1705, Mar 5
In the early part of 1704, the sense of indignity and wrong which had been
inspired into the national mind by the Darien disasters and other
circumstances, was deepened into a wrathful hatred by the seizure of a
vessel named the Annaudale, which the African Company was preparing
for a trading voyage to India. This proceeding, and the subsequent
forfeiture of the vessel before the Court of Exchequer, were defensive
acts of the East India Company, and there can be little doubt that they
were grossly unjust. In the subsequent autumn, an English vessel, named
the Worcester, belonging to what was called the Two Million Company
(a rival to the East India Company), was driven by foul weather into the
Firth of Forth. It was looked upon by the African Company as fair game for
a reprisal. On the 12th August, the secretary, Mr Roderick Mackenzie, with
a few associates, made an apparently friendly visit to the ship, and was
entertained with a bowl of punch. Another party followed, and were
received with equal hospitality. With only eleven half-armed friends, he
that evening overpowered the officers and crew, and took the vessel into
his possession. In the present temper of the nation, the act, questionable
as it was in every respect, was sure to meet with general approbation.
Before Captain Green and the others
had been many days in custody, strange hints were heard amongst them of a
piratical attack they had committed in the preceding year upon a vessel
off the coast of Malabar. The African Company had three years ago sent out
a vessel, called the Speedy Return, to India, with one Drummond as
its master, and it had never since been heard of. It was concluded that
the people of the Worcester had captured the Speedy Return,
and murdered its crew, and that Providence had arranged for their
punishment, by sending them for shelter from a storm to the neighbourhood
of Edinburgh. Vainly might it have been pointed out that there was no
right evidence for even the fact of the piracy, still less for the
Speedy Return being the subject of the offence. Truth and justice were
wholly lost sight of in the universal thirst for vengeance against England
and its selfish mercantile companies.
Green, the captain of the
Worcester, Mather, the chief-mate, Reynolds, the second-mate, and
fifteen others, were tried at this date before the Court of Admiralty, for
the alleged crime of attacking a ship, having English or Scotch aboard,
off the coast of Malabar, and subsequently murdering the crew—no specific
vessel or person being mentioned as the subjects of the crime, and no
nearer date being cited than the months of February, March, April, or May
1703. The jury had no difficulty in bringing them in guilty, and they were
all condemned to be hanged on the sands of Leith, the usual place for the
execution of pirates.
The English government was thrown
into great anxiety by this violent proceeding, but they could make no
effectual resistance to the current of public feeling in Scotland. There
the general belief in the guilt of Green and his associates was
corroborated after thc trial by three several confessions, admitting the
piratical seizing of Drummond’s vessel, and the subsequent murder of
himself and his crew—confessions which can now only be accounted for, like
those of witches, on the theory of a desire to conciliate favour, and
perhaps win pardon, by conceding so far to the popular prejudices. The
queen sent down affidavits shewing that Drummond’s ship had in reality
been taken by pirates at Madagascar, while himself was on shore—a view of
the fact which there is now ample reason to believe to have been true. She
also sent to the Privy Council the expression of her desire that the men
should be respited for a time. But, beyond postponement for a week, all
was in vain. The royal will was treated respectfully, but set aside on
some technical irregularity. When the day approached for the execution of
the first batch of the condemned, it became evident that there was no
power in Scotland which could have saved these innocent men. The Council,
we may well believe, would have gladly conceded to the royal will, but,
placed as it was amidst an infuriated people, it had no freedom to act. On
the fatal morning (11th April), its movements were jealously watched by a
vast multitude, composed of something more than the ordinary citizens of
Edinburgh, for on the previous day all the more ardent and determined
persons living within many miles round had poured into the city to see
that justice was done. No doubt can now be entertained that, if the
authorities bad attempted to save the condemned from punishment, the mob
would have torn them from the Tolbooth, and hung every one of them up in
the street. What actually took place is described in a letter from Mr
Alexander Wodrow to his father, the minister of Eastwood: ‘I wrote last
night,’ he says, ‘of the uncertainty anent the condemned persons, and this
morning things were yet at a greater uncertainty, for the current report
was that ane express was come for a reprieve.
How this was, I have not yet
learned; but the councillors went down to the Abbey [Palace of Holyrood]
about eight, and came up to the Council-house about nine, against which
time there was a strange gathering in the streets. The town continued in
great confusion for two hours, while the Council was sitting, and a great
rabble at the Netherbow port. All the guards in the Canongate were in
readiness if any mob had arisen. About eleven, word came out of the
Council [sitting in the Parliament Square] that three were to be hanged,
namely - Captain Green, Mather and Simson. This appeased the mob, and made
many post away to Leith, where many thousands had been [assembled] and
were on the point of coming up in a great rage. When the chancellor came
out, he got many huzzas at first; but at the Tron Kirk, some surmised to
the mob that all this was but a sham; upon which they assaulted his coach,
and broke the glasses, and forced him to come out and go into Mylne’s
Square, and stay for a considerable time.
‘The three prisoners were brought
with the Town-guards, accompanied with a vast mob. They went through all
the Canongate, and out at the Water-port to Leith. There was a battalion
of foot-guards, and also some of the horse-guards, drawn up at some
distance from the place of execution. There was the greatest confluence of
people there that ever I saw in my life, for they cared not how far they
were oft; so be it they saw. Green was first execute, then Simson, and
last of all Mather. They every one of them, when the rope was about their
necks, denied they were guilty of that for which they were to die. This
indeed put all people to a strange demur. There‘s only this to alleviate
it, that they confessed no other particular sins more than that, even
though they were posed anent their swearing and drunkenness, which was
weel known."
Sep 11
The Scottish parliament was not much given to the patronising of
literature. We have, indeed, seen it giving encouragement to Adair’s maps
of the coasts, and Slezer’s views of the king’s and other mansions; but it
was in a languid and ineffective way, by reason of the lack of funds. At
this time, the assembled wisdom of the nation was pleased to pass an act
enabling the town-council of Glasgow to impose two pennies (1/6th of a
penny sterling) upon the pint of ale brewn and vended in that town; and
out of this gift in favours of the town of Glasgow)’ as it was quite
sincerely called, there was granted three thousand six hundred pounds
(£300 sterling) to Mr James Anderson, writer to her majesty’s signet, ‘for
enabling him to carry on an account of the ancient and original charters
and seals of our kings in copper-plates.’ Why the ale-drinkers of Glasgow
should have been called upon to furnish the country with engraved copies
of its ancient charters, was a question which probably no one dreamed of
asking.
In February 1707, the parliament,
then about to close its existence, ordered to Mr Anderson the further
sum of £590 sterling, to repay him for his outlay on the work, with a
further sum of £1050 to enable him to go on and complete it. This was done
after due examination by a committee, which reported favourably of the
curious and valuable character of his collections. Soon after, the
parliament, in consideration of the great sufferings of the town of Dundee
in the time of the troubles and at the Revolution, aud of ‘the universal
decay of trade, especially in that burgh,’ granted it an imposition of two
pennies Scots on every pint of ale or beer made or sold in the town for
twenty-four years; but this gift was burdened with a hundred
pounds sterling per annum for six years to Mr James Anderson, as
part of the sum the parliament had agreed to confer upon him for the
encouragement of his labours.’
Nov
Died Alexander third Earl of Kincardine, unmarried, a nobleman of
eccentric character. His father, the second earl, is spoken of by Burnet
in the highest terms; his mother was a Dutch lady, Veronica, daughter of
Corneiile, Lord of Sommelsdyke and Spycke. [Readers of Boswell with
remember his infant daughter Veronica, with whom Johnson was pleased, so
named from the biographers great-grandmother, Veronica, Countess of
Kincardine]. The earl, now deceased, probably through his parental
connection with the Low Countrie, had contracted the religious principles
of the Flemish saint or seeress, Antonia Bourignon, which, like every
other departure from pure Presbyterianism and the Westminster Confession,
were detested in Scotland. Wodrow tells us: ‘I have it from very good
hands, Lieutenant-colonel Erskine and Mr Allan Logan, who were frequently
with him, that the late Earl of Kincardine did fast forty days and nights
after he turned Burrignianist, and lived several years after. He was very
loose before he turned to these errors; and after a while being in them,
he turned loose again, and died in a very odd manner. Many thought him
possessed. He would have uttered the most dreadful blasphemies that can be
conceived, and he told some things done at a distance, and repeated Mr
Allan Logan’s words, which he had in secret, and told things it was
impossible for anybody to’
The more active minds of the country
continued constantly seething with schemes for the promotion of industry,
and the remedy of the standing evil of poverty. In this year there was
published an Essay on the New Project of a
Land Mint, which might be considered a type
of the more visionary plans. It rested on what would now be called one of
the commonplaces of false political economy. The proposed Land Mint was a
kind of bank for the issue of notes, to be given only on landed security.
Any one intending to borrow, say a thousand pounds of these notes, pledged
unentailed land-property to that amount, plus interest and possible
expenses, undertaking to pay back a fifth part each year, with interest on
the outstanding amount, till all was discharged. It was thought that, by
these means, money would be, as it were, created; the country would be
spirited up to hopeful industrial undertakings; and—everything requiring a
religious aspect in those days—the people would be enabled to resist the
designs of a well-known sovereign, ‘aiming now at a Catholic monarchy ;.‘
for, while Louis XIV. might become sole master of the plate (that is,
silver) of the world, what would it matter ‘if we and other nations should
substitute another money, equal in all cases to plate?’ The only fear the
author could bring himself to entertain, was as to possible counterfeiting
of the notes. This being provided against by an ingenious expedient
suggested by himself, there remained nq difficulty and no fear whatever.
1706, Mar
Although the incessant violences which we have seen mark an early period
embraced by our Annals were no more, it cannot be said that the crimes of
violent passion had become infrequent. On the contrary, it appeared as if
the increasing licence of manners since the Revolution, and particularly
the increasing drunkenness of the upper classes, were now giving occasion
for a considerable number of homicides and murders. We have seen a notable
example of reckless violence in the case of the Master of Rollo in 1695.
There was about the same time a Laud of Kininmont, who—partly under the
influence of a diseased brain—was allowed to commit a considerable number
of manslaughters before it was thought necessary to arrest him in his
course.
Archibald Houston, writer to the
signet in Edinburgh, acted as factor for the estate of Braid, the property
of his nephew, and in this capacity he had incurred the diligence of the
law on account of some portion of Bishops’ rents which he had failed to
pay. Robert Kennedy of Auchtyfardel, in Lanarkahire, receiving a
commission to uplift these arrears, found it to be his duty to give
Houston a charge of horning for his debt.
Mar 20
One day, Kennedy and his two sons left their house in the Castle Hill of
Edinburgh, to go to the usual place of rendezvous at the Cross, when,
passing along the Luckenbooth; he was accosted by Mr Houston with violent
language, referring to the late legal proceedings. Kennedy, if his own
account is to be trusted, gave no hard langnage in return, but made an
effort to disengage himself from the unseemly scene, and moved on towards
the Cross. Houston, however, followed and renewed the brawl, when it would
appear that Gilbert Kennedy, Auchtyfardel’s eldest son, was provoked to
strike his father’s assailant on the face. The people now began to flock
about the party— Kennedy again moved on; but before he had got many paces
away, he heard the sounds of a violent collision, and turned back with his
cane uplifted to defend his son. It is alleged that Kennedy fell upon
Houston with his cane—he had no weapon on his person—and while he did so,
young Gilbert Kennedy drew his sword, and, rushing forward, wounded
Houston mortally in the belly. The unfortunate man died a few days
afterwards.’
Auchtyfardel’s share in this
transaction was held to infer his liability to an arbitrary punishment.
Gilbert fled, and was outlawed, but afterwards was permitted to return
home, and in time he succeeded to his father’s estate. We hear of him in
1730, as having been brought by that sad act of his youth into a very
serious and religious frame of life. He was an elder of the church, and
took great care of the morals of his servants. A maid, whom he on one
occasion reproved severely, was led, by a diabolic spite, to mix some
arsenic with the bread and milk which she prepared for the family
breakfast, and the death of Houston had very nearly been avenged at the
distance of twentyfour years from its occurrence. Happily, through the aid
of a physician, the laird and his family escaped destruction.
A case more characteristic of the
age than that of young Auchtyfardel occurred in the ensuing year. David
Ogilvie of Cluny, having first thrust himself upon a funeral-party at the
village of Meigle, aud there done his best to promote hard drinking,
insisted on accompanying two or three of the gentlemen on their way home,
though his own lay another way. While proceeding along, he gave extreme
annoyance to Andrew Cowpar, younger of Lochblair, by practical jokes of a
gross kind, founded on the variance of sex in their respective horses. At
length, Cowpar giving the other’s horse a switch across the face, to make
it keep off, Ogilvie took violent offence at the act, demanded Cowpar’s
whip under a threat of being otherwise pistolled, and, on a refusal,
actually took out a pistol and shot his companion dead. The wretched
murderer escaped abroad.
In January 1708, Robert Baird, son
of Sir James Baird of Sauchtonhall, had a drinking-match in a tavern at
Leith, where he particularly insisted on his friend, Mr Robert Oswald,
being filled drunk. On Oswald resisting repeated bumpers, Baird demanded
an apology from him, as if he had committed some breach of good-manners.
He refused, and thus a drunken sense of resentment was engendered in the
mind of Baird. At a late hour, they came up to Edinburgh in a coach, and
leaving the vehicle at the Nether Bow, were no sooner on the street, than
Baird drew his sword, and began to push at Oswald, upon whom he speedily
inflicted two mortal wounds. He fled from the scene leaving a bloody and
broken sword beside his expiring victim.
On the ground of its not being
‘forethought felony,’ Baird was some years afterwards allowed by the Court
of Justiciary to have the benefit of Queen Anne’s act of indemnity.
Oct
Early in this month, Scotland was honoured with a visit from the
celebrated Daniel Defoe. His noted power and probity as a Whig pamphleteer
suggested to the English ministry the propriety of sending him down for a
time to Edinburgh, to help on the cause of the Union. He came with
sympathies for the people of Scotland, founded on what they had suffered
under the last Stuart reigns. Instead of believing all to be barren and
hopeless north of the Tweed, he viewed the country as one of great
capabilities, requiring only peace and industry to become a scene of
prosperity equal to what prevailed in England. To this end he deemed an
incorporating union of the two countries necessary, and it was therefore
with no small amount of good-will that he undertook the mission assigned
to him.
Even, however, from one regarding it
so fraternally as Defoe, Scotland was little disposed to accept a
recommendation of that measure. It was in vain that he published a
complaisant poem about the people, under the name of Caledonia, in
which he commended their bravery, their learning, and abilities. Vainly
did he declare himself their friend, anxious to promote their prosperity
by pointing to improved agriculture, to fisheries, to commerce, and to
manufactures. The Edinburgh people saw him daily closeted with the leaders
of the party for the hated union, and that was enough. His pen displayed
its wonted activity in answers to the objectors, and his natural
good-humour seems never to have failed him, even when he was assailed with
the most virulent abuse. But his enemies did not confine themselves to
words: threats of assassination reached him. His lodgings were marked, and
his footsteps were tracked; yet he held serenely on in his course. He even
entered upon some little enterprises in the manufacture of linen, for the
purpose of shewing the people what they might do for themselves, if they
would adopt right methods, It appears that., during the tumults which took
place in Edinburgh while the measure was passing through parliament, he
was in real danger. One evening, when the mob was raging in the street, he
looked out of his window to behold their proceedings, and was nearly hit
by a large stone which some one threw at him, the populace making a point
that no one should look over windows at them, lest he might recognise
faces, and become a witness against individual culprits.
Defoe spent sixteen months in
Scotland on this occasion, rendering much modest good service to the
country, and receiving for it little remuneration besides abuse. Amongst
other fruits of his industry during the period is his laborious work,
The History of the
Union of Great Britain. One could have
wished a record tracing the daily life of this remarkable man in Scotland.
We only get an obscure idea of some of his public transactions. One of the
few private particulars we have learned, is that he paid a visit to the
Duke of Queensberry at Drumlanrig, and by his Grace’s desire, took a view
of his estates, with a view to the suggestion of improvements.
Defoe revisited Scotland in the summer of 1708, on a
mission the purpose of which has not been ascertained; and again in the
summer of 1709. His stay on the last occasion
extended to nearly two years, during part of which time, in addition to
constant supplies of articles for his Review in London, he acted as editor
of the Edinburgh Courant newspaper.’ (See the next article).
1707, Mar 6
In a folio published this day by Captain James Donaldson, under the title
of the Edinburgh Courant Reviewed, we learn that the Edinburgh Gazette,
which, as we have seen, was commenced in 1699, had now succumbed to fate:
damaged by the persevering policy of Adam Boig of the Courant, the Gazette
‘of late has been hid aside, as a thing that cannot be profitably carried
on.’
Donaldson here reviews the charges made against his
paper, as to partiality and staleness of news, defends it to some extent,
but practicaliy admits the latter fault, by stating that he was about to
remedy it. He was going to recommence the Edinburgh Gazette in a new
series, in which he would take a little more liberty, and give stories as
they come; without waiting, as before, for their authentication, though
taking care where they were doubtful to intimate as much. The Gazette did,
accordingly, resume its existance on the 25th of the same month, as a
twice-a-week paper. The first number contains three advertisements, one of
a sale of house-property, another of the wares of the Leith glass-work,
and a third as follows: ‘There is a gentleman in town, who has an secret
which was imparted to him by his father, an eminent physician in this
kingdom, which by the blessing of God cures the Phrensie and Convulsion
Pits. He takes no reward for his pains till the cure
be perfyted. He will be found at the Caledonian Coffeehouse.’
In a series of the Gazette extending from the
commencement to the 140th number, published on the 2d September 1708,
there is a remarkable sterility of home-news, and anything that is told is
told in a dry and sententious way. The following alone seem worthy of
transcription:
‘LEITH, May 19 1707 - Last Saturday,
about 50 merchant ships, bound for Holland, sailed from our Road, under
convoy of two Dutch men-of-war.’
‘EDINBURGH, August 5.—This day the
Equivalent Money came in here from South Britain, in thirteen waggons
drawn by six horses.’
Sep. 30.—’Dyer’s Letter says: Daniel de Foe is believed
by this time in the hands of justice at the complaint of the Swedish
minister, and now a certain man of law may have an opportunity to reckon
with him for a crime which made him trip to Scotland, and make him oblige
the world with another Hymn to the Pillory.’
Strange to say, ]ess than three years after this date,
namely, in February 1710, the ‘unabashed Defoe’ was conducting the rival
newspaper in Edinburgh—the Courant—sueceeding in this office Adam Boig,
who had died in the preceding month. The authority of Defoe for his
editorship appears in the following decree of the Town Council:
‘Att Edinburgh the first day of February
‘The same day The Councill authorized Mr Daniel Defoe
to print the Edinburgh Currant in place of the deceast Adam Bog
Discharging hereby any other person to print News under the name of the
Edinburgh Currant.’
The advertisements are also very scanty, seldom above
three or four, and most of these repeated frequently, as if they were
reprinted gratuitously, in order to make an appearance of business in this
line. The following are selected as curious:
May 13, 1707.—’ This is to give notice
to all who have occasion for a black hersse, murning-coach, and other
coaches, just new, and in good order, with good horses well accoutred,
that James Mouat, coachmaster in Lawrence Ord’s Land at the foot of the
Canongate, will serve them thankfully at reasonable rates.’
‘Ralph Agutter of London, lately come to Edinburgh,
Musical Instrument-maker, is to be found at Widow Pool’s, perfumer of
gloves, at her lionse in Stonelaw’s Close, a little below the Steps; makes
the Violin, Bass Violin, Tenor Violin, the Viol de
G-ambo, the Lute Quiver, the Trumpet Marine, the Harp; and mendeth and
putteth in order and stringeth all those instruments as fine as any man
whatsoever in the three kingdoms, or elsewhere, and
mendeth the Virginal, Spinnat, and
harpsichord, all at reasonable rates.’Oct.
16.—’ There is just now come to town the
Excellent Scarburray Water, good for all diseases whatsomever except
consumption; and this being the time of year for drinking the same,
especially at the fall of the leaf and the bud, the price of each chopin
bottle is fivepence, the bottle never required, or three shilling without
the bottle. Any person who has a mind for the same may come to the
Fountain Close within the Netherbow of Edinburgh, at William Mudie’s,
where the Scarsbun’ay woman sells the same.’
August 12, 1708.—’ George
Williamson, translator alias cobbler in Edinburgh, commonly known
by the name of Bowed Geordie, who swims on face, back, or any
posture),forwards or backwards; plums- dowks, and performs all the antics
that any swimmer can do, is willing to attend any gentleman, and to teach
them to swim, or perform his antics for their divertisement: is to be
found in Luckie Reid’s at the foot of Gray’s Close, on the south side of
the street, Edinburgh.’
In September 1707, it is advertised
that at the Meal Girnel of Primrose, oatmeal, the produce of the place,
was sold at four pounds Scots the boll for the crop of 1706, while the
crop of the preceding year was £3, 13s. 4d.; in the one case, 6s.
8d.; in the other, 6s. 4d. sterling.
Apr 2
The Master of Burleigh—eldest son of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a peer
possessed of considerable estates in Fife—had fallen in love with a girl
of humble rank, and was sent abroad by his friends, in the hope that time
and change of scene would save him from making a low marriage. He was
heard to declare before going, that if she married in his absence, he
would take the life of her husband. The girl was, nevertheless, married to
Henry Stenhouse, schoolmaster of Inverkeithing. The Master was one of
those hot-headed persons whom it is scarcely safe to leave at large, and
who yet do not in general manifest the symptoms that justify restraint.
Learning that his mistress was married, and to whom, he came at this date
with two or three mounted servants to the door of the poor schoolmaster,
who, at his request, came forth from amongst his pupils to speak to the
young gentleman.
‘I am the Master of Burleigh. You
have spoken to my disadvantage, and I am come to fight you.’
‘I never saw you before,’ said the
schoolmaster, ‘and I am sure I never said anything against you.’
‘I must nevertheless fight with you,
and if you won’t, I will at once shoot you.’
‘It would be hard,’ said the
schoolmaster, ‘to force a man who never injured you into a fight. I have
neither horse nor arms, and it is against my principles to fight duels.’
‘You must nevertheless fight,’ said
the Master, ‘or be shot instantly;’ and so saying, he held a pistol to
Stenhouse’s breast.
The young man continuing to excuse
himself, Balfour at length fired, and gave the schoolmaster a mortal wound
in the shoulder, saying with savage cruelty: ‘Take that to be doing with.’
Then, seeing that an alarm had arisen among the neighbours, he rode on
brandishing a drawn sword, and calling out: ‘Hold the deserter!’ in order
to divert the attention of the populace. The unfortunate schoolmaster died
in a few days of his wound.
The Master for a time escaped
pursuit, but at length he was brought to trial, Jnly 28, 1709, and
adjudged to be beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh, on the ensuing 6th of
January. During this unusually long interval, he escaped from the Tolbooth
by changing clothes with his sister. He was not again heard of till May
1714, when he appeared amongst a number of Jacobite gentlemen at the Cross
of Lochmaben, to drink the health of James VIII. The family title had by
this time devolved on him by the death of his father; but his property had
all been escheat by sentence of the Court of Justiciary. His appearance in
the rebellion of 1715, completed by attainder the ruin of his family, and
he died unmarried and in obscurity in 1757.’
Apr 26
A great flock of the Deipitinus Deductor, or Ca’ing Whale—a cete
about twenty-five feet long—came into the Firth of Forth, ‘roaring,
plunging, and threshing upon one another, to the great terror of all who
heard the same.’ It is not uncommon for this denizen of the arctic seas to
appear in considerable numbers on the coasts of Zetland; and occasionally
they present themselves on the shores of Caithness and Sutherlandshire;
but to come so far south as the Firth of Forth is very rare: hence the
astonishment which the incident seems to have created. The contemporary
chronicler goes on to state: ‘Thirty-five of them were run ashore upon the
sands of Kirkcaldy, where they made yet a more dreadfat roaring and
tossing when they found themselves aground, insomuch that the earth
trembled.’ ‘What the unusual appearance of so great a number of them at
this juncture the union of the kingdoms may portend shall not be our
business to inquire.’
Aug
The fifteenth article of the treaty of Union provided that England should
pay to Scotland the sum of £398,085, 10s, because of the arrangement for
the equality of trade between the two countries having necessitated that
Scotland should henceforth pay equal taxes with England—a rule which would
otherwise have been inequitable towards Scotland, considering that a part
of the English revenue was required for payment of the interest on her
seventeen millions of national debt. It was likewise provided by the act
of Union, that out of this Equivalent Money, as it was called, the
commissioners to be appointed for managing it should, in the first place,
pay for any loss to be incurred by the renovation of the coin; in the
second, should discharge the losses of the African Company, which
thereupon was to cease; the overplus to be applied for payment of the
comparatively trifling state-debts of Scotland, and to furnish premiums to
the extent of £2000 a year for the improvement of the growth of wool for
seven years—afterwards for the improvement of fisheries and other branches
of the national industry.
Defoe, who was now living in
Scotland, tells how those who hated the Union spoke and acted about the
Equivalent. The money not being paid in Scotland on the very day of the
incorporation of the two countries, the first talk was—the English have
cheated us, and will never pay; they intended it all along. Then an idea
got abroad, that by the non-payment the Union was dissolved; ‘and there
was a discourse of some gentlemen who came up to the Cross of Edinburgh,
and protested, in the name of the whole Scots nation, that, the conditions
of the treaty not being complied with, and the terms performed, the whole
was void.’ At length, in August, the money came in twelve wagons, guarded
by a party of Scots dragoons, and was carried directly to the Castle. Then
those who had formerly been loudest in denouncing the English for not
forwarding the money, became furious because it was come. They hooted at
the train as it moved along the street, cursing the soldiers who guarded
it, and even the horses which drew it. One person of high station called
out that those who brought that money deserved to be cut to pieces. The
excitement increased so much before the money was secured in the Castle,
that the mob pelted the carters and horses on their return into the
streets, and several of the former were much hurt.
It was soon discovered that, after
all, only £100,000 of the money was in specie, the rest being in Exchequer
bills, which the Bank of England had ignorantly supposed to be welcome in
all parts of her majesty’s dominions. This gave rise to new clamours. It
was said the English had tricked them by sending paper instead of money.
Bills, only payable four hundred miles off, and which, if lost or burned,
would be irrecoverable, were a pretty price for the obligation Scotland
had come under to pay English taxes. The impossibility of satisfying or
pleasing a defeated party was never better exemplified.
The commissioners of the Equivalent
soon settled themselves in one of Mr Robert Mylne’s houses in Mylne’s
Court, and proceeded to apply the money in terms of the act. One of their
first proceedings was to send to London for £50,000 in gold, in
substitution for so much of paper-money, that they might, as far as
possible, do away with the last clamour. ‘Nor had this been able to carry
them through the payment, had they not very prudently taken all the
Exchequer bills that any one brought them, and given bills of exchange for
them payable in London. Defoe adverts to a noble individual—doubtless the
Duke of Hamilton—who came for payment of his share of the African
Company’s stock (3000), with the interest, and who refused to take any of
the Exchequer bills, probably thinking thus to create some embarrassment;
but the commissioners instantly ordered the claim to be liquidated in
gold.
Notwithstanding all the ravings and
revilings about the Equivalent, Defoe assures us that, amongst time most
malcontent persons he never found any who, having African stock, refused
to take their share of the unhallowed money in exchange for it. Even the
despised Exchequer bills were all despatched so quickly, that, in six
months, not one was to be seen in the country.
Out of the Equivalent, the larger
portion—namely, £229,611, 4s. 8d—went to replace the lost capital of the
African Company, and so could not be considered as rendered to the nation
at large. For ‘recoiling the Scots and foreign money, and reducing it to
the standard of the coin of England,’ £49,888, 14s. 11d. was expended.
There was likewise spent out of this fund, for the expenses of the
commissioners and secretaries who had been engaged in carrying through the
Union, £30,498, 12g. 2d. After making sundry other payments for
public objects, there remained in 1713 but £16,575, 14s. unexpended.
We shall afterwards see further
proceedings in the matter of the Equivalent.
Oct 3
Walter Scott of Raeburn, grandson of the Quaker Raeburn who suffered so
long an imprisonment for his opinions in the reign of Charles II., fought
a duel with Mark Pringle, youngest son of Andrew Pringle of Clifton. It
arose from a quarrel the two gentlemen had the day before at the
bead-court of Selkirk, They were both of them young men, Scott being only
twenty-four years of age, although already four years married, and a
father. The contest was fought with swords in a field near the town, and
Raeburn was killed. The scene of this melancholy tragedy has ever since
been known as Raeburn’s Meadow-spot.
Pringle escaped abroad; became a
merchant in Spain; and falling, on one occasion, into the hands of the
Moors, underwent such a series of hardships, as, with the Scottish
religious views of that age, he might well regard as a Heaven-directed
retribution for his rash act. Eventually, however, realising a fortune, he
returned with honour and credit to his native country, and purchased the
estate of Crichton in Edinburghshire. He died in 1751, having survived the
unhappy affair of Raeburn’s Meadow-spot for forty-four years; and his
grandson, succeeding to the principal estate of the family, became Pringle
of Clifton.
The sixteenth article of the act of
Union, while decreeing that a separate mint should be kept up in Scotland
‘under the same rules as the mint in Eugland’—an arrangement afterwards
broken through—concluded that the money thereafter used, should be of the
same standard and fineness throughout the United Kingdom. It thus became
necessary to call in all the existing coin of Scotland, and substitute for
it money uniform with that of England. It was at the same time provided by
the act of Union, that any loss incurred by the renewal of the coin of
Scotland should be compensated out of the fund called the Equivalent.
The business of the change of
coinage being taken into consideration by the Privy Council of Scotland,
several plans for effecting it were laid before that august body; but none
seemed so suitable or expedient as one proposed by the Bank of Scotland,
which was to this effect: The Directors undertook to receive in all the
species that were to be recoined, at such times as should be determined by
the Privy Council, and to issue bank-notes or current money for the same,
in the option of the in giver of the old species, and the Privy Council
allowing a half per cent. to the Bank for defraying charges, the
old money to be taken to the mint and coined into new money, which should
afterwards replace the notes.
Mr David Drummond, treasurer of the
Bank, 'a gentleman of primitive virtue and singular probity,’ according to
Thomas Rnddiman—a hearty Jacobite, too, if his enemies did not belie
him—had a chief hand in the business of the renovation of the coin, about
which he communicated to Ruddiman some memoranda be had taken at the time.
‘There was brought into the Bank of
Scotland in the year 1707:
Value in
Sterling Money.
Of foreign silver money,
. . .
£132,080 : 17 : 00
Milled Scottish coins [improved coniage eqivelent to 1673], . . . .
96,856 : 13 : 00
Coins struck by hammer [the older
Scottish coin]
142,180 : 00 : 00
English milled coin
40,000 : 00 : 00
Total
£411,117 : 10 : 00
This sum, no doubt, made up by far
the greatest part of the silver coined money current in Scotland at that
time; but it was not to be expected that the whole money of that kind
could be brought into the bank; for the folly of a few misers, or the fear
that people might have of losing their money, or various other dangers and
accidents, prevented very many of the old Scots coins from being brought
in. A great part of these the goldsmiths, in after-time; consumed by
melting them down; some of them have been exported to foreign countries; a
few are yet [1738] in private hands.
Ruddiman, finding that, during the
time between December 1602 and April 1613, there was rather more estimated
value of gold than of silver coined in the Scottish mint, arrived at the
conclusion (though not without great hesitation), that there was more
value of gold coin in Scotland in 1707 than of silver, and that the
sum-total of gold and silver money together, at the time of the Union, was
consequently ‘not less than nine hundred thousand pounds sterling.’ We are
told, however, in the History of the Bank of
Scotland, under 1699, that ‘nothing answers
among the common people but silver-money, even gold being little known
amongst them;’ and Defoe more explicitly says, ‘there was at this time
no Scots gold coin current, or to be seen, except a few preserved for
antiquity. It therefore seems quite inadmissible that the Scottish
gold coin in 1707 amounted to nearly so much as Ruddiman conjectures. More
probably, it was not £30,000.
It wonld appear that the Scottish
copper-money was not called in at the Union, and Ruddiman speaks of it in
1738 as nearly worn out of existence, ‘so that the scarcity of
copper-money does now occasion frequent complaints.’
If the outstanding silver-money be
reckoned at £60,000, the gold at £30,000, and the copper at £60,000, the
entire metallic money in use in Scotland in 1707 would be under six
hundred thousand pounds sterling in value. It is not unworthy of
observation, as an illustration of the advance of wealth in the country
since that time, that a private gentlewoman died in 1841, with a nearly
equal sum at her account in the banks, besides other property to at least
an equal amount.
In March 1708, while the renovation
of the coinage was going on, the French fleet, with the Chevalier de St
George on board, appeared at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, designing to
invade the country. The Bank got a great alarm, for it ‘had a very large
sum lying in the mint in ingots,’ and a considerable sum of the old coin
in its own coffers, ‘besides a large sum in current species; all of which
could not have easily been carried off and concealed.' The danger,
however, soon blew over. ‘Those in power at the time, fearing lest, all
our silver-money having been brought into our treasury, or into the Bank,
a little before, there should be a want of money for the expenses of the
war, ordered the forty-shilling pieces to be again issued out of the
banks; of which sort of coin there was great plenty at that time in
Scotland, and commanded these to be distributed for pay to the soldiers
and other exigencies of the public; but when that disturbance was settled,
they ordered that kind of money also to be brought into the bank; and on a
computation being made, it was found that the quantity of that kind,
brought in the second time, exceeded that which was brought in the first
time by at least four thousand pounds sterling.
We are told by the historian of the
Bank, that ‘the whole nation was most sensible of the great benefit that
did rebound from the Bank’s undertaking and effectuating the recoinage,
and in the meantime keeping up an uninterrupted circulation of money.’ Its
good service was represented to the queen, considered by the Lords of the
Treasury and Barons of Exchequer, and reported on favourably. ‘But her
majesty’s death intervening, and a variety of public affairs on that
occasion and since occurring, the directors have not found a convenient
opportunity for prosecuting their just claim on the government’s favour
and reward for that seasonable and very useful service.’
Nov 3
Mr John Strahan, Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, was at this time owner
of Craigcrook, a romantically situated old manor-house under the lee of
Corstorphine Hill—afterwards for many years the residence of Lord Jeffrey.
Strahan had also a house in the High Street of Edinburgh. He was the owner
of considerable wealth, the bulk of which he ultimately ‘mortified’ for
the support of poor old men, women, and orphans; a charity which still
flourishes.
Strahan had a servant named Helen
Bell to keep his town mansion, and probably she was left a good deal by
herself. As other young women in her situation will do, she admitted young
men to see her in her master’s house. On Hallowe’en night this year, she
received a visit from two young artisans, William Thomson and John
Robertson, whom she happened to inform that on Monday morning—that is, the
second morning thereafter—she was to go out to Craigcrook, leaving the
town-house of course empty.
Abont five o’clock on Monday
morning, accordingly, this innocent young woman locked up her master’s
house, and set forth on her brief journey, little reckning that it was the
last she would ever undertake in this world. As she was proceeding through
the silent streets, her two male friends joined her, telling her they were
going part of her way; and she gave them a couple of bottles and the key
of the house to carry, in order to lighten her burden. On coining to a
difficult part of the way, called the Three Steps, at the foot of
the Castle Rock, the two men threw her down and killed her with a hammet
They then returned to town, with the design of searching Mr Strahan’s
house for money.
According to the subsequent
confession of Thomson, as they returned through the Grassmarket, they
swore to each other to give their souls and bodies to the devil, if ever
either of them should inform against the other, even in the event of their
being captured. In the empty streets, in the dull gray of the morning,
agitated by the horrid reflections arising from their barbarous act and
its probable consequences, it is not very wonderful that almost any sort
of hallucination should have taken possession of these miserable men. It
was stated by them that on Robertson proposing that their engagement
should be engrossed in a bond, a man started up between them in the middle
of the West Bow, and offered to write the bond, which they had agreed to
subscribe with their blood; but on Thomson’s demurring, this stranger
immediately disappeared. No contemporary of course could be at any loss to
surmise who this stranger was.
The two murderers having made their
way into Mr Strahau’s house, broke open his study, and the chest where his
cash was kept. They found there a thousand pounds sterling, in bags of
fifty pounds each, ‘all milled money,’ except one hundred pounds, which
was in gold; all of which they carried off. Robertson proposed to set the
house on fire before their departnre; but Thomson said he had done
wickedness enough already, and was resolved not to commit more, even
though Robertson should attempt to murder him for his refusal.
Mr Strahan adverlised a reward of
five hundred merks for the detection of the perpetrator or perpetrators of
these atrocities but for some weeks no trace of thc guilty men was
discovered. At length, some suspicion lighting upon Thomson, he was taken
up, and, having made a voluntary confession of the murder and robbery, he
expiated his offence in the Grassmarkct.’
Dec 3
A poor man named Hunter, a shoemaker in the Potterrow, Edinburgh, had
become possesed of a ‘factory’ for the uplifting of ten or eleven pounds
of wages due to one Guine, a seaman, for services in a ship of the African
Company. The money was now payable out of the Equivalent, but certain
signatures were required which it was not possible to obtain. With the aid
of a couple of low notaries and two other persons, these signatures were
forged, and the money was then drawn.
Detection having followed, the case
came before the Court of Session, who viewed it in a light more grave than
seems now reasonable, and remitted it to the Lords of Justiciary. The
result reminds us of the doings of Justice, when she did act, in
the reign of James VI. Hunter and Strachan, a notary, were hanged on the
18th of February, ‘as an example to the terror of others,’ says
Fountainhall. Three other persons, including a notary, were glad to save
themselves from a trial, by voluntary banishment. ‘Some moved that they
might he delivered to a captain of the recruits, to serve as soldiers in
Flanders; but the other method was judged more legal.’
Dec 30
The parish of Spott, in East Lothian, having no communion cups of its own,
was accustomed to borrow those of the neighbouring parish of Stenton, when
required. The Stenton kirk-session latterly tired of this benevolence, and
resolved to charge half-a-crown each time their cups were borrowed by
Spott. Spott then felt a little ashamed of its deficiency of
communion-cups, and resolved to provide itself with a pair. Towards the
sum required, the minister was directed to take all the foreign coin now
in the box, as it was to be no longer current, and such further sum as
might be necessary.
The parish is soon after found
sanctioning the account of Thomas Kerr, an Edinburgh goldsmith, for ‘ane
pair of communion-cups, weighing 33 oz. 6 drops, at £3, 16g. per oz.,’
being £126, 12s. in all, Scots money, besides ‘two shillings sterling of
drink-money given to the goldsmith’s men.’
1708
The Union produced some immediate effects of a remarkable nature on the
industry and traffic of Scotland—not all of them good, it must be owned,
but this solely by reason of the erroneous laws in respect of trade which
existed in England, and to which Scotland was obliged to conform.
Scotland had immediately to cease
importing wines, brandy, and all things produced by France; with no remeed
but what was supplied by the smuggler. This was one branch of her public
or ostensible commerce now entirely destroyed. She had also, in conformity
with England, to cease exporting her wool. This, however, was an evil not
wholly unalleviated, as will presently be seen.
Before this time, as admitted by
Defoe, the Scotch people had ‘begun to come to some perfection in making
broad cloth; druggets, and woollen stuffs of all sorts.’ Now that there
was no longer a prohibition of English goods of the same kind;
these began to come in in such great quantity, and at such prices, as at
once extinguished the superior woollen manufacture in Scotland. There
remained the manufacture of coarse cloth; as Stirling serge; Musselburgh
stuff; and the like; and this now rather flourished, partly because the
wool, being forbidden to be sent abroad, could be had at a lower price,
and partly because these goods came into demand in England. Of course, the
people at large were injured by not getting the best price for their wool,
and benefited by getting the finer English woollen goods at a cheaper rate
than they had formerly paid for their own manufactures of the same kinds;
but no one saw such matters in such a light at that time. The object
everywhere held in view was to benefit trade—that is, everybody’s
peculium, as distinguished from the general good. The general good was
left to see after itself, after everybody’s peculium had been served; and
small enough were the crumbs usually left to it.
On the other hand, duties being
taken off Scottish linen introduced into England, there was immediately a
large increase to that branch of the national industry. Englishmen came
down and established works for sail-cloth, for damasks, and other linen
articles heretofore hardly known in the north; and thus it was remarked
there was as much employment for the poor as in the best days of the
woollen manufacture.
The colonial trade being now,
moreover, open to Scottish enterprise, there was an immediate stimulus to
the building of ships for that market. Cargoes of Scottish goods went out
in great quantity, in exchange for colonial products brought in. According
to Defoe, ‘several ships were laden for Virginia and Barbadoes the very
first year after the Union.’
We get a striking idea of the small
scale on which the earlier commercial efforts were conducted, from a fact
noted by Wodrow, as to a loss made by the Glasgow merchants in the autumn
of 1709. ‘In the beginning of this month November,’ says he,
‘Borrowstounness and Glasgow have suffered very much by the fleet going to
Holland, its being taken by the French. It’s said that in all there is
about eighty thousand pounds sterling lost there, whereof Glasgow has
lost ten thousand pounds. I wish trading persons ‘nay see the language
of such a providence. I am sure the Lord is remarkably frowning upon our
trade, in more respects than one, since it was put in the room of
religion, in the late alteration of our constitution.’
When one thinks of the present
superb wealth and commercial distinction of the Queen of the West, it is
impossible to withhold a smile at Wodrow’s remarks on its loss of ten
thousand pounds. Yet the fact is that up to this time Glasgow had but a
petty trade, chiefly in sugar, herrings, and coarse woollen wares. Its
tobacco trade, the origin of its grandeur, is understood to date only from
1707, and it was not till 1718 that Glasgow sent any vessel belonging to
itself across the Atlantic. Sir John Dalrymple, writing shortly before
1788, says: ‘I once asked the late Provost Cochrane of Glasgow, who was
eminently wise, and who has been a merchant there for seventy year; to
what causes he imputed the sudden rise of Glasgow. He said it was all
owing to four young men of talents and spirit, who started at one time in
business; and whose success gave example to the rest.
The four
had not ten thousand pounds
amongst them when
they began.’ |