|
IMPROVEMENTS ON THE RIVER-GLENCAPLE
QUAY AND VILLAGE FORMED-KINGHOLM QUAY CONSTRUCTED -INCREASE OF TRADE
-SMUGGLING -THE DOCK TREES PLANTED - MOORHEAD'S HOSPITAL BUILT AND
ENDOWEDAGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS- ANCIENT VALUE OF LAND IN DUMFRIESSHIRE-THE
QUEENSBERRY FAMILY-THE SCOTTS OF BUCCLEUCH, AND THEIR INTRODUCTION INTO
THE COUNTY-BURGHAL IMPROVEMENTS, AND PECUNIARY DIFFICULTIES - A FRESH
LEASE OF THE ALE DUTY ACT OBTAINED.
THOUGH Dumfries was greatly
put about, and severely dealt with by the rebels, it soon recovered its
equanimity. Except for the difficulty experienced in connection with their
exactions, we find no impress of their visit in the records of the
following year. How to improve the navigation, and thereby foster the
rising trade of the port, was a question that engaged much of the
Council's attention in 1746. About the beginning of the century, buoys had
been placed in the lower reaches of the river, and something was done to
remove obstructions from its channel; but it had no harbour worthy of the
name. In order to supply this felt want, a committee was appointed in
March, who presented a report in the following month, from which it
appeared that the chief merchants and shipmasters had, at a conference
held with them, expressed their opinion that the best site for the
proposed harbour was at Glencaple Burnfoot, in the parish of Carlaverock;
also that ground, measuring six acres, "for building warehouses upon, and
other conveniences," had been laid out there by Mr. Mercer, mathematician,
according to a plan produced; and that, on the committee offering to
purchase the land from its proprietor, William Maxwell of Nithsdale, that
gentleman "had frankly agreed to make a compliment" of it to the Burgh. A
second committee were named to carry this proposal into effect, the
instructions given to them being that they should cause a search to be
made for a stone quarry near Glencaple, in order that building materials
might be conveniently obtained, should make other requisite provisions for
constructing the harbour, and should confer with the merchants in town who
were not members of Council, as to the best mode of defraying the cost of
the operations. The
quay appears to have been completed in the course of the following year.
Soon afterwards, houses began to rise up on the hillside overlooking it,
and originating the pretty little village of Glencaple, which contains at
present about six hundred inhabitants. In the summer of 1749, a beacon, to
direct the course of vessels passing from the Solway into the Nith, was
erected on Southerness Point; its dimensions being fourteen feet square at
the base, two feet and a half thick in the shaft, and thirty feet high. As
the Nithsdale family had shown their continued interest in the welfare of
the Burgh by the free grant to it of land for the harbour, and also by
allowing a search to be made for building-stones in the neighbourhood, the
Council reciprocated this kindly feeling, by enacting that all goods
passing the bridge for the use of Mr. Maxwell and his successors, should
be exempt from duty, a regulation that is still in force.
Another smaller quay was commenced at Kingholm,
about a mile below the town, before Glencaple quay was finished. Both were
appointed as places of discharge towards the close of 1746; and on the
15th May, 1747, Glencaple quay was first turned to practical account, by
having a cargo of Maryland tobacco landed there by the good ship "
Success," the property of ex-Provost Crosbie, merchant.
With greater facilities for trade, the exports
as well as the imports increased: salt, made from sea-sleich, on the
Ruthwell shore, had long figured as an article of commerce; and freights
of wood, linen cloth, and of leather, from tanneries established in the
town, were subsequently added. Smuggling grew in a ratio with the
legitimate traffic of the port. It seems to have reached its climax in
1752. During that year it became so systematic and audacious, that the
revenue authorities in London were led to make special inquiries regarding
it; and the statement returned in answer revealed a very unsatisfactory
condition of affairs. "We have reason to believe," said the Dumfries
collector, "that the representation [made by the Board] is so far true,
that considerable quantities of foreign spirits, wine, tea, and other
goods, have been run in our district for many years past, in open boats,
from the Isle of Man; that the smugglers run these goods in fleets of
boats, ten or twelve at a time, each of which carries twenty-seven or
twenty-eight small casks; that they come in upon the coast at
spring-tides, in the night-time, and disperse to different places; that
their carriers and assistants are attending upon the shore to receive
their cargoes; that they have slings of ropes fitted for the carriage of
two casks upon each horse, and in a few minutes after the boats land,
receive their carriage and ride off, and before daylight hide the goods
many miles distant from the shore, and no doubt convey the greatest part
of them into England." Busy rumour represented to the London Board that
the contraband articles were transmitted South from the Solway coast by
"great gangs of smugglers armed and disguised;" but the local officer,
whilst admitting that the lawless deeds above detailed were of habitual
occurrence, doubted the existence of these disguised desperadoes: so that
they may be looked upon as somewhat mythical; and, indeed, the running
fraternity were so favoured by the country folks that they scarcely
required either to mask themselves or their operations.
Whilst increased attention was being paid to
the river, its "braes" opposite the Castledykes quarry were partially
embanked, and the Dock acquired a heritage of sylvan beauty with which it
is still enriched. The Town Council having, for "the good and ornament" of
the meadow, wisely resolved to plant a portion of it with trees, were
supplied with a number of choice young limes for this purpose from their
ducal patron's grounds at Drumlanrig - his Grace sending down his own
gardener, John Clark, to see the precious saplings properly rooted in
their new home. This important esthetic operation was performed in the
autumn of 1748. The trees numbered at first eighty or more; and though now
reduced to thirty-five, they constitute a double woodland row of imposing
aspect, for which the inhabitants entertain a feeling of reverence
bordering on that cherished by our Druidical ancestors for their groves of
oak. About ninety years afterwards, upwards of a hundred young trees were
planted, by which the lime-shaded walk was gracefully continued in single
file to the foot of the Dock.
Scarcely had the trees from Drumlanrig got
accustomed to their fresh soil, than the walls of a new public building
began to peer down upon them from the adjoining Kirkgate, and to form an
interesting feature of that ancient thoroughfare. This was Moorhead's
Hospital, designed as a domestic retreat for decayed burgesses and
destitute orphans, natives of the town. On the 27th of November, 1739,
James Moorhead, tenant of Castledykes, and merchant in Dumfries, executed
a deed of mortification, by which he bequeathed £150 for this object. By a
second deed, of the same date, he joined with his brothergerman William
Moorhead, merchant in Carlisle, in mortifying for it £400 - the proportion
of this sum contributed by the latter being £100; and, according to the
terms of the settlement, the £400 was not payable till the first term of
Whitsunday or Martinmas after the decease of the longest liver of the two.
William, the survivor, having died towards the close of 1745, the sum
(with interest, £79 0s. 3d.) became due at Whitsunday, 1747. The other
smaller sum was not available till the 18th of June, 1752, by which time
the interest on it had swelled the amount to £232 10s. These figures
brought the bequests for the Hospital up to the handsome sum of £711 10s.
3d.; and with it the administrators of the trust, consisting of the Town
Council, the two parish ministers, Mr. Robert Wight, Mr. John Scott, and
the Kirk Session, were enabled to carry it into full effect. Some old
tenements opposite St. Michael's Church were purchased and cleared away in
order that a suitable site might be obtained. A contract was entered into
with -James Harley, " late deacon of the squaremen in Dumfries," according
to which he agreed to erect the building for £564, and it was duly
completed and opened in the summer of 1753. A small balance of £52
remained after all expenses had been paid. The funds of the charity were
enriched by a donation of £300 from "the good Duke," and it was further
endowed by the legitimate application of various sums mortified for behoof
of the Dumfries poor, so that an annual revenue sufficient to maintain
from forty to fifty inmates was secured.
The benevolent brothers to whom the town is
indebted for this excellent institution intended that it should to some
extent be a workhouse in the modern sense of that term. Accordingly, the
third rule drawn up by the directors, "relating to the behaviour of the
poor," required "that all who shall be employed in any labour shall repair
to such rooms in the house as are appointed for that purpose; and such
poor as are capable of working out of the house" shall be permitted by the
master to do so, he allowing them in each case a penny for every shilling
of their earnings; and by a resolution of the directors of the Hospital in
1756, the sum of £60 was drawn from its funds, to be laid out in buying
lint for improving the poorer sort of people in the town and parish of
Drumfries to spin into yarn." For a long period the house has been
exclusively a charitable asylum for old people who had seen better days,
and for orphan children who receive in it maintenance, education, and
guardianship. Its directors have long since ceased to take oversight of
the ordinary poor; but by means of legacies left by Mr. Hunter, Mr.
Raining, and Mrs. Archibald, they allow small out-door pensions to some
twenty-six elderly widows whose dwellings have been left
comfortless-perhaps desolate-by the death of their natural protectors. The
annual expenditure of the Hospital has sometimes exceeded £600; latterly,
including the annuities, it has been limited to about £400. Moorhead's
Hospital is a plain, homely building: the interest attached to it arises
from the unobtrusive benefactions of which it is the source, and which
give to it in our eyes more than architectural beauty. Honoured in the
Burgh through all time be the memory of its liberal-hearted founders!
Soon after the second Rebellion, increased
attention was paid to tillage by the farmers of Nithsdale. Fields were
enclosed waste lands were reclaimed; shell-marl and lime lent their
fertilizing influence to the soil-the culture of the potato was commenced,
and afterwards of the turnip; the former supplying a cheap article of diet
for all classes, and rendering dearths less frequent; the latter
furnishing food for stock, and permitting the cattle trade of the locality
to be developed. On the Ayr bank being opened, in 1760, not a few landed
proprietors around Dumfries were enabled by its aid to carry out extensive
improvements. When intelligence, enterprise, and capital are jointly
devoted to a given purpose, they are not easily baffled. Employed upon the
husbandry of the district, great results were accomplished, which added to
its productive value and scenic beauty. In the year just named the great
military road was formed from the County town through Galloway to
Portpatrick; and about twelve years later another leading artery of
traffic was opened up-the road from Gretna, by Ecclefechan, Lockerbie, and
Moffat, into Peebleshire. Thus, whilst Dumfries was being improved
externally, the valley in which it rises was growing in rural wealth, and
new channels were constructed for its increasing trade.
During the reign of Cromwell, the rents of
Dumfriesshire were computed at 238,031 merks, or £13,223 18s. 4d. A
hundred years afterwards, the value of the land was threefold that amount
at least; in 1795 it had risen to 800 per cent. since 1656; in 1808 this
augmented sum was doubled, and the lands of the County were yielding
sixteen times the rent drawn from them at the time of the Protectorate.
[Forty-two Scotch acres of "ploughable land" belonging to Dumfries at
Kingholm were let at an annual rent of £22 sterling in 1712; sixty acres
of the same estate brought a rent of £150 in 1817, and were sold in 1827
for £6,300.] A small property in Dunscore, that was purchased in 1756 for
£142, yielded a rent of £160 fifty years afterwards; the large estate of
Netherwood, which brought only £4,000 in 1740, was sold for £30,000 in
1790; and, generally speaking, the rents of other land around Dumfries
experienced a nearly corresponding advance during the half century which
followed the introduction of the improvements that have been referred to.
Though the Maxwells suffered severely for
their loyalty to the House of Stuart, they still continued to be the
leading proprietors of Lower Nithsdale. John, Lord Maxwell, came into
possession of the family estate on the death of his father, the
expatriated Jacobite chief, in 1744. He died in 1776, and his sole
surviving child, Lady Winifred, having married William Haggerston
Constable of Everingham, an English stem was grafted on the stock of this
ancient and honoured Scottish house. The Johnstones, Douglasses, Murrays,
Jardines, Kirkpatricks, Griersons, and Herrieses, were still, as in the
old fighting times, large landholders in the County. Its principal
proprietor at this period, was Charles, third Duke of Queens, berry. In
1706, his father, "the Union Duke," resigned into the hands of the Queen
his titles of Duke of Queensberry, Marquis of Dumfriesshire, Earl of
Drumlanrig and Sanquhar, Viscount of Nith, Torthorwald, and Ross, and Lord
Douglas of Kinmount, Middlebie, and Dornock, for a new patent, granting
those titles to him and his heirs of entail, male or female, succeeding to
the estate of Queensberry, with this proviso, that such heirs of entail
should be descended from William, the first Earl. In this resignation, the
titles of Marquis, and Earl of Queensberry, Viscount of Drumlanrig, Lord
Douglas of Hawick and Tibbers, were not included, so that their descent to
his heirs male was not affected by the change.
His third son, Charles, who succeeded him in
1711, died, after a long life of active benevolence, on the 22nd of
October, 1778, in his eightieth year. He possessed the largest and the
most valuable estate in Dumfriesshire, extending to above 150,000 acres,
lying chiefly in the upper part of Nithsdale, and, as we have seen, did
much to promote the interests of the County town, where he was exceedingly
popular. At the request of the magistrates, he sat for his portrait in
1769; and the picture, which represents a mild, pleasant, portly face, in
keeping with his character of goodness, graces the Town Hall in company
with the portraits of William and Mary. A neat Doric pillar, erected in
Queensberry Square, commemorates the virtues of this nobleman, and
testifies to the merited respect in which his character was held by the
inhabitants of the County.
As he lost his sons-two in number-during his
lifetime, certain British titles conferred upon him, and his Scottish
earldom of Solway, became extinct; whilst the dukedom of Queensberry, with
very large estates, both in England and Scotland, devolved on his cousin
William, Earl of March, who died unmarried so recently as 1810. [This
nobleman was, in his "hot youth," a great patron of the turf. In 1756 he
rode a match in person, dressed in his own running stable livery, and won
the stakes. In maturer life he abandoned horse-racing, and betook himself
to recreations in literature, natural history, and the fine arts. A
collection of shells made by him was the finest at the time in Britain.]
In him terminated the male line of William, first Duke of Queensberry; and
in virtue of the patent issued in 1706, and of an entail executed by the
second Duke, the titles of Duke of Queensberry, Marquis of Dumfriesshire,
Earl of Drumlanrig and Sanquhar, Viscount of Nith, Torthorwald, and Ross,
Lord Douglas of Kinmount, Middlebie, and Dornock, with the barony of
Drumlanrig, and other extensive property in the County, devolved on Henry,
third Duke of Buccleuch, the heir of line of the Queensberry family, who
was thenceforward designated Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. [This
nobleman, who died in 1811, was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles
William Henry. He died in 1814, leaving, by his Duchess, Harriet Katherine
Townshead, youngest daughter of Viscount Sydney, two sons, Walter Francis,
Earl of Dalkeith, who succeeded him, Lord John Douglas Scott, who died in
1860, and six daughters. Walter Francis Montague Douglas Scott, the
nobleman who now worthily wears the united dukedoms of Buccleuch and
Queensberry, with numerous other titles, was born on the 25th November,
1806; married, 13th August, 1829, Lady Charlotte Thynne, youngest daughter
of the second Marquis of Bath, and has issue, William Henry Walter, Earl
of Dalkeith, Lord-Lieutenant of Dumfriesshire and M.P. for Edinburghshire;
Lord Henry John, M.P. for Selkirkshire; Lord Walter Charles; Lord Charles
Thomas; Lady Victoria Alexandrina, married to Lord Schomberg-Kerr in 1865;
Lady Margaret Elizabeth; and Lady Mary Charlotte.] In this way the famous
old Border family of the Scotts became the leading one in Dumfriesshire;
their yearly rental amounting to £74,271 in 1863; while that of the
original Queensberry family, [Sir Charles Douglas, who succeeded as fifth
Marquis of Queensberry, was descended from Sir William Douglas of Kelhead,
second son of the first Earl of Queensberry. He was succeeded by his third
eldest surviving son, Sir James Douglas, who by his wife Catherine,
daughter of the second Earl of Queensberry, had a son, Sir William, the
third baronet. The latter was in turn succeeded by his eldest son, Sir
John, who was chosen as the member for Dumfriesshire in 1741. His eldest
son, Sir William, who became the fifth baronet, was at one time
representative of the Dumfries burghs. By his wife, the daughter and
coheir of William Johnstone of Lockerbie, he had five sons and three
daughters-the eldest of whom, Sir Charles, as stated in the text, became
fifth Marquis of Queensberry. He married Caroline Montague, third daughter
of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, by whom he had five
daughters. He was succeeded by his brother John, who married Sarah,
daughter of James Sholto Douglas. Their son, Archibald William, was, as
Viscount Drumlanrig, elected M.P. for Dumfriesshire in 1847. He married
the daughter of Major-General Sir William Robert Clayton, Baronet, and had
issue, four sons and two daughters. Soon after becoming seventh Marquis of
Queensberry, he was killed by the accidental discharge of his gun, at
Kinmount, on the 6th of August, 1858. His eldest son, John Sholto Douglas,
born 20th July, 1844, succeeded him, as the eighth Marquis of Queensberry;
and married, in 1866, Sybil, second daughter of Alfred Montgomery, third
son of Sir Henry Conynham Montgomery, Bart. ] represented by the
descendants of Sir Charles Douglas of Kelhead, amounted, in the same year,
only to £12,229. For
awhile the burghal authorities were much engaged with the erection of the
Hospital, and in getting it put into good working order. Afterwards we
find them busy opening up a new line of street, leading from Lochmaben-gate
to the Townhead; widening the way at that entrance to the Burgh, expanding
a narrow passage-Calvert's Vennel-running from High Street to the river's
edge, now called Bank Street ; building a salt market in it; and adopting
means for improving the lighting of the principal thoroughfares. These
operations increased the debt upon the town; and how to make the income
cover the expenditure was a sort of chronic difficulty, which often drove
the Town Council to their wits' end. In order to get rid of its pressure
for a season, borrowing money at a heavy rate of interest was often
resorted to; and Mr. Richard Lowthian, formerly noticed as Prince
Charlie's host, was the millionaire to whom the Council frequently applied
in time of need. In 1752 they became his debtor in £2,000 at one sweep;
and soon afterwards they had, as already noticed, to adopt the retrograde
course of selling a public establishment-the coffee-house or news-room in
High Street, which was bought by that gentleman's son. To aggravate
matters, the Act imposing a duty on ale and tonnage was about to expire.
The authorities could scarcely get on with the aid thus afforded them:
were it to stop, their credit would be in danger of stopping too. A
resolution was therefore formed to obtain, if possible, the renewal of the
Act. Entrusted with a mission of this nature, Mr. Mackenzie, town clerk,
proceeded in February, 1762, to London-not on horseback, like his
predecessors on a similar errand a quarter of a century before, but in a
chaise; and after an absence of less than six weeks, he returned, in the
same kind of conveyance, with the agreeable announcement that a bill for
continuing the duties other twenty-five years had received the royal
assent. The bill of 1737 cost, exclusive of personal charges, the sum of
£157; that of 1762, £270; the latter amount including £56 as fees for the
second reading in the House of Commons. In the former case the personal
expenses of Provost Corrie and Mr. Goldie, his colleague, were under £14,
while those of Mr. Mackenzie were nearly £37; his chaise hire and charges
on the road absorbing about one half of that sum. So well satisfied were
the Town Council with that gentleman's good management in the matter, that
they voted him a "gratification" of ten guineas, which, however, he
declined to take; and the Council, not to be outdone in generosity,
constrained him to accept a set of silver tea-spoons. This fact, trifling
in itself, is only noticed as introductory to a remark that the Council
books, at this period and during a rougher age, give abundant evidence
that the Shylock style of driving a hard bargain, or adhering stubbornly
to the letter of an exactive bond, was not the practice of our ancestors. |
