A country gentleman, writing in 1729, remarks the increase in the

expense of housekeeping which he had seen going on during the past

twenty years. While deeming it indisputable that Edinburgh was now less

populous than before the Union, ‘yet I am informed,’ says he, ‘there is

a greater consumption since, than before the Union, of all provisions,

especially fleshes and wheatbread. The butcher owns he now kills three

of every species of [Sidenote: 1730.] cattle for every one he killed

before the Union.’ Where formerly he had been accustomed to see ‘two or

three substantial dishes of beef, mutton, and fowl, garnished with their

own wholesome gravy,’ he now saw ‘several services of little expensive

ashets, with English pickles, yea Indian mangoes, and catch-up or

anchovy sauces.’ Where there used to be the quart stoup of ale from the

barrel, there was now bottled ale for a first service, and claret to

help out the second, or else ‘a snaker of rack or brandy punch.’ Tea in

the morning and tea in the evening had now become established. There

were more livery-servants, and better dressed, and more horses, than

formerly. French and Italian silks for the ladies, and English

broadcloth for the gentlemen, were more and more supplanting the plain

home-stuffs of former days.[709] This writer was full of fears as to the

warrantableness of this superior style of living, but his report of the

fact is not the less valuable.

[Sidenote: 1731. JULY.]

It will be remembered that the Bank of Scotland, soon after its

institution in 1696, settled branches at Glasgow, Aberdeen, Montrose,

and Dundee, all of which proving unsuccessful, were speedily withdrawn.

Since then, no new similar movement had been made; neither had a native

bank arisen in any of those towns. But now, when the country seemed to

be making some decided advances in industry and wealth, the Bank

resolved upon a new attempt, and set up branches in Glasgow, Aberdeen,

Dundee, and Berwick. It was found, however, that the effort was yet

premature, and, after two years’ trial, these branches were all

recalled.[710]

It is to be observed that Glasgow, though yet unable to support a branch

of a public bank, was not inexperienced in banking accommodation. The

business was carried on here, as it had long ago been in Edinburgh, by

private traders, and in intimate connection with other business. An

advertisement published in the newspapers in July 1730 by James Blair,

merchant, at the head of the Saltmarket in Glasgow, makes us aware that

at his _shop_ there, ‘all persons who have occasion to buy or sell bills

of exchange, or want money to borrow, or have money to lend on interest,

or have any sort of goods to sell, or want to buy any kind of goods, or

who want to buy sugar-house notes or other good bills, or desire to have

such notes or bills discounted, or who want to have [Sidenote: 1731.]

policies signed, or incline to underwrite policies in ships or goods,

may deliver their commands.’[711]

[Sidenote: OCT.]

The latter part of the year 1730 and earlier part of 1731 were made

memorable in England by the ‘Malicious Society of Undertakers.’ An

inoffensive farmer or a merchant would receive a letter threatening the

conflagration of his house unless he should deposit six or eight guineas

under his door before some assigned time. The system is said to have

begun at Bristol, where the house of a Mr Packer was actually set fire

to and consumed. When a panic had spread, many ruined gamblers and

others adopted the practice, in recklessness, or with a view to gain;

but the chief practitioners appear to have been ruffians of the lower

classes, as the letters were generally very ill-spelt and ill-written.

In the autumn of 1731, the system spread to Scotland, beginning in

Lanarkshire. According to Mr Wodrow, the parishes of Lesmahago and

Strathaven were thrown into great alarm by a number of anonymous letters

being dropped at night, or thrown into houses, threatening fire-raising

unless contributions were made in money. Mr Aiton of Walseley, a justice

of peace, was ordered to bring fifty guineas to the Cross-boat at

Lanark; otherwise his house would be burnt. He went to the place, but

found no one waiting. At the same time, there were rumours of strangers

being seen on the moors. So great was the consternation, that parties of

soldiers were brought to the district, but without discovering any

person that seemed liable to suspicion.[712]

[Sidenote: 1732. JAN. 22.]

James Erskine of Grange, brother of the attainted Earl of Mar, and who

had been a judge of the Court of Session since 1707, was fitted with a

wife of irregular habits and violent temper, the daughter of the

murderer Chiesley of Dalry.[713] After agreeing, in 1730, to live upon a

separate maintenance, she continued to persecute her husband in a

personal and indecent manner, and further vented some threats as to her

power of exposing him to the ministry for dangerous sentiments. The

woman was scarcely mad enough to justify restraint, and, though it had

been otherwise, there were in those days no asylums to which she could

have been consigned. In these circumstances, the husband felt himself at

liberty in conscience—pious man as he notedly was—to have his wife

spirited away by night from her lodgings in Edinburgh, [Sidenote: 1732.]

hurried by night-journeys to Loch Hourn on the West Highland coast, and

thence transported to the lonely island of Heskir, and put under the

care of a peasant-farmer, subject to Sir Alexander Macdonald of Sleat.

After two years, she was taken to the still more remote island of St

Kilda, and there kept amongst a poor and illiterate people, though not

without the comforts of life, for seven years more. It was not till 1740

that any friends of hers knew where she was. A prosecution of the

husband being then threatened, the lady was taken to a place more

agreeable to her, where she soon after died.

Lord Grange was one of those singular men who contrive to cherish and

act out the most intense religious convictions, to appear as zealous

leaders in church judicatories, and stand as shining lights before the

world, while yet tainted with the most atrocious secret vices. Being

animated with an extreme hatred of Sir Robert Walpole, he was tempted,

in 1734, to give up his seat on the bench, in order that he might be

able to go into parliament and assist in hunting down the minister.

Returned for Clackmannanshire, he did make his appearance in the House

of Commons, fully believing that he should ere long be secretary of

state for Scotland under a new ministry. It unluckily happened that one

of the first opportunities he obtained for making a display of oratory

was on the bill that was introduced for doing away with the statutes

against witchcraft.[714] Erskine was too faithful a Presbyterian of the

old type to abandon a code of beliefs that seemed fully supported by

Scripture. He rose, and delivered himself of a pious speech on the

reality of necromantic arts, and the necessity of maintaining the

defences against them. Sir Robert is said to have felt convinced from

that moment, that he had not much to fear from the new member for

Clackmannanshire.

Disappointed, impoverished, out of reverence with old friends, perhaps

somewhat galled in conscience, Erskine ere long retired in a great

measure from the world. For some years before his death in 1754, he is

said to have lived principally in a coffee-house in the Haymarket, as

all but the husband of its mistress; certainly a most lame and impotent

conclusion for one who had made such a figure in political life, and

passed as such a ‘professor,’ in his native country.

[Sidenote: FEB.]

On a stormy night in this month, Colonel Francis Charteris [Sidenote:

1732.] died at his seat of Stonyhill, near Musselburgh. The pencil of

Hogarth, which represents him as the old profligate gentleman in the

first print of the Harlot’s Progress, has given historical importance to

this extraordinary man. Descended from an old family of very moderate

fortune in Dumfriesshire—Charteris of Amisfield—he acquired an enormous

fortune by gambling and usury, and thus was enabled to indulge in his

favourite vices on a scale which might be called magnificent. A single

worthy trait has never yet been adduced to redeem the character of

Charteris, though it is highly probable that, in some particulars, that

character has been exaggerated by popular rumour.[715]

A contemporary assures us, that the fortune of Charteris amounted to the

then enormous sum of fourteen thousand a year; of which ten thousand was

left to his grandson, Francis, second son of the Earl of Wemyss.

‘Upon his death-bed,’ says the same writer, ‘he was exceedingly anxious

to know if there were any such thing as hell; and said, were he assured

there was no such place (being easy as to heaven), he would give thirty

thousand.... Mr Cumming the minister attended him on his death-bed. He

asked his daughter, who is exceedingly narrow, what he should give him.

She replied that it was unusual to give anything on such occasions.

“Well, then,” says Charteris, “let us have another flourish from him!”

so calling his prayers. There accidentally happened, the night he died,

a prodigious hurricane, which the vulgar ascribed to his death.’[716]

[Sidenote: MAR. 12.]

A transaction, well understood in Scotland, but unknown and probably

incomprehensible in England—‘an inharmonious settlement’—took place in

the parish of St Cuthbert’s, close to Edinburgh. A Mr Wotherspoon having

been presented by the crown to this charge, to the utter disgust of the

parishioners, the Commission of the General Assembly sent one of their

number, a Mr Dawson, to effect the ‘edictal service.’ The magistrates,

knowing the temper of the parishioners, brought the City Guard to

protect the ceremony as it proceeded in the church; so the people could

do nothing there. Their rage, however, being irrepressible, they came

out, tore down the edict from the kirk-door, [Sidenote: 1732.] and

seemed as if they would tear down the kirk itself. The City Guard fired

upon them, and wounded one woman.[717]

[Sidenote: JUNE 24.]

Owing to the difficulty of travelling, few of the remarkable foreigners

who came to England found their way to Scotland; but now and then an

extraordinary person appeared. At this date, there came to Edinburgh,

and put up ‘at the house of Yaxley Davidson, at the Cowgate Port,’

Joseph Jamati, Baculator or Governor of Damascus. He appeared to be

sixty, was of reddish-black complexion, grave and well-looking, wearing

a red cloth mantle trimmed with silver lace, and a red turban set round

with white muslin; had a gray beard about half a foot long; and was

described as ‘generally a Christian.’ Assistance under some severe

taxation of the Turkish pacha was what he held forth as the object of

his visit to Europe. He came to Edinburgh, with recommendations from the

Duke of Newcastle and other persons of distinction, and proposed to make

a round of the principal towns, and visit the Duke of Athole and other

great people. He was accompanied by an interpreter and another servant.

It appears that this personage had a public reception from the

magistrates, who bestowed on him a purse of gold. In consequence of

receiving a similar contribution from the Convention of Burghs, he

ultimately resolved to return without making his proposed tour.

Four years later, Edinburgh received visits, in succession, from two

other Eastern hierarchs, one of them designated as archbishop of Nicosia

in Cyprus, of the Armenian Church, the other being Scheik Schedit, from

Berytus, near Mount Lebanon, of the Greek Church, both bringing

recommendatory letters from high personages, and both aiming at a

gathering of money for the relief of their countrymen suffering under

the Turks. Scheik Schedit had an interpreter named Michel Laws, and two

servants, and the whole party went formally in a coach ‘to hear sermon

in the High Church.’[718]

[Sidenote: JULY 11.]

The Scottish newspapers intimate that on this day, between two and three

afternoon, there was felt at Glasgow ‘a shock of an earthquake, which

lasted about a second.’

[Sidenote: JULY 28.]

The six Highland companies were reviewed at Ruthven, in [Sidenote:

1732.] Badenoch, by General Wade, and were praised for their good state

of discipline. ‘We of this country,’ says the reporter of the affair,

‘and, indeed, all the Highland and northern parts of the kingdom, have

substantial reason to be well satisfied with them, since for a long time

there has not been the least ground to complain of disorders of any

kind; which we attribute to the vigilance of their officers, and a right

distribution and position of the several companies.’[719]

Robert Trotter, schoolmaster of Dumfries, published a Compendium of

Latin Grammar, ‘the conceitedness, envy, and errors’ of which were next

year exposed in a brochure of _Animadversions_ by John Love, the

schoolmaster of Dumbarton. Not long after Love had thus disposed of Mr

Trotter, he was himself put on the defensive before the kirk-session of

his parish, on a charge of _brewing on a Sunday_. Probably the verb was

only applicable in a neuter form—that is, nature, by continuing her

fermenting process on the Sabbath, was the only delinquent—for the

minister, ‘after a juridical trial, was obliged to make a public apology

for having maliciously accused calumniated innocence.’[720] Love, who

was the preceptor of Tobias Smollett, afterwards distinguished himself

by a controversy with the notorious Lauder, who, by forgery, tried to

derogate from the fame of Milton.

[Sidenote: 1733. MAY 14.]

Since 1598 we have not heard of any foreigners coming into Scotland to

play dangerous tricks upon long tight ropes; but now, unexpectedly, a

pair of these diverting vagabonds, one described as an Italian who had

performed his wonders in all the cities of Europe, the other as his son,

presented themselves. A rope being fixed between the Half-moon Battery

in the Castle, and a place on the south side of the Grassmarket, two

hundred feet below, the father slid down in half a minute. The son

performed the same feat, blowing a trumpet all the way, to the

astonishment of ‘an infinite crowd of spectators.’ Three days

afterwards, there was a repetition of the performance, at the desire of

several persons of quality, when, after sliding down, the father made

his way up again, firing a pistol, beating a drum, and playing a variety

of antics by the way, proclaiming, moreover, that here he could defy all

messengers, sheriffs’ officers, and macers of the Court of Session.

Being sore fatigued at the end of the performance, he [Sidenote: 1733.]

offered a guinea to the sutler of the Castle for a draught of ale, which

the fellow was churlish enough to refuse.

The two funambuli failed on a subsequent trial, ‘their equipage not at

all answering.’ Not many weeks after, we learn that William Hamilton,

mason in the Dean, trying the like tricks on a rope connected with

Queensferry steeple, fell off the rope, and was killed.[721]

In the course of this year, a body called the _Edinburgh Company of

Players_ performed plays in the Tailors’ Hall, in the Cowgate. On the

6th June, they had the _Beggars’ Opera_ for the benefit of the Edinburgh

Infirmary. They afterwards acted _Othello_, _Hamlet_, _Henry IV._,

_Macbeth_, and _King Lear_, ‘with great applause.’ In December, they

presented before a large audience the _Tempest_, ‘every part, and even

what required machinery, being performed in great order.’ In February

1734, the _Conscious Lovers_ was performed ‘for the benefit of Mrs

Woodward,’ ‘the doors not to be opened till four of the clock,

performance to begin at six.’ In March, the _Wonder_ is advertised, ‘the

part of the Scots colonel by Mr Weir, and that of his servant Gibby, in

Highland dress, by Mr Wescomb; and all the other parts to the best

advantage.’ Allan Ramsay must have been deeply concerned in the

speculation, because he appears in the office-copy of the newspaper

(_Caledonian Mercury_) as the paymaster for the advertisements.

Nor was this nascent taste for the amusements of the stage confined to

Edinburgh. In August, the company is reported as setting out early one

morning for Dundee, Montrose, Aberdeen, &c., ‘in order to entertain the

ladies and gentlemen in the different stations of their circuit.’ We

soon after hear of their being honoured at Dundee with the patronage of

the ancient and honourable society of freemasons, who marched in a body,

with the grand-master at their head, to the playhouse, ‘in their proper

apparel, with hautboys and other music playing before them;’ all this to

hear the _Jubilee_ and _The Devil to Pay_.

In December, the Edinburgh company was again in the Tailors’ Hall, and

now it ventured on ‘a pantomime in grotesque characters,’ costing

something in the getting up; wherefore ‘nothing less than full prices

will be taken during the whole performance.’ In consideration of the

need for space, it was ‘hoped that no gentleman whatever will take it

amiss if they are refused admittance [Sidenote: 1733.] behind the

scenes.’ Soon after, we hear of the freemasons patronising the play of

_Henry IV._, marching to the house ‘in procession, with aprons and white

gloves, attended with flambeaux.’ Mrs Bulkely took her benefit on the

22d January in _Oroonoko_ and a farce, in both of which she was to play;

but ‘being weak, and almost incapable to walk, [she] cannot acquit

herself to her friends’ satisfaction as usual; yet hopes to be favoured

with their presence.’

It is observable that the plays represented in the Cowgate house were

all of them of classic merit. This was, of course, prudential with

regard to popular prejudices. Persons possessed of a love of literature

were very naturally among those most easily reconciled to the stage; and

amongst these we may be allowed to class certain schoolmasters, who

about this time began to encourage their pupils to recite plays as a

species of rhetorical exercise.

On Candlemas, 1734—when by custom the pupils in all schools in Scotland

brought gifts to their masters, and had a holiday—the pupils of the

Perth Grammar School made an exhibition of English and Latin readings in

the church before the clergy, magistrates, and a large miscellaneous

auditory. ‘The Tuesday after, they acted _Cato_ in the school, which is

one of the handsomest in Scotland, before three hundred gentlemen and

ladies. The youth, though they had never seen a play acted, performed

surprisingly both in action and pronunciation, which gave general

satisfaction. After the play, the magistrates entertained the gentlemen

at a tavern.’[722]

In August, ‘the young gentlemen of Dalkeith School acted, before a

numerous crowd of spectators, the tragedy of _Julius Cæsar_ and comedy

of _Æsop_, with a judgment and address inimitable at their years.’ At

the same time, the pupils in the grammar school of Kirkcaldy performed a

piece composed by their master, entitled _The Royal Council for Advice,

or the Regular Education of Boys the Foundation of all other National

Improvements_. ‘The council consisted of a preses and twelve members,

decently and gravely seated round a table like senators. The other boys

were posted at a due distance in a crowd, representing people come to

attend this meeting for advice: from whom entered in their turn and

order, a tradesman, a farmer, a country gentleman, a nobleman, two

schoolmasters, &c., and, last of all, a gentleman who complimented and

congratulated the council on [Sidenote: 1733.] their noble design and

worthy performances.’ The whole exhibition is described as giving high

satisfaction to the audience.

This sort of fair weather could not last. At Candlemas, 1735, the Perth

school-boys acted _George Barnwell_—certainly an ill-chosen play—twice

before large audiences, comprising many persons of distinction; and it

was given out that on the succeeding Sunday ‘a very learned moral

sermon, suitable to the occasion, was preached in the town.’ Immediately

after came the corrective. The kirk-session had nominated a committee to

take measures to prevent the school from being ‘converted into a

playhouse, whereby youth are diverted from their studies, and employed

in the buffooneries of the stage;’ and as for the moral sermon, it was

‘directed against the sins and corruptions of the age, and was very

suitable to the resolution of the session.’

[Sidenote: JULY.]

England was pleasingly startled in 1721 by the report which came home

regarding a singularly gallant defence made by an English ship against

two strongly armed pirate vessels in the Bay of Juanna, near Madagascar.

The East India Company was peculiarly gratified by the report, for,

though it inferred the loss of one of their ships, it told them of a

severe check given to a system of marine depredation, by which their

commerce was constantly suffering.

It appeared that the Company’s ship _Cassandra_, commanded by Captain

Macrae, on coming to the Bay of Juanna in July 1720, heard of a

shipwrecked pirate captain being engaged in fitting out a new vessel on

the island of Mayotta, and Macrae instantly formed the design of

attacking him. When ready, on the 8th of August, to sail on this

expedition, along with another vessel styled the _Greenwich_, he was

saluted with the unwelcome sight of two powerful pirate vessels sailing

into the bay, one being of 30, and the other of 34 guns. Though he was

immediately deserted by the _Greenwich_, the two pirates bearing down

upon him with their black flags, did not daunt the gallant Macrae. He

fought them both for several hours, inflicting on one some serious

breaches between wind and water, and disabling the boats in which the

other endeavoured to board him. At length, most of his officers and

quarter-deck men being killed or wounded, he made an attempt to run

ashore, and did get beyond the reach of the two pirate vessels. With

boats, however, they beset his vessel with redoubled fury, and in the

protracted fighting which ensued, he suffered severely, though not

without inflicting fully as much [Sidenote: 1733.] injury as he

received. Finally, himself and the remains of his company succeeded in

escaping to the land, though in the last stage of exhaustion with wounds

and fatigue. Had he, on the contrary, been supported by the _Greenwich_,

he felt no doubt that he would have taken the two pirate vessels, and

obtained £200,000 for the Company.[723]

The hero of this brilliant affair was a native of the town of Greenock,

originally there a very poor boy, but succoured from misery by a

kind-hearted musician or violer named Macguire, and sent by him to sea.

By the help of some little education he had received in his native

country, his natural talents and energy quickly raised him in the

service of the East India Company, till, as we see, he had become the

commander of one of their goodly trading-vessels. The conflict of Juanna

gave him further elevation in the esteem of his employers, and, strange

to say, the poor barefooted Greenock laddie, the protégé of the

wandering minstrel Macguire, became at length the governor of Madras! He

now returned to Scotland, in possession of ‘an immense estate,’ which

the journals of the day are careful to inform us, ‘he is said to have

made with a fair character’—a needful distinction, when so many were

advancing themselves as robbers, or little better, or as truckling

politicians. One of Governor Macrae’s first acts was to provide for the

erection of a monumental equestrian statue of King William at Glasgow,

having probably some grateful personal feeling towards that sovereign.

It was said to have cost him £1000 sterling. But the grand act of the

governor’s life, after his return, was his requital of the kindness he

had experienced from the violer Macguire. The story formed one of the

little romances of familiar conversation in Scotland during the last

century. Macguire’s son, with the name of Macrae, succeeded to the

governor’s estate of Holmains, in Dumfriesshire,[724] which he handed

down to his son.[725] The three daughters, highly educated, and

handsomely dowered, were married to men of figure, the eldest to the

Earl of Glencairn (she was the mother of Burns’s well-known patron); the

second to Lord Alva, a judge in the Court of Session; the third to

Charles Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr. Three years after his return

from the East Indies, Governor Macrae [Sidenote: 1733.] paid a visit to

Edinburgh, and was received with public as well as private marks of

distinction, on account of his many personal merits.

An amusing celebration of the return of the East India governor took

place at Tain, in the north of Scotland. John Macrae, a near kinsman of

the great man, being settled there in business, resolved to shew his

respect for the first exalted person of his hitherto humble clan.

Accompanied by the magistrates of the burgh and the principal burgesses,

he went to the Cross, and there superintended the drinking of a hogshead

of wine, to the healths of the King, Queen, Prince of Wales, and the

Royal Family, and those of ‘Governor Macrae and all his fast friends.’

‘From thence,’ we are told, ‘the company repaired to the chief taverns

in town, where they repeated the aforesaid healths, and spent the

evening with music and entertainments suitable to the occasion.’[726]

[Sidenote: DEC. 6.]

The tendency which has already been alluded to, of a small portion of

the Scottish clergy to linger in an antique orthodoxy and strenuousness

of discipline, while the mass was going on in a progressive laxity and

subserviency to secular authorities, was still continuing. The chief

persons concerned in the Marrow Controversy of 1718[727] and subsequent

years, had recently made themselves conspicuous by standing up in

opposition to church measures for giving effect to patronage in the

settlement of ministers, and particularly to the settlement of an

unpopular presentee at Kinross; and the General Assembly, held this year

in May, came to the resolution of rebuking these recusant brethren. The

brethren, however, were too confident in the rectitude of their course

to submit to censure, and the commission of the church in November

punished their contumacy by suspending from their ministerial functions,

Ebenezer Erskine of Stirling, William Wilson of Perth, Alexander

Moncrieff of Abernethy, and James Fisher of Kinclaven.

The suspended brethren, being all of them men held in the highest local

reverence, received much support among their flocks, as well as among

the more earnest clergy. Resolving not to abandon the principles they

had taken up, it became necessary that they should associate in the

common cause. They accordingly met at this date in a cottage at Gairney

Bridge near Kinross, and constituted themselves into a provisional

presbytery, though [Sidenote: 1733.] without professing to shake off

their connection with the Established Church. It is thought that the

taking of a mild course with them at the next General Assembly would

have saved them from an entire separation. But it was not to be. The

church judicatories went on in their adopted line of high-handed

secularism, and the matter ended, in 1740, with the deposition of the

four original brethren, together with four more who took part with them.

Thus, unexpectedly to the church, was formed a schism in her body,

leading to the foundation of a separate communion, by which a fourth of

her adherents, and those on the whole the most religious people, were

lost.

An immense deal of devotional zeal, mingled with the usual alloys of

illiberality and intolerance, was evoked through the medium of ‘the

Secession,’ The people built a set of homely meeting-houses for the

deposed ministers, and gave them such stipends as they could afford. In

four years, the new body appeared as composed of twenty-six clergy, in

three presbyteries. It was the first of several occasions of the kind,

on which, it may be said without disrespect, both the strength and the

weakness of the Scottish character have been displayed. A single

anecdote, of the truth of which there is no reason to doubt, will

illustrate the spirit of this first schism. There was a family of

industrious people at Brownhills, near St Andrews, who adhered to the

Secession. The nearest church was that of Mr Moncrieff at Abernethy,

twenty miles distant. All this distance did the family walk every

Sunday, in order to attend worship, walking of course an equal distance

in returning. All that were in health invariably went. They had to set

out at twelve o’clock of the Saturday night, and it was their practice

to make all the needful preparations of dress and provisioning without

looking out to see what kind of weather was prevailing. When all were

ready, the door was opened, and the whole party walked out into the

night, and proceeded on their way, heedless of whatever might fall or

blow.

[Sidenote: 1734. JAN.]

Our Scottish ancestors had a peculiar way of dealing with cases of

ill-usage of women by their husbands. The cruel man was put by his

neighbours across a tree or beam, and carried through the village so

enthroned, while some one from time to time proclaimed his offence, the

whole being designed as a means of deterring other men from being cruel

to their spouses.

We have a series of documents at this date, illustrating the regular

procedure in cases of _Riding the Stang_ [properly, sting—meaning

[Sidenote: 1734.] a beam]. John Fraser, of the burgh of regality of

Huntly, had gone to John Gordon, bailie for the Duke of Gordon,

complaining that some of his neighbours had threatened him with the

riding of the stang, on the ground of alleged ill-usage of his wife. The

first document is a complaint from Ann Johnston, wife of Fraser, and

some other women, setting forth the reality of this bad usage: the man

was so cruel to his poor spouse, that her neighbours were forced

occasionally to rise from their beds at midnight, in order to rescue her

from his barbarous hands. They justified the threat against him, as

meant to deter him from continuing his atrocious conduct, and went on to

crave of the bailie that he would grant them a _toleration of the

stang_, as ordinarily practised in the kingdom, ‘being, we know, no act

of parliament to the contrary.’ If his lordship could suggest any more

prudent method, they said they would be glad to hear of it ‘for

preventing more fatal consequences.’ ‘Otherwise, upon the least

disobligement given, we must expect to fall victims to our husbands’

displeasure, from which _libera nos, Domine_.’ Signed by Ann Johnston,

and ten other women, besides two who give only initials.

Fraser offered to prove that he used his wife civilly, and was allowed

till next day to do so. On that next day, however, four men set upon

him, and carried him upon a tree through the town, thus performing the

ceremony without authority. On Fraser’s complaint, they were fined in

twenty pounds Scots, and decerned for twelve pounds of assythment to the

complainer.[728]

[Sidenote: 1735. SEP.]

The execution of the revenue laws gave occasion for much bad blood. In

June 1734, a boat having on board several persons, including at least

one of gentlemanlike position in society, being off the shore of Nairn

with ‘_unentrable goods_,’ the custom-house officers, enforced by a

small party from the Hon. Colonel Hamilton’s regiment, went out to

examine it. In a scuffle which ensued, Hugh Fraser younger of Balnain

was killed, and two of the soldiers, named Long and Macadam, were tried

for murder by the Court of Admiralty in Edinburgh, and condemned to be

hanged on the 19th of November within flood-mark at Leith.

An appeal was made for the prisoners to the Court of Justiciary,

[Sidenote: 1735.] which, on the 11th of November, granted a suspension

of the Judge-admiral’s sentence till the 1st of December, that the case

might before that day be more fully heard. Next day, the Judge-admiral,

Mr Graham, caused to be delivered to the magistrates sitting in council

a ‘Dead Warrant,’ requiring and commanding them to see his sentence put

in execution on the proper day. The magistrates, however, obeyed the

Court of Justiciary. Meanwhile, four of those who had been in the boat,

and who had given evidence against the two soldiers on their trial, were

brought by the custom-house authorities before the Judge-admiral,

charged with invading and deforcing the officers, and were acquitted.

On the 5th December, the Court of Justiciary found that the

Judge-admiral, in the trial of Long and Macadam, had ‘committed

iniquity,’ and therefore they suspended the sentence indefinitely. On a

petition three weeks after, the men were liberated, after giving caution

to the extent of 300 merks, to answer on any criminal charge that might

be exhibited against them before the Court of Justiciary.[729]

[Sidenote: NOV. 18.]

Dancing assemblies, which we have seen introduced at Edinburgh in 1723,

begin within the ensuing dozen years to be heard of in some of the other

principal towns. There was, for example, an assembly at Dundee at this

date, and an Edinburgh newspaper soon after presented a copy of verses

upon the ladies who had appeared at it, celebrating their charms in

excessively bad poetry, but in a high strain of compliment:

‘Heavens! what a splendid scene is here,

How bright those female seraphs shine!’ &c.

From the indications afforded by half-blank names, we may surmise that

damsels styled Bower, Duncan, Reid, Ramsay, Dempster, and Bow—all of

them names amongst the gentlefolks of the district—figured conspicuously

at this meeting—

‘Besides a much more numerous dazzling throng,

Whose names, if known, should grace my artless song.’

The poet, too, appears to have paid 2_s._ 6_d._ for the insertion of his

lines in the _Caledonian Mercury_.

From this time onward, an annual ball, given by ‘the Right Honourable

Company of Hunters’ in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is regularly

chronicled. At one which took place on the 8th [Sidenote: 1735.] January

1736—the Hon. Master Charles Leslie being ‘king,’ and the Hon. Lady

Helen Hope being ‘queen’—‘the company in general made a very grand

appearance, an elegant entertainment and the richest wines were served

up, and the whole was carried on and concluded with all decency and good

order imaginable.’ A ball given by the same fraternity in the same

place, on the ensuing 21st of December, was even more splendid. There

were two rooms for dancing, and two for tea, illuminated with many

hundreds of wax-candles. ‘In the Grand Hall [the Gallery?], a table was

covered with three hundred dishes _en ambiqu_, at which sate a hundred

and fifty ladies at a time ... illuminated with four hundred

wax-candles. The plan laid out by the council of the company was exactly

followed out with the greatest order and decency, and concluded without

the least air of disturbance.’

On the 27th January 1737, ‘the young gentlemen-burghers’ of Aberdeen

gave ‘a grand ball to the ladies, the most splendid and numerous ever

seen there;’ all conducted ‘without the least confusion or disorder.’

The anxiety to shew that there was no glaring impropriety in the conduct

of the company on these occasions, is significant, and very

amusing.[730]

The reader of this work has received—I fear not very thankfully—sundry

glimpses of the frightful state of the streets of Edinburgh in previous

centuries; and he must have readily understood that the condition of the

capital in this respect represented that of other populous towns, all

being alike deficient in any recognised means of removing offensive

refuse. There was, it must be admitted, something peculiar in the state

of Edinburgh in sanitary respects, in consequence of the extreme

narrowness of its many closes and wynds, and the height of its houses.

How it was endured, no modern man can divine; but it certainly is true

that, at the time when men dressed themselves in silks and laces, and

took as much time for their toilets as a fine lady, they had to pass in

all their bravery amongst piles of dung, on the very High Street of

Edinburgh, and could not make an evening call upon Dorinda or Celia in

one of the alleys, without the risk of an ablution from above sufficient

to destroy the most elegant outfit, and put the wearers out of conceit

with themselves for a fortnight.

The struggles of the municipal authorities at sundry times to [Sidenote:

1735.] get the streets put into decent order against a royal ceremonial

entry, have been adverted to in our earlier volumes. It would appear

that things had at last come to a sort of crisis in 1686, so that the

Estates then saw fit to pass an act[731] to force the magistrates to

clean the city, that it might be endurable for the personages concerned

in the legislature and government, ordaining for this purpose a ‘stent’

of a thousand pounds sterling a year for three years on the rental of

property. A vast stratum of refuse, through which people had made lanes

towards their shop-doors and close-heads, was then taken away—much of it

transported by the sage provost, Sir James Dick, to his lands at

Prestonfield, then newly enclosed, and the first that were so—which

consequently became distinguished for fertility[732]—and the city was

never again allowed to fall into such disorder. There was still,

however, no regular system of cleaning, beyond what the street sewers

supplied; and the ancient practice of throwing ashes, foul water, &c.,

over the windows at night, graced only with the warning-cry of _Gardez

l’eau_, was kept up in full vigour by the poorer and more reckless part

of the population.

An Edinburgh merchant and magistrate, named Sir Alexander Brand, who has

been already under our attention as a manufacturer of gilt leather

hangings, at one time presented an overture to the Estates for the

cleaning of the city. The modesty of the opening sentence will strike

the reader: ‘Seeing the nobility and gentry of Scotland are, when they

are abroad, esteemed by all nations to be the finest and most

accomplished people in Europe, yet it’s to be regretted that it’s always

casten up to them by strangers, who admire them for their singular

qualifications, that they are born in a nation that has the nastiest

cities in the world, especially the metropolitan.’ He offered to clean

the city daily, and give five hundred a year for the refuse.[733] But

his views do not seem to have been carried into effect.

After 1730, when, as we have seen, great changes were beginning to take

place in Scotland, increased attention was paid to external decency and

cleanliness. The Edinburgh magistrates were anxious to put down the

system of cleaning by ejectment. We learn, for example, from a

newspaper, that a servant-girl having thrown foul water from a fourth

story in Skinners’ Close, ‘which much abused a lady passing by, was

brought before the bailies, [Sidenote: 1735.] and obliged to enact

herself never to be guilty of the like practices in future. ’Tis hoped,’

adds our chronicler, ‘that this will be a caution to all servants _to

avoid this wicked practice_.’

There lived at this time in Edinburgh a respectable middle-aged man,

named Robert Mein, the representative of the family which had kept the

post-office for three generations between the time of the civil war and

the reign of George I., and who boasted that the pious lady usually

called Jenny Geddes, but actually Barbara Hamilton, who threw the stool

in St Giles’s in 1637, was his great-grandmother. Mein, being a man of

liberal ideas, and a great lover of his native city, desired to see it

rescued from the reproach under which it had long lain as the most fetid

of European capitals, and he accordingly drew up a paper, shewing how

the streets might be kept comparatively clean by a very simple

arrangement. His suggestion was, that there should be provided for each

house, at the expense of the landlord, a vessel sufficient to contain

the refuse of a day, and that scavengers, feed by a small subscription

among the tenants, should discharge these every night. Persons paying

what was then a very common rent, ten pounds, would have to contribute

only five shillings a year; those paying fifteen pounds, 7_s._ 6_d._,

and so on in proportion. The projector appears to have first explained

his plan to sundry gentlemen of consideration—as, for example, Mr

William Adam, architect, and Mr Colin Maclaurin, professor of

mathematics, who gave him their approbation of it in writing—the latter

adding: ‘I subscribe for my own house in Smith’s Land, Niddry’s Wynd,

fourth story, provided the neighbours agree to the same.’ Other

subscribers of consequence were obtained, as ‘Jean Gartshore, for my

house in Morocco’s Close, which is £15 rent,’ and ‘the Countess of

Haddington, for the lodging she possessed in Bank Close, Lawnmarket,

valued rent £20.’ Many persons agreed to pay a half-penny or a penny

weekly; some as much as a half-penny per pound of rent per month. One

lady, however, came out boldly as a recusant—‘Mrs Black refuses to

agree, and _acknowledges she throws over_.’[734]

Mr Mein’s plan was adopted, and acted upon to some extent by the

magistrates; and the terrible memory of the ‘DIRTY LUGGIES,’ which were

kept in the stairs, or in the passages within doors, as a necessary part

of the arrangement, was fresh in the minds of old people whom I knew in

early life. The city was in 1740 [Sidenote: 1735.] divided into

twenty-nine districts, each having a couple of scavengers supported at

its own expense, who were bound to keep it clean; while the refuse was

sold to persons who engaged to cart it away at three half-pence per

cart-load.[735]

[Sidenote: 1736. JAN. 9.]

Five men, who had suffered from the severity of the excise laws, having

formed the resolution of indemnifying themselves, broke into the house

of Mr James Stark, collector of excise, at Pittenweem, and took away

money to the extent of two hundred pounds, besides certain goods. They

were described as ‘Andrew Wilson, indweller in Pathhead; George

Robertson, stabler without Bristoport [Edinburgh]; William Hall,

indweller in Edinburgh; John Frier, indweller there; and John Galloway,

servant to Peter Galloway, horse-hirer in Kinghorn.’ Within three days,

the whole of them were taken and brought to Edinburgh under a strong

guard.

Wilson, Robertson, and Hall were tried on the 2d of March, and condemned

to suffer death on the ensuing 14th of April. Five days before that

appointed for the execution—Hall having meanwhile been reprieved—Wilson

and Robertson made an attempt to escape from the condemned cell of the

Old Tolbooth, but failed in consequence of Wilson, who was a squat man,

sticking in the grated window. Two days later, the two prisoners being

taken, according to custom, to attend service in the adjacent church,

Wilson seized two of the guard with his hands, and a third with his

teeth, so as to enable Robertson, who knocked down the fourth, to get

away. The citizens, whose sympathies went strongly with the men as

victims of the excise laws, were much excited by these events, and the

authorities were apprehensive that the execution of Wilson would not

pass over without an attempt at rescue. The apprehension was strongly

shared by John Porteous, captain of the town-guard, who consequently

became excited to a degree disqualifying him for so delicate a duty as

that of guarding the execution. When the time came, the poor smuggler

was duly suspended from the gallows in the Grassmarket, without any

disturbance; but when the hangman proceeded to cut down the body, the

populace began to throw stones, and the detested official was obliged to

take refuge among the men of the guard. Porteous, needlessly infuriated

by this demonstration, seized a musket, and fired among the crowd,

commanding his men to do the same. [Sidenote: 1735.] There was

consequently a full fusillade, attended by the instant death of six

persons, and the wounding of nine more.

The magistrates being present at the windows of a tavern close by, it

was inexcusable of Porteous to have fired without their orders, even had

there been any proper occasion for so strong a measure. As it was, he

had clearly committed manslaughter on an extensive scale, and was liable

to severe punishment. By the public at large he was regarded as a

ferocious murderer, who could scarcely expiate with his own life the

wrongs he had done to his fellow-citizens. Accordingly, when subjected

to trial for murder on the ensuing 5th of July, condemnation was almost

a matter of course.

The popular antipathy to the excise laws, the general hatred in which

Porteous was held as a harsh official, and a man of profligate life, and

the indignation at his needlessly taking so many innocent lives,

combined to create a general rejoicing over the issue of the trial.

There were some, however, chiefly official persons and their

connections, who were not satisfied as to the fairness of his assize,

and, whether it was fair or not, felt it to be hard to punish what was

at most an excess in the performance of public duty, with death. On a

representation of the case to the queen, who was at the head of a

regency during the absence of her husband in Hanover, a respite of six

weeks was granted, five days before that appointed for the

execution.[736]

[Sidenote: 1736.]

The consequent events are so well known, that it is unnecessary here to

give them in more than outline. The populace of Edinburgh heard of the

respite of Porteous with savage rage, and before the eve of what was to

have been his last day, a resolution was formed that, if possible, the

original order of the law should be executed. The magistrates heard of

mischief being designed, but disregarded it as only what they called

‘cadies’ clatters;’ that is, the gossip of street-porters. About nine in

the evening of the 7th September, a small party of men came into the

city at the West Port, beating a drum, and were quickly followed by a

considerable crowd. Proceeding by the Cowgate, they shut the two gates

to the eastward, and planted a guard at each. The ringleaders then

advanced with a large and formidable mob towards the Tolbooth, in which

Porteous lay confined. The magistrates came out from a tavern, and tried

to oppose the progress of the conspirators, but were beat off with a

shower of stones. Other persons of importance whom they met, were

civilly treated, but turned away from the scene of action. Reaching the

door of the prison, they battered at it for a long time in vain, and at

length it was found necessary to burn it. This being a tedious

[Sidenote: 1736.] process, it was thought by the magistrates that there

might be time to introduce troops from the Canongate, and so save the

intended victim. Mr Patrick Lindsay, member for the city, at

considerable hazard, made his way over the city wall, and conferred with

General Moyle at his lodging in the Abbeyhill; but the general hesitated

to act without the authority of the Lord Justice Clerk (Milton), who

lived at Brunstain House, five miles off. Thus time was fatally lost.

After about an hour and a half, the rioters forced their way into the

jail, and seized the trembling Porteous, whom they lost no time in

dragging along the street towards the usual place of execution. As they

went down the West Bow, they broke open a shop, took a supply of rope,

and left a guinea for it on the table. Then coming to the scene of what

they regarded as his crime, they suspended the wretched man over a

dyer’s pole, and having first waited to see that he was dead, quietly

dispersed.

The legal authorities made strenuous efforts to identify some of the

rioters, but wholly without success. The subsequent futile endeavour of

the government to punish the corporation of Edinburgh by statute,

belongs to the history of the country.

[Sidenote: JUNE 24.]

Considering how important have been the proceedings under the act of the

ninth parliament of Queen Mary _Anentis Witchcrafts_, it seems proper

that we advert to the fact of its being from this day repealed in the

parliament of Great Britain, along with the similar English act of the

first year of King James I. It became from that time incompetent to

institute any suit for ‘witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or

conjuration,’ and only a crime to pretend to exercise such arts, liable

to be punished by a year’s imprisonment, with the pillory. There seems

to be little known regarding the movement for abolishing these laws. We

only learn that it was viewed with disapprobation by the more zealously

pious people in Scotland, one of whom, Mr Erskine of Grange, member for

Clackmannanshire, spoke pointedly against it in the House of Commons.

Seeing how clearly the offence is described in scripture, and how direct

is the order for its punishment, it seemed to these men a symptom of

latitudinarianism that the old statute should be withdrawn. When the

body of dissenters, calling themselves the Associate Synod in 1742,

framed their Testimony against the errors of the established church and

of the times generally, one of the specific things condemned was the

repeal of the acts against witchcraft, which was declared to be

‘contrary to [Sidenote: 1736.] the express letter of the law of God,

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”’

[Sidenote: NOV. 8.]

Amongst the gay and ingenious, who patronised and defended theatricals,

Allan Ramsay stood conspicuous. He entertained a kind of enthusiasm on

the subject, was keenly controversial in behalf of the stage, and

willing to incur some risk in the hope of seeing his ideal of a sound

drama in Scotland realised. We have seen traces of his taking an

immediate and personal interest in the performances carried on for a few

years by the ‘Edinburgh Company of Comedians’ in the Tailors’ Hall. He

was now induced to enter upon the design of rearing, in Edinburgh, a

building expressly adapted as a theatre; and we find him going on with

the work in the summer of this year, and announcing that ‘the New

Theatre in Carrubber’s Close’ would be opened on the 1st of November.

The poet at the same time called upon gentlemen and ladies who were

inclined to take annual tickets, of which there were to be forty at

30_s._ each, to come forward and subscribe before a particular day,

after which the price would be raised to two guineas.

Honest Allan knew he would have to encounter the frowns of the clergy,

and be reckoned as a rash speculator by many of his friends; but he

never expected that any legislative enactment would interfere to crush

his hopes. So it was, however. The theatre in Carrubber’s Close was

opened on the 8th of November, and found to be, in the esteem of all

judges, ‘as complete and finished with as good a taste as any of its

size in the three kingdoms.’[737] A prologue was spoken by Mr Bridges,

setting forth the moral powers of the drama, and attacking its

enemies—those who

‘From their gloomy thoughts and want of sense,

Think what diverts the mind gives Heaven offence.’

The Muse, it was said, after a long career of glory in ancient times,

had reached the shores of England, where Shakspeare taught her to soar:

‘At last, transported by your tender care,

She hopes to keep her seat of empire here.

For your protection, then, ye fair and great,

This fabric to her use we consecrate;

On you it will depend to raise her name,

And in Edina fix her lasting fame.’

[Sidenote: 1736.]

Alas! all these hopes of a poet were soon clouded. Before the

Carrubber’s Close playhouse had seen out its first season, an act was

passed (10 Geo. II. chap. 28) explaining one of Queen Anne regarding

rogues and vagabonds, the whole object in reality being to prevent any

persons from acting plays for hire, without authority or licence by

letters-patent from the king or his Lord Chamberlain.[738] This put a

complete barrier to the poet’s design, threw the new playhouse useless

upon his hands,[739] and had nearly shipwrecked his fortunes. He

addressed a poetical account of his disappointment to the new Lord

President of the Court of Session, Duncan Forbes, a man who united a

taste for elegant literature with the highest Christian graces. He

recites the project of the theatre:

‘Last year, my lord, nae farther gane,

A costly wark was undertane

By me, wha had not the least dread

An act would knock it on the head:

A playhouse new, at vast expense,

To be a large, yet bien defence,

In winter nights, ’gainst wind and weet,

To ward frae cauld the lasses sweet;

While they with bonny smiles attended,

To have their little failings mended.’

He asks if he who has written with the approbation of the entire

country, shall be confounded with rogues and rascals, be twined of his

hopes, and

‘Be made a loser, and engage

With troubles in declining age,

While wights to whom my credit stands

For sums, make sour and thrawn demands?’

Shall a good public object be defeated?

‘When ice and snaw o’ercleads the isle,

Wha now will think it worth their while

To leave their gousty country bowers,

For the ance blythesome Edinburgh’s towers,

Where there’s no glee to give delight,

And ward frae spleen the langsome night?’

He pleads with the Session for at least a limited licence.

‘... I humbly pray

Our lads may be allowed to play,

At least till new-house debts be paid off,

The cause that I’m the maist afraid of;

Which lade lies on my single back,

And I maun pay it ilka plack.’

[Sidenote: 1736.]

Else let the legislature relieve him of the burden of his house,

‘By ordering frae the public fund

A sum to pay for what I’m bound;

Syne, for amends for what I’ve lost,

Edge me into some canny post.’

All this was of course but vain prattle. The piece appeared in the

_Gentleman’s Magazine_ (August 1737), and no doubt awoke some sympathy;

but the poet had to bear single-handed the burden of a heavy loss, as a

reward for his spirited attempt to enliven the _beau monde_ of

Edinburgh.

[Sidenote: NOV. 28.]

Amongst other symptoms of a tendency to social enjoyments at this time,

we cannot overlook a marked progress of free-masonry throughout the

country. This day, the festival of the tutelar saint of Scotland, the

Masters and Wardens of forty regular lodges met in St Mary’s Chapel, in

Edinburgh, and unanimously elected as their Grand Master, William

Sinclair, of Roslin, Esq., representative of an ancient though reduced

family, which had been in past ages much connected with free-masonry.

On St John’s Day, 27th December, this act was celebrated by the

freemasons of Inverness, with a procession to the cross in white gloves

and aprons, and with the proper badges, the solemnity being concluded

with ‘a splendid ball to the ladies.’[740]

[Sidenote: 1737. JUNE 30.]

The Edinburgh officials who had been taken to London for examination

regarding the Porteous Riot, being now at liberty to return, there was a

general wish in the city to give them a cordial reception. The citizens

rode out in a great troop to meet them, and the road for miles was lined

with enthusiastic pedestrians. The Lord Provost, Alexander Wilson, from

modesty, eluded the reception designed for him; but the rest came

through the city, forming a procession of imposing length, while bells

rang and bonfires blazed, and the gates of the Netherbow, which had been

removed since the 7th of September last, were put up again amidst the

shouts of the multitude.

A month later, one Baillie, who had given evidence before the Lords’

Committee tending to criminate the magistrates, returned [Sidenote:

1737.] in a vessel from London, and had no sooner set his foot on shore

than he found himself beset by a mighty multitude bent on marking their

sense of his conduct. To collect the people, some seized and rang a

ship’s bell; others ran through the streets ringing small bells. ‘Bloody

Baillie is come!’ passed from mouth to mouth. The poor man, finding that

thousands were gathered for his honour, flung himself into the

stage-coach for Edinburgh, and was solely indebted to a fellow-passenger

of the other sex for the safety in which he reached his home.

Captain Lind, of the Town-guard, having given similar evidence, was

discharged by the town-council; but the government immediately after

appointed him ‘lieutenant in Tyrawley’s regiment of South British

Fusiliers at Gibraltar.’[741]

[Sidenote: 1738. FEB. 3.]

It was still customary to keep recruits in prison till an opportunity

was obtained of shipping them off for service. A hundred young men, who

had been engaged for the Dutch republic in Scotland, had been for some

time confined in the Canongate Tolbooth, where probably their treatment

was none of the best. Disappointed in several attempts at escape, they

turned at length mutinous, and it was necessary to carry four of the

most dangerous to a dungeon in the lower part of the prison. By this the

rest were so exasperated, ‘that they seized one of their officers and

the turnkey, whom they clapped in close custody, and, barricading the

prison-door, bade defiance to all authority. At the same time they

intimated that, if their four comrades were not instantly delivered up

to them, they would send the officer and turnkey to where the d—— sent

his mother; so that their demand was of necessity complied with.’

During all the next day (Saturday) they remained in their fortress

without any communication either by persons coming in or by persons

going out. The authorities revolved the idea of a forcible attempt to

reduce them to obedience; but it seemed better to starve them into a

surrender. On the Sunday evening, their provisions being exhausted, they

beat a chamade and hung out a white flag; whereupon some of their

officers and a few officers of General Whitham’s regiment entered into a

capitulation with them; and, a general amnesty being granted, they

delivered up their stronghold. ‘It is said they threatened, in case of

non-compliance with their articles, to fall instantly about eating the

turnkey.’[742]

[Sidenote: 1738. AUG.]

Isabel Walker, under sentence of death at Dumfries for child-murder,

obtained a reprieve through unexpected means. According to a letter

dated Edinburgh, August 10, 1738, ‘This unhappy creature was destitute

of friends, and had none to apply for her but an only sister, a girl of

a fine soul, that overlooked the improbability of success, and helpless

and alone, went to London to address the great; and solicited so well,

that she got for her, first, a reprieve, and now a remission. Such

another instance of onerous friendship can scarce be shewn; it well

deserved the attention of the greatest, who could not but admire the

virtue, and on that account engage in her cause.’[743]

Helen Walker, who acted this heroic part, was the daughter of a small

farmer in the parish of Irongray. Her sister, who had been under her

care, having concealed her pregnancy, it came to be offered to Helen as

a painful privilege, that she could save the accused if she could say,

on the trial, that she had received any communication from Isabel

regarding her condition. She declared it to be impossible that she

should declare a falsehood even to save a sister’s life; and

condemnation accordingly took place. Helen then made a journey on foot

to London, in the hope of being able to plead for her sister’s life;

and, having almost by accident gained the ear and interest of the Duke

of Argyle, she succeeded in an object which most persons would have said

beforehand was next to unattainable.

Isabel afterwards married her lover, and lived at Whitehaven for many

years. Helen survived till 1791, a poor peasant woman, living by the

sale of eggs and other small articles, or doing country work, but always

distinguished by a quiet self-respect, which prevented any one from ever

talking to her of this singular adventure of her early days. Many years

after she had been laid in Irongray kirkyard, a lady who had seen and

felt an interest in her communicated her story to Sir Walter Scott, who

expanded it into a tale (_The Heart of Mid-Lothian_) of which the chief

charm lies in the character and actings of the self-devoted heroine. It

was one of the last, and not amongst the least worthy, acts of the great

fictionist to raise a monument over her grave, with the following

inscription:

‘This stone was erected by the Author of _Waverley_ to the memory of

HELEN WALKER, who died in the year of God 1791. This humble individual

practised in real life the virtues with which [Sidenote: 1738.] fiction

has invested the imaginary character of JEANIE DEANS; refusing the

slightest departure from veracity, even to save the life of a sister,

she nevertheless shewed her hardiness and fortitude in rescuing her from

the severity of the law, at the expense of personal exertions which the

time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. Respect the grave

of poverty when combined with love of truth and dear affection.’

[Sidenote: 1739. JAN.]

This month was commenced in Edinburgh a monthly miscellany and

chronicle, which long continued to fill a useful place in the world

under the name of the _Scots Magazine_. It was framed on the model of

the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, which had commenced in London eight years

before, and the price of each number was the modest one of sixpence.

Being strictly a _magazine_ or store, into which were collected all the

important newspaper matters of the past month, it could not be

considered as a literary effort of much pretension, though its value to

us as a picture of the times referred to is all the greater. Living

persons connected with periodical literature will hear with a smile that

this respectable miscellany was, about 1763 and 1764, conducted by a

young man, a corrector of the press in the printing-office which

produced it, and whose entire salary for this and other duties was

sixteen shillings a week.[744]

[Sidenote: JAN. 14.]

A hurricane from the west-south-west, commencing at one in the morning,

and accompanied by lightning, swept across the south of Scotland, and

seems to have been beyond parallel for destructiveness in the same

district before or since. The blowing down of chimneys, the strewing of

the streets with tiles and slates, were among the lightest of its

performances. It tore sheet-lead from churches and houses, and made it

fly through the air like paper. In the country, houses were thrown down,

trees uprooted by hundreds, and corn-stacks scattered. A vast number of

houses took fire. At least one church, that of Killearn, was prostrated.

Both on the west and east coast, many ships at sea and in harbour were

damaged or destroyed. ‘At Loch Leven, in Fife, great shoals of perches

and pikes were driven a great way into the fields; so that the country

people got horse-loads of them, and sold them at one penny per hundred.’

The number of casualties to life and limb seems, after all, to have been

small.[745]

[Sidenote: 1730.]

James, second Earl of Rosebery, was one who carried the vices and

follies of his age to such extravagance as to excite a charitable belief

that he was scarcely an accountable person. In his father’s lifetime, he

had been several times in the Old Tolbooth for small debts. In 1726,

after he had succeeded to the family title, he was again incarcerated

there for not answering the summons of the Court of Justiciary ‘for

deforcement, riot, and spulyie.’ A few years later, his estates are

found in the hands of trustees.

At this date, he excited the merriment of the thoughtless, and the

sadness of all other persons, by advertising the elopement of a girl

named Polly Rich, who had been engaged for a year as his servant;

describing her as a London girl, or ‘what is called a Cockney,’ about

eighteen, ‘fine-shaped and blue-eyed,’ having all her linen marked with

his cornet and initials. Two guineas reward were offered to whoever

should restore her to her ‘right owner,’ either at John’s Coffee-house,

or ‘the Earl of Roseberry, at Denham’s Land, Bristow, and no questions

will be asked.’[746]

The potato—introduced from its native South American ground by Raleigh

into Ireland, and so extensively cultivated there in the time of the

civil wars, as to be a succour to the poor when all cereal crops had

been destroyed by the soldiery—transplanted thence to England, but so

little cultivated there towards the end of the seventeenth century, as

to be sold in 1694 at sixpence or eightpence a pound[747]—is first heard

of in Scotland in 1701, when the Duchess of Buccleuch’s household-book

mentions a peck of the esculent as brought from Edinburgh, and costing

2_s._ 6_d._[748] We hear of it in 1733, as used occasionally at supper

in the house of the Earl of Eglintoun, in Ayrshire.[749] About this

time, it was beginning to be cultivated in gardens, but still with a

hesitation about its moral character, for no reader of Shakspeare

requires to be told that some of the more uncontrollable passions of

human nature were supposed to be favoured by its use.[750]

[Sidenote: 1739.]

At the date here noted, a gentleman, styled Robert Graham of Tamrawer,

factor on the forfeited estate of Kilsyth, ventured on the heretofore

unknown step of planting a _field of potatoes_. His experiment was

conducted on a half-acre of ground ‘on the croft of Neilstone, to the

north of the town of Kilsyth.’ It appears that the root was now, and for

a good while after, cultivated only on _lazy beds_. Many persons—amongst

whom was the Earl of Perth, who joined in the insurrection of 1745—came

from great distances to witness so extraordinary a novelty, and inquire

into the mode of culture.

The field-culture of the potato was introduced about 1746 into the

county of Edinburgh by a man named Henry Prentice, who had made a

little money as a travelling-merchant, and was now engaged in

market-gardening.[751] His example was soon extensively followed, and

before 1760 the root was very generally reared in fields, as it is at

present.

[Sidenote: 1740. JAN.]

A frost, which began on the 26th of the previous month, lasted during

the whole of this, and was long remembered for its severity, and the

many remarkable circumstances attending it. We nowhere get a scientific

statement of the temperature at any period of its duration; but the

facts related are sufficient to prove that this was far below any point

ordinarily attained in this country. The principal rivers of Scotland

were frozen over, and there was such a general stoppage of water-mills,

that the knocking-stones usually employed in those simple days for

husking grain in small quantities, and of which there was one at nearly

every cottage-door, were used on this occasion as means of grinding it.

Such mills as had a flow of water, were worked on Sundays as well as

[Sidenote: 1740.] ordinary days. In some harbours, the ships were frozen

up. Food rose to famine prices, and large contributions were required

from the rich to keep the poor alive.

The frost was severe all over the northern portion of Europe. The Thames

at London being thickly frozen over, a fair was held upon it, with a

multitude of shows and popular amusements. At Newcastle, men digging

coal in the pits were obliged to have fires kindled to keep them warm;

and one mine was through this cause ignited permanently. In the

metropolis, coal became so scarce as to reach 70_s._ per chaldron; and

there also much misery resulted among the poor. People perished of cold

in the fields, and even in the streets, and there was a prodigious

mortality amongst birds and other wild animals.

[Sidenote: OCT.]

In consequence of the failure of the crop of this year, Scotland was now

undergoing the distresses attendant upon the scarcity and high price of

provisions. The populace of Edinburgh attacked the mills, certain

granaries in Leith, and sundry meal-shops, and possessed themselves of

several hundred bolls of grain, the military forces being too limited in

number to prevent them. Several of the rioters being captured, a mob

attempted their rescue, and thus led to a fusillade from the soldiery,

by which three persons were wounded, one of them mortally. Great efforts

were made by the magistracy to obtain corn at moderate prices for the

people, by putting in force the laws against reservation of grain from

market, and the dealing in it with a view to profit; also by the more

rational method of subscriptions among the rich for the sale of meal at

comparatively low rates to the poor. The magistrates of Edinburgh also

invited importations of foreign grain (December 19), proclaiming that,

in case of any being seized by mobs, the community should make good the

loss.[752]

[Sidenote: 1741. JULY.]

George Whitfield, whose preachings had been stirring up a great

commotion in England for some years past, came to Scotland, and for a

time held forth at various places in the open air, particularly on the

spot where the Edinburgh Theatre afterwards stood. ‘This gentleman,’

says a contemporary chronicler, ‘recommends the essentials of religion,

and decries the distinguishing punctilios of parties; exclaims against

the moral preachers of the age; preaches the doctrine of free grace

according to the [Sidenote: 1741.] predestinarian scheme; mentions often

the circumstance of his own regeneration, and what success he has had in

his ministerial labours.’[753] Having heard of the late secession from

the Church of Scotland by a set of clergymen reputed to be unusually

sanctimonious, he was eager to fraternise with them, and lost no time in

preaching to the congregation of Mr Ralph Erskine at Dunfermline. But

here he met unexpected difficulties. The Scottish seceders could not

hold out the right hand of fellowship to one who did not unite with them

in their testimony against defective churches. He was a man of too broad

sympathies to suit them; so they parted; and Whitfield from that time

fraternised solely with the established clergy.

[Sidenote: 1742. FEB.]

About this time began a series of religious demonstrations, chiefly

centering at Cambuslang on the Clyde, and long after recognised

accordingly as the _Camb’slang Wark_. Mr Whitfield, in his visit of some

months last year, had stirred up a new zeal in the Established Church.

Mr M‘Culloch, minister of Cambuslang, was particularly inflamed by his

eloquence, and he had all winter been addressing his flock in an

unusually exciting manner. The local fervour waxing stronger and

stronger, a shoemaker and a weaver at length lent their assistance to

it, and now it was breaking out in those transports of terror of

hell-fire, prostrate penitence, and rejoicing re-assurance, which mark

what is called a _revival_. The meetings chiefly took place in a natural

amphitheatre or holm, on the river’s side, and were externally very

picturesque. There seldom was wanting a row of patients in front of the

minister, with their heads tied up, and pitchers of water ready to

recover those who fainted. Early in the summer, Mr Whitfield returned to

Scotland, and immediately came to lend his assistance to the work, both

at Cambuslang, and in the Barony parish of Glasgow. ‘From that time the

multitudes who assembled were more numerous than they had ever been, or

perhaps than any congregation which had ever before been collected in

Scotland; the religious impressions made on the people were apparently

much greater and more general; and the visible convulsive agitations

which accompanied them, exceeded everything of the kind which had yet

been observed.’[754] The clergy of the establishment were pleased with

what was going on, as it served to shew that their lamp was not gone

out, thereby enabling them to hold up their heads against the taunts of

the Secession as to growing [Sidenote: 1742.] lukewarmness and

defection. And they pointed with pathetic earnestness to the many

sinners converted from evil ways, as a proof that real good was done. On

the other hand, the seceders loudly deplored ‘the present awful symptom

of the Lord’s anger with the church and land, in sending them _strong

delusion_, that they should _believe a lie_,’ and ordained a day to be

observed as a fast, in order to avert the evils they apprehended in

consequence.[755] A fierce controversy raged for some time between the

two bodies, as to whether the Camb’slang Wark was of God or of the

Devil, each person being generally swayed in his decision by his love

for, or aversion to, the Established Church. A modern divine just quoted

(Erskine), disclaims for them a miraculous character, but asserts, as

matter of historic verity, that fully four hundred persons at Cambuslang

underwent a permanent religious change, independent of those who were

converted in like manner at Kilsyth. It is understood that the

proceedings of the Associate Synod on the occasion have since been much

deplored by their successors.

[Sidenote: OCT. 10.]

Public attention was strongly roused by an accident of an uncommon kind

which happened in the lowlands of Ross-shire. The church of Fearn parish

was an old Gothic structure covered with a heavy roof of flagstone. This

day, being Sunday, while the parishioners were assembled at worship, the

roof and part of the side-wall gave way, under the pressure of a load of

prematurely fallen snow; and the bulk of the people present were buried

under the ruins. The fortunate arrangement of the seats of the gentry in

the side recesses saved most of that class from injury; and the

minister, Mr Donald Ross, was protected by the sounding-board of his

pulpit. There chanced to be present Mr James Robertson, the minister of

Lochbroom, a man of uncommon personal strength and great dexterity and

courage. He, planting his shoulder under a falling _lintel_, sustained

it till a number of the people escaped. Forty poor people were dug out

dead, and in such a state of mutilation that it was found necessary to

huddle them all into one grave.[756]

[Sidenote: 1743.]

The period of the extinction of wild and dangerous animals in a country

is of some importance, as an indication of its [Sidenote: 1743.] advance

in civilisation, and of the appropriation of its soil for purely

economic purposes. One learns with a start how lately the wolf inhabited

the Highlands of Scotland. It is usually said that the species was

extirpated about 1680 by the famous Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil; but the

tradition to that effect appears to be only true of Sir Ewen’s own

district of Western Inverness-shire, and there is reason to believe that

the year at which this chronicle has arrived is the date of the death of

the last wolf in the entire kingdom. The slayer of the animal is

represented as being a notable Highland deer-stalker of great stature

and strength, named Macqueen of Pall-a’-chrocain, and the Forest of

Tarnaway in Morayland is assigned as the scene of the incident. The

popular Highland narration on the subject is as follows:

‘One winter’s day, about the year before mentioned, Macqueen received a

message from the Laird of Macintosh that a large “black beast,” supposed

to be a wolf, had appeared in the glens, and the day before killed two

children, who, with their mother, were crossing the hills from Calder;

in consequence of which a “Tainchel,” or gathering to drive the country,

was called to meet at a tryst above Fi-Giuthas, where Macqueen was

invited to attend with his dogs. Pall-a’-chrocain informed himself of

the place where the children had been killed, the last tracks of the

wolf, and the conjectures of his haunts, and promised his assistance.

‘In the morning the “Tainchel” had long assembled, and Macintosh waited

with impatience, but Macqueen did not arrive; his dogs and himself were,

however, auxiliaries too important to be left behind, and they continued

to wait until the best of a hunter’s morning was gone, when at last he

appeared, and Macintosh received him with an irritable expression of

disappointment.

‘“_Ciod e a’ chabhag?_—“What was the hurry?” said Pall-a’-chrocain.

‘Macintosh gave an indignant retort, and all present made some impatient

reply.

‘Macqueen lifted his plaid, and drew the black bloody head of the wolf

from under his arm—“_Sin e dhùibh_”—“There it is for you!” said he, and

tossed it on the grass in the midst of the surprised circle.

‘Macintosh expressed great joy and admiration, and gave him the land

called Sean-achan for meat to his dogs.’[757]

[Sidenote: 1743. MAY.]

Owing to a severe spring, a malady called ‘fever and cold’ prevailed in

Edinburgh, and was spreading all over the country. On Sunday, the 8th

May, fifty sick people were prayed for in the city churches, and in the

preceding week there had been seventy burials in the Greyfriars, being

three times the usual number.

[Sidenote: JULY.]

For a number of years, the six independent companies of armed

Highlanders, commonly called the Reicudan Dhu, or Black Watch, had been

effective in keeping down that system of cattle-lifting which ancient

prejudice had taught the Highlanders generally to regard as only a kind

of clan warfare. But in 1739, the government was induced to form these

companies into a regular regiment for service in the foreign war then

entered upon; and in March of this year, they were actually sent into

England, leaving the Highlands without adequate protection. The

consequence was an immediate revival of old practices.

In July of this year, it was reported to the Edinburgh newspapers that

the highlands of Nairnshire were absolutely infested with depredators,

who came by day as well as night, and drove off the cattle, not

scrupling to kill the inhabitants when they were resisted. The

proprietors were trying to form a watch or guard for the country; but

these people often fell into complicity with the spoilers, or entered on

a similar career themselves. The greatest confusion and difficulty

prevailed, and other districts were soon after involved in the same

calamitous grievance.

One day in October, a party of nine _cearnochs_ or _caterans_, well

armed, came from Rannoch into Badenoch, and laid a large part of the

district under contribution, ‘forcing the people to capitulate for their

lives at the expense of all they possessed,’ and carrying off a great

quantity of sheep. The gentlemen of the district hastily assembled with

some of their people, but felt greatly at a loss on account of their

want of arms. Nevertheless, with a few old weapons, they resolved to

attack the depredators. A smoke seen on a distant hillside led them to

the place where the robbers were halting. Their firearms were by this

time useless with wet; yet they fell on with great courage, and obtained

a victory, at the expense of a wound to one of their party. Four of the

offenders were secured, and carried to the prison at Ruthven.[758] It

was hoped that the fate of this party would deter others; but the hope

was not realised.

[Sidenote: 1743.]

In March 1744, a general meeting of the gentlemen of the district of

Badenoch took into consideration the sad state of their country. It was

represented that, owing to the frequent thefts committed, the tenants

were on the brink of utter ruin: some who paid not above fifteen pounds

of rent, had suffered losses to the extent of a hundred. Evan Macpherson

of Cluny, the leading man of the district, and a person of activity and

intelligence, had been repeatedly entreated to undertake the formation

and management of an armed watch, to be supported from such small

contributions as could be raised; but he regarded the country as too

poor to support such an establishment as would be necessary. Yet he now

told them that, unless the king could protect them, he could suggest no

other course than the putting of their own and the neighbouring

districts under persons who could guard the country by their own armed

retainers, and guarantee the restitution of lost goods to all such as

would contribute to the necessary funds.

On the entreaty of his neighbours, Cluny, in May, did muster a number of

his people, of honest character, whom he planted at the several passes

through which predatory incursions were made, ‘giving them most strict

orders that these passes should be punctually travelled and watched

night and day, for keeping off, intercepting, seizing, and imprisoning

the villains, as occasion offered, and as strictly forbidding and

discharging them to act less or more in the ordinary way of other

undertakers [leviers of black-mail], who, instead of suppressing theft,

do greatly support it, by currying the favour of the thieves, and

gratifying them for their diverting of the weight of theft from such

parts of the countries as pay the undertaker for their protection, to

such parts as do not pay them.’

Cluny is allowed to have tolerably well effected his purpose. The

thieves, being hemmed in by him, and reduced to great straits, offered

to keep his own lands skaithless if he would cease to guard those of his

neighbours, a proposal to which, as might be expected, he gave no heed.

They tried to evade his vigilance by taking a _spreath_ of cattle from

Strathnairn by boats across Loch Ness, instead of by the ordinary route;

but he then set guards on the ferries of Loch Ness, albeit at a great

additional expense. The lands of gentlemen who declined to contribute

were as safe as those in the opposite circumstances. He was even able to

restore some cattle taken from distant places, as Banffshire,

Strathallan, and the Colquhoun’s grounds near Dumbarton.[759]

[Sidenote: 1743.]

The Rev. Mr Lapslie, writing in 1795 the statistical account of his

parish of Campsie, remarks with a feeling of wonder the fact that, so

recently as 1744, his father ‘paid black-mail to Macgregor of Glengyle,

in order to prevent depredations being made upon his property; Macgregor

engaging, upon his part, to secure him from suffering any _hardship_

[hership, that is, despoliation], as it was termed; and he faithfully

fulfilled the contract; engaging to pay for all sheep which were carried

away, if above the number of seven, which he styled a _lifting_; if

below seven, he only considered it a piking; and for the honour of this

warden of the Highland march, Mr John Lapslie having got fifteen sheep

lifted in the commencement of the year 1745, Mr Macgregor actually had

taken measures to have their value restored, when the rebellion broke

out, and put an end to any further payment of black-mail, and likewise

to Mr Macgregor’s self-created wardenship of the Highland borders.’[760]

[Sidenote: OCT.]

We have seen that an abortive attempt was made in 1678 to set up a

stage-coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow.[761] Nothing more is heard of

such a scheme till the present date, when John Walker, merchant in

Edinburgh, proposed to the town council of Glasgow the setting up of a

stage-coach between the two towns, for six persons, twice a week, for

twenty weeks in summer, and once a week during the rest of the year,

receiving ten shillings per passenger, provided that he should have the

sale of two hundred tickets per annum guaranteed.[762] This effort was

likewise abortive.

It was not till 1758, when the population of Glasgow had risen to about

thirty-five thousand, that a regular conveyance for passengers was

established between the two cities. It was drawn by four horses, and the

journey of forty-two miles was performed in twelve hours, the passengers

stopping to dine on the way. Such was the only stage-coach on that

important road for thirty years, nor during that time did any

acceleration take place. A young lady of Glasgow, of distinguished

beauty, having to travel to Edinburgh about 1780, a lover towards whom

she was not very favourably disposed, took all the remaining tickets,

was of course her sole companion on the journey, entertained her at

dinner, and otherwise found such means of pressing his suit, that she

soon after became his wife. This was, so far as it goes, a very pretty

piece [Sidenote: 1743.] of stage-coach romance; but, unluckily, the

lover was unworthy of his good-fortune, and the lady, in a state of

worse than widowhood, was, a few years after, the subject of the

celebrated Clarinda correspondence of Burns.

Mr Palmer, the manager of the Bath Theatre, having succeeded in

introducing his smart stage-coaches, one was established, in July 1788,

between London and Glasgow, performing the distance (405 miles) in

sixty-five hours. This seems to have led to an improvement in the

conveyances between Edinburgh and the western city. Colin M‘Farlane, of

the Buck’s Head Inn of Glasgow, announced, in the ensuing October, his

having commenced a four-seated coach between the two cities every lawful

day at eleven o’clock, thus permitting mercantile men to transact

business at the banks and public offices before starting. ‘In most of

the coaches running at present,’ says he, ‘six are admitted, and three

into a chaise, which proves very disagreeable for passengers _to be so

situated for a whole day_. The inconvenience is entirely removed by the

above plan.... Owing to the lightness of the carriage, and frequent

change of horses, she arrives at Glasgow and Edinburgh as soon as the

carriages that set off early in the morning.’ ‘Price of the tickets from

both towns, 9_s._ 6_d._’[763] Notwithstanding this provocative to

emulation, ‘the Diligence’ for Edinburgh was announced in 1789 as

starting from the Saracen’s Head each morning at nine, ‘_or at any other

hour the two first passengers might agree on_.’[764] It was not till

1799 that the time occupied by a stage-coach journey between these two

cities was reduced so low as even six hours, being still an hour and a

half beyond the time ultimately attained before the opening of the

railway in 1842.

[Sidenote: 1744.]

For some years the use of tea had been creeping in amongst nearly all

ranks of the people. It was thought by many reflecting persons, amongst

whom was the enlightened Lord President Forbes, to be in many respects

an improper diet, expensive, wasteful of time, and calculated to render

the population weakly and effeminate. During the course of this year,

there was a vigorous movement all over Scotland for getting the use of

tea abated. Towns, parishes, and counties passed resolutions

condemnatory of the Chinese leaf, and pointing strongly to the manlier

attractions of beer. The tenants of William Fullarton [Sidenote: 1744.]

of Fullarton, in Ayrshire, in a bond they entered into on the occasion,

thus delivered themselves: ‘We, being all farmers by profession, think

it needless to restrain ourselves formally from indulging in that

foreign and consumptive luxury called _tea_; for when we consider the

_slender constitutions_ of many of higher rank, amongst whom it is used,

we conclude that it would be but an improper diet to qualify us for the

more _robust_ and _manly_ parts of our business; and therefore we shall

only give our testimony against it, and leave the enjoyment of it

altogether to those who can afford to be _weak_, _indolent_, and

_useless_.’

[Sidenote: 1745. OCT.]

Lord Lovat, writing to the Lord President Forbes on the 20th of this

month, adverts to the effect of the civil broils in giving encouragement

to men of prey in the Highlands. He says: ‘This last fortnight, my

cousin William [Fraser], Struie’s uncle, that is married to Kilbockie’s

daughter, and who is a very honest man, and she a good woman, had twenty

fine cows stolen from him. The country [that is, the country people]

went upon _the track_, and went into Lochaber and to Rannoch, and came

up with the thieves in my Lord Breadalbane’s forest of Glenurchy. The

thieves, upon seeing the party that pursued them, abandoned the cattle,

and ran off; and William brought home his cattle, but had almost died,

and all that was with him, of fatigue, cold, and hunger; but, indeed, it

is the best-followed track that ever I heard of in any country. You see

how loose the whole country is, when four villains durst come a hundred

miles, and take up the best cattle they could find in this country; for

they think there is no law, and that makes them so insolent.’[765]

The practice of stealing cattle in the Highlands has already been

several times alluded to, as well as the system of compromise called

_black-mail_, by which honest people were enabled in some degree to

secure themselves against such losses. Down to 1745, there does not

appear to have been any very sensible abatement of this state of things,

notwithstanding the keeping up of the armed companies, professedly for

the maintenance of law and order. Perhaps the black-mail caused there

being less robbery than would otherwise have been the case, and also the

occasional restoration of property which had been taken away; but it was

of course necessary for the exactors of the mail to allow at least as

much despoliation as kept up the occasion for the tax. [Sidenote: 1745.]

Mr Graham of Gartmore, writing on this subject immediately after the

close of the rebellion, enters into a calculation of the entire losses

to the Highlands through robbery and its consequences.

‘It may be safely affirmed,’ he says, ‘that the horses, cows, sheep, and

goats yearly stolen in that country are in value equal to £5000, and

that the expenses lost in the fruitless endeavours to recover them, will

not be less than £2000; that the extraordinary expenses of keeping

[neat-]herds and servants to look more narrowly after cattle on account

of stealing, otherwise not necessary, is £10,000. There is paid in

black-mail or watch-money, openly or privately, £5000; and there is a

yearly loss, by understocking the grounds, by reason of thefts, of at

least £15,000; which is altogether a loss to landlords and farmers in

the Highlands of £37,000 a year.

‘... The person chosen to command this _watch_, as it is called, is

commonly one deeply concerned in the thefts himself, or at least that

hath been in correspondence with the thieves, and frequently who hath

occasioned thefts in order to make this watch, by which he gains

considerably, necessary. The people employed travel through the country

armed, night and day, under pretence of inquiring after stolen cattle,

and by this means know the situation and circumstances of the whole

country. And as the people thus employed are the very rogues that do

these mischiefs, so one half of them are continued in their former

businesses of stealing, that the business of the other half may be

necessary in recovering.... Whoever considers the shameful way these

watches were managed, particularly by Barrisdale and the Macgregors, in

the west ends of Perth and Stirling shires, will easily see into the

spirit, nature, and consequences of them.’[766]

Pennant informs us that many of the lifters of black-mail ‘were wont to

insert an article by which they were to be released from their

agreement, in case of any civil commotion; thus, at the breaking out of

the last rebellion, a Macgregor (who assumed the name of Graham), who

had with the strictest honour till that event preserved his friends’

cattle, immediately sent them word that from that time they were out of

his protection, and must now take care of themselves.’

The same author justly remarks the peculiar code of morality which

circumstances, partly political, had brought into existence [Sidenote:

1745.] in the Highlands, whereby cattle-stealing came to be considered

rather as a gallant military enterprise than as theft. He says the young

men regarded a proficiency in it as a recommendation to their

mistresses. Here, however, it must be admitted, we only find the

disastrous results of a general civil disorder arising from political

disaffection and antagonisms.

Both Gartmore and Mr Pennant speak of ‘Barrisdale’ as a person who at

this time stood in great notoriety as a levier of black-mail, or, as

Barrisdale himself might have called it, a protector of the country.

Descended from a branch of the Glengarry family, his father had obtained

from the contemporary Glengarry, on wadset, permission to occupy a

considerable tract of ground named Barrisdale, on the south side of Loch

Hourn, and from this he had hereditarily derived the appellative by

which he was most generally known, while his real name was Coll

MacDonell, and his actual residence was at Inverie, on Loch Nevis.

Although the government had kept up a barrack and garrison at Glenelg

since 1723, Barrisdale carried on his practice as a cattle-protector

undisturbed for a course of years, drawing a revenue of about five

hundred a year from a large district, in which there were many persons

that might have been expected to give him opposition. According to

Pennant, ‘he behaved with genuine honour in restoring, on proper

consideration, the stolen cattle of his friends.... He was indefatigable

in bringing to justice any rogues that interfered with his own. He was a

man of a polished behaviour, fine address, and fine person. He

considered himself in a very high light, as a benefactor to the public,

and preserver of general tranquillity, for on the silver plates, the

ornaments of his baldric, he thus addresses his broadsword:

“Hæ tibi sunt artes, pacis componere mores;

Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.”[767]

At the breaking out of the rebellion, Barrisdale and his son acted as

partisans of the Stuart cause, the latter in an open manner, the

consequence of which was his being named in the act of attainder. During

the frightful time of vengeance that followed upon Culloden, the father

made some sort of submission to the government troops, which raised a

rumour that he had undertaken to assist in securing and delivering up

the fugitive [Sidenote: 1745.] prince. What truth or falsehood there

might be in the allegation, no one could now undertake to certify; but

certain it is, that, when a party of the Camerons were preparing, in

September 1746, to leave the country with Prince Charles in a French

vessel, they seized the Barrisdales, father and son, as culprits, and

carried them to France, where they underwent imprisonment, first at St

Malo, and afterwards at Saumur, for about a year. It was at the same

time reported to London that the troops had found, in Barrisdale’s

house, ‘a hellish engine for extorting confession, and punishing such

thieves as were not in his service. It is all made of iron, and stands

upright; the criminal’s neck, hands, and feet are put into it, by which

he’s in a sloping posture, and can neither sit, lie, nor stand.’[768]

This report must also remain in some degree a matter of doubt.

The younger Barrisdale, making his escape from the French prison,

returned to the wilds of Inverness-shire, and was there allowed for a

time to remain in peace. The father, liberated when Prince Charles was

expelled from France, also returned to Scotland; but he had not been

more than two days at his house in Knoydart, when a party from Glenelg

apprehended him. Being placed as a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, he died

there in June 1750, after a confinement of fourteen months. The son was

in like manner seized in July 1753, in a wood on Loch-Hourn-side, along

with four or five other gentlemen in the same circumstances, and

imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. He was condemned upon the act of

attainder to die in the Grassmarket on the 22d of May 1754, and while he

lay under sentence, his wife, who attended him, brought a daughter into

the world.[769] He was, however, reprieved from time to time, and

ultimately, after nine years’ confinement, received a pardon in March

1762, took the oath of allegiance to George III., and was made a captain

in Colonel Graeme’s regiment, being the same which was afterwards so

noted under the name of the _Forty-second_. When Mr John Knox made his

tour of the West Highlands in 1786, to propagate the faith in

herring-curing and other modern arts of peace, he found

‘Barrisdale’—that name so associated with an ancient and ruder state of

things—residing at the place from which he was named. ‘He lives,’ says

the traveller, ‘in silent retirement upon a slender income, and seems by

his appearance, conversation, and deportment, to have merited a better

fate. He is about six feet high, [Sidenote: 1745.] proportionally made,

and was reckoned one of the handsomest men of the age. He is still a

prisoner, in a more enlarged sense, and has no society excepting his own

family, and that of Mr Macleod of Arnisdale. Living on opposite sides of

the loch, their communications are not frequent.’[770]

It seems not inappropriate that this record of the old life of Scotland

should end with an article in which we find the associations of the

lawless times of the Highlands inosculating with the industrial

proceedings of a happier age. A further extension of our domestic annals

would shew how the good movements of the last fifteen years were now

accelerated, and how our northern soil became, in the course of little

more than a lifetime, one of the fairest scenes of European

civilisation. Fully to describe this period—its magnificent industries,

its rapid growth of intelligence, of taste, of luxury, the glories it

achieved in literature, science, and art—would form a noble task; but it

is one which would need to be worked out on a plan different from the

present work, and which I should gladly see undertaken by some son of

Caledonia who may have more power than I to do her story justice, though

he cannot love or respect her more.