restraint,’ for a week, when at length the outlaw,

considering that he could not mend matters, but might only provoke more

hostility by keeping his prisoner any longer, liberated him with his

books and papers, but without the money.

Part of the duke’s rents being paid in kind, there were _girnels_ or

grain stores near Chapel-eroch, into which the farmers of the district

used to render their quotas of victual, according to custom. ‘Whenever

Rob and his followers were pressed with want, a party was detached to

execute an order of their commanders, for taking as much victual out of

these girnels as was necessary for them at the time.’ In this district,

‘the value of the thefts and depredations committed upon some lands were

equal to the yearly rent of the lands, and the persons of small heritors

were taken, carried off, and detained prisoners till they redeemed

themselves for a sum of money, especially if they had at elections for

parliament voted for the government man.’[501]

The duke got his farmers armed, and was preparing for an inroad on the

freebooter’s quarters, when, in an unguarded moment, they were beset by

a party of Macgregors under Rob’s nephew, Gregor Macgregor of Glengyle,

and turned adrift without any of their military accoutrements. The duke

renewed the effort with better success, for, marching into Balquhidder

with some of his people, he took Rob Roy prisoner. But here good-fortune

and native craft befriended the outlaw. Being carried along on

horseback, bound by a belt to the man who had him in charge, he

contrived so to work on the man’s feelings as to induce him to slip the

bond, as they were crossing a river, when, diving under the stream, he

easily made his escape. Sir Walter Scott heard this story recited by the

grandson of Rob’s friend, and worked it up with his usual skill in the

novel bearing the outlaw’s name.

While these operations were going on, the commissioners on the Forfeited

Estates were coolly reckoning up the little patrimony [Sidenote: 1716.]

of Rob Roy as part of the public spoil of the late rebellion. It is felt

as a strange and uncouth association that Steele, of _Tatler_ and

_Spectator_ memory—kind-hearted, thoughtless Dicky Steele—should have

been one of the persons who administered in the affairs of the cateran

of Craigrostan. In the final report of the commissioners, we have the

pitiful account of the public gains from the ruin of poor Rob,

Inversnaid being described as of the yearly value of £53, 16_s._ 8½_d._,

and the total realised from it of purchase-money and interest, £958,

10_s._ There is all possible reason to believe, that it would have been

a much more advantageous as well as humane arrangement for the public,

to allow these twelve miles of Highland mountains to remain in the hands

of their former owner.

[Sidenote: 1717. JAN.]

Wonder-seekers were at this time regaled with a brochure stating how Mr

John Gardner, minister near Elgin, fell into a trance, and lay as dead

for two days, in the sight of many; and how, being put into a coffin,

and carried to his parish church in order to be buried, he was heard at

the last moment to make a noise in the coffin; which being opened, he

was found alive, ‘to the astonishment of all present.’ Being then

carried home, and put into a warm bed, he in a little time coming to

himself, ‘related many strange things which he had seen in the other

world.’ In the same publication was a sermon which the worthy man had

preached after his recovery.

[Sidenote: APR. 29.]

Mr Gordon of Ellon, a rich merchant of Edinburgh, lived in a villa to

the north of the city, with a family composed of a wife, two sons, and a

daughter, the children being all of tender age.[502] He had for a tutor

to his two boys a licentiate of the church, named Robert Irvine, who was

considered of respectable attainments, but remarked for a somewhat

melancholic disposition. A gloomy view of predestination, derived from a

work by Flavel, had taken hold of Irvine’s mind, which, perhaps, had

some native infirmity, ready to be acted upon by external circumstances

to dismal results.

The tutor, having cast eyes of affection upon a servant-girl in his

employer’s house, was tempted, one day, to take some liberties

[Sidenote: 1717.] with her, which were observed and reported by his two

pupils. He was reprimanded by Mr Gordon for this breach of decorum,

which, on an apology from him, was forgiven. The incident sunk into the

man’s sensitive nature, and he brooded upon it till it assumed

proportions beyond the reality, and raised in his heart an insane thirst

for revenge. For three days did the wretch revolve the idea of cutting

off Mr Gordon’s three children, and on the day here noted he found an

opportunity of partially accomplishing his morbid desire. It was Sunday,

and Mr and Mrs Gordon went to spend the latter part of the day with a

friend in the city, taking their little daughter along with them.

Irvine, left with the two boys, took them out for a walk along the then

broomy slope where St Andrew Square and York Place are now situated. The

children ran about gathering flowers and pursuing butterflies, while

this fiend-transformed man sat whetting a knife wherewith to cut short

their days. Calling the two boys to him, he upbraided them with their

informing upon him, and told them that they must suffer for it. They ran

off, but he easily overtook and seized them. Then keeping one down upon

the grass with his knee, he cut the other’s throat; after which he

despatched in like manner the remaining one.

The insane nature of the action was shewn by its being committed in

daylight in an open place, exposed to the view of multitudes who might

chance to look that way from the adjacent city. A gentleman, enjoying

his evening walk upon the Castle Hill, did obtain a tolerably perfect

view of the incident, and immediately gave an alarm. Irvine, who had

already attempted to cut his own throat, but unsuccessfully, ran from

his pursuers to the Water of Leith, thinking to drown himself there; but

he was taken, and brought in a cart to prison, and there chained down to

the floor, as if he had been a wild beast.

There was a summary process of law for murderers taken as he was _with

the red hand_. It was only necessary to bring him next day before the

judge of the district, and have sentence passed upon him. In this case,

the judge was the Baron Bailie of Broughton, a hamlet now overwhelmed in

the spreading streets of the New Town of Edinburgh, but whose

court-house existed so lately as 1827.[503] Till the abolition of

heritable jurisdictions in 1747, the bailie of the Baron of Broughton

could arraign a [Sidenote: 1717.] criminal before a jury of his own

people, and do the highest judgment upon him. Irvine was tried by the

bailie upon the 30th of April, and received sentence of death. During

the brief interval before execution, which was but a day, the unhappy

wretch was addressed by several clergymen on the heinousness of his

crime, and the need of repentance, and, after a time, he began to

exhibit signs of contrition. The bloody clothes of the poor children

being then exhibited before him, he broke out in tears and groans, as if

a new light was shed upon his mind, and he had been able to see his

offence in its true character. He then sent a message to the bereaved

parents, beseeching their Christian forgiveness to a dying man; and this

they very kindly gave.

Irvine was next day hanged at Greenside, having first had his hands

hacked off, and stuck upon the gibbet by the knife with which he had

committed the murder. His body was thrown into a neighbouring

quarry-hole.[504]

[Sidenote: JUNE 10.]

Occurred this day at Edinburgh a thunder-storm, attended with such

remarkable effects, that an account of it was published on a broadside.

It was little, perhaps, that it frightened the people off the streets,

caused the garrison at the Castle to look well to the powder-magazine,

and killed a man and a woman at Lasswade. What attracted particular

attention was the fate of a tavern company at Canonmills, where two

barbers from the Lawnmarket had come to celebrate the Pretender’s

birthday over a bottle of ale. They had just drunk to the health of

their assumed monarch—one of the company had remarked with a curse how

the bells were not rung or the Castle guns fired on ‘the king’s’

birthday—when a great thunder-clap broke over the house. ‘The people on

earth,’ cried one of the party, ‘will not adore their king; but you hear

the Almighty is complimenting him with a volley from heaven.’ At that

moment came a second stroke, which instantaneously killed one of the

barbers and a woman, and scorched a gentleman so severely that he died

in a few hours. The rest of the company, being amazed, sent to Edinburgh

for doctors to take blood of the gentleman; but the doctors told them

they could do no good. They tried to let blood of him, but found none.

‘Their bodies were as soft as wool.’

[Sidenote: 1717.]

‘There is none more blind than them that will not see: these men may

see, if they wilfully will not shut their eyes, that Providence many

times hath blasted their enterprises.... These men were contending for

that which did not concern them; they were drinking, cursing, and

passing reflections—which in all probability hath offended the King of

Heaven to throw down his thunder, &c., a warning to all blasphemers,

drunkards, swearers, licentious livers, and others.’[505] It is a little

awkward for this theory, that among the killed was but one of the

Jacobite barbers, the other and equally guilty one escaping.

[Sidenote: JUNE.]

The capture of the _fugitate_ Rob Roy seeming now an object worthy of

the regard of the Duke of Athole, a negotiation took place between them,

which ended in Rob being taken into custody of a strong party at

Logierait, the place where his Grace usually exercised his justiciary

functions, and where his prison accordingly was situated. The outlaw

felt he had been deceived, but it did not appear that he could help

himself. Meanwhile, the duke sent intelligence of the capture of Rob to

Edinburgh, desiring a company of troops to be sent to receive him.

Ultimately, however, the duke countermanded the military, finding he

could send a sufficiently strong party of his own people to hand over

the outlaw to justice.

While preparations were making for his transmission to the Lowlands, Rob

entertained his guards with whisky, and easily gained their confidence.

One day, when they were all very hearty, he made a business to go to the

door to deliver a letter for his wife to a man who was waiting for it,

and to whom he pretended he had some private instructions to give. One

of the guard languidly accompanied him, as it were for form’s sake,

having no fear of his breaking off. Macgregor was thus allowed to lounge

about outside for a few minutes, till at last getting near his horse, he

suddenly mounted, and was off to Stirlingshire like the wind.[506]

To have set two dukes upon thief-catching within a twelvemonth or so,

and escaped out of the clutches of both, was certainly a [Sidenote:

1717.] curious fate for a Highland cateran, partisan warrior, or

whatever name he may be called by.

[Sidenote: NOV.]

Sir Richard Steele appears not to have attended the business of the

Forfeited Estates Commission in Edinburgh during the year 1716, but

given his time, as usual, to literary and political pursuits in London,

and to a project in which he had become concerned for bringing fish

‘alive and in good health’ to the metropolis. It was reported that he

would get no pay for the first year, as having performed no duty; but

those who raised this rumour must have had a very wrong notion of the

way that public affairs were then administered. He tells his wife, May

22, 1717, in one of those most amorous of marital letters of his which

Leigh Hunt has praised so much, that ‘five hundred pounds for the time

the commission was in Scotland is already ordered me.’ It is strange to

reflect that payment of coach-horses, which he, as a man of study,

rarely used, and condemned as vain superfluities, was among the things

on which was spent the property wrung out of the vitals of the poor

Scotch Jacobites.