During this period, the affairs of
Scotland were in a marked degree subordinate to those of England. The
king, absorbed in continental wars and continental politics, paid little
attention to his northern kingdom; he left it chiefly to the care of its
state-officers, using as a medium of his own influence, William Carstares,
a Presbyterian minister of extraordinary worth, sincerity, and prudence,
who had gained his entire esteem and confidence, and who usually attended
him wherever he was. A parliament which sat in May 1695, was chiefly
occupied with the investigation of the Glencoe massacre, and with measures
connected with the rising commercial enterprise of the country, including
the formation of a native bank, and that of a company for trading with
Africa and the Indies. The latter of these speculations was worked out in
an expedition to Darien, and an attempted settlement there, which, through
English mercantile jealousy, and the king’s indifference to Scottish
interests, ended so unfortunately as greatly to incense the Scottish
nation, and increase the party disaffected to the Revolution government.
The misery hence arising was increased by a dearth from a succession of
bad seasons. Nevertheless, this period will be found in our chronicle to
have been remarkable for the establishment of manufactories of various
kinds, and for various other industrial enterprises, shewing that the
national energies were beginning to take a decidedly new direction. At the
same time, instances of deplorable superstition, cruelty, and intolerance
were sufficiently numerous to attest that the days of barbarism were not
past.
Incessant efforts were made by the
Jacobite party to procure the restoration of King James, and the
discontents excited by Darien were greatly favourable to their views. Yet
the heart of the middle class throughout the more important provinces
remained firm in Presbyterianism, for which the Revolution government was
the sole guarantee; and. in this lay an insuperable bar to all reactionary
projects. A war against France, which had begun immediately after the
Revolution (May 1689), was brought to a conclusion in September 1697, by
the treaty of Ryswick, which included an acknowledgment by Louis XIV. of
the title of King William to the English throne. The exiled king, old and
abandoned to ascetic devotion, indulged a hope that he would outlive
William, and, be then quietly recalled. He died, however, in September
1701, with only the assurance of the French king in favour
of the
restoration of his son. William
survived him but a few months, dying of a
fever and agne on the 8th March 1702. His vigorous
talents, his courage, his essential mildness and tolerance, abated as they
were by an unpopular coldness of manners, are amply recognised in English
history; among the Scots, while Presbyterians thank him for the
establishment of their church, there is little feeling regarding the Dutch
king, besides a strong resentment of his concern in the affairs of Glencoe
and Darien.
1695, Feb 17
This day, being Sunday, the Catholics of Edinburgh were so bold as to hold
a meeting for worship in the Canongate. It was fallen upon and ‘dissipat’
by the authorities, and the priest, Mr David Fairfoul, with James De
Canton and James Morris, fencing-masters, and John Wilson of Spango, were
committed to prison, while the Lord Advocate obtained a list of other
persons present. The Privy Council ordered the four prisoners to be
carried from the Canongate to the Edinburgh Tolbooth, and appointed a
committee to take what steps it
might think meet regarding the
list of worshippers.
On the 28th February, the Council
permitted the liberation of the two fencing-masters, on assurance of their
doing nothing offensive to the government in future, under a penalty of
five hundred merks. At the same time, they ordained ‘Harry Graham, and his
landlord, James Blair, periwig-maker in Niddry’s Wynd; James Brown, son to
Hugh Brown, chirurgeon, and the said Hugh his father; John Abererombie,
merchant in Edinburgh, and John Lamb in the Water of Leith, to give bond
in the same terms and under the same penalty;’ else to be kept in prison.
Orders were given to search for John Laing, writer, John Gordon, writer,
and James Scott in the Canongate, ‘who, being also at the said meeting,
have absconded.’ The priest Fairibul was treated with unexpected mercy,
being liberated on condition of banishment, not to return under a penalty
of three hundred ponnds sterling.’
Feb 19
Robert Davidson, merchant in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, represented to the
Privy Council that he had been in a good way of merchandise, and
proprietor of a two-story house, when in the beginning of December last
some of Lord Carmichael’s dragoons were quartered upon him, and deposited
their powder in one of his low rooms. As they were one morning dividing
the powder, it caught fire, and demolished the house, together with his
whole merchandise and household plenishing, carrying the bed whereon he
and his family lay to the top of the house, and seriously injuring a
relative who was living with him at the time, and for the cost of whose
cure he was answerable, Robert petitioned for some compensation, and the
Council—following its rule of a vicarious beneficence - allowed him to
raise a voluntary collection at the church doors of Aberdeenshire and the
two adjacent counties,’
Feb
There never, perhaps, was any mystic history better attested than that of
‘the Rerrick Spirit.’ The tenant of the house, many of his neighbours, the
minister of the parish, several other clergymen, the proprietor of the
ground living half a mile of all give their testimonies to the various
things which they ‘saw, heard, and felt.’ The air of actuality is helped
even by the local situation and its associations. It is in the same parish
with Dundrennan Abbey, where Queen Mary spent her last night in Scotland.
It is upon the same rock-bound coast which Scott has described so
graphically in
his tale of Guy Mannering, which
was indeed founded on facts that occurred in this very parish. Collin, the
house of the laird, still exists, though passed into another family. Very
probably, the house of Andrew Mackie himself would also be found by any
one who had the curiosity to inquire for it; nor would he fail, at the
same time, to learn that the whole particulars of this narration continue
to be fresh in popular recollection, though four generations have passed
away since the event. Few narrations of the kind have included occurrences
and appearances which it was more difficult to reconcile with the theory
of trick or imposture.
Andrew Mackie, a mason, occupied a
small farm, called Ring-croft, on the estate of Collin, in the parish of
Rerrick, and stewartry of Kirkcudbright. He is spoken of as a man ‘honest,
civil, and harmless beyond many of his neighbours,’ and we learn
incidentally that he had a wife and some children. In the course of the
month of February 1695, Andrew was surprised to find his young cattle
frequently loose in the byre, and their bindings broken. Attributing it to
their unruliness, he got stronger bindings; but still they were found
loose in the morning. Then he removed the beasts to another place; and
when he went to see them next morning, he found one bound up with a hair
tether
to the roof-beam, so strait, that its feet were lifted
off the ground. Just about this time, too, the family were awakened one
night with a smell of smoke; and when they got up, they found a quantity
of peats lying on the floor, and partially kindled. It seemed evident that
some mischievous agent was at work in Ring-croft; but as yet nothing
superhuman was in the surmises of the family.
On Wednesday, the 7th of March, a
number of stones were thrown in the house—’ in all places of it’—and no
one could tell whence they came, or who threw them. This continued during
day and night, but mostly during the night, for several days, the stones
often hitting the members of the family, but always softly, as if they
had. less than half their natural weight. A kind of fear began to take
possession of the little household, and the father’s fireside devotions
waxed in earnestness. Here, however, a new fact was developed: the
stone-throwing was worst when the family was at prayers. On the Saturday
evening, the family being for some time without, one or two of the
children, on entering, were startled to observe what appeared a stranger
sitting at the fireside, with a blanket about him. They were afraid, and
hesitated; but the youngest, who was only nine or ten years of age, chid
the rest for their timidity, saying: ‘Let us sain [bless] ourselves, and
then there is no ground to fear it!' He perceived that the blanket around
the figure was his. Having blessed himself; he ran forward, and pulled
away the blanket, saying: ‘Be what it will, it hath nothing to do with my
blanket.’ It was found to be a four-footed stool set on end, and the
blanket cast over it.
Attending church on Sunday, Andrew
Mackie took an opportunity, after service, of informing the minister, Mr
Telfair, how his house had been disturbed for the last four days. The
reverend gentleman consequently visited Ring-croft on Tuesday. He prayed
twice, without experiencing any trouble; but soon after, as he stood
conversing with some people at the end of the banrn, he saw two stones
fall on the croft near by, and presently one came from the house to tell
that the pelting within doors had become worse thau ever. He went in,
prayed again, and was hit several times by the stones, but without being
hurt. After this there was quiet for several days. On Sunday it began
again, and worse than before, for now the stones were larger and where
they hit, they gave pain. On the ensuing Wednesday, the minister revisited
the house, and stayed a great part of the night, during which he was
‘greatly troubled.’ ‘Stones and several other things,’ says he, ‘were
thrown at me; I was struck several times on the sides and shoulders very
sharply with a great staff, so that those who were present heard the noise
of the strokes. That night it threw off the bed-side, and rapped upon the
chests and boards as one calling for access. As I was at prayer, leaning
on a bed-side, I felt something pressing up my arm. I, casting my eyes
thither, perceived a little white hand and arm, from the elbow down, but
presently it vanished.’
The neighbours now began to
come about the house, to gratify their curiosity or express sympathy; and
both when they were within doors, and when they were approaching or
departing, they were severely pelted. Mackie himself got a blow from a
stone, which wounded his forehead. After several apparent efforts of a
visionary being to seize him by the shoulder, he was griped fast by the
hair of the head, and ‘he thought something like nails scratched his
skin.’ This, however, was little in comparison to what happened with some
of the neighbours, for, as attested by ‘Andrew Tait in Torr,’ they were
seized and dragged up and down the house by the clothes. ‘It griped one
John Keig, miller in Anchencairn, so by the side, that he entreated his
neighbours to help: it cried it would rive [tear] the side from him. That
night it lifted the clothes off the children, as they were sleeping in
bed, and beat them on the hips as if it had been with one’s hand, so that
all who were in the house heard it. The door-bar and other things would go
thorough the house, as if a person had been carrying them in his hand; yet
nothing seen doing it. It also rattled on chests and bed-sides with a
staff, and made a great noise.’ ‘At night it cried, "Whisht! whisht!" at
every sentence in the close of prayer; and it whistled so distinctly, that
the dog barked and ran to the door, as if one bad been calling to hound
him.’
At the request of the laird, Charles
M’Lellan of Collin, a number of ministers put up public prayers on account
of these strange occurrences, and on the 4th of April two came to the
house to see what they could do in behalf of the family. They spent the
night in fasting and prayer, bnt with no other apparent effect than that
of rendering the supposed spirit more ‘cruel.’ One of the reverend
gentlemen got a wound in the head from a stone, and the other had his wig
pulled off, and received several sore blows, which, however, were healed
quickly. A fiery peat was thrown amongst the people, and in the morning
when they arose from prayer, ‘the stones poured down on all who were in
the house to their hurt.’ Two
days after, the affair took a new turn, when Mackie’s wife was induced to
lift a stone which she found loose at the threshold of the house, and
perceived underneath ‘seven small bones, with blood, and some flesh, all
closed in a piece of old soiled paper;’ the blood being fresh and bright.
She presently ran to the laird’s house, about a quarter of a mile distant,
to fetch him; and while she was gone, the spirit became worse than ever,
‘throwing stones and fire-balls in and about the house; but the fire, as
it lighted, did vanish. It thrust a staff through the wall above the
children in bed, shook it over them, and groaned.’ The laird came and
lifted the bones and flesh, after which the trouble ceased for a little
time. Next day, however, being Sunday, it recommenced with throwing of
stones and other heavy articles, and set the house twice on fire. In the
evening, when the eldest boy was coming home, ‘an extraordinary light fell
about him, and went before him to the house, with a swift motion.’
On the ensuing morning, the 8th
April, Mackie found in his close a letter written and sealed with blood,
superscribed thus: ‘3 years tho shall have to repent a net it well.’
Within he read: ‘Wo be to the Cotlland
Repent and tak warning for the door of haven ar all Redy bart against the
I am sent for a warning to the to flee to god yet troubit shallt this man
be for twenty days a 3 rpent rpent Scotland or els tow shall." [These
legends appear to have been intended to read as follows: ‘Three years thou
shalt have to repent, and note it well. We be to thee, Scotland! Repent
and take warning, for the doors of heaven are already barred against thee.
I am sent for a warning to thee, to flee to God. Yet troubled shalt this
man be for twenty days and three. Repent, repent, Scotland, or else thou
shalt'-]
Following up the old notion
regarding the touching of a murdered person in order to discover the
murderer, all the surviving persons who had lived in the house during the
twenty-eight years of its existence, were convened by appointment of the
civil magistrate before Charles M'Lellan of Collin, ‘and did all touch the
bones,’ but without any result.
On a committee of five ministers
coming two days after to the house, the disturbing agency increased much
in violence. According to the parish minister, Telfair, who was present on
this occasion, ‘It came often with such force, that it made all the house
shake; it brake a hole through the timber and thatch of the roof, and
poured in great stones, one whereof, more than a quarter weight, fell upon
Mr James Monteath his back, yet he was not hurt.’ When a guard was set
upon the hole in the roof, outside, it broke another hole through the
gable from the barn, and threw stones in through that channel, ‘It griped
and handled the legs of some, as with a man’s hand; it hoised up the feet
of others, while standing on the ground; thus it did to William Lennox of
Mill-house, myself, and others.’
After this, the disturbances went on
with little variation of effect for a week or more. A pedler felt a hand
thrust into his pocket. Furniture was dragged about. Seeing a meal-sieve
flying about the house, Mackie took hold of it, when the skin was
immediately torn out. Several people were wonnded with the stones.
Groaning, whistling, and cries of Whisht—Bo,
bo and Kuck, kucl! were frequently
heard. Men, while praying, were over and over again lifted up from the
ground. While Mackie was thrashing in the barn, some straw was set fire
to, and staves were thrust at him through the wall. When any person was
hit by a stone, a voice was heard saying: ‘Take that till you get more;’
and another was sure to come immediately.
On the 24th of April, there was a
fast and humiliation in the parish on account of the demonstrations at
Ring-croft; and on that day the violences were more than ever extreme,
insomuch that the family feared they should be killed by the stones. ‘On
the 26th, it threw stones in the evening, and knocked on a chest several
times, as one to have access, and began to speak, and call those who were
sitting in the house witches and rooks, and said it would take them to
hell. The people then in the house said among themselves: "If it had any
to speak to it, now it would speak." In the meantime, Andrew Mackie was
sleeping. They wakened him, and then he, hearing it say: "Thou shalt be
troubled till Tuesday," asked, "Who gave thee a commission?" It answered:
"God gave me a commission, and I am sent to warn the land to repent, for a
judgment is to come, if the land do not quickly repent;" and commanded him
to reveal it upon his peril. And if the land did not repent, it said it
would go to its father, and get a commission to return with a hundred
worse than itself, and it would trouble every particular family in the
land. Andres, Maekie said: "If I should tell this, I would not be
believed" Then it said: "Fetch [your] betters; fetch the minister of the
parish, and two honest men on Tuesday’s night, and I shall declare before
them what I have to say." Then it said: "Praise me, and I will whistle to
you; worship me, and I will trouble you no more." Then Andrew Mackie said;
"The Lord, who delivered the three children out of the fiery furnace,
deliver me and mine this night from the temptations of Satan’ It replied:
"You might as well have said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." On a
humble person present here putting in a word, the voice told him he was
ill-bred to interfere in other people’s discouyse. ‘It likewise said:
"Remove your goods, for I will burn the house."
The house was actually set on fire
seven times next day, and the care of the inmates preventing damage of
this kind from extending, the end of the house was pulled down in the
evening, so that the family was forced to spend the night in the barn. On
the second next day, the house being again set fire to several times,
Mackie carefully extinguished all fires about the place, and poured water
upon his hearth; yet after this, when there was no fire within a quarter
of a mile, the conflagrations, as was alleged, were renewed several times.
The period announced in the bloody
letter of the 8th instant was now approaching, and in a conversation with
Mackie, the supposed spirit good-naturedly informed him that, except some
casting of stones on Tuesday to fulfil the promise,’ he should have no
more trouble. Tuesday, being the 30th of April, was the twentythird day
from the finding of the letter. That night, Charles M’Lellan of Collin and
several neighbours were in the barn. As he was at prayer, he ‘observed a
black thing in the corner of the barn, and it did increase, as if it would
fill the whole house. He could not discern it to have any form, but as if
it had been a black cloud; it was aft’righting to them all. Then it threw
bear-chaff and mud in their faces, and afterwards did grip severals who
were in the house by the middle of the body, by the arms, and other parts
of their bodies, so strait, that some said for five days thereafter they
thought they felt those grips.’ Such, excepting the firing of a sheep-cot
next day, was the last that was seen, heard, or felt of the Rerrick
Spirit.
So great was the impression made by
these incidents, that early in the ensuing year Mr Telfair published an
account of them in a small pamphlet, which went through a second edition
in Scotland, and was reprinted, with alterations of language, in London.
[‘On the 7th of January 1696, the Privy Council gave licence to George
Mossman, Stationer in Edinburgh, to ‘print and sell a book entitled A
True Relation of an Apparition, Expressions, and Acatings of a
Spirit which infested the House of Andrew Mackie, in Ring-croft of
Stocking, in the Parish of Rerrick, &c,' with exclusive right of doing
so for a year. ] At the end appeared the attestations of those who
‘saw, heard, and felt’ the various things stated—namely, ‘Mr Andrew Ewart,
minister at Kells; Mr James Montcath, minister at Borgue; Mr John Murdo,
minister at Crossmichael; Mr Samuel Stirling, minister at Parton; Mr
William Falconer, minister at Kelton; Charles M’Lellan of Collin, William
Lennox of Millhouse, Andrew and John Tait in Torr, John Cairns in
Hardhills, William Macminn, John Corsby, Thomas Macminn, Andrew Paline,
&c.’ It may be remarked, that for each particular statement in the
Relation, the names of the special witnesses are given; and their
collected names are appended, as to a solemn document in which soul and
conscience were concerned.
Mar 19
The degree of respect felt by the authorities of this age for the rights
of the individual, is shewn very strikingly in a custom which was now and
for a considerable time after largely practised, of compromising with
degraded and imputedly criminal persons for banishment to the American
plantations. For example, at this date, thirty-two women of evil fame,
residing in Edinburgh, were brought before the magistrates as a moral
nuisance. We do not know what could have been done to them beyond whipping
and hard labour; yet they were fain to agree that, instead of any other
punishment, they should be banished to America, and arrangements for that
purpose were immediately made.
In the ensuing June, a poor woman of
the same sort, named Janet Cook, residing in Leith, was denounced for
offences in which a father and son were associated—a turpitude which
excited a religious horror, and caused her to be regarded as a criminal of
the highest class. The Lord Advocate reported of Janet to the Privy
Council, that she had been put under the consideration of the Lords of
Justiciary, as a person against whom 'probation could not be found,’ but
that the Lords were nevertheless ‘of opinion she might be banished the
kingdom,’ and she herself had consented to her banishment.’ The Lords of
the Privy Council seem to have had no more difficulty about the case than
those of the Court of Justiciary had had; they ordered that Janet should
depart furth of the kingdom and not return, ‘under the highest pains and
penalties.’
In January 1696, a woman named
Elizabeth Waterstone, imprisoned on a charge identical in all respects
with the above, was, in like manner, without trial, banished, with her own
consent, to the plantations.
On the 7th of February 1697, four
boys who were notorious thieves, and eight women who were that and worse,
were called before the magistrates of Edinburgh, and ‘interrogat whether
or not they would consent freely to their own banishment furth of this
kingdom, and go to his majesty’s plantations in America.’ ‘They one and
all freely and unanimously consented so to do,’ and arrangements were made
by the Privy Council for their deportation accordingly. It was only
ordained regarding the boys that Lord Teviot might engage them as recruits
for Flanders, in which case he was immediately to commence maintaining
them.
On the 15th February 1698, Robert
Alexander, ‘a notorious horse-stealer,’ now in prison, was willing to
appease justice by consenting to banishment without trial. He likewise
made discoveries enabling several countrymen to recover their horses. The
Privy Council therefore ordained him to be transported by the first ship
to the plantations of America, not to return thence under pain of death.
William Baillie, ‘ane Egyptian,’
prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, but regarding whom we hear of no
specific offence and no trial, was summarily ordered (Sep. 12, 1699) to be
transported in the first ship going to the plantations, the skipper to be
allowed a proper gratuity from the treasury, and at the same time to give
caution for five hundred merks that he would produce a certificate of the
man being landed in America.
It was long before justice in
Scotland took any qualm about this free-and-easy way of dealing with
accused persons. So late as 1732, two men of humble rank—Henderson, a
sedan-carrier, and Hamilton, a street-cadie—suspected of being accessory
to the murder of an exciseman, having petitioned for banishment
before trial, were sent from the jail in Edinburgh to Glasgow, there to
wait a vessel for the plantations.
The Earl of Home, as a dangerous
person, had for some time been confined to his house of the Hirsel, near
Coldstream; but now he was required to enter himself prisoner in Edinburgh
Castle. He represented himself as under such indisposition of body as to
make this unendurable, and the Council therefore ordered Dr Sir Thomas
Burnet, the king’s physician, to take a chirurgeon with him to the Hirsel,
and inquire into the state of his lordship’s health. The doctor and
surgeon reported in such terms that the earl was allowed to remain at the
Hirsel, but not without caution to the extent of two thousand pounds
sterling. For their pains in travelling fifty miles and back, and giving
this report., the Council allowed Dr Burnet two hundred merks (£11, 2s.
2d.), and Gideon Elliot, chirurgeon, one hundred merks.’
May 20
A hership of cattle having taken place on the lands of Lord Rollo,
in Perthshirc, the Master of Rollo was pleased to prosecute the matter a
little more energetically than was convenient to some of his neighbours.
He seems to have particularly excited the resentment of James Edmonstonn
of Newton, one of whose tenants was found in possession of a cow reclaimed
as part of the hership. Newton, being soon after at the house of
Clavidge, spoke some despiteful words regarding the Master, which were
afterwards taken notice of. At the same house, about the sanie time,
Patrick Graham, younger of Inchbrakie, spoke in the like angry terms of
the Master. ‘It has been noised in the country,’ said he, ‘that I have
courted the Master of Rollo, and fawned upon him; but when occasion
serves, something different will be seen.’
These two hot-headed men spent a
couple of days together at Ryecroft, a house of young Inchbrakie, and
probably there inflamed their common resentment by talking over their
grievances. On the day noted in the margin, hearing that the Master of
Rollo was to go in the afternoon to Invermay House, they rode to his house
of Duncrub, and from that place accompanied him to Invermay, together with
the Laird of Clavidge and a gentleman named M’Naughton. Inchbrakie was
remarked to have no sword, while his companion Newton was provided with
one. Supping at the hospitable board of Invermay, these two conducted
themselves much in the manner of men seeking a quarrel. Inchbrakie said to
the Master: ‘Master, although John Stewart killed and salted two of your
kine, you surely will not pursue him, since your father and his Miss ate
them!’ Hereupon Clavidge remarked that this was not table-talk; to which
Newton made answer: ‘I think you are owning that.’ Then lnchbrakie and
Newton were observed to whisper together, and the latter was heard saying:
'will not baulk you, Inchie,’ Afterwards, they went out together, and by
and by returned to table. What was the subject of their conversation
during absence, might only too easily be inferred from what followed.
At ten o’clock the party broke up,
and the strangers mounted their horses, to ride to their respective homes.
The Laird of Invermay, having observed some mischief brewing in the mind
of Newton, endeavonred to make him stay for the night, but without
success. The Master, Clavidge, and M’Nanghton rode on, with lnchbrakie a
little in front of them. When Newton came up, Inchbrakie and he turned a
little aside, and Newton was then observed to loose his belt and give his
sword to lnchbrakie. Then riding on to the rest of the party, he contrived
to lead Clavidge and M’Naughton a little ahead, and commenced speaking
noisily about some trivial matter. Hearing, however, the clashing of two
swords behind them, Clavidge aud M’Naughton turned back, along with
Newton, and there saw the Master of Rollo fallen on his knees, while
Inchbrakie stood over him. The latter called out to Newton, ‘He has got
it.’ Clavidge rushed to sustain the sinking man, while Incbbrakie and
Newton went apart and interchanged a few hurried sentences. Presently
Newton came up again, when Clavidge, perceiving that the Master was
wounded to the death, cried out: ‘O God, such a horrid murder was never
seen ' To this Newton, standing coolly by, said: ‘I think not so —I think
it has been fair.’ The poor Master seems to have died immediately, and
then Newton went again aside with Inchbrakie, gave him his own hat, and
assisted him to escape. In the morning, when the two swords were found
upon the ground, the bloody one proved to be Newton’s.
Inchbrakie fled that night to the
house of one John Buchanan, whom he told that he had killed the Master of
Rollo, adding; with tokens of remorse: ‘Wo worth Newton—Wo worth the
company!’ and stating farther that Newton had egged him on, and given him
a weapon, when he would rather have declined fighting.
lnchbrakie escaped abroad, and was
outlawed, but, procuring a remission, returned to his country in 1720.
James Edmonstoun of Newton was tried (Aug. 5, 1695) for accession to the
murder of John Master of Rollo, and condemned to banishment for life. It
is stated that, nevertheless, he carried the royal standard of James VIII.
at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and even after that event, lived many years
on his own estatc in Strathearn.’
May
The Estates at this date advert to the fact that sundry lands lying along
the sea-coast had been ruined, in consequence of their being overwhelmed
with sand driven from adjacent sand-hills, ‘the which has been mainly
occasioned by the pulling up by the roots of bent, juniper, and broom
bushes, which did loose and break the surface and scroof of the
sand-hills.’ In particular, ‘the barony of Cowbin and house and yards
thereof, lying in the sheriffdom of Elgin, is quite ruined and overspread
with sand,’ brought upon it by the aforesaid cause. Penalties were
accordingly decreed for such as should hereafter pull up bent or juniper
bushes on the coast sand-hills.
A remarkable geological phenomenon,
resulting in the ruin of a family of Morayland gentry, is here in
question. We learn from an act of parliament, passed two months later,
that, within the preceding twenty years, two-thirds of the estate of
Culbin had been overwhelmed with blown sand, so that no trace of the
manor-house, yards, orchards, or mains thereof, was now to be seen, though
formerly ‘as considerable as many in the country of Moray.’ Alexander
Kinnaird of Culbin now represented to the parliament, that full cess was
still charged for his lands, being nearly as much as the remainder of them
produced to him in rent; and he petitioned that his unfortunate estate
might, in consideration of his extraordinary misfortune, be altogether
exempted from cess. Three years after this date, we hear of the remaining
fourth part of Culbin as sold for the benefit of the creditors of
the proprietor, and himself suing to parliament for a personal protection.
In time, the entire ruin of the good old barony was completed. Hugh Miller
says: ‘I have wandered for hours amid the sand-wastes of this ruined
barony, and seen only a few stunted bushes of broom, and a few scattered
tufts of withered bent, occupying, amid utter barrenness, the place of
what, in the middle of the seventeenth century, had been the richest
fields of the rich province of Moray; and, where the winds had hollowed
out the sand, I have detected, uncovered for a few yards-breadth, portions
of the buried furrows, sorely dried into the consistence of sun-burned
brick, but largely charged with the seeds of the common cornfield weeds of
the country, that, as ascertained by experiment by the late Sir Thomas
Dick Lauder, still retain their vitality. It is said that an antique
dove-cot, in front of the huge sand-wreath which enveloped the
manor-house, continued to present the top of its peaked roof over the
sand, as a foundered vessel sometimes exhibits its vane over the waves,
until the year 1760. The traditions of the district testify that, for many
years after the orchard had been enveloped, the topmost branches of the
fruittrees,barely seen over the surface, continued each spring languidly
to throw out bud and blossom; and it is a curious circumstance, that in
the neighbouring churchyard of Dike there is a sepulchral monument of the
Culbin family, which, though it does not date beyond the reign of James
VI, was erected by a lord and lady of the lost barony, at a time when
they seem to have had no suspicion of the utter ruin which was
coming on their house. The quaint inscription runs as follows:
VALTEB: KINNAIRD: ELIZABETH: INNES:
1613:
THE : BVILDAES : OF : THIS : BED : OF
: STANE :
AR : LAIRD : AND : LADlE : OF
: COVBINE :
QVHILK : TVA : AND : THARS : QVHANE :
BRAITHE IS : GANE :
PLEIS : GOD : VIL : SLEIP : THIS :
BED : VITHIN
I refer to these facts, though they
belong certainly to no very remote age in the past history of our country,
chiefly to shew that in what may be termed the geological formations of
the human period, very curious fossils may be already deposited, awaiting
the researches of the future. As we now find, in raising blocks of stone
from the quarry, water-rippled surfaces lying beneath, fretted by the
tracks of ancient birds nnd reptiles, there is a time coming when, under
thick beds of stone, there may be detected fields and orchards, cottages,
manor-houses, and churches—the memorials of nations that have perished,
and of a condition of things and a stage of society that have for ever
passed away.’
June 4
The same advantages of situation which are now thought to adapt Peterhead
for a harbour of refuge for storm-beset vessels—placed centrally and
prominently on the east coast of Scotland— rendered it very serviceable in
affording shelter to vessels pursued by those French privateers which,
during the present war, were continually scouring the German Ocean. Very
lately, four English vessels returning from Virginia and other foreign
plantations with rich commodities, would have inevitably been taken if
they had not got into Peterhead harbour, and been protected there by the
fortifications and the ‘resoluteness’ of the inhabitants. The spirit
manifested in keeping up the defences, and maintaining a constant guard
and watch at tire harbour, had incensed the privateers not a little; and
one Dunkirker of thirty- four guns took occasion last summer to fire
twenty-two great balls at the town, nor did he depart without vowing (as
afterwards reported by a Scottish prisoner on board) to return and do his
endeavour to set it in a flame. The people, feeling their danger, and
exhausted with expensive furnishings and watchings, now petitioned the
Privy Council for a little military protection—which was readily granted.’
June
As political troubles subsided in Scotland, the spirit of mercantile
enterprise rose and gained strength. The native feelings of this kind were
of course stimulated by the spectacle of success presented in England by
the East India Company, and the active trade carried on with the colonies.
These sources of profit were monopolies; but Scotland inquired, since she
was an independent state, what was to hinder her to have similar sources
of profit established by her own legislature. Tire dawnings of this spirit
are seen in an act passed in the Scottish parliament in 1693, wherein it
is declared, ‘That merchants may enter into societies and companies for
carrying on trade as to any sort of goods to whatsoever countries not
being at war with their majesties, where trade is in use to be, and
particularly, besides the kingdoms of Europe, to the East and West
Indies, to the Straits and Mediterranean, or upon the coast of Africa,
or elsewhere,’ and promising to such companies letters-patent for
privileges and other encouragements, as well as protection in case of
their being attacked or injured. Amongst a few persons favouring this
spirit, was one of notable character and history—WILLIAM PATERSON-a native
of Scotland, but now practising merchandise in London—a most active
genius, well acquainted with distant countries, not visionary, animated,
on the contrary, by sound commercial principles, yet living, unfortunately
for himself, before the time when there was either intelligence or means
for the successful carrying out of great mercautile adventures. Paterson,
in the early part of this year, had gained for himself a historical fame
by projecting and helping to establish the Bank of England. For his native
country he at the same time projected what he hoped would prove a second
East India Company. At the
date noted, an act passed the Scottish parliament, forming certain persons
named into an incorporation, under the name of The company of Scotland
Trading to Africa and the Indies, who should be enabled to ‘plant
colonies, and build cities and forts,
in
any countries in Asia, Africa, or America, not possest by any European
sovereign,’ ‘by consent of the natives and inhabitants thereof;’ and to
take all proper measures for their own protection and the advancement of
their special objects, only acknowledging the supremacy of the king by the
annual payment of a hogshead of tobacco. It was scrupulously arranged,
however, that at least one half of the stock of this Company should be
subscribed for by Scotsmen residing either at home or abroad.
Although the war pressed sorely on
the resources of England, Paterson calculated securely that there was
enough of spare capital and enterprise in London to cause the new Scottish
trading scheme to be taken up readily there. When the books for
subscription were opened in October, thc whole £300,000 offered to the
English merchants was at once appropriated. By this time, the fears of the
East India Company and of the English mercantile class generally had been
roused; it was believed that the Scottish adventurers would compete with
them destructively in every place where they now enjoyed a lucrative
trade. The parliament took up the cry, and voted that the noblemen and
gentlemen named in the Scottish act were guilty of a high crime and
misdemeanour. Irritated rather than terrified by this denunciation, these
gentlemen calmly proceeded with their business in Scotland. The
subscription books being opened on the 26th of February 1696, the taking
up of the stock became something like a national movement. It scarcely
appeared that the country was a poor one. Noblemen, country gentlemen,
merchants, professional men, corporations of every kind, flocked to put
down their names for various sums according to their ability, till not
merely the £300,000 devoted to Scotsmen was engaged for, but some
additional capital besides. In a list before me, with the sums added up, I
find the total is £336,390 sterling; but, of course, the advance of this
large sum was contemplated as to be spread over a considerable space of
time, the first instalment of 25 per cent. being alone payable within
1696.
Meanwhile the furious denunciations
of the English parliament proved a thorough discouragement to the project
in London, and nearly the whole of the stockholders there silently
withdrew from it; under the same influence, the merchants of Hamburg were
induced to withdraw their support and co-operation, leaving Scotland to
work out her own plans by herself.
She proceeded to do so with a
courage much to be admired. A handsome house for the conducting of the
Company’s business was erected; schemes for trade with Greenland, with
Archangel, with the Gold Coast, were cousidered; the qualities of goods,
possible improvements of machinery, the extent of the production of
foreign wares, were all the subject of careful inquiry. Under the glow of
a new national object, old grudges and antipathies were forgotten. William
Paterson, indeed, had set the pattern of a non-sectarian feeling from the
beginning, for, writing from London to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh in
July 1695, we find him using this strain of language, hitherto unwonted in
Scotland: ‘Above all, it is needful for us to make no distinction of
parties in this great undertaking; but of whatever nation or religion a
man be, he ought to be looked upon, if one of us, to be of the same
interest and inclination. We must not act apart in anything, but in a firm
and united body, and distiuct from all other interests whatsoever.’
The design of Paterson presents such
indications of a great, an original, and a liberal mind, as to make the
obscurity which rests on his history much to be regretted. The narrow,
grasping, and monopolising spirit which had hitherto marked the commerce
of most nations, and particularly the English and Spanish, was repudiated
by this remarkable Scotsman; he proposed, on some suitable situation in
Central America, to open a trade to all the world; he called on his
countrymen not to try to enrich themselves by making or keeping other
nations poor, but by taking the lead in a more generous system which
should contemplate the good of all. He himself embarked the few thousand
pounds which he possessed in the undertaking, and his whole conduct
throughout its history exhibits him not merely as a man of sound judgment
and reflection, but one superior to all sordid considerations.
For the further progress of the
Company, the reader must be referred onward to July 1698, when the first
expedition sailed from Leith.
Further to improve the system of
correspondence throughout the kingdom, the parliament passed an act for
establishing a General Post-office in Edinburgh, muler a
postmaster-general, who was to have the exclusive privilege of receiving
and despatching letters, it being only allowed that carriers should
undertake that business on lines where there was no regular post, and
until such should be established. The rates were fixed at 2s. Scots for a
single letter within fifty Scottish miles, and for greater distances in
proportion. It was also ordained that there should be a weekly post to
Ireland, by means of a packet at Portpatrick, the expense of which was to
be charged on the Scottish office. By the same law, the postmaster-general
and his deputies were to have posts, and furnish post-horses along all the
chief roads ‘to all persons,’ ‘at 3s. Scots for ilk horse-hire for postage
for every Scots mile,’ including the use of furniture and a guide. It
would appear that, on this footing, the Post-office in Scotland was not a
gainful concern, for in 1698 Sir Robert Sinclair of Stevenston had a grant
of the entire revenue, with a pension of £800 sterling per annum, under
the obligation to keep up the posts, and after a little while gave up the
charge, as finding it disadvantageous.
It is to be observed that this
post-system for Scotland was provided with but one centre—namely, the
capital. Letters coming from London for Glasgow arrived in Edinburgh in
the first place, and were thence despatched westwards at such times as
might be convenient. At one time, the letters were detained twelve hours
in Edinburgh before being despatched to Glasgow! It seems at present
scarcely credible that, until the establishment of Palmers mail-coaches in
1788, the letters from London to Glasgow passed by this circuitous route,
and not by a direct one, although the western city had by that time a
population of fifty thousand, and was the seat of great commercial and
manufacturing industry.
July
Glasgow—which in 1556 stood eleventh in the roll of the Scottish burghs,
contributing but £202, while Edinburgh afforded £2650—appears, in the list
now made up for a monthly cess to defray the expenses of the war, as
second, Edinburgh giving £3880; Glasgow, £1800; Aberdeen, £726;
Dundee, £560; Perth, £360; Kirkcaldy, £288, &c. ‘To account for this
comparative superiority of the wealth of Glasgow at this time, I must take
notice that since before the Restoration the inhabitants had been in
possession of the sale of both refined and. raw sugars for the greater
part of Scotland; they had a privilege of distilling spirits from their
molasses, free from all duty and excise; the herring-fishery was also
carried on to what was, at that time, thought a considerable extent; they
were the only people in Scotland who made soap; and they sent annually
some hides, linen, &c., to Bristol, from whence they brought back, in
return, a little tobacco—which they manufactured into snuff and
otherwise—sugars, and goods of the manufacture of England, with which they
supplied a considerable part of the whole kingdom.’—Gibson’s History of
Glasgow, 1777.
It is probable that the population
did not then exceed twelve thousand; yet the seeds of that wonderful
system of industry, which now makes Glasgow so interesting a study to
every liberal onlooker, were already sown, and, even before the extension
of English mercantile privileges to Scotland at the Union, there was a
face of business about the place—a preparation of power and aptitude for
what was in time to come. This cannot be better illustrated than by a few
entries in the Privy Council Record regarding the fresh industrial
enterprises which were from time to time arising in the west.
December
21, 1699.—A copartnery, consisting of William Cochran
of Ochiltree, John Alexander of Blackhouse, and Mr William Dunlop,
Principal of the University of Glasgow, with Andrew Cathcart, James
Colquhoun, Matthew Aitchison, Lawrence Dunwoodies, William Baxter, Robert
Alexander, and Mungo Cochran, merchants of Glasgow, was prepared to set up
a woollen manufactory there, designing to make ‘woollen stuffs of all
sorts, such as damasks, half-silks, draughts, friezes, drogats, tartains,
craips, capitations, russets, and all other stuffs for men and women’s
apparel, either for summer or winter' Using the native wool, they expected
to furnish goods equal to any imported, and ‘at as easie a rate;’ for
which end they are ‘providing the ablest workmen, airtiests, from our
neighbouring nations.’ They anticipated that by such means ‘a vast soum of
ready money will be kept within the kingdom, which these years past has
been exported, it being weel known that above ten thousand pound sterling
in specie hath been exported from the southern and western parts of this
kingdom to Ireland yearly for such stuffs, and yearly entered in the
custom-house books, besides what has been stolen iu without entering.’
In the same year, John Adam, John
Bryson, John Alexander, and Harry Smith, English traders, had brought home
to Glasgow ‘English workmen skilled to work all hardware, such as pins,
needles, scissors, scythes, tobacco-boxes, and English knives, for which a
great quantity of money was yearly exported out of the kingdom.’ They
designed so far to save this sending out of money by setting up a
hardware-mannfactory iu Glasgow. On their petition, the Privy Council
extended to their designed work the privileges and immunities provided by
statute for manufactories set up in Scotland.
In the ensuing year, William
Marshall, William Gray, John Kirkmyre, and William Donaldson, merchants in
Glasgow, projected the setting up of a work there for making of ‘pins and
needles,’ boxes, shears, syshes, knives, and other hardware,’ whereby they
expected to keep much money within the country, and give employment to
‘many poor and young boys, who are and have been in these hard and dear
times a burden to the kingdom.’ To them likewise, on petition, were
extended the privileges of a manufactory.
February,
1701.—Matthew and Daniel Campbell, merchants in Glasgow, designed to set
up an additional
sugar-work, and, in connection with it, a work ‘for distilling brandy and
other spirits from all manner of grain of the growth of this kingdom.’
With this view, they had ‘conduced and engaged several foreigners and
other persons eminently skilled in making of sugar and distilling of
brandy, &c., whom, with great travel, charges, and expense, they had
prevailed with to come to Glasgow.’ All this was in order that ‘the nation
may be the more plentifully and easily provided with the said commodities,
as good as any that have been in use to be imported from abroad,’ and
because ‘the distillery will both be profitable for consumption of the
product of the kingdom, and for trade for the coast of Guinea and America,
seeing that no trade can be managed to the places foresaid, or the East
Indies, without great quantities of the foresaid liquors.’
On their petition, the privileges of
a manufactory were granted to them.
In the progress of manufacturing
enterprise in the west, an additional soap-work connected with a
glass-work came to be thought of (February 1701). James Montgomery,
younger, merchant in Glasgow, took into consideration ‘how that city and
all the country in its neighbourhood, and further west, is furnished with
glass bottles.’ The products of the works at Leith and Munson’s Haven
‘cannot be transported but with a vast charge and great hazard.’ He found,
moreover, ‘ferns, a most useful material for that work, to be very plenty
in that country.’ There was also, in the West Highlands, great abundance
of wood-ashes, ‘which serve for little or no other use, and may be
manufactured first into good white soap, which is nowhere made in the
kingdom to perfection; and the remains of these wood-ashes, after the soap
is made, is a most excellent material for making glass.’ He had,
therefore, ‘since March last, been with great application and vast charge
seeking out the best workmen in England,’ and making all other needful
preparations for setting up such a work.
On his petition, the Council endowed
his work with the privileges of a manufactory, ‘so as the petitioner and
his partners may make soap and glass of all kinds not secluded by the
Laird of Prestongrange and his act of parliament. |