1700, Nov 16
A band of persons, usually called Egyptians or gipsies, used to go about
the province of Moray in armed fashion, helping themselves freely to the
property of the settled population, and ordinarily sleeping in kilns near
the farmhouses. There seems to have been thirty of them in all, men and
women; but it was seldom
that more than eight or ten made their appearance in any one place. It was
quite a familiar sight, at a fair or market in Banff Elgin, Forres, or any
other town of the district, to see nearly a dozen sturdy Egyptians march
in with a piper playing at their head, their matchlocks slung behind them,
and their broad-swords or dirks by their sides, to mingle in the crowd,
inspect the cattle shewn for sale, and watch for bargains passing among
individuals; in order to learn who was in the way of receiving money. They
would be viewed with no small suspicion and dislike by the assembled
rustics and farmers; but the law was unable to put them entirely down.
James Macpherson, who was understood to be the natural
son of a gentleman of the district by a gipsy mother, was a conspicuous or
leading man in the band; he was a person of goodly figure and great
strength and daring, always carrying about with him—how acquired we cannot
tell—an example of the two-handed swords of a former age, besides other
weapons. He had a talent for music, and was a good player on the violin.
It has been stated that some traits of a generous nature occasionally
shone out in him; but, on the whole, he was merely a Highland cateran,
breaking houses and henroosts, stealing horses and cattle, and living
recklessly on the proceeds, like the tribe with which he associated.
Duff, Laird of Braco, founder of the
honours and wealth of the Earls of Fife, took a lead at this time in the
public affairs of his district. He formed the resolution of trying to give
a check to the lawless proceedings of the Egyptians, by bringing their
leaders to justice. It required some courage to face such determined
ruffians with arms in their hand; and he had a further difficulty in the
territorial prejudices of the Laird of Grant, who regarded some of the
robbers as his tenants, and felt bound, accordingly, to protect them from
any jurisdiction besides his own. [‘Alexander Duff was descended from a
race of gentry in Morryshire—the Duffs of Muldavit—and it seems to have
been by saving, prudence, and good management that he was enabled to
increase his share of the family possessions, and so far advance the
prospects of his house, that it was ennobled in the next generation, and
now ranks among the eight or ten families of highest wealth in Scotland.
There is a characteristic story about Braco surveying one day an extensive
tract of country containing several tolerably lairdships, when, seeing tho
houses in various directions all giving out signs of being inhabited by
their respective families, he said: ‘A’ that reek sall come out o’ ae lum
yet!’ and he made good his word by ultimately buying up the whole of that
district.] This remark bears particularly upon two named Peter and Donald
Brown, who had lived for half a year at a place closely adjacent to
Castle-Grant, and the former of whom was regarded as captain of the band.
Finding Macpherson, the Browns, and
others at the Summer’s Eve Fair in Keith, the stout-hearted Braco made up
his mind to attack them. To pursue a narrative which appears to be
authentic: ‘As soon as he observed them in the fair, he desired his
brother-in-law, Lesmurdie, to bring him a dozen stout men, which he did.
They attacked the villains, who, as they had several of their accomplices
with them, made a desperate resistance. One of them made a pass at Braco
with his hanger, intending to run him through the heart; but it slanted
along the outside of the ribs, and one of his men immediately stabbed the
fellow dead. They then carried Macpherson and [Peter] Brown to a house in
Keith, and set three or four stout men to guard them, not expecting any
more opposition, as all the rest of the gang were fled. Braco and
Lesmurdie were sitting in an upper room, concerting the commitment of
their prisoners, when the Laird of Grant and thirty men came calling for
them, swearing no Duff in Scotland should keep them from him. Braco,
hearing the noise of the Grants, came down stairs, and said, with seeming
unconcern and humour: "That he designed to have sent them to prison; but
he saw they were too strong a party for him to contend with, and so he
must leave them;" but, without losing a moment, he took a turn through the
market, found other two justices of peace, kept a court, and assembled
sixty stout fellows, with whom he retook the two criminals, and sent them
to prison.’
James Macpherson, the two Browns,
and James Gordon, were brought before the sheriff of Banffshire at Banff,
on the 7th of November 1700, charged with ‘being habit and repute
Egyptians and vagabonds, and keeping the markets in their ordinary manner
of thieving and purse-cutting’. . . . being guilty also of ‘masterful
bangstrie and oppression.’ A procurator appeared on the part of the young
Laird of Grant, demanding surrender of the two Browns, to be tried in the
court of his regality, within whose bounds they had lived, and offering a
cuireach or pledge for them [The system of culreach or
repledgiation was one of great antiquity in Scotland, but last heard of in
the Highlands. So lately as 1698, George Earl of Cromarty obtained a
charter, giving him this among other powers: If any of the indwellers and
tenants of his lands should happen ‘to be arrested or attached before any
judge or judges, spiritual or temporal, in any time coming, to repledge
and cull them back to the privilege and liberty of the said court of
bailiery and regality of Tarbat.’] but the demand was overruled, on the
ground that the Browns had never been truly domiciliated there. Witnesses
were adduced, who detailed many felonies of the prisoners. They had stolen
sheep, oxen, and horses; they had broken into houses, and taken away
goods; they had robbed men of their purses, and tyrannously oppressed many
poor people. It was shewn that the band was in the habit of speaking a
peculiar language. They often spent whole nights in dancing and
debauchery, Peter Brown or Macpherson giving animation to the scene by the
strains of the violin. An inhabitant of Keith related how Macpherson came
to his house one day, seeking for him, when, not finding him, he stabbed
the bed, to make sure he was not there, and, on going away, set the
ale-barrel aflowing. The jury gave a verdict against all the four
prisoners; but sentence was for the meantime passed upon only Macpherson
and Gordon, adjudging them to be hanged next market-day.
Macpherson spent the last hours of
his life in composing a tune expressive of the reckless courage with which
he regarded his fate. He marched to the place of execution, a mile from
the town, playing this air on his violin. He even danced to it under the
fatal tree. Then he asked if any one in the crowd would accept his fiddle,
and keep it as a memorial of Macpherson; and finding no one disposed to do
so, he broke the instrument over his knee, and threw himself indignantly
from the ladder. Such was the life and death of a man of whom one is
tempted to think that, with such qualities as he possessed, he might, in a
happier age, have risen to some better distinction than that which
unfortunately he has attained.
Bums’s fine ode on Macpherson will
be remembered:
Sae rantingly, sae
wantonly,
Sae dantonly gaed he,
He played a spring and danced it round,
Beneath the gallows tree.
There was, however, an earlier
celebration of the robber’s hardihood on a broadside, a copy of which will
be found in Herd’s Collection of Scottish Songs (1776). See also a
curious volume, entitled Scottish Ballads and Songs (Edinburgh, T.
G. Stevenson, 1859).
A long two-handed sword is shewn in
Duff House, the seat of the Earl of Fife, as that of Macpherson. it is a
formidable weapon, 4 feet 8 inches long, and having a wavy-edged
blade. it is obviously a mediaeval weapon, yet, of course, may have been
used in a later age.
Marcle
4, 1701.—There was a petition to the Privy Council from
Peter and Donald Brown, prisoners in the Tolbooth of Banff representing
that they had been condemned solely as ‘repute vagabond Egyptians,’ to be
hanged on the 2d April. They claimed a longer day, ‘either for their
relief or due preparation;’ and the Lords granted reprieve till the second
Wednesday of June.
1701, Jan 25
At this date one of the most remarkable of the precursors of Watt in the
construction of the steam-engine, comes in an interesting manner into
connection with Scotland. Captain Thomas Savery, an Englishman, ‘treasurer
to the commissioners of sick and wounded,’ had, in 1696, described an
engine framed by himself, and which is believed to have been original and
unsuggested, ‘in which water is raised not only by the expansive force of
steam, but also by its condensation, the water being raised by the
pressure of the atmosphere into receivers, from which it is forced to a
greater height by the expansive force of the steam.' He had obtained a
patent for this engine in 1698, to last for thirty-five years.
We have seen that there were
busy-brained men in Scotland, constantly trying to devise new things; and
even now, Mr James Gregory, Professor of Mathematics in the Edinburgh
University— a member of a family in which talent has been inherent for two
centuries—was endeavouring to bring into use ‘a machine invented by him
for raising of water in a continued pipe merely by lifting, without any
suction or forcing, which are the only ways formerly practised, and liable
to a great many inconveniences.’ By this new machine, according to the
inventor, ‘water might be raised to any height, in a greater quantity, and
in less space of time,’ than by any other means employing the same force.
It was useful for ‘coal-pits or mines under ground.’ On his petition, Mr
Gregory obtained an exclusive right to make and use this machine for
thirty-one years.
Another such inventive genius was Mr
James Smith of White-hill, who for several years made himself notable by
his plans for introducing supplies of water into burghs. Smith had caught
at Savery’s idea, and made a paction with him for the use of his engine in
Scotland, and now he applied to the Estates for 'encouragement.’ He says
that, since his bargain with Captain Savery, he ‘has made additions to the
engine to considerable advantage, so that, in the short space of an hour,
there may be raised thereby no less than the quantity of twenty tuns of
water to the height of fourteen fathoms.’ Any member of the honourable
house was welcome to see it at work, and satisfy himself of its
efficiency; whence we may infer that an example of it had come down to
Edinburgh. In compliance with his petition, Smith was invested with the
exclusive power of making the engine and dealing with parties for its use
during the remainder of the English patent.
Savery’s steam-engine, however, was
a seed sown upon an infertile soil, and after this date, we in Scotland at
least hear of it no more.
July 10
It pleased the wisdom of the Scottish legislature (as it did that of the
English parliament likewise) to forbid the export of wool and of woolly
skins, an encouragement to woollen manufacturers at home, at the expense,
as usual, of three or four times the amount in loss to the rest of the
community. At this date, Michael Allan, Dean of Guild in Edinburgh, came
before the Privy Council to shew that, in consequence of the extreme
coldness and backwardness of the late spring, producing a mortality of
lambs, there were many thousands of lambs’ skins, or morts, which
could not be manufactured in the kingdom, and would consequently be lost,
but which would be of value at Dantzig and other eastern ports, where they
could be manufactured into clothing. He thought that property to the value
of about seven thousand pounds sterling might thus be utilised for
Scotland, which otherwise ‘must of a necessity perish at home, and will be
good for nothing;’ and the movement was the more desirable, as the return
for the goods would be in ‘lint, hemp, iron, steel, pot-ashes, and knaple,
very useful for our manufactures, and without which the nation cannot
possibly be served.’
The Council called in skinners,
furriers, and others to give them the best advice, and the result was a
refusal to allow the skins to be exported.
Rather more than a twelvemonth
before (June 4, 1700), it was intimated to the Privy Council by ‘the
manufactory of Glasgow,’ that one Fitzgerard, an Irish papist, ‘has had a
constant trade these three years past of exporting wool and woollen yarn
to France, and that he has at this present time combed wool and woollen
yam to the value of three thousand pounds sterling ready to be exported,
to the great ruin of the nation, and of manufactories of that kind.’ The
Council immediately sent orders to the magistrates of Glasgow to take all
means in law for preventing the exportation of the articles in question.
Feb 20
A petition on an extraordinary subject from the magistrates and
town-council of Elgin, was before the Privy Council. Robert Gibson of
Linkwood had been imprisoned in their Tolbooth as furious, at the desire
of the neighbouring gentry, and for the preservation of the public peace.
In the preceding October, when the magistrates were in Edinburgh on
business before the Privy Council, Gibson set fire to the Tolbooth in the
night-time, and there being no means of quenching the flames, it was burnt
to the ground.. Their first duty was to obtain authority from the Privy
Council to send the incendiary in shackles to another place of
confinement, and now they applied for an exemption from the duty of
receiving and confining prisoners for private debts till their Tolbooth
could be rebuilt. They obtained the required exemption until the term of
Whitsunday 1708.
Feb
Wodrow relates a story of the mysterious disappearance of a gentleman
(chamberlain of a countess) dwelling at Linlithgow, and esteemed as a good
man. A gentleman at Falkirk, with whom he had dealings, sent a servant one
afternoon desiring him to come immediately. His wife would not allow him
to travel that evening, and the servant departed without him. Long before
daylight next morning, the chamberlain rose and prepared for his Journey,
but did not omit family worship. In the part of Scripture which he read
(Acts xx.), occurred the sentence, ‘you shall see my face no more.’
Whether this occurred by chance or not is not known, but he repeated the
passage twice. After departing, he returned for his knife; again he
returned to order one of his sons not to go out that day. By daylight his
horse was found, with an empty saddle, near Linlithgow Bridge (a mile west
of the town), and no search or inquiry made then, or for a considerable
time after, sufficed to discover what had become of him. Wodrow states the
suspicion of his being murdered, but as he had taken only some valuable
papers with him, and viewing the fact of his being a steward, it does not
seem difficult to account for his disappearance on a simpler hypothesis.’
Mar 1
The contract for a marriage between Sir John Shaw of Greenock and Margaret
Dalrymple, eldest daughter of the Lord President of the Court of Session,
being signed to-day, ‘there was an entire hogshead of claret drunk’ by the
company assembled on the occasion. At the marriage, not long after, of
Anne, a younger daughter of the Lord President, to James Steuart, son of
the Lord Advocate, ‘the number of people present was little less,’ being
just about as many as the house would hold. A marriage was, in those days,
an occasion for calling the whole connections of a couple of families
together; and where the parties belonged, as in these cases, to an
elevated rank in society, there was no small amount of luxury indulged in.
Claret was, in those days, indeed, but fifteen, and sack eighteen pence,
while ale was three-halfpence, per bottle, so that a good deal of bibulous
indulgence cost little.
The expenditure upon the clothes of
a bride of quality was very considerable. Female fineries were not then
produced in the country as they are now, and they cost probably twice the
present prices. We find that, at the marriage of a daughter of Smythe of
Methven to Sir Thomas Moncrieff of that Ilk, Bart., in December of this
very year, there was a head suit and ruffles of cut work at nearly six
pounds ten shillings; a hood and scarf at two pounds fifteen shillings; a
silk under-coat nearly of the same cost; a gown, petticoat, and lining, at
between sixteen and seventeen pounds; garters, at £1,
3s. 4d.
the entire outfit costing £109, 18s. 3d
When Mrs Margaret Rose, daughter of
the Laird of Kilravock, was married in 1701, there was an account from
Francis Brodie, merchant in Edinburgh, for her wedding-clothes, including
seventeen and a quarter ells of flowered silk, £11, 13s.; nine and a
quarter ells of green silk shagreen for lining, £2, 14s; six and a half
ells of green galloon, 19s. 6d.; with other sums for a gown and
coat, for an under-coat, and an undermost coat; also, for a pair of silk
stockings, 12s.; a necklace and silk handcurcher, 8s.; and some
thirty or forty other articles, amounting in all to £55, 8s. 9d.
sterling. This young lady carried a tocher of 9000 merks—about nine times
the value of her marriage outfit—to her husband, John Mackenzie, eldest
son of Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Coul.
At the marriage of Anne Dalrymple to
Mr James Steuart, ‘the bride’s favours were all sewed on her gown from top
to bottom, and round the neck and sleeves. The moment the ceremony was
performed, the whole company ran to her, and pulled off the favours; in an
instant, she was stripped of them all. The next ceremony was the garter
[we have seen what it cost], which the bridegroom's man attempted to pull
from her leg, but she dropped it on the floor; it was a white and silver
ribbon, which was cut in small parcels, [a piece] to every one in the
company. The bride's mother then came in with a basket of favours
belonging to the bridegroom; those and the bride’s were the same with the
bearings of their families—hers, pink and white; his, blue and gold
colour.’ ‘The company dined and supped together, and had a ball in the
evening; the same next day at Sir James Steuart’s. On Sunday, there went
from the President’s house to church three-and-twenty couple, all in high
dress. Mr Barclay, then a boy, led the youngest Miss Dairymple, who was
the last of them. They filled the galleries of the [High] Church from the
king’s seat to the wing loft. The feasting continued till they had gone
through all the friends of the family, with a ball every night."
Mar 11
It was not yet three years since the people of Scotland were dying of
starvation, and ministers were trying to convince their helpless flocks
that it was all for their sins, and intended for their good. Yet now we
have a commission issued by the government, headed as usual with the
king’s name, commanding that all loads of grain which might be brought
from Ireland into the west of Scotland, should be staved and sunk, and
this, so far as appears, without a remark from any quarter as to the
horrible impiety of the prohibition in the
first place, and the proposed destruction of the gifts of Providence in
the second.
An
example of the simple inconvenience of these laws in the ordinary affairs
of life is presented in July 1702. Malcolm M’NeilI, a native of Kintyre,
had been induced, after the Revolution, to go to Ireland, and become
tenant of some of the waste lands there. Being now anxious to settle again
in Argyleshire, on some waste lands belonging to the Duke of Argyle, he
found a difficulty before him of a kind now unknown, but then most
formidable. How was he to get his stock transported from Ballymaskanlan.
to Kintyre? Not in respect of their material removal, but of the laws
prohibiting all transportation of cattle from Ireland to Scotland. It
gives a curious idea of the law-made troubles of the age, that Malcolm had
to make formal application to the Privy Council in Edinburgh for this
purpose. On his petition, 1eave to carry over two hundred black-cattle,
four hundred sheep, and forty horses, was granted. It is a fact of some
significance, that the duke appears
in the sederunt of the day when this permission was given. That without
such powerful influence no such favour was to be obtained, is sufficiently
proved by the rare nature of the transaction.
1700, Jan 9
We find, in January 1700, that the execution
of’ the laws against the importation of Irish cattle and horses had been
committed to Alexander Maxwell, postmaster at Ayr, who seems to have
performed his functions with great activity, but not much good result. He
several times went over the whole bounds of his commission, establishing
spies and waiters everywhere along the coast. By himself and his servants,
sometimes with the assistance of soldiers, he made a great number of
seizures, but his profits never came up to his costs. Often, after a
seizure, he had to sustain the assaults of formidable rabbles, and now and
then the cattle or horses were rescued out of his hands. For six weeks at
a time he was never at home, and all that time not thrice in his bed—for
he had to ride chiefly at night—but on all hands he met with only
opposition, even from the king’s troops, ‘albeit he maintains them and
defrays all their charges when he employs them.’ On his petition (January
9, 1700), he was allowed a hundred pounds by the Privy Council as an
encouragement to persevere in his duty.
In the
autumn of 1703, an unusual anxiety was shewn to enforce the laws against
the importation of provisions from Ireland and
from England. Mr
Patrick Ogilvie of Cairns, a brother of the Lord Chancellor, Earl of
Seafleld, was commissioned to guard the coasts between the Sound of Mull
and Dumfries, and one Cant of Thurston to protect the east coast between
Leith and Berwick, with suitable allowances and powers. It happened soon
after that an Irish skipper, named Hyndman, appeared with a vessel of
seventy tons, full of Irish meal, in Lamlash Bay, and was immediately
pounced upon by Ogilvie. It was in vain that he represented himself as
driven there by force of weather on a voyage from Derry to Belfast: in
spite of all his pleadings, which were urged with an air of great
sincerity, his vessel was condemned.
Soon after, a Scottish
ship, sailing under the conduct of William Currie to Londonderry, was
seized by the Irish authorities by way of reprisal for Hyndman’s vessel.
The Scottish Privy Council (February 15, 1704) sent a remonstrance to the
Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, setting forth this act as ‘an
abuse visibly to the breach of the good correspondence that ought to be
kept betwixt her majesty’s kingdoms.’ How the matter ended does not
appear; but the whole story, as detailed in the record of the Privy
Council, gives a striking idea of the difficulties, inconveniences, and
losses which nations then incurred through that falsest of principles
which subordinates the interests of the community to those of some
special class, or group of individuals.
Ogilvie was allowed
forty foot-soldiers and twenty dragoons to assist him in his task; but we
may judge of the difficulty of executing such rules from the fact stated
by him in a petition, that, during the interval of five weeks, while these
troops were absent at a review in the centre of the kingdom, he got a list
of as many as a hundred boats which had taken that opportunity of landing
from Ireland with victual. Indeed, he said that, without a regular
independent company, it was impossible to prevent this traffic from going
on.’
We do not hear much
more on this subject till January 1712, when Thomas Gray, merchant in
Irvine, and several other persons, were pursued before the Court of
Session for surreptitious importation of Irish victual, by Boswell and
other Ayrshire justices interested in the prices of Scottish produce. The
delinquents were duly fined. Fountainhall, after recording the decision,
adds a note, in which he debates on the principles involved in the free
trade in corn. ‘This importation of meal,’ says he, ‘is good for
the poor, plenty making it cheap, but it sinks the gentlemen’s rents in
these western shires. Which of the two is the greater prejudice to the
bulk of the nation? Problema esto where we must likewise balance
the loss and damage we suffer by the exporting so much of our money in
specie to a foreign country to buy it, which diminishes our coin pro
tanto: But if the victual was purchased in Ireland by exchange of our
goods given for it, that takes away that objection founded on the
exporting of our money.’
1701, Apr 15
John Lawson, burgess of Edinburgh, was projector of an
Intelligence-office, to be established in the Scottish capital, such as
were already planted in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and other large cities,
for ‘recording the names of servants, upon trial and certificate of their
manners and qualifications, whereby masters may be provided with honest
servants of all sorts, and servants may readily know what masters are
unprovided’—and 'the better and more easy discovery of all bargains, and
the communication and publishing all proposals and other businesses that
the persons concerned may think fit to give notice and account of, for the
information of all lieges.’
He had been at pains to learn how
such offices were conducted in foreign countries, and had already set up a
kind of register-office for servants in Edinburgh, ‘to the satisfaction
and advantage of many, of all ranks and degrees.’ There was, however, a
generation called wed-men and wed-wives, who had been
accustomed, in an irregular way, to get employers for servants and nurses,
and servants and nurses for masters and mistresses. It was evident to John
that his intelligence-office could never duly thrive unless these
practitioners were wholly suppressed. He craved exclusive privileges
accordingly from the Privy Council—that is, that these wed-men and
wed-wives be discharged ‘on any colour or pretence’ from meddling with the
hire of servants, or giving information about bargains and
proposals—though ‘without prejudlice to all the lieges to hire servants
and enter into bargains, and do all other business upon their own proper
knowledge, or upon information gratuitously given.’
Honest John seems to have felt that
something was necessary to reconcile the authorities to a plan obviously
so much for his own interest. The religious feeling was, as usual, a ready
resource. He reminded the Lords that there had been great inconveniences
from the dishonest and proffigate servants recommended by the wed-men and
wed-wives; nay, some had thus been intruded into families who had not
satisfied church-discipline, and did not produce testimonials from
ministers! He held out that he was to take care ‘that all such as offer
themselves to nurse children shall produce a certificate of their good
deportment, in case they be married, and if not, that they have satisfied
the kirk for their scandal, or have found a caution so to do.’
One great advantage to the public
would be, that gentlemen or ladies living in the country could, by
correspondence with the office, and no further trouble or expense, obtain
servants of assured character, ‘such as master-households, gentlemen,
valets, stewards, pages, grieves, gardeners, cooks, porters, coachmen,
grooms, footmen, postilions, young cooks for waiting on gentlemen, or for
change-houses; likewise gentlewomen for attending ladies,
housekeepers, chambermaids, women-stewards and cooks, women for keeping
children, ordinary servants for all sorts of work in private families,
also taverners and ticket-runners, with all sorts of nurses who either
come to gentlemen’s houses, or nurse children in their own’—for so many
and so various were the descriptions of menials employed at that time even
in poor Scotland.
With regard to the department for
commercial intelligence, it was evident that 'men are often
straitened how and where to inquire for bargains they intend,’ while
others are equally ‘at a loss how to make known their offers of bargains
and. other proposals.’ The latter were thus ‘obliged to send clapps, as
they call them, [It was an old mode of
advertisement in country towns, down to the author’s early years, to send
an old woman through the streets with a wooden dish and a stick, to
clap or beat upon it so as to gather a crowd, before whom she then
gave her recital.] through the town, and
sometimes to put advertisements in gazettes, which yet are noways
sufficient for the end designed, for the clapps go only in Edinburgh, and
for small businesses, and the gazette is uncertain, and gazettes come not
to all men’s hands, nor are they oft to be found when men have most to do
with them, whereas a standing office would abide all men, and be ever
ready.’
The Council complied with Lawson’s
petition in every particular, only binding him to exact no more fee than
fourteen shillings Scots (1s. 2d.), where the fee is twelve pounds Scots
(£1 sterling) or upwards, and seven shillings Scots where the fee is below
that sum.
July 3
The infant library of the Faculty of Advocates having been burnt out of
its original depository in the Parliament Square, a new receptacle was
sought for it in the rooms under the Parliament House—the Faculty and the
Edinburgh magistrates concurring in the request—and the Privy Council
complied, only reserving the right of the high constable to view and
search the place ‘the time of the sitting of parliament‘—a regulation,
doubtless, held necessary to prevent new examples of the Gunpowder
Treason.
Aug 27
Lord Basil Hamilton, sixth son of the Duchess of Hamilton—a young man
endeared to his country by the part he had taken in vindicating her rights
in the Darien affair—lost his life by a dismal accident, leaving but one
consolation to his friends, that he lost it in the cause of humanity.
Passing through Galloway, with his brother the Earl of Selkirk and some
friends, he came to a little water called the Minnick, swelled with sudden
rain. A servant went forward to try the ford, and was carried away by the
stream. Lord Basil rushed in to save the man, caught him, but was that
moment dismounted, and carried off by the torrent; so he perished in the
sight of his brother and friends, none being able to render him any
assistance. It was a great stroke to the Hamilton family, to the country
party, and indeed to the whole of the people of Scotland. Lord Basil died
in his thirtieth year.
On the evening of the next day, the
Earl of Selkirk came, worn with travel, to the gate of Hamilton Palace, to
tell his widowed mother of her irreparable loss. But, according to a story
related. by Wodrow, her Grace was already aware of what had happened. ‘On
the Wednesday’s night [the night of the accident] the duchess dreamed she
saw Lord Basil and Lord Selkirk drowned in a water, and she thought
she said to Lady Baldoon [Lord Basil's wife], "Charles and Basil are
drowned," Charles being the Earl of Selkirk. The Lady Baldoon, she
thought, answered: "Lord Selkirk is safe, madam; there is no matter," The
duchess thought she'd answered: "The woman's mad; she knows not her lord
is dead;" and that she [Lady Baldoon] added: "Is Basil dead? then let
James [the duke] take all: I will meddle no more with the world." All this
she [the duchess] told in the Thursday morning, twelve hours or more
before Lord Selkirk came to Hamilton, who brought the first word of it.’
Dec 5
Four men were tried at Perth for theft by the commissioners for securing
the peace of the Highlands, and, being found guilty, were liable to the
punishment of death. The Lords, however, were pleased to adjudge them to
the lighter punishment of perpetual servitude, not in the plantations, as
we have seen to be common, but at home, and the panels to be ‘at the
court’s disposal.’ One of them, Alexander Steuart, they bestowed as a gift
on Sir John .Areskine of Alva, probably with a view to his being employed
as a labourer in the silver-mine which Sir John about this time worked in
a glen of the Ochils belonging to him. Sir John was enjoined to fit a
metal collar upon the man, bearing the following inscription: ‘Alexr.
Steuart, found guilty of death for theft, at Perth, the 5th of December
1701, and gifted by the justiciars as a perpetual servant to Sir John
Areskine of Alva;’ and to remove him from prison in the course of the
ensuing week. The reality of this strange proceeding has been brought home
to us in a surprising manner, for the collar, with this inscription, was
many years ago dredged up in the Firth of Forth, in the bosom of which it
is surmised that the poor man found a sad refuge from the pains of
slavery. As a curious memorial of past things, it is now preserved in our
National Museum of Antiquities.
The reader will perhaps be surprised
to hear of a silver-mine in the Ochils, and it may therefore be proper,
before saying anything more, that we hear what has been put on record on
this subject.
‘In the parish of Alva, a very
valuable mine of silver was discovered about the commencement of the last
century by Sir James [John] Erskine of Alva, in the glen or ravine which
separates the Middle-hill from the Wood-hill. It made its
first appearance in small strings of silver ore, which, being followed,
led to a large mass of that metal. A part of this had the appearance of
malleable silver, and was found on trial to be so rich as to produce
twelve ounces of silver from fourteen ounces of ore. Not more than £50 had
been expended when this valuable discovery was, made. For the space of
thirteen or fourteen weeks, it is credibly affirmed that the proprietor
obtained ore from this mine to the value of £4000 per week. When this mass
was exhausted, the silver ore began to appear in smaller quantities;
symptoms of lead and other metals presented themselves, and the search was
for the present abandoned.’
It is related that Sir John, walking
with a friend over his estate, pointed out a great hole, and remarked:
‘Out of that hole I took fifty thousand pounds.’ Then presently, walking
on, he came to another excavation, and, continued he: ‘I put it all into
that hole.’
Nevertheless, the search was renewed
by his younger brother, Charles Areskine, Lord Justice-Clerk, but without
the expected fruit, though a discovery was made of cobalt, and
considerable quantities of that valuable mineral were extracted even from
the rubbish of his predecessor’s works. In 1767, Lord Alva, the son of the
Lord Justice-Clerk, bestowed a pair of silver communion-cups upon the
parish of Alva, with an inscription denoting that they were fashioned from
silver found at the place.
The granting of Steuart as ‘a
perpetual servant’ to Sir John Areskine sounds strangely to modern ears;
but it was in perfect accordance with law and usage in Scotland in old
times; and there was even some vestige of the usage familiar to Englishmen
at no remote date, in laws for setting the poor to work in workhouses. The
act of the Highland justiciars was the more natural, simple, and
reasonable, that labourers in mines and at salt-works were regarded by the
law of Scotland as ‘necessary servants,’ who, without any paction, by
merely coming and taking work in such places, became bound to servitude
for life, their children also becoming bound if their fathers in any way
used them as assistants. Such is the view of the matter coolly set down in
the Institutes of Mr John Erskine (1754), who further takes leave
to tell his readers that ‘there appears nothing repugnant, either to
reason, or to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, in a contract by
which one binds himself to perpetual service under a master, who, on his
part, is obliged to maintain the other in all the necessaries of life.’ It
appears that the salters and miners were transferred with the works when
these were sold; but a right in the masters to dispose of the men
otherwise, does not appear to have been a part of the Scots law.
In the year 1743, there appears to
have been a disposition among the bondsmen of the coal-mines in Fife and
Lothian to assert their freedom. Fifteen men who worked in the Gilmerton
coal-works having absented themselves in October, and gone to work at
other collieries, their master, Sir John Baird of Newbyth, advertised
them, so that no other master might break the act of parliament by
entertaining them, and. also that the deserters might be secured. In the
same year, the Marquis of Lothian had to complain of three boys who ran
away from his colliery at Newbattle, and took refuge amongst the people of
another estate, supposed to have been that of the Viscount Oxenford. He
accordingly addressed the following letter to that nobleman:
‘NEWBATTLE,
July the 21st, 1743.
‘Mv Lord—Being told Sir Robert Dixon
is not at home, I am equally satisfied that Mr Biger should determine the
use and practice of coal-masters in such cases, if he pleases to take the
trouble, which I suppose is all your lordship is desirous to know before
you let me have these boys that ran away from my colliery, and was
entertained by your people; but if I mistake your intention, and you think
it necessary I prove my title to them in law, I am most willing to refer
the whole to Mr Biger, and therefore am ready to produce my evidence at
any time you please to appoint, and if my claim is found to be good, shall
expect the boys be returned without my being obliged to find them out. My
lord, I am not so well acquainted with Mr Biger as to ask the favour;
therefore hopes your lordship will do it, and wish it may be determined
soon, if convenient. I beg my best respects to Lady Orbiston; and am, my
lord,
‘Your lordship’s most obedient
‘and humble Servant,
‘LOTHIAN.’
‘P.
S.—I have not the smallest pretensions to the faither of these
boys, and should have pleasure in assisting you if I could spare any of my
coaliers.’
Whether Mr Gibson of Durie had been
dealt with in the same manner by his colliers, we do not know; but in
November he advertised for hands, offering good and regularly paid wages,
and ‘a line under his hand, obliging himself to let them go from the works
at any time, upon a week’s warning, without any restraint whatever.’ He
would also accept a loan of workers from other coal-proprietors, and
oblige himself ‘to restore them when demanded.’
I must not, however, forget—and
certainly it is a curious thing to remember—-that I have myself seen in
early life native inha.. bitants of Scotland who bad been slaves in their
youth. The restraints upon the personal freedom of salters and colliers—
remains of the villainage of the middle ages—were not put an end to till
1775, when a statute (15 Geo. III. 28) extinguished them. I am tempted to
relate a trivial anecdote of actual life, which brings the recentness of
slavery in Scotland vividly before us.
About the year 1820, Mr Robert Bald
of Alloa, mining-engineer, being on a visit to Mr Colin Dunlop, at the
Clyde Ironworks, near Glasgow, found among the servants of the house an
old working-man, commonly called Moss Nook, who seemed to be on easy terms
with his master. One day, Mr Bald heard the following conversation take
place between Mr Dunlop. and this veteran:
‘Moss Nook, you don’t appear, from
your style of speaking, to be of this part of the country. Where did you
originally come from?’
Oh, sir,’ answered Moss Nook, ‘do
you not know that your father brought me here long ago from Mr M’Nair’s of
the Green [a place some miles off, on the other side of the river]? Your
father used to have merry-meetings with Mr M’Nair, and, one day, he saw
me, and took a liking to me. At the same time, Mr M’Nair had taken a fancy
to a very nice pony belonging to your father; so they agreed on the
subject, and I was niffered away for the pony. That’s the way I
came here.’
The man had, in short, been a slave,
and was exchanged for a pony. To Mr Bald’s perception, he had not the
least idea that there was anything singular or calling for remark in the
manner of his leaving the Green.
1702
A Scottish clergyman resident in England—the same who lately ‘promoted
contributions for the printing of Bibles in the Irish language, and sent
so many of them down to Scotland, and there is no news he more earnestly
desires to know than what the G[eneral] A[ssembly] doth whenever it
meeteth for promoting the interests of the Gospel in the Highlands’—at
this time started a scheme for ‘erecting a library in every presbytery, or
at least county, in the Highlands.’ He had been for some time prevented
from maturing his plan by bodily distempers and faint hopes, of success;
but now the scheme for sending libraries to the colonies had encouraged
him to come forward, and he issued a printed paper explaining his views,
and calling for assistance. His great object was to help the Highland
Protestant clergy in the matter of books, seeing that, owing to their
poverty, and the scarcity of books, few of them possessed property of that
kind to the value of twenty shillings; while it was equally true, that at
the distance they lived at from towns, the borrowing of books was with
most of them impossible. It was the more necessary that they should be
provided with books, that the Romish missionaries were so active among the
people: how could the clergy encounter these adversaries without the
knowledge which they might derive from books? ‘The gross ignorance of the
people in those parts, together with some late endeavours to seduce the
inhabitants of the isle of Hirta to a state of heathenism, make it very
necessary that they be provided with such treatises as prove the truth of
the Christian religion. At the same time, the excellent parts and
capacities of the ministers generally throughout the Highlands give good
ground to expect much fruit frdm such a charity.’
The promoter of the scheme felt no
hesitation in asking assistance in the south, because the poverty of
Scotland—’ occasioned chiefly by their great losses at sea, the decay of
trade, the great dearth of corn, and the death of cattle for some years
together— renders the people generally unable to do much in the way of
charity. Nevertheless, there are not wanting those amongst them, who,
amidst their straits and wants, are forward to promote this or any other
good design, even beyond their power.’ He hoped no native would take
offence at this confession, the truth of which ‘is too much felt at home
and known abroad to be denied. . . . But if any are so foolish as to
censure this paragraph, their best way of confutation is to take an
effectual and speedy course to provide a competent number of libraries for
such parts of our native country as need them most.’
He even went so far as to draw up a
set of rules for the keeping and lending of the books—a very stringent
code certainly it is; ‘but,’ says he, ‘they who know the world but a
little, and have seen the fate of some libraries, will reckon the outmost
precaution we can use little enough to prevent what otherwise will be
unavoidable. It‘s a work of no small difficulty to purchase a parcel of
good books for public advantage; nor is it less difficult to preserve and
secure them for posterity, when they are purchased.’
A Memorial concerning the Highlands,
published at Edinburgh in the ensuing year, described them as full of
ignorance and heathenism. Most of the people were said to be unacquainted
with the first principles of Christianity; a few bad been ‘caught by the
trinkets of popery.’ While there were schools at Inverness, Forres, Keith,
Kincardine O’Neil, Perth, &c.—places closely adjacent to the
Highlands—there were none in the country itself:, excepting one at
Abertarf (near the present Fort-Augustus, in Inverness-shire), which had
been erected by charitable subscription, but where it was found nearly
impossible to get scholars unless subsistence was provided for them. In
remote places, children remained unbaptised for years. In the country
generally, theft and robbery were esteemed as ‘only a hunting, and not a
crime;’ revenge, in matters affecting a clan, even when carried the length
of murder, was counted a gallantry; idleness was a piece of honour; and
blind obedience to chiefs obscured all feeling of subjection to civil
government.
It was under a sense of the
unenlightened state of the Highlands, and particularly of the hold which
the Catholic religion had obtained over the Gael, that the ‘Society for
the Propagation of Christian Knowledge’ was soon after formed by a
combination of the friends of Presbyterian orthodoxy. It was incorporated
in 1709, at which time a strong effort was made by the courts of the
Established Church to promote contributions in its behalf, though under
some considerable discouragements. Wodrow tells us that this Society was
originated by a small knot of gentlemen, including Mr Dundas of
Philipston, clerk of the General Assembly; Sir H. Cunningham, Sir Francis
Grant [Lord Cullen], Commissary Brodie, Sir Francis Pringle, and Mr George
Meidrum, who, about 1698, had formed themselves into a society for prayer
and religious correspondence. Writing now to Mr Dundas about the
subscriptions, and enclosing twenty-five pounds as a contribution from the
presbytery of Paisley, he apologises for the smallness of the sum in
proportion to the importance of the object, and says:
‘The public spirit and zeal for any
good designs is much away from the generality here.’ ‘The truth is,’ says
he, regarding another matter, ‘the strait of this part of the country is
so great, through the dearth of victual, that our collections are very far
from maintaining our poor, and our people . . . . are in such a pet with
collections for bridges, tolbooths, &c., that when any collection is
intimate, they are sure to give less that day than their ordinary.'
Nevertheless, the Society was able to enter on a course of activity, which
has never since been allowed to relax.
The scheme of presbyterial libraries
was realised in 1705 and 1706 to the extent of nineteen, in addition to
which fifty-eight local libraries were established; but these institutions
are understood to have been little successful and ill supported. In 1719,
the Christian Knowledge Society had forty-eight schools established,
increased to a hundred and nine in 1732, and to two hundred at the close
of the century. Its missionary efforts were also very considerable. Such,
however, were the natural and other difficulties of the case, that a
writer described the people in 1826 as still ‘sunk in ignorance and
poverty.' It is not merely that schools must necessarily be few in
proportion to geographical space, and school-learning, therefore,
difficult of attainment, but the Highlander unavoidably remains
unacquainted with many civiising influences which the communication of
thought, and observation of the processes of merchandise and the
mechanical trades, impart to more fortunate communities. The usual
consequencè of the introduction of Christianity to minds previously
uneducated has been realised. It has taken a form involving much of both
old and new superstition, along with feelings of intolerance towards
dissent even in the most unessential particulars, such as recall to men in
the south a former century of our history.
It is remarkable that, while the
bulk of the Highland population were unschooled and ignorant, there were
abundance of gentlemen who had a perfect knowledge of Latin, and even
composed Latin poetry. Nor is it less important or more than strictly just
to observe that, amidst all the rudeness of former times in the Highlands,
there was amongst the common people an old traditionary morality, which
included not a little that was entitled to admiration. To get a full idea
of what this was, one must peruse the writings of Mrs Grant and Colonel
Stewart. The very depredations so often spoken of could hardly be said to
involve a true turpitude, being so much connected as they were with
national and clan feelings.
Feb 19
Captain Simon Fraser of Beaufort, who had long been declared rebel for
not appearing to answer at the Court of Justiciary on the charge of
rape brought against him by the dowager Lady Lovat,’ was described at this
time as living openly in the country as a free liege, ‘to the contempt of
all authority and justice.’ The general account given of his habits is
rather picturesque. ‘He keeps in a manner his open residence within the
lordship of Lovat, where, and especially in Stratherrick, he further
presumes to keep men in arms, attending and guarding his person.’ These he
also employed in levying contributions from Lady Lovat’s tenants, and he
had thus actually raised between five and six thousand merks. ‘Proceeding
yet to further degrees of unparalleled boldness, causes make public
intimation at the kirks within the bounds on the Lord’s Day, that all the
people be in readiness with their best arms when advertised.’ The tenants
were consequently so harassed as to be unable to pay her ladyship any
rents, and there were ‘daily complaints of these strange and lawless
disorders.’
The Council granted warrants of
intcrcommuning against the culprit, and enjoined his majesty’s forces to
be helpful in apprehending him. We find that, in the month of August,
Fraser had departed from the country, but his interest continued to be
maintained by others. His brother John, with thirty or forty ‘loose and
broken men,’ went freely up and down the countries of Aird and
Stratherrick, menacing with death the chamberlains of the Lady Lovat and
her husband, Mr Alexander Mackenzie of Prestonhall, if they should uplift
the rents in behalf of their master and mistress, and threatening the
tenants in like manner, if they should pay their rents to those persons.
The better to support this lawless system, John kept a garrison of armed
gillies in the town of Bewly, ‘the heart of the country of Aird,’ entirely
at the cost of the tenants there. Within the last few weeks, they had
taken from the tenants of Aird ‘two hundred custom wedders and lambs,’
and, breaking up the meal-girnels of Bewly, they had supplied themselves
with sixty boils of meal. At the beginning of July, Fraser, younger of
Buchrubbin, and two accomplices, came to the house of Moniack, the
residence of Mr Hugh Fraser, one of the lady’s chamberlains, ‘and having
by a false token got him out of his honse,’ first reproached him with his
office, and then ‘beat him with the butts of their guns, and had murdered
him if he had not made his escape.’
Mr Hugh Fraser and Captain John
Mackenzie, ‘conjunct bailie and chamberlain,’ applied for protection to
the Highland commission of justiciary, who ordered a small military party
to go and maintain the law in the Aird. But it was very difficult to
obtain observance of law in a country where the bulk of the people were
otherwise minded. The introduction of soldiers only added to the
fierceness of the rebellious Frasers, who now sent the most frightful
threats to all who should take part with Lady Lovat and her husband.
On the 5th of August, John Fraser
came from Stratherrick with a party of fifty armed followers, and
gathering more as he passed through the Aird, he fell upon the house of
Fanellan, where Captain Mackenzie and the ten soldiers were, with between
two and three hundred men, calling upon the inmates to surrender, on pain
of having the house burnt about their ears if they refused. They did
refuse to yield, and the Frasers accordingly set fire to the house and
offices, the whole of which were burnt to the ground. Captain Mackenzie,
Hugh Fraser of Eskadale, the ten soldiers and their commander, Lieutenant
Cameron, besides a servant of Prestonhall, were all taken prisoners.
Having dismissed the soldiers, the Frasers carried the rest in a
bravadoing triumph through the country till they came to the end of Loch
Ness. There dismissing Lieutenant Cameron, they proceeded with the two
baillies and the servant to Stratherrick, everywhere using them in a
barbarous manner. The report given nine days after in Edinburgh says of
the prisoners, whether they be dead or alive is unknown.
The Privy Council, feeling this to
be ‘such an unparalleled piece of insolence as had not been heard of in
the country for an age,’ instantly ordered large parties of troops to
march into the Fraser countries, and restore order.
On the 8th of September, the Council
sent Brigadier Maitland and Major Hamilton their thanks ‘for their good
services done in dispersing the Frasers,’ and, a few days after, we find
orders issued for using all endeavours to capture John Fraser. Captain
Grant’s company remained in Stratherrick till the ensuing February.
Mar 11
At ten o’clock in the evening, Colonel Archibald Row arrived express at
Edinburgh with the news of the king’s death. King William died in
Kensington Palace at eight o’clock in the morning of Sunday the 8th
instant: it consequently took three days and a half for this express to
reach the Scottish capital, being a day more than had been required by
Robert Carey, when he came to Edinburgh with the more welcome intelligence
of the demise of Queen Elizabeth, ninety-nine years before. |