A newspaper advertisement informed the world that ‘There is a certain

gentleman living at Glasgow, who has put forth a problem to the

learned—proposing, if no man answer it, to do it himself in a few

weeks—viz., Whether or not it is possible so to dispose a ship, either

great or small, that, although she, or it, be rent in the bottom, and

filled full of water, or however tossed with tempest, she, or it, shall

never sink below the water; and also that the same may be reduced to

practice.’[551]

[Sidenote: 1722. APR. 27.]

An election of a member of parliament for a Highland county was apt to

bring forth somewhat strenuous sentiments, and the scene sometimes

partook a good deal of the nature of a local civil war.

A representative of Ross-shire being to be chosen, there came, the night

before, to Fortrose, the greatest man of the north, the Earl of

Sutherland, heading a large body of armed and mounted retainers, who

made a procession round the streets, while an English sloop-of-war, in

friendly alliance with him, came up to the town and fired its guns.

Hundreds of Highlanders, his lordship’s retainers, at the same time

lounged about. The reason of all this was, that the opposition interest

was in a decided majority, and a defeat to the Whig candidate seemed

impending. When the election came on, there were thirty-one barons

present, of whom eighteen gave their votes for General Charles Ross of

Balnagowan, the remainder being for Captain Alexander Urquhart of

Newhall. Hereupon, Lord Sutherland’s relative and friend, Sir William

Gordon of Invergordon, sheriff of the county, retired with the minority,

and went through the form of electing their own man, notwithstanding a

protest from the other candidate. ‘Immediately after this separation,

Colin Graham of Drynie, one of the deputy-lieutenants of the county,

came into the court-house, with his sword in his hand, accompanied by

Robert Gordon of Haughs and Major John Mackintosh, with some of the

armed Highlanders whom they had posted at the door, with drawn swords

and cocked firelocks, and did require the majority (who remained to

finish the election), in the name of the Earl of Sutherland, to remove

out of the house, otherwise they must expect worse treatment. Major

Mackintosh said they would be dragged out by the heels. Upon which the

barons protested against those violent proceedings, declaring their

resolution to [Sidenote: 1722.] remain in the court-house till the

election was finished, though at the hazard of their lives; which they

accordingly did.’[552]

[Sidenote: APR. 29.]

The Catholics had of late been getting up their heads in the north,

especially in districts over which the Gordon family held sway; and the

open practice of the Romish rites before large congregations in the

Banffshire valleys, was become a standing subject of complaint and alarm

in the church-courts. When at length the government obtained scent of

the Jacobite plot in which Bishop Atterbury was concerned, it

sympathised with these groans of the laden spirits in Scotland, and

permitted some decided measures of repression to be taken.

Accordingly, this day, being Sunday, as the Duchess-Dowager of

Gordon—Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk—was having mass

performed at her house in the Canongate, Edinburgh, in the presence of

about fifty professors like herself of the Catholic religion, Bailie

Hawthorn, a magistrate of the Canongate, broke open the doors, and

seized the whole party. The ladies were bailed, and allowed to depart;

but the priest, Mr John Wallace, was marched to prison. We are informed

by Wodrow that Wallace had been ordained a Protestant minister

thirty-five years before.[553] The Lord Advocate would not at first

listen to any proposal for his liberation, though several persons of

distinction came to plead for it; but at length bail was taken for him

to the extent of a thousand merks Scots. Being indicted under the

statute of 1700, he failed to stand his trial, and was outlawed.[554]

Before the upbreak of this plot, considerable numbers of gentlemen under

attainder daily presented themselves on the streets of Edinburgh,

emboldened of course by the mildness of the government; but, one or two

of them having been seized and put up in the Castle, it came to pass,

15th May, that not one was any longer to be seen. Mr Wodrow, who records

these circumstances, expresses the feeling of the hour. ‘It’s certain we

are in a most divided and defenceless state; divisions on the one hand,

rancour and malice on the other, and a wretched indolence among too

many. But the Lord liveth!’[555]

[Sidenote: AUG. 3.]

The Canongate, which had so often, in the sixteenth century, [Sidenote:

1722.] been reddened with the best blood in Scotland, was still

occasionally the scene of wild transactions, though arising amongst a

different class of persons and from different causes. A local journalist

chronicles a dreadful tragedy as occurring on its pavé at this date.

‘In the afternoon, Captain Chiesley and Lieutenant Moodie, both of

Cholmly’s Regiment, which lies encamped at Bruntsfield Links, having

quarrelled some time before in the camp, meeting on the street of the

Canongate, the captain, as we are told, asked Mr Moodie whether he had

in a certain company called him a coward? And he owning he had, the

captain beat him first with his fist, and then with a cane; whereupon Mr

Moodie drew his sword, and, shortening it, run the captain into the

great artery. The captain, having his sword drawn at the same time,

pushed at Mr Moodie, who was rushing on him with his sword shortened,

and thus run him into the lower belly, of which in a few minutes he

died, without speaking one word, having had no more strength or life

left him than to cross the street, and reach the foot of the stair of

his lodgings, where he dropped down dead. The captain lived only to step

into a house near by, and to pray shortly that God might have mercy on

his soul, without speaking a word more. ’Tis said Mr Moodie’s lady was

looking over the window all the while this bloody tragedy was

acting.’[556]

A duel which happened about the same time between Captains Marriot and

Scroggs proved fatal to both.

[Sidenote: AUG. 7.]

‘Four of those poor deluded people called Quakers, two men and two

women, came about noon to the Cross [of Edinburgh], when one of the

women, who by her accent seemed to be of Yorkshire, after several

violent agitations, said, that she was appointed by God to preach

repentance to this sinful city; that a voice of mortality, as she called

it, had sounded in her ears, and that desolation and all kinds of

miseries would befall the inhabitants if they did not repent. After she

had spoke about a quarter of an hour, a party of the city-guard carried

her and the other three prisoners to the main guard.’

Some years after, one Thomas Erskine, a brewer, made himself conspicuous

as a Quaker preacher in Edinburgh. One Saturday, January 17, 1736, he

‘made a religious peregrination through this city. He made his first

station at the Bow-head [reputed as [Sidenote: 1722.] the head-quarters

of the saints in Edinburgh], where he pronounced woes and judgments on

the inhabitants of the Good Town, if they did not speedily repent.

Thence he walked to the Cross, where he recapitulated what he had

evangelised by the way, and concluded with desiring his auditory to

remember well what he had told them. However, he gave them forty days to

think on’t.’

One day, in the ensuing July, Erskine sent a notice to the quiet little

country town of Musselburgh, to the effect that the Spirit had appointed

him to hold forth to them in the marketplace at five in the afternoon;

and, accordingly, at the appointed hour, he mounted the Cross, and

discoursed to a large audience.[557]

[Sidenote: AUG. 29.]

A second attempt was now made to obtain possession of the forfeited

Seaforth estates for the government. It was calculated that what the two

factors and their attendants, with a small military force, had failed to

accomplish in the preceding October, when they were beat back with a

fatal loss at _Aa-na-Mullich_, might now be effected by means of a good

military party alone, if they should make their approach through a less

critical passage. A hundred and sixty of Colonel Kirk’s regiment left

Inverness under Captain M‘Neil, who had at one time been commander of

the Highland Watch. They proceeded by Dingwall, Strath Garve, and Loch

Carron, a route to the north of that adopted by the factors, and an

easier, though a longer way. Donald Murchison, nothing daunted, got

together his followers, and advanced to the top of Maam Attadale, a high

pass from Loch Carron to the head of Loch Long, separating Lochalsh from

Kintail. Here a gallant relative named Kenneth Murchison, and a few

others, volunteered to go forward and plant themselves in ambush in the

defiles of the Choille Van [White Wood], while the bulk of the party

should remain where they were. It would appear that this ambush party

consisted of thirteen men, all peculiarly well armed.

On approaching this dangerous place, the captain went forward with a

sergeant and eighteen men to clear the wood, while the main body came on

slowly in the rear. At a place called Altanbadn, in the Choille Van, he

encountered Kenneth and his associates, whose fire wounded himself

severely, killed one of his grenadiers, and wounded several others of

the party. He persisted in advancing, and attacked the handful of

natives with [Sidenote: 1722.] sufficient resolution. They slowly

withdrew, as unable to resist; but the captain now obtained intelligence

that a large body of Mackenzies was posted in the mountain-pass of

Attadale. It seemed as if there was a design to draw him into a fatal

ambuscade. His own wounded condition probably warned him that a better

opportunity might occur afterwards. He turned his forces about, and made

the best of his way back to Inverness. Kenneth Murchison quickly

rejoined Colonel Donald on Maam Attadale, with the cheering intelligence

that one salvo of thirteen guns had repelled the hundred and sixty

_sidier roy_.[558] After this, we hear of no renewed attempt to comprise

the Seaforth property.

Strange as it may seem, Donald Murchison, two years after thus a second

time resisting the government troops, came down to Edinburgh with eight

hundred pounds of the earl’s rents, that he might get the money sent

abroad for his lordship’s use. He remained a fortnight in the city

unmolested. He would on this occasion appear in the garb of a Lowland

gentleman; he would mingle with old acquaintances, ‘doers’ and writers;

and appear at the Cross amongst the crowd of gentlemen who assembled

there every day at noon. Scores would know all about his doings at

Aa-na-Mullich and the Choille Van; but thousands might have known,

without the chance of one of them betraying him to government.

General Wade, writing a report to the king in 1725, states that the

Seaforth tenants, formerly reputed the richest of any in the Highlands,

are now become poor, by neglecting their business, and applying

themselves to the use of arms. ‘The rents,’ he says, ‘continue to be

collected by one Donald Murchison, a servant of the late earl’s, who

annually remits or carries the same to his master into France. The

tenants, when in a condition, are said to have sent him free gifts in

proportion to their several circumstances, but are now a year and a half

in arrear of rent. The receipts he gives to the tenants are as

deputy-factor to the Commissioners of the Forfeited Estates, which

pretended power he extorted from the factor (appointed by the said

commissioners to collect those rents for the use of the public), whom he

attacked with above four hundred armed men, as he was going to enter

upon the said estate, having with him a party of thirty of your

majesty’s troops. The last year this Murchison marched in a public

manner to Edinburgh, to remit eight hundred pounds to France for his

master’s use, and remained fourteen days there [Sidenote: 1722.]

unmolested. I cannot omit observing to your majesty, that this national

tenderness the subjects of North Britain have one for the other, is a

great encouragement for rebels and attainted persons to return home from

their banishment.’[559]

Donald was again in Edinburgh about the end of August 1725. On the 2d of

September, George Lockhart of Carnwath, writing from Edinburgh to the

Chevalier St George, states, amongst other matters of information

regarding his party in Scotland, that Daniel Murchison (as he calls him)

‘is come to Edinburgh, on his way to France’—doubtless charged with a

sum of rents for Seaforth. ‘He’s been in quest of me, and I of him,’

says Lockhart, ‘these two days, and missed each other; but in a day or

two he’s to be at my country-house, where I’ll get time to talk fully

with him. In the meantime, I know from one that saw him, that he has

taken up and secured all the arms of value in Seaforth’s estate, which

he thought better than to trust them to the care and prudence of the

several owners; and the other chieftains, I hear, have done the

same.’[560]

The Commissioners on the Forfeited Estates conclude their final report

in 1725 by stating that they had not sold the estate of William Earl of

Seaforth, ‘not having been able to obtain possession, and consequently

to give the same to a purchaser.’

In a Whig poem on the Highland Roads, written in 1737, Donald is

characteristically spoken of as a sort of cateran, while, in reality, as

every generous person can now well understand, he was a high-minded

gentleman. The verses, nevertheless, as well as the appended note, are

curious:

‘Keppoch, Rob Roy, and Daniel Murchisan,

Cadets or servants to some chief of clan,

From theft and robberies scarce did ever cease,

Yet ‘scaped the halter each, and died in peace.

This last his exiled master’s rents collected,

Nor unto king or law would be subjected.

Though veteran troops upon the confines lay,

Sufficient to make lord and tribe a prey,

Yet passes strong through which no roads were cut,

Safe-guarded Seaforth’s clan, each in his hut.

Thus in strongholds the rogue securely lay,

Neither could they by force be driven away,

Till his attainted lord and chief of late

By ways and means repurchased his estate.’[561]

[Sidenote: 1722.]

‘Donald Murchison, a kinsman and servant to the Earl of Seaforth, bred

a writer, a man of small stature, but full of spirit and resolution,

fought at Dunblane against the government _anno_ 1715, but continued

thereafter to collect Seaforth’s rents for his lord’s use, and had

some pickerings with the king’s forces on that account, till, about

five years ago, the government was so tender as to allow Seaforth to

re-purchase his estate, when the said Murchison had a principal hand

in striking the bargain for his master. How he fell under Seaforth’s

displeasure, and died thereafter, is not to the purpose here to

mention.’

The end of Donald’s career can scarcely now be passed over in this

slighting manner. The story is most painful. The Seaforth of that

day—very unlike some of his successors—was unworthy of the devotion

which this heroic man had shewn to him. When his lordship took

possession of the estates which Donald had in a manner preserved for

him, he discountenanced and neglected him. Murchison’s noble spirit

pined away under this treatment, and he died in the very prime of his

days of a broken heart.[562] He lies in a remote little churchyard on

Cononside, in the parish of Urray, where, I am happy to say, his worthy

relative, Sir Roderick I. Murchison, is at this time preparing to raise

a suitable monument over his grave.

When Dr Johnson and James Boswell, in their journey to the Hebrides,

1773, came to the inn at Glenelg, they found the most wretched

accommodation, and would have been without any comfort whatever, had not

Mr Murchison, factor to Macleod in Glenelg, sent them a bottle of rum

and some sugar, ‘with a polite message,’ says Boswell, ‘to acquaint us,

that he was very sorry he did not hear of us till we had passed his

house, otherwise he should have insisted on our sleeping there that

night.’ ‘Such extraordinary attention,’ he adds, ‘from this gentleman to

entire strangers, deserves the most honourable commemoration.’ This

gentleman, to whom Johnson also alludes with grateful admiration of his

courtesy in the _Journey to the Western Islands_, was a near relative of

Donald Murchison.

[Sidenote: SEP. 1.]

A high wind shook the crops of Lothian, particularly damaging the pease.

It was considered ‘a heavy stroke,’ as the people thereabouts [Sidenote:

1722.] lived much on pease-meal. _Apropos_ to this fact, Wodrow speaks

of an individual who had much ploughing to execute, and who found it

advantageous to feed his horses on pease-bannocks: ‘he finds it a third

cheaper [than corn], and his horses fatter and better.’[563] It is

curious that this farmer, ‘_abnormis sapiens_,’ came to the same point

which Baron Liebig has attained in our age, by scientific investigation,

as to the nutritive qualities of pease.

The extensive coal-field of East Lothian gave occasion for several

efforts in the mechanical arts, which might be regarded as early and

before their time, when the general condition of the country is

considered. Some years before the Revolution, the Earl of Winton had

drained his coal-pits in Tranent parish, by tunnels cut for a long way

through solid rock, on such a scale as to attract the attention of

George Sinclair, professor of natural philosophy in Glasgow, who, in the

preface to his extraordinary work, _Satan’s Invisible World Discovered_,

speaks of them as something paralleling the cutting of the Alps by

Hannibal. Such a mode of taking off the water from a coal-mine, where

the form of the ground admitted it, was certainly of great use in days

when as yet there were no steam-engines to make the driving of pumps

easy.[564]

The forfeited estate of the Earl of Winton having been bought in 1719 by

the York Buildings Company, a new and equally surprising addition was at

this time made to the economy of the coal-works, in the form of a wooden

railway, between one and two miles long, connecting the pits with the

salt-works at Prestonpans and the harbour at Port-Seton. A work so

ingenious, so useful, and foreshewing the iron ways by which, in our

age, the industrial prospects of the world have been so much advanced,

comes into strong relief when beheld in connection with the many

barbarisms amidst which it took its rise. But the oddity of its

associations does not end here, for, when a Highland army came down to

the Lowlands twenty-three years afterwards, seeking with primitive arms

to restore the House of Stuart, the first of its battles was fought on

the ground crossed by this railway, and General Cope’s cannon were

actually fired against the clouded Camerons[565] from a position on the

railway itself!

[Sidenote: 1723. JAN.]

There was published in Edinburgh a poem, entitled the _Mock

Senator_—‘pretended to be translated from an Arabian manuscript,

wherein, under feigned and disguised names, the author seems to lash

some persons in the present administration.’ The magistrates—whom we

have seen exercising a pretty sharp censorship over the newspaper

press—‘committed to prison Mr Alexander Pennecuik, the supposed author

of this poem, and discharged the hawkers to sell or disperse the

same.’[566]

[Sidenote: MAR.]

At this time, two criminalities of the highest class occurred amongst

persons of rank in Scotland.

On the 30th of March, Mrs Elizabeth Murray, ‘lady to Thomas Kincaid,

younger, of Gogar-Mains,’ was found dead on the road from Edinburgh to

that place, with all the appearance of having been barbarously murdered.

It was at once, with good reason, concluded that the horrible act had

been perpetrated by her own husband. He succeeded in escaping to

Holland.[567]

Pennecuik, the burgess-poet, has a poem on the murder of Mrs Kincaid by

her husband, from which it would appear that she had been an amiable and

long-suffering woman, and he a coarse and dissolute man. He adds a note

at the end, ‘Ensign Hugh Skene engaged in the plot.’[568]

Only three weeks later (April 22), Sir James Campbell of Lawers was

foully murdered at Greenock by his apparent friend, Duncan Campbell of

Edramurkle. The facts are thus related in a contemporary letter. ‘Lawers

had been in a treaty of marriage with [Campbell of] Finab’s daughter,

which Edramurkle was very active to get accomplished, out of a seeming

friendship for Lawers. After the marriage articles were agreed upon,

they went together to make a visit to the young lady, and, in return,

came to Greenock on Friday the 19th last [April], where they remained

Saturday and Sunday—Edramurkle all the while shewing the greatest

friendship for Lawers, and Lawers confiding in him as his own brother.

Upon the Saturday, pretending to Lawers that he had use for a pistol, he

got money from him to buy one, which accordingly he did, with ball and

powder. The use he made of this artillery was to discharge two balls

into Lawers’s head, while he was fast asleep, betwixt three and four on

Monday’s morning; and which balls were levelled under his left eye, and

went through [Sidenote: 1723.] his head, sloping to the back-bone of his

neck ... he was found in a sleeping posture, and had not moved either

eye or hand.

‘The fellow went immediately off in a boat for Glasgow, and from thence

came here [Edinburgh], the people in the house having no suspicion but

that Lawers was asleep, till about eleven o’clock, when they found him

as above, swimming in his blood. Upon recollection on several passages

which happened with respect to Duncan Campbell, they presently found him

to have been the murderer, and caused the magistrates of Greenock write

to the magistrates of Glasgow to apprehend him; but he being gone for

Edinburgh, the provost wrote in to our provost here, whereupon there was

a search here ... but the villain is not as yet found.

‘The occasion of this execrable murder is said by the murderer’s friends

to be to prevent Lawers going back in the marriage, whereof he was then

apprehensive; and being a relation of the bride’s, and very active in

bringing on that courtship, the devil tempted him to that unparalleled

cruelty. But we rather believe that it was to rifle his pockets, for his

breeches were from under his head, and nothing but a Carolus and four

shillings in them; whereas it is most certain that Lawers always carried

a purse of gold with him, and more especially could not but have it when

he intended to celebrate his marriage.’[569]

Campbell was extensively advertised for as ‘a tall thin man,

loot-shouldered, pock-pitted, with a pearl or blindness in the right

eye,’ dressed in ‘a suit of gray Duroy clothes, plain-mounted, a big red

coat, and a thin light wig, rolled up with a ribbon;’ ‘betwixt 30 and 40

years of age;’[570] and a hundred guineas were offered for his

apprehension; but we do not hear of his having ever been brought to

justice.

Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope, Peeblesshire, was one of those men

who, possessed of some talent and insight, are so little under the

government of common prudence and good temper, that they prove rather a

trouble than a benefit to their fellow-creatures. In youth, during the

life of his father, he married a beautiful and accomplished woman,

Grizel Baillie, grand-daughter by her father of the patriot Robert

Baillie of Jerviswood, unjustly put to death in 1684, and by her mother

[Sidenote: 1723.] of the eminent statesman Patrick Hume, Earl of

Marchmont; but after four years of unhappy life, the lady had been

separated from him in 1714, after which time she lived for a long series

of years in her father’s family, in the enjoyment of universal esteem

and respect. Sir Alexander was led by his ardent speculative mind into a

series of projects which left him in the middle of life a broken man,

and an object of pity to the public. His case is the more deplorable,

that many of his ideas were founded upon a just conception of the wants

and the capabilities of his country, and only required means and

favourable circumstances to have been carried out to his own and the

general advantage.

At this date, he bought a great peninsula of Argyleshire territory,

named Ardnamurchan, which he desired, by mining and improved methods of

agriculture and social economy, to make a model for the redemption of

the entire kingdom from barbarism, sloth, and poverty. He believed the

mountains throughout much of the West Highlands and Hebrides to be

crossed by mineral veins of great value, and that it was possible from

these to realise a great amount of wealth. As to improvement of the

surface, it was his belief—contrary to the general impression—that the

best plan was to commence a course of improvement upon the tops of the

hills. He had observed traces of ancient tillage on the high grounds of

Peeblesshire, and, pondering on the matter, had come to see that, the

high grounds being naturally most liable to humidity, from the clouds

settling upon them, it was of importance to the low grounds that the

higher should be drained first. This being effected, and the surplus

water led along the hillsides in trenches or canals, he would have the

administration of moisture over the surface in a great measure in his

own hands. What the Argyleshire and Inverness chiefs thought of such a

plan amidst their semi-diluvial existence, we do not learn, but we may

imagine something of it.

Sir Alexander tells us that he found his barony of twenty-four Scots

miles long occupied by 1352 persons, among whom there was not one

devoted to any mechanic art or trade. He tells us that, in one year, he

drained a large tract of hilly and boggy ground, one-fourth part of

which next year yielded him a hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of hay at

fourpence per stone. He also commenced mining works, in connection with

which there rose a village named New York, containing about 500 persons,

many of whom were skilled English workmen. These mines, however, he

afterwards leased to the York Buildings Company. He was the [Sidenote:

1723.] first person who introduced any kind of trade into the district,

and he assures us that, in his efforts at general improvement he spent

large sums of his own patrimony. Yet, while benefiting the inhabitants

in this way, he was the subject of jealousy amongst the better class of

people, who regarded him as an alien, a Lowlander, and a spy upon their

actions. His cattle were ham-strung or stolen, and his sheep forced over

precipices. The buildings on his property were set on fire. There were

even plans formed to murder him, from which it was a wonder that he

escaped. Strange to say, ten years of such difficulties did not suffice

to disgust him with Ardnamurchan, and he is found, first in 1732, and

again in 1740, appealing to Walpole and to parliament for assistance to

carry out his plans, all that he required being an abolition of the

heritable jurisdictions which enslaved the lower classes to their

landlords, and a flotilla of gun-boats to maintain law and order in the

country.[571]

An Edinburgh newspaper notices the death, on the 18th of May 1743, of

Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope, baronet, ‘to whom may be justly

applied that beautiful passage from Seneca: “Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad

quod respiciat Deus! ecce par Deo dignum, vir fortis cum malâ fortunâ

compositus!”’ The writer of the article on Ardnamurchan in the _New

Statistical Account of Scotland_, states that the plough has long passed

over the site of New York, and that no trace of it remains in the

district, excepting in a few English names scattered among the native

population.

It may be remarked as to Sir Alexander’s mining schemes in Ardnamurchan,

that in a portion of the district—namely, the valley of

Strontian—lead-mines have been successfully worked at intervals since

his time, the proprietor occasionally realising from £1000 to £1500 a

year. The mineral strontites, from which was deduced the earth strontia,

was discovered here, and named from Strontian. There was a prevalent

belief in the reign of George II. that many valuable minerals might be

obtained amongst the Highland mountains, if there were a possibility of

working them. The actual discovery of marble in a few places served to

support the notion. A very prosaic poet thus alludes to the matter about

1737:

‘No more with stucco need we vessels lade,

Enough thereof has been at Kelso made.[572]

Nor need our _jamms_ with foreign marble shine,

There’s beauteous marble at the Craig of Boin.

Yea, Ross and Sutherland rocks of marble shew,

Which vie in whiteness with the driven snow,

And black-veined marble is in Perthshire found,

Wherewith Banffhouse is ribatted around.’

[Sidenote: 1723.]

The poet adds by way of explanation: ‘Craig of Boin is a rock of marble,

veined and diversified with various colours, now a part of the Earl of

Findlater’s estate, but formerly belonging to Mr Ogilvie of Boin, from

whom Louis XIV. of France got so much of the said marble as finished one

of the finest closets in Versailles.’ ‘Sir James Ramsay of Banff, in

Perthshire, after he had built his mansion-house, found out a quarry of

jet-black marble, whereupon he pulled the freestone ribats out of the

windows, and put marble ones in their place.’[573]

Soon after this time, we find a society in activity at Edinburgh, ‘for

promoting Natural Knowledge,’ which in 1743 invited ‘noblemen,

gentlemen, and others, who have discovered or may discover any unusual

kinds of earths, stones, bitumens, saline or vitriolic substances,

marcasites, ores of metals, and other native fossils, whose uses and

properties they may not have an opportunity of inquiring into by

themselves, to send sufficient samples of them, with a short account of

the places where and the manner in which they are found, directed to Dr

Andrew Plummer, one of the secretaries to the Philosophical Society, and

the Society undertake, by some of their number, to make the proper

trials at their own charge, for discovering the nature and uses of the

Minerals, and to return an answer to the person by whom they were sent,

if they are judged to be of any use or can be wrought to

advantage.’[574]

To return to personal matters connected with the speculative baronet of

Stanhope—the beauty, accomplishments, and moral graces of Lady Murray

made it the more unfortunate that she should have been united to one

who, with whatever merits, was of too unsteady nature to have ever made

any woman happy. It is alleged that, on the second day of their wedded

life, a ferocious and unsatisfiable jealousy took possession of his

mind, in consequence of seeing his young wife dancing with a friend of

his own named Hamilton. He could not dispossess himself of the idea that

she loved another better than him. His behaviour to her [Sidenote:

1723.] would have proved him to have a slight touch of insanity in his

composition, even if his ill-calculated projects had not been sufficient

to do so. Lady Murray was an admired and popular person in both Scottish

and English society. Amongst her friends, the chief authors of the day

stood high. Gay introduces her into the group of goodly dames who

welcomed Pope back from Greece—that is, congratulated him on his

completion of the translation of Homer. After speaking of Lady Mary

Wortley Montagu, he says:

‘The sweet-tongued Murray near her side attends.’

He here alluded to her fascinating powers as a songstress, which she is

said to have exercised with marvellous effect in singing the songs of

her native land. Lady Murray wrote in her latter days a memoir of her

parents, which was published in 1822, and is one of the most charming

pieces of biography in the language.[575]

On the 14th of October 1721, when Lady (then Mrs) Murray was living in

her father’s house in Westminster, a footman of her brother-in-law, Lord

Binning, named Arthur Gray, a Scotsman, was led by an insane passion to

invade her chamber in the middle of the night, armed with a drawn sword

in one hand and a pistol in the other. All the rest of the family being

asleep, she felt how far removed she was from help and protection, and

therefore parleyed with the man in the gentlest terms she could use, to

induce him to leave her room; but half an hour was thus spent in vain.

At length, watching an opportunity, she pushed him against the wall,

seized his pistol with one hand, and with another rang the bell. Gray

then ran off. He was tried for the offence, and condemned to death, but

reprieved. The affair made of course a great deal of noise, and was

variously regarded, according to the feelings of individuals. All

persons, good and amiable, like Mrs Murray herself, sympathised with her

in the distress and agitation which it gave her, and admired the courage

and presence of mind she had displayed. The poor outcast poet Boyse

represented this generous view of the case in the verses _To Serena_,

which he wrote in Mrs Murray’s honour:

‘’Twas night, when mortals to repose incline,

And none but demons could intrude on thine,

When wild desire durst thy soft peace invade,

And stood insulting at thy spotless bed.

Urged all that rage or passion could inspire,

Death armed the wretch’s hand, his breast was fire.

You more than Briton saw the dreadful scene,

Nor lost the guard that always watched within,’ &c.[576]

[Sidenote: 1723.]

A different class of feelings was represented by Mrs Murray’s friend,

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who wrote a ballad on the occasion, full of

levity and something worse, which may be found in the work quoted

below.[577] This _jeu d’esprit_ Mrs Murray resented in a manner which

was felt to be unpleasant by Lady Mary, who with difficulty obtained a

reconciliation through the intercession of her sister, the Countess of

Mar.[578]

[Sidenote: MAY 9.]

An Edinburgh newspaper of this date makes an announcement of a very

homely and simple kind, but from which one may nevertheless draw a few

inferences illustrative of the age. It is ‘to give notice, that there is

a fine bullock to the value of £20 sterling to be killed at Dalkeith the

14th of May, and to be exposed to sale the 16th instant; and whoever has

a mind for any of the said bullock, let them repair to the fleshmarket

of Dalkeith against the hours of nine and ten o’clock in the morning, on

the said 16th day of May, where they shall be kindly entertained by the

owners of the said ox: likewise you shall have him more reasonable in

proportion than any beef was sold in Scotland this year of God. For your

encouragement, you shall have his principal pieces, such as his

back-sayes, his fore-sayes, breasts, runners, flanks, hook-bones,

marrow-bones, collop-pieces, and rump-pieces, all at 4_s._ Scots per

pound, and his other pieces at 3_s._ per pound; or, if you please to buy

it by the lump without weighing, they shall be welcome. The said ox is

two ells and one inch high; in length from the root of the ear to his

hip-bone, two yards three quarters; it is calculated by all tradesmen

that ever did see him, that he will have ten stone-weight of tallow in

his belly. He is one of the same country breed, bought by George Lamb,

drover in Greenlaw, from the Right Honourable Lord Hopetoun in the year

1721. There is none in this age ever did see any in this place of

Britain like him; I doubt if any such as him be, or to be equalised in

England at this day. He has been fed this two years, and he is only six

years old just now.’[579]

[Sidenote: 1723. AUG.]

Mr Wodrow was never long without some perilous affair to grieve over.

‘We have,’ says he at this date, ‘lamentable accounts of the growth of

Episcopal Jacobite meeting-houses in the north, especially in Angus. The

Commission [of the General Assembly] has sent up an address about

them.’[580]

In the summer of the previous year, a chapel for the use of those in

communion with the Church of England according to law, was opened at the

foot of Blackfriars’ Wynd, in Edinburgh, with ‘an altar and pulpit

handsomely adorned.’ The newspapers of the day inform us—‘Some impious

persons, in contempt of all laws human and divine, have demolished

several of the glass-windows; but it’s hoped that care will be taken to

prevent such scandalous abuses in time coming.’[581]

The summer of this year was remarked to be unusually dry and sultry,

with little wind. The air seemed stagnant, and the water unwholesome.

Vast abundance of flies resulted, and a bloody flux became prevalent.

‘In one quarter of the parish [of Eastwood, in Renfrewshire],’ says

Wodrow, ‘I saw nineteen sick persons in one day [August 23], and all of

them save one of the flux.’ ‘I have never seen so much sickness in

Eastwood for twenty years.’[582]

[Sidenote: NOV. 7.]

A symptom of the gradual softening away of the sombre habits of the

people was exhibited in the earlier part of this year, in the

commencement of what was called _the Assembly_ in Edinburgh, by which

was meant an arrangement for a weekly meeting of the younger people of

both sexes, for the purpose of dancing. The adventure was at first on a

very modest scale, and the place of meeting—‘in the great hall in

Patrick Steil’s Close’—might be considered as obscure.[583] The people

who patronised it were chiefly of those at once Tories in politics and

Episcopalians in religion, [Sidenote: 1723.] who, all through the last

century, stood in opposition to the general feelings and habits of their

countrymen. They were doubtless well satisfied of the legitimate and

even laudable character of their design; yet it appears they felt

themselves put on the defensive before the public, and were not a little

solicitous to give their project a fair appearance. It was loudly

proclaimed that the improvement of manners, the imparting of a ‘genteel

behaviour,’ was in view; the utility of healthful exercise was

insinuated; and a great point was made of the balances to be handed to

the poor, for whose benefit no regulated charitable institution as yet

existed. Great care was also professedly taken to insure perfect

propriety on the part of the company. The ball opened at four in the

afternoon, and was rigorously closed at eleven. Without tickets, at

_half-a-crown each_, there could be no admission. Discreet matrons held

indisputable sovereignty over the scene, before whom no vice could dare

to shew its face.

The Assembly, of course, met with opposition from the square-toed part

of society. ‘Some of the ministers published their warnings and

admonitions against promiscuous dancing, and in one of their printed

papers, which was cried about the streets, it was said that the devils

were particularly busy upon such occasions.’[584] A paper pellet was

launched, under the title of _A Letter from a Gentleman in the Country

to his Friend in the City, with an Answer thereto, concerning the New

Assembly_; from which we learn that there were serious apprehensions,

not only that these weekly meetings would introduce effeminate habits

amongst the nobility and gentry, preventing them from serving their

country in ‘the useful arts and sciences,’ but that they would encourage

vice and prodigality, and thus prove ‘scandalous to religion, and of

dangerous consequence to human society.’ The gentleman of the city was

particularly distressed in remarking, that ‘the ordinary time spent in

public worship each Lord’s Day comes short of the seven hours spent in

the Assembly.’ He remarked, moreover, that Edinburgh was a place to

which young men were sent for their education, and also to learn

‘merchandising’ and mechanical employments. These young persons would

now be liable to be diverted from their proper pursuits in order to

study how best to dress themselves for the Assembly, and how in that

scene of levity they might best make favour with the fair. After

attending there, they would most likely go to taverns. In [Sidenote:

1723.] short, they would be thoroughly depraved, and the objects of

their parents in sending them to town entirely frustrated.

The institution was viewed with especial horror by the more stern

professors of Presbyterianism, as folly appears from a book of Patrick

Walker, written soon after, in which he reviews the vanities of the age

generally. ‘Some years ago,’ he says, ‘we had a profane, obscene

meeting, called the _Horn Order_;[585] and now we have got a new

assembly and public meeting called _Love for Love_ ... all nurseries of

profanity and vanity, and excitements to base lusts; so that it is a

shame to speak of these things that are said and done amongst them. Some

years ago, our women deformed their heads with _cock-ups_’ [‘some of

them half a yard high, set with wires’]; ‘and now they deform their

bodies with farthingales nine yards about; some of them in three

stories, very unbecoming women professing godliness.... If we would

allow ourselves to think or consider, we need not be so vain or look so

high, being born heirs of wrath, and our bodies to go to a consuming

stinking grave ... and considering the end of our clothing and how we

came by them, to cover our nakedness and for warmness to our bodies, and

that the sheep’s old clothes are our new.’

Patrick fairly wondered how any one that ever knew what it was to bow a

knee in prayer, ‘durst crook a hough to fyke and fling at a piper’s and

fiddler’s springs. I bless the Lord,’ says he, ‘that so ordered my lot

in my dancing-days, that made the fear of the bloody rope and bullets to

my neck and head, the pain of boots, thumbikens, and irons, cold and

hunger, wetness and weariness, to stop the lightness of my head and the

wantonness of my feet.’ He felt bound to denounce dancing as a ‘common

evil,’ especially among young professors, and he was peculiarly

indignant at there being a dancing tune called the _Cameronian March_,

which he conceived to be a mockery of the worthy name of Richard

Cameron. In Patrick’s view, however, dancing was [Sidenote: 1723.] but a

symptom of a general departure from the grave, correct habits of former

times. ‘In our speech,’ says he, ‘our Scripture and old Scots names are

gone out of request; instead of Father and Mother, Mamma and Papa,

training children to speak nonsense, and what they do not understand.’

He likewise complains of ‘a scandalous omission of the worship of God in

families ... abounding amongst us in Edinburgh, the most part singing

only a verse of a psalm and reading a chapter; on the Sabbath evening

some pray and many not, and no more till the next Sabbath evening.’ The

open profanation of the Lord’s Day he saw to be more and more abounding

in Scotland. ‘The throng streets, particularly fields, milk-houses,

ale-houses in and about sinful Edinburgh, is a sad evidence of this;

many going to the fields before sermons, and after sermons multitudes go

to their walks.’ He states that ‘three in one parish in 1716, and nine

together in a neighbour parish in 1717, all of them professors, went to

the cornfields in these Sabbath mornings, and did shear so many sheaves

of corn.’

The poet Allan Ramsay, who maintained a Horatian code of gaiety and

enjoyment in the midst of puritanic soberness, strongly took part with

the Assembly, and addressed its fair adherents in a poem which, with its

prose dedication, has supplied us with some of the above facts. Allan

may have had his heart in his theme, but little is to be said for the

eloquence of his verses; nor were some of his views as to the pleasures

of the Assembly at all calculated to do away with the prejudices of its

opponents. We are told, however, that both in the case of the Assembly

and that of the Playhouse, hereafter to be noticed, ‘the ministers lost

ground, to their great mortification, for the most part of the ladies

turned rebels to their remonstrances.’[586]

Two young men destined to be remembered by their country were in the

habit of attending the Assembly: one of them a hard-headed, yet

speculative genius, rising at the bar; the other a philandering,

sentimental being, absorbed in poetry and Jacobitism; their names Henry

Home of Kames and William Hamilton of Bangour; at this time, living in

bonds of strongest friendship. Hamilton one day addressed Home ‘in the

Assembly,’ thus:

‘While, crowned with radiant charms divine,

Unnumbered beauties round thee shine;

When Erskine leads her happy man,

And Johnston shakes the fluttering fan;

When beauteous Pringle shines confest,

And gently heaves her swelling breast,

Her raptured partner still at gaze,

Pursuing through each winding maze;

Say, youth, and canst thou keep secure

Thy heart from conquering beauty’s power?

· · · · ·

For me, my happier lot decrees

The joys of love that constant please....

My Hume, my beauteous Hume, constrains

My heart in voluntary chains....

Has she not all the charms that lie

In Gordon’s blush and Lockhart’s eye;

The down of lovely Haya’s hair,

Killochia’s shape or Cockburn’s air?’...

[Sidenote: 1723.]

This affords us some idea of the beauties who gave its first attractions

to the Assembly.

[Sidenote: NOV. 9.]

As a symptom of a good tendency, it is pleasant to notice at this date

the establishment of a _Society for Improving in the Knowledge of

Agriculture_, which proposed to hold quarterly general meetings in

Edinburgh. The Marquis of Lothian, the Earl of Kinnoull, Lord Elibank,

John Campbell, Esq., Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir George Dunbar of

Mochrum, Sir Alexander Hope of Kerse, Mr Lumsden of Innergellie, Mr John

Murray, one of the Clerks of Session, and Ronald Campbell of Balerno,

W.S., are enumerated as amongst the constituent members.[587] The

Society in a short time comprehended three hundred of the principal

landholders of Scotland. The centre and animating spirit of the

fraternity is understood to have been a young Galloway gentleman, Robert

Maxwell of Arkland, who about this time took a lease of the farm of

Clifton-hall, near Edinburgh, and was there disposed to make experiments

in improved husbandry.

The _Improvers_, as they were called, from the very first shewed a

spirit of activity. In September 1724, we hear of them as being about to

publish a book upon the fallowing of ground, the method of ordering

ground for grass-seeds, the winning and cleaning of flax, and rules for

bleaching linen cloth. At the same time, they patriotically entered into

a resolution to discourage the use of smuggled foreign spirits by their

personal example, and to use means for promoting the manufacture of

spirits from native products.[588]

[Sidenote: 1723.]

A few of their doings appear to us in a somewhat ludicrous light. For

example—in July 1732, they figure in a tradesman’s advertisement of

_Punch Brandy_, as certifying it to be ‘a very nice and exact

composition,’ after ‘trials of it both in drams and punch.’

Two years later, it goes equally out of its way, but with better excuse,

in recommending the woollen cloths made by Andrew Gardner, merchant in

Edinburgh, and Andrew Ross, clothier in Musselburgh, as ‘sufficient

cloths’ from five to fifteen shillings a yard; the encouraging of which

will tend to advance a branch of native industry, and prevent the

pernicious exportation of wool.

Nevertheless, there is all fair reason to believe that the Improvers

were really worthy of their name. A volume of their Transactions, which

Maxwell edited in 1743, enables us to judge of the general scope of

their efforts. Meeting once a fortnight at a house near Hope Park, they

received queries from individuals throughout the country on agricultural

subjects, took these into consideration, and prepared answers.

Fallowing, manuring, enclosing, how to treat different kinds of soils,

the merits of the Lucerne and St Foin grasses, were the chief subjects

discussed; and it must be acknowledged that their transactions bear a

general air of judgment and good sense, in addition to a most earnest

desire to make two blades grow where one grew before, and so increase

the general wealth of the country.

The president for a number of years was Thomas Hope of Rankeillor, a man

who deserves to be better remembered than he is. He took, in 1722, a

long lease of a marshy meadow to the south of Edinburgh, drained it, and

made it into a fine park with shady walks for the recreation of the

citizens. He had travelled in England, France, and Holland, to pick up

hints for the improvement of agriculture, and he was indefatigable in

his efforts to get these introduced at home. It was somewhere in

prospect of his park that the Society held its meetings. His relative,

the contemporaneous Earl of Hopetoun, the Earl of Stair, the Earl of

Ilay, Lord Cathcart, Lord Drummore, Sir John Dalrymple of Cousland, and

Mr Cockburn of Ormiston, were other special zealots in the business of

the Society, and whose names figure honourably in its transactions. It

is particularly remembered, to the honour of the Earl of Stair, that he

was the first to raise turnips in the open fields, and so laid the

foundation of the most important branch of the store-husbandry of modern

times.

[Sidenote: 1723. DEC.]

When cattle were stolen in the Highlands, one of the means commonly

taken for their recovery was to send an emissary into the supposed

country of the thief, and offer a reward for his discovery. This was

known among the Highlanders as _tascal-money_, and held in general

abhorrence; yet it was sometimes effectual for its purpose.

The Camerons, living at issue with the government, had many disorderly

men among them, and tascal-money became accordingly with them a peculiar

abomination. To so great a height did this run, that a large portion of

the clan voluntarily took oath to each other, over a drawn dirk,

according to their custom, that they would never receive any such

reward; otherwise might the weapon be employed in depriving them of

their lives.

A _creagh_ had taken place, and one of the Camerons was strongly

suspected of having given information and taken the unclean thing. A few

of his companions consequently called at his house one evening, and,

pretending to have some business with him, took him out from his wife

and family to a place at such distance as to be out of hearing, where

they coolly deprived him of his life. The story is only related in the

pages of Burt;[589] but there is too good reason to believe in its

verity. The reporter adds, that for the same offence, another was made

away with, and never more heard of.

[Sidenote: 1724. JAN.]

A more gay and easy style of ideas was everywhere creeping in, to

replace the stern and sombre manners of former less happy times. The

ever-watchful Mr Wodrow observed the process going on even in the

comparatively serious city of Glasgow. He remarks at this time how the

young men of that city are less religiously educated than formerly, and

how, going abroad in mercantile capacities, they come back with the

loose habits of other countries. At the university, the students were

beginning to evince a tendency to freedom of thought, and the statement

of Trinitarian doctrines by the professors sometimes excited amongst

them appearances of dissent and of derision. In the city where there had

been a few years back seventy-two regular meetings for prayer, there

were now four, while clubs for debating on miscellaneous, and often

irreverent questions, were coming into vogue. The discipline of the

church was beginning to be less regarded; delinquents receive

countenance from society; women of improper [Sidenote: 1724.] character

were occasionally seen on the open street! It seemed to Mr Wodrow that

some desolating stroke was impending over the western city. Indeed, they

had already lost twenty thousand pounds through the Custom-house

difficulties regarding tobacco. ‘I wish it may be sanctified to them.’

The worthy minister of Eastwood received soon after a small piece of

comforting information from Orkney. A minister in that archipelago,

being one Saturday detained from crossing a ferry to preach next day,

was induced to break the Sabbath in order to fulfil his engagement, for

which, as ‘scandalous,’ the presbytery processed him. It ‘shews they are

stricter there in discipline than we are.’ On the other hand, the

College lads at Glasgow, excited by the process of the presbytery and

synod against the liberal Professor Simson, went the length of writing a

play taking off the city clergy. ‘Matters are come to a sad pass when

people begin openly to mock and ridicule gospel ministers; that strikes

at the root of all religion!’

Mr Wodrow’s report about the state of religion in the army is

contradictory. On one page, we hear a lamentation for some serious

Christian officers who had left no successors; on another, there is

rejoicing over several still living, of the highest religious practice,

as Colonel Blackader, Colonel Erskine, Lieut.-colonel Cunninghame, and

Major Gardiner of ‘Stair’s Gray Horse.’ These were all of them men of

the strictest morals, and who gave much of their time to religious

exercises, Gardiner spending four hours every morning in ‘secret

religion.’ Regarding the conversion of this last gentleman, whose fate

it was to die on the field of Prestonpans, and to have his life written

by Doddridge, Wodrow rather unexpectedly fails to give any trace of the

strange tale told by his biographer regarding his conversion, remarking,

on the contrary, that the change wrought on him a few years ago was

‘gradual and insensible.’

[Sidenote: JAN. 29.]

The treatment of a bad class of insolvents at this period seems to have

been considerably different from anything of the kind now in fashion. On

this day, according to an Edinburgh newspaper, ‘one George Cowan, a

Glasgow merchant, stood in the pillory here, with this inscription on

his breast: GEORGE COWAN, A NOTORIOUS FRAUDULENT BANKRUPT.’

[Sidenote: FEB.]

A Society for cultivating historical literature was established in

Edinburgh, though not destined to make any great or permanent [Sidenote:

1724.] mark on the age. It took its rise among men of Whig professions,

and, perhaps, its having party objects in view was mainly what forbade

it to acquire stability or perfect any considerable work. At its head is

found a man of no small merit as an editor of historical muniments,

James Anderson. It included the names of the Rev. George Logan,

afterwards noted for his controversies with Ruddiman; Charles M‘Ky,

professor of history in the Edinburgh University; and two or three other

persons of less note.[590] Mr Wodrow, whose laborious _History of the

Sufferings of the Church of Scotland_ had now been a couple of years

before the world, was invited to join. The first business before this

Society was to consider what could be done towards a new edition of the

works of George Buchanan. These had been published in goodly form by

Robert Freebairn in 1715—a credit to the Scottish press in externals,

and in the learning of the editor, Thomas Ruddiman; but the Whigs had to

regret that the annotations were in a strain sadly out of harmony with

that of a democratic author; and hence their desire to see another

edition. The Society was now holding meetings once a fortnight for the

preparation of such a work, and were even disposed to ask that an

edition contemplated in Holland should be delayed till theirs came out,

in order that their views should obtain additional circulation;[591] yet

it never came to perfection, and the curtain of oblivion soon after

falls upon the Historical Society.

[Sidenote: MAR.]

Gordon of Glenbucket had been invested by the Duke of Gordon in some

lands in Badenoch by virtue of a wadset.[592] The tenants, Macphersons,

felt aggrieved at having a new landlord put over them, and refused to

pay any rent. Glenbucket consequently raised a process at law for their

ejection, a measure which was then as much calculated to engender

murderous feelings in Scotland, as it has since been in Ireland.

Five or six of them, young fellows, the sons of gentlemen, including

Alexander Macpherson, son of Breakachie; Andrew Macpherson, son of

Benchar; and John Macpherson, nephew of Killihuntly, came one evening to

Glenbucket’s house, which they entered as seeming friends. He was sickly

and under the influence of medicine, and was sitting on his low-framed

bedstead, preparing to go to rest. They told him they had come to

express their regret for the dispute which had happened—they were now

resolved [Sidenote: 1724.] to acknowledge him as their landlord, and pay

him rent—and they had only to entreat that he would withdraw from the

legal proceedings he had entered upon. While addressing him in this

manner, they gradually drew close to him, in order to prevent him from

defending himself against their contemplated onslaught, for they knew

his courage and vigour, and that he was not far from his arms. They then

suddenly fell upon him with their dirks, and, having him for the moment

at advantage, they gave him many wounds, though none that were deadly.

He contrived, amidst the bustle, to lay hold of his broadsword, which

lay on the tester of his bed; and thus armed, he soon drove his

assassins from the house. Burt, who relates this incident,[593] remarks,

with just surprise, that it took place within sight of the barrack at

Ruthven.[594]

The young men above named, being believed to be the perpetrators of this

crime, were soon after outlawed for failing to attend the summons of the

Court of Justiciary. They were so far under terror of the law, that they

found it necessary to ‘take to the bent;’ but they nevertheless

continued with arms in their hands, and, in company with others who had

joined them, lived tolerably well by spulyie committed on the Duke of

Gordon’s tenants in Badenoch.

In November 1725, General Wade is found sending a circular to the

officers commanding the six Highland companies, ordering them, in

compliance with a request from the duke, to use diligence in discovering

and taking these outlaws, and any who might harbour them, in order to

their being brought to justice. This effort, however, seems to have been

attended with no good effect; and in the ensuing July, the duke wrote to

the general, expressing his ‘free consent that application be made for

taking off the sentence of fugitation’ against six associates of the

assassins—namely, [Sidenote: 1724.] John Macpherson in Bellachroan;

Elias Macpherson in Coraldie; Alexander Macpherson, nephew to

Killihuntly; William Macpherson, son to Essick; Donald Macpherson, son

to John Oig Macpherson in Muccoul; and Lachlan Macpherson of Laggan,

provided they delivered up their arms, and promised to live as obedient

subjects to King George in future. His Grace at the same time expressed

his opinion, that it was ‘absolutely necessary for the peace of

Badenoch’ that the three principals in the attack on Glenbucket should

be brought to justice. The general accordingly ordered fresh and

vigorous efforts to be made for the apprehension of these persons.[595]

We learn from Burt that they were ultimately forced to take refuge in

foreign countries.

[Sidenote: APR. 8.]

The people of Edinburgh were regaled with the amusing spectacle of a

_bank_ beat through the city, by permission of King George, for recruits

to the king of Prussia’s regiment of ultra-tall grenadiers. Two guineas

of earnest-money were administered. A local chronicler assures his

readers, that ‘those listed are men of such proper size and good

countenances, as we need not be ashamed of them in foreign

services.’[596] A recruiting for the same regiment is noticed in

Edinburgh four years later.

[Sidenote: APR. 10.]

The Rev. Mr J. Anderson, in a letter of this date, gives Mr Wodrow an

account of a dumb gentleman, a Mr Gordon, who attracted great attention

on account of the knowledge he appeared to have of things not patent to

ordinary observation, and with which he had no visible means of becoming

acquainted. The powers of _clairvoyance_ occasionally attributed in old

times to dumb persons have already been adverted to. Gordon, who was a

man of respectable connections, and seventy years of age, a widower with

three grown children, and supported chiefly by going about among his

friends, had thoroughly excited the wonder of Mr Anderson.

A lady, missing some brandy, asked Mr Gordon who had taken it; ‘upon

which he went to the kitchen, and brought up one of the maid-servants,

to whom, before her lady, he signed that she had stolen the keys of the

cellar and taken it away ... the servant was forced to own all.’

On another occasion, ‘a gauger coming in, whom he had never [Sidenote:

1724.] seen before, he signed before the company present what was his

business; that he had been a soldier, and how long he had been a gauger

in this country, and how long in Fife, and that he had once been

suspended, and again reponed, with several other particulars, which

astonished the man, who owned all to be truth.’

‘A child of seven years of age engaging one of the company to play with

pins at _Heads and Points_, the person soon got all his pins, the child

having no skill to hide them. The lady, the mother of the child, told

the person in jest she would win back the child’s pins; and, Gordon

drawing near, he still directed her how to lay when the other person was

hiding, and she never failed to win till all were got back.... When he

gets money from ministers, he very oft signs whether they give it out of

their own pocket or out of the poor’s box.... To a minister’s family

here he signed, when he came to the house, where he was, and sometimes

what he was doing—particularly at a certain hour, if he was shaving;

which, upon the minister’s return, he owned to be true.’

Some, adds Mr Anderson, ‘think he has converse with a familiar spirit;

and it’s certain that dumb people have frequently been their

tools.’[597]

[Sidenote: MAY.]

There was profound peace, and the seasons for twelve years past had been

favourable; yet we hear at this time of a general poverty in the land,

and that, too, from a reporter in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, where,

if anywhere, there had been some fruitful industry in consequence of the

Union. Mr Wodrow’s statements are, indeed, to be taken with some

caution, as his views of national wellbeing are apt to be distorted by

his fears regarding changes of religious feeling and practice. Still,

the picture he draws must have involved some, though not the whole

truth.

He tells that under this peace ‘we are growing much worse. The gentry

and nobility are either discontent or Jacobite, or profane; and the

people are turning loose, worldly, and very disaffected. The poverty and

debts of many are increasing, and I cannot see how it can be otherwise.

There are no ways to bring specie into this country. Trade is much

failed [the tobacco-trade of the Clyde had temporarily declined under

the malignant efforts of the English ports]. Any trade we have is of

that kind that takes money from among us, and brings in French brandy,

Irish meal [oatmeal was but fourpence a peck], tea, &c. Unless it be

[Sidenote: 1724.] a few coals from the west [the coal-field of Ayr and

Renfrewshires], and some black-cattle from the south [Galloway], and

many of these are not our breed, but Irish, I see no branch of our

business that brings in any money. The prodigious run of our nobility

and gentry to England, their wintering there, and educating their

children there ... takes away a vast deal of money every year. It’s

plain we are overstocked with people, considering their idleness, and

that makes the consumpt very great;’ which ‘will infallibly at length

impoverish us. To say nothing of the vast losses many have sustained by

the South Sea, York Buildings, our Fishing Company, and other bubbles.

The Lord, for our sins, is angry, and frowns upon us, in outwards [_i.

e._, outward circumstances].’[598]

In the district of Galloway (Kirkcudbright and Wigtonshires), where the

basis of the population is Celtic, the idleness and consequent poverty

of the people was peculiarly great. There was a prodigious number of

small tenantry, of very indolent character, and who were accustomed to

‘run out’ or exhaust their land to the last extremity, cropping it two

years for one of lea, of course without manure, and being at the same

time generally several years behind in their rents. It was a state of

things very like what our own advanced age has been fated strangely to

see prevalent over large tracts of Ireland and of the Highlands of

Scotland—a fearful misapplication and misplacement of human nature, with

frightful natural consequences in chronic misery and disorganisation.

The landlords, anxious to introduce a better system, began to subdivide

and enclose their lands, in order to stock them with black-cattle, and

to eject tenants hopelessly sunk in idleness and poverty.

Among those ejected on the estates of Gordon of Earlstoun and the

Viscountess Kenmure, were two farmers of better means, whose only fault

was that they would not engage for the solvency of their sub-tenantry;

and these two now banded together to support each other in keeping

possession of their holdings. Others readily came into this covenant. A

common sense of suffering, if not wrong, pervading the country, raised

up large bands of the miserable people, who, deeming the enclosures a

symbol of the antagonist system, began to pull these down wherever they

came. ‘Their manner was to appoint a meeting on Tuesday, and continue

together till Thursday, and then separate. They prepared [Sidenote:

1724.] gavelochs [levers] and other instruments, and did their work most

dexterously. Herds and young boys first turned over the head and loose

stones; then the women, with the hand and shoulders, turned down the

dike; the men came last, and turned up the foundation.’ A band of thirty

of the _Levellers_, as they were ominously called, went to

Kirkcudbright, and there published a manifesto, declaring the government

of the country to be now in the hands of the tenantry, and ordering all

who had any debates to come to them and get them determined.

The gentlemen of the district, irritated, and to some extent alarmed,

called in a military force under Lord Crichton and a French Protestant

refugee officer, Major Du Carry, to preserve the peace. The lairds of

Heron and Murdoch, and Gordon of Earlstoun, were for strong measures;

Murray of Broughton and Colonel Maxwell inclined to leniency and

persuasion. Seven or eight of the ringleaders being taken up, a sort of

fiery cross went through the country on the ensuing day, though a

Sunday, ordering the people to assemble at three points for their

defence; and a stand was actually made by about thirty against the

attack of the troops. One of the gentlemen of the district had a horse

wounded under him by a rioter. It seems to have been a fierce and

determined encounter on the part of the Levellers; but it ended, as such

encounters always end, in the defeat of the insurgent party, of whom

sixteen were taken prisoners. As these were being carried away, a mob of

women, strong in their weakness and their misery, assailed the soldiers,

and one sprang like a wildcat upon a trooper, but only to be trampled

under his horse. The soldiers succeeded in lodging their prisoners in

Kirkcudbright tolbooth. At the trials which ensued, ‘those who had any

funds were fined; some were banished to the plantations; others were

imprisoned. A respectable man, of the name of M‘Laherty, who lived in

Balmaghie parish ... on his being brought to trial, one of the justices

admired a handsome Galloway which he rode, and the justice told him, if

he would give him the Galloway, he would effect his acquittal, which he

accordingly did.’[599]

These severities brought the levelling system to a close in the

stewartry of Kirkcudbright; it was kept up for some time later in

Wigtonshire, but gradually died away there also. The country was left in

the hands of the gentry and soldiery, without any [Sidenote: 1724.]

effectual remedy being applied to the evils out of which the

dike-breaking had sprung. Herds of miserable people continued going

about Galloway, a subject of painful but fruitless compassion to the

rest of their countrymen.[600]

A venerable gentleman, just quoted, was able, in 1811, to give the

following striking picture of the general manner of living of the

Galloway rural population of 1724. ‘The tenants, in general,’ he says,

‘lived very meanly on kail, groats, milk, gradden grinded in querns

turned by the hand, and the grain dried in a pot, together with a crock

ewe[601] now and then about Martinmas. They were clothed very plainly,

and their habitations were most uncomfortable. Their general wear was of

cloth, made of waulked plaiding, black and white wool mixed, very

coarse, and the cloth rarely dyed. Their hose were made of white

plaiding cloth, sewed together, with single-soled shoes, and a black or

blue bonnet, none having hats but the lairds, who thought themselves

very well dressed for going to church on Sunday with a black kelt-coat

of their wife’s making.... The distresses and poverty felt in the

country during these times ... continued till about the year 1735. In

1725, potatoes were first introduced into the stewartry [of

Kirkcudbright] by William Hyland, from Ireland,[602] who carried them on

horses’ backs to Edinburgh, where he sold them by pounds and ounces.

During these times, when potatoes were not generally raised in the

country, there was for the most part a great scarcity of food, bordering

on famine; for in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright and county of Dumfries,

there was not as much victual produced as was necessary for supplying

the inhabitants; and the chief part of what was required for that

purpose was brought from the sand-beds of Esk in tumbling cars, on the

Wednesdays, to Dumfries; and when the waters were high by reason of

_spates_—there being no bridges—so that these cars could not come with

the meal, I have seen the tradesmen’s wives, in the streets of Dumfries,

crying because there was none to be got. At that period there was only

one baker in Dumfries, and he made bawbee baps of coarse flour, chiefly

bran, which he occasionally carried in creels to the fairs of Urr and

Kirkpatrick. The produce of the country in general was gray corn, and

you might have travelled from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright, which is

twenty-seven miles, without seeing any other grain, except in a

gentleman’s [Sidenote: 1724.] croft, which, in general, produced bear or

_bigg_ for one-third part, another third in white oats, and the

remaining third in gray oats. At that period there was no wheat raised

in the country: what was used was brought from Teviot; and it was

believed that the soil would not produce wheat.... Cattle were very low.

I remember being present at the Bridge-end of Dumfries in 1736, when

Anthony M‘Kie, of Netherlaw, sold five score of five-year-old Galloway

cattle in good condition to an Englishman at £2, 12_s._ 6_d._ each; and

old Robert Halliday, who was tenant of a great part of the Preston

estate, told me that he reckoned he could graze his cattle on his farms

for 2_s._ 6_d._ a head—that is to say, his rent corresponded to that

sum.’[603]

[Sidenote: JULY 6.]

Allan Ramsay, in some jocular verses, compliments Mr David Drummond,

advocate, for the victory he this day gained as an archer, in

‘shooting for the bowl’ at Musselburgh. The old gentleman had gained

the prize of the silver arrow exactly fifty years before. These

trivial facts suggest the existence of what was called a Royal Company

of Archers all through the reigns of Anne and the first George, a

sodality composed almost exclusively of the Jacobite aristocracy, and,

in fact, a sort of masked muster for the cause of the exiled Stuart.

Besides private convivial meetings, where doubtless much enigmatical

affection for the old line of princes found vent, there was an annual

meeting for a shooting-match, attended by a showy procession through

the streets of Edinburgh, in order to impress the public with an idea

of their numbers, and the rank and influence of the members. They had

their captain-general, usually a nobleman of the highest rank; their

first and second lieutenant-generals, their adjutant, and other

officers; their colours, music, and uniforms; in short, a pretty

effective military organisation and appearance. The dress, which they

innocently believed to be after the ancient Roman model, was of tartan

trimmed with green silk fringe, with a blue bonnet trimmed with green

and white ribbons, and the badge of St Andrew in the front; their bows

and swords hung with green and white ribbons; the officers being

further distinguished by having the dress laid over with silver lace.

The cavalier spirit of Allan Ramsay glowed at seeing these elegant

specimens of the _Aristoi_ of Scotland engaged at butts and rovers,

and often poured itself forth in verses to their praise. Pitcairn,

[Sidenote: 1724.] Sir William Bennet of Grubbet, and Sir William Scott

of Thirlstain, were equally ready to celebrate in Latin sapphics their

contentions for the bowl and silver arrow at Musselburgh—drolly

translated _Conchipolis_ in their verses. There was a constant and

obvious wish on the part of the society to look as ‘braid’[604] as

possible, and so let the world slily understand how many men of mark

were in their hearts favourable to the still hoped for restoration.

The Royal Company had a particularly ostentatious parade in Edinburgh on

the 10th of July 1732. Having assembled in the Parliament Square, a

party of thirty-six was despatched under the Earl of Wemyss to the Duke

of Hamilton’s lodging in Holyrood, to bring up the standard, on which,

besides other insignia, was depicted the national lion ramping in gold,

with the significant motto, ‘PRO PATRIA DULCE PERICULUM.’ They then

marched through the city to the Links in the following order, as

described by a sympathising contemporary record:

‘The Duke of Hamilton, captain-general, preceded by the Lord Bruce on

horseback, with fine Turkish furniture, who acted as major-general in

absence of the Earl of Crawford; next, the music, consisting of

trumpets, hautboys, _cors-de-chasse_, alternately playing the proper

march of the company, and answered by nine drums (all in the company’s

livery), and they again by the music-bells. Mr David Drummond, advocate,

president of the council; Sir Archibald Primrose of Dunipace, and

William Sinclair of Roslin, brigadiers, at the head of the first

brigade. My Lord Viscount Oxford, brigadier, marched up the second

brigade; my Lord Kinnaird, brigadier, the third; George Lockhart of

Carnwath, brigadier, the fourth. The Earl of Wigton, second

lieutenant-general, before the colours, which were carried by the Earl

of Cassillis; and the Lord Rollo, supported by the Earl of Kilmarnock,

and Master Thomas Lyon, brigadiers, led up the centre brigade; David

Smith of Methven, brigadier, the sixth brigade; Sir Robert Stewart of

Tillicultry, brigade the seventh; the eighth and last brigade by the

Lord Cranston, brigadier, followed up by James Hepburn of Keith, and the

Lord Gairlies, brigadiers, and closed in the rear by the Earl of Wemyss,

first lieutenant-general; Colonel John Stewart, brother to Grantully,

and Arthur Forbes of Pittencrief, acting as adjutants-general, on

horseback, on the wings of the several brigades.

[Sidenote: 1724.]

‘In front of all marched the several decked horses, and other equipage,

&c., of the several officers, which, being very rich and magnificent,

made a very fine show; and after them, the silver arrow, carried by the

company’s officer.

‘There was on this occasion an infinite crowd of spectators, who came

from all quarters to see this splendid appearance, and who expressed

their satisfaction by loud acclamations.

‘The lord provost and magistrates saw the procession from a window, and

were saluted by the several officers, as did General Wade from a balcony

in the Earl of Murray’s lodgings. The governor of Damascus came likewise

to see the ceremony. Betwixt one and two o’clock, the company arrived in

the Links, whence, after shooting for the arrow (which was won by Mr

Balfour of Forret), they marched into Leith in the same order; and after

dinner, returned to the city, and saw acted the tragedy called

_Macbeath_.’[605]

It is very sad to reflect how the Earl of Kilmarnock and some others of

this noble company came to ruin a few years after by carrying the play a

little too far.

[Sidenote: JULY 15.]

The magistrates of Edinburgh issued an edict proceeding upon a recital

that disturbances have arisen, and may further arise, from gentlemen

carrying firearms, and their servants wearing dirks and broadswords, in

the streets, a practice ‘contrary to the rules of decency and good

order;’ wherefore it was now strictly forbidden.[606] It is to be

remarked that in this prohibition there is no notice taken of the swords

worn by gentlemen.

[Sidenote: JULY.]

The danger arising to the government from having a rude people of

disaffected sentiments and hardy warlike character seated in the

north-west parts of Scotland, was now brought before it with sufficient

urgency to cause the adoption of remedial measures. An effectual

disarming act, the raising of armed companies in the pay of the

government, the completion of a line of forts, and the formation of

roads by which these should be accessible and the benefits of

civilisation imparted to the country, were the chief means looked to for

doing away with the Highland difficulty. A sensible English officer,

General George Wade, was sent down to act as commander-in-chief of the

troops in Scotland, and carry these measures into effect.

[Sidenote: 1724.]

If we may believe a statement which there is all reason to believe

except one—the character of its author, who was no other than Simon Lord

Lovat—it was high time that something was done to enforce the laws in

the Highlands. In William’s reign, there had been an armed watch and a

severe justiciary commission; but they had long been given up; so, after

a temporary lull, things had returned to their usual course. The

garrisons at Fort William, Killicummin, and Inverness proved ineffectual

to restrain the system of spoliation, or to put down a robbers’ tax

called _black-mail_ [nefarious rent], which many paid in the hope of

protection.

The method by which the country was brought under this tax is thus

stated: ‘When the people are almost ruined by continual robberies and

plunders, the leader of the band of thieves, or some friend of his,

proposes that for a sum of money to be annually paid, he will press a

number of men in arms to protect such a tract of ground, or as many

parishes as submit to pay the contribution. When the contributions are

paid, he ceases to steal, and thereby the contributors are safe. If he

refuse to pay, he is immediately plundered. To colour all this villainy,

those concerned in the robberies pay the tax with the rest, and all the

neighbourhood must comply, or be undone.’[607] Black-mail naturally

prevailed in a marked manner in fertile lowland districts adjacent to

the Highlands, as Easter Ross, Moray, and the Lennox.

Directly with a view to the prevention of robberies, and the suppression

of this frightful impost, the government established six companies of

native soldiery, selected from clans presumedly loyal, and respectively

commanded by Lord Lovat, Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochnell, Colonel Grant

of Ballandalloch, Colonel Alexander Campbell of Finab, John Campbell of

Carrick, and George Monro of Culcairn. The whole, consisting of four

hundred and eighty men, were dressed in plain dark-coloured tartan, and

hence were called the _Reicudan Dhu_, or Black Watch. Burt reports an

allegation, that one of the commanders [Lord Lovat?] used to strip his

tenants of their best plaids, wherewith to invest his men at a review.

On the other hand, there were men of such birth and breeding in the

corps, that they had _gillies_ to do drudgery for them. They were posted

in small parties throughout the more lawless parts of the country, and

are represented as having been reasonably effective for their purpose.

[Sidenote: 1724.]

For the disarming of the disaffected clans, Wade had his six native

companies and four hundred troops of the line ready at Inverness to

proceed with the work in June 1725; but the riot about the malt-tax at

Glasgow delayed his measures, and it was not till the 10th of August

that he marched in force towards the rendezvous of the Mackenzies at

Brahan Castle. The heads of the clan saw it to be necessary to obey, or

to appear to obey, and also to promise that in future the rents of their

chief, the forfeited Earl of Seaforth, should be paid to the state,

instead of to Donald Murchison. The general on his part allowed them to

understand that, very probably, if they made this submission, their

chief would be pardoned and restored. One little concession they had to

ask from the English general—let him spare them the humiliation of

delivering their arms in the presence of the _Reicudan Dhu_. To this the

general consented. He sent the native loyalists to guard the passes to

the westward.

It must have been a solemn and interesting sight to an English officer

of impressionable feelings, if such a being then existed, when the

troops took up their position in front of that grand old Highland

fortress, amidst scenery of the most magnificent kind, to receive the

submission of a high-spirited people, who had resisted as long as

resistance was possible. First came the gentlemen or _duine-wassels_,

about fifty in number, to pay their respects to the general. Then

followed in slow procession along the great avenue, the body of the

clansmen, in parishes, forty or fifty in each, marching _four and four_,

and bringing their arms on horses. On arriving in front of the house,

they unloaded and deposited the weapons, drank the king’s health, and

slowly turned away.[608] ‘The chiefs of the several tribes, and other

principal gentlemen of the country, dined the same day with the general,

and great civilities and mutual assurances of good offices passed on

both sides. They promised the general that the rents of the estate

should be punctually paid to the crown, for the use of the public, and a

dutiful submission [rendered] to his majesty’s government.’[609] Weapons

to the number of 784 were given in; but in reality they were only the

oldest and most worn of the arms possessed by this great clan. Donald

Murchison had taken [Sidenote: 1724.] care previously to gather up all

their best arms into some central store unknown to the government.[610]

Following this example, and partly, it is alleged, induced by little

favours extended or promised by the general, the rest of the Jacobite

clans, the Macdonalds, Camerons, Macleods, &c., made an appearance of

surrendering their arms at various appointed stations during the autumn.

The entire number of articles given in was 2685. The total expense of

the collection was about £2000, and the general gives us an idea of the

true state of the case, beyond what he possessed himself, when he tells

us that the articles for the most part were worth little more than the

price of old iron.

General Wade received submissive letters from many of the chiefs and

others who had been in the insurrection of 1715, all professing anxiety

for pardon, and promising a quiet life in future. There was none more

submissive than one from Rob Roy, who contrived to make it appear that

his treason was against his will. ‘It was my misfortune,’ says he, ‘at

the time the Rebellion broke out, to be liable to legal diligence and

caption, at the Duke of Montrose’s instance, for debt alleged due to

him. To avoid being flung into prison, as I must certainly have been,

had I followed my real inclinations in joining the king’s troops at

Stirling, I was forced to take party with the adherents of the

Pretender; for the country being all in arms, it was neither safe nor

possible for me to stand neuter.’ Of course, this was meant by Rob as

merely a civil apology for deliberate rebellion. To give it

confirmation, he told the general: ‘I not only avoided acting

offensively against his majesty’s forces upon all occasions, but, on the

contrary, sent his Grace the Duke of Argyle all the intelligence I could

from time to time, of the situation and strength of the rebels; which I

hope his Grace will do me the justice to acknowledge.’ It is to be hoped

that Rob was not here so dishonest as to speak the truth. There is ample

reason to believe that the frank English general was imposed upon by the

professions made by the Jacobite chiefs, for he reported to government

that disaffection was much abated, and interested himself zealously for

the pardon of several of the attainted gentlemen.

A poor woman named Margaret Dickson, an inhabitant of the parish of

Inveresk, was tried under the act of 1690 for concealment [Sidenote:

1724.] of pregnancy in the case of a dead child. A defence was made for

her that she was a married woman, though living separate from her

husband; but it was of no avail. [Sidenote: SEP. 2.] A broadside—which

proceeds upon a strong approval of the text, that ‘the works of God are

works of wonder, and his ways past finding out’—gives a minute recital

of the circumstances of her execution in the Grassmarket; how the

hangman did his usual office of pulling down her legs; and how the body,

having hung the usual time, was taken down and put into a coffin, the

_cooms_ of which were nailed fast at the gibbet-foot. It then proceeds.

‘Being put into a cart, to transport her corpse to be interred in the

churchyard of Inveresk, whither the magistrates had allowed her friends

to carry her, there happened a scuffle betwixt her friends and some

surgeon-apprentices and others, their accomplices, on this side of the

Society Port. One, with a hammer, broke down one of the sides of the

cooms of the chest; which, having given some air, and, together with the

jolting of the cart, set the blood and vitals agoing. The people

intrusted with transporting her body having stopped at Peffermill to

take a refreshment, and left her upon a cart in the highway, two

joiners, from curiosity, came from a house to view the coffin, and, to

their surprise, heard a noise within. Acquainting the persons concerned,

they proposed to open the other side of the cooms of the chest, which,

after some opposition, was agreed to. The coom being taken off, they

perceived her to draw up her limbs. One Peter Purdie, a practitioner of

phlebotomy, providentially breathed a vein, from which streamed blood,

which recovered her so far, that twice she said: “O dear!” Being brought

to her feet, she was supported by two to a brae-side, where the blood

returned to her lips and cheeks, which promised a sudden recovery. Being

laid upon blankets in a corn-cart, her head and body upheld by a woman,

she was driven to Musselburgh, where she remained, at the magistrates’

command, all night; had restoratives and means of sustenance given her;

was visited by Mr Robert Bonally, one of the ministers of that place,

who prayed over her; and next morning was laid in a bed in her brother

James Dickson, weaver, his house, whither a great many flock every day

to see her, and not a few gave her money. She had little appearance of

recovering her health or senses next day, and cried out to let her be

gone, for she was to be executed on Wednesday, but is now pretty

well—only complains of a pain in her neck. She went to church on Sunday

last, and heard sermon, where the people were so anxious to see her,

[Sidenote: 1724.] that the minister was obliged to conduct her out of

the churchyard to keep her from being trodden down by the multitude. She

still remains in a hopeful way of recovering strength and judgment. May

this amazing dispensation of Providence be sanctioned to her, and teach

all who shall hear it to act a needy dependence upon, and live to the

glory of God, to whom belong the issues of life and death!’[611]

Another brief chronicler of the time informs us, that Maggie devoted the

Wednesday ensuing upon that on which she was executed to solemn fasting

and prayer, in gratitude for her deliverance, and had formed the

resolution so to employ each recurring Wednesday during the remainder of

her life.[612] It is also stated that her husband, struck with a

forgiving interest in her, took her ultimately back to his house. She

lived to have several children creditably born, and cried salt for many

a day through the streets of Edinburgh, universally recognised and

constantly pointed out to strangers as ‘Half-hangit Maggie Dickson.’

At the village of Gilmerton, four miles to the south of Edinburgh, the

soft, workable character of the sandstone of the carboniferous

formation, there cropping to the surface, tempted a blacksmith named

George Paterson to an enterprise of so extraordinary a character, as to

invest his name with distinction in both prose and rhyme. In the little

garden at the end of his house, he excavated for himself a dwelling in

the rock, composed of several apartments. Besides a smithy, with a

fireplace or forge, there were—a dining-room, fourteen and a half feet

long, seven broad, and six feet high, furnished with a bench all round,

a table, and a bed-recess; a drinking-parlour, rather larger; a kitchen

and bed-place for the maid; a liquor-cellar upwards of seven feet long;

and a washing-house. In each apartment there was a skylight-window, and

the whole were properly drained. The work cost the poor man five years

of hard labour, being finished in the present year. Alexander Pennecuik,

the burgess-bard of Edinburgh, furnished an inscription, which was

carved on a stone at the entrance:

‘Here is a House and Shop Hewn in this Rock with my own Hands.