1715, July
Mr James Anderson, so honourably known as editor of the Diplomata
Scotiae was rewarded for his public services by the appointment of
Deputy Postmaster-general, in place of George Mein. A mass of his
correspondence, preserved in the Advocates’ Library, makes us acquainted
with the condition in which he found postal matters, and the improvements
which be effected during two or three subsequent years.
We learn that the horse-posts which
existed many years back on some of the principal roads, had, ere this
time, been given up, and foot-runners substituted, excepting perhaps upon
what might be called the aorta of the system, from Edinburgh to
Berwick. In this manner direct bags were conveyed as far north as Thurso,
and westwards to Inverary. There were three mails a week from Edinburgh to
Glasgow, and three in return; the runners set out from Edinburgh each
Tuesday and Thursday, at twelve o’clock at night, and on Sundays in the
morning, and the mails arrived at Glasgow on the evening of Wednesday and
Friday, and on the forenoon of Monday. For this service the Post-office
paid £40 sterling per annum, but from the fraudulent dealing of the
postmaster of Falkirk, who made the payments, the runners seldom received
more than from £20 to £25.
‘After his appointment, Mr Anderson
directed his attention to the establishment of horse-posts on the western
road from Edinburgh. The first regular horse-post in Scotland appears to
have been from Edinburgh to Stirling; it started for the first time on the
29th November 1715. It left Stirling at two o’clock afternoon, each
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and reached Edinburgh in time for the
night-mail to England. In March 1717, the first horse-post between
Edinburgh and Glasgow was established, and we have the details of the
arrangement in a memorial addressed to Lord Cornwallis and James Craggs,
who jointly filled the office of Postmaster-general of Great Britain.
The memorial states that the “horse-post
will set out for Edinburgh each Tuesday and Thursday, at eight o’clock at
night, and on Sunday about eight or nine in the morning, and be in Glasgow
(a distance of thirty-six miles by the post-road of that time) by six in
the morning on Wednesday and Friday in summer, and eight in winter, and
both winter and summer will be on Sunday night.” There appears to have
been a good deal of negotiation connected with the settlement of this
post, in which the provost and bailies of Glasgow took part. After some
delay, the matter appears to have been arranged to the satisfaction of all
parties.
‘A proposition was made at this time to
establish a horse-post between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, at a cost of £132,
12g. per annum, to supersede the foot-posts, which were maintained at a
cost of £81, 12g. The scheme, however, appears not to have been
entertained at that time by the Post-office authorities.
‘In the year 1715, Edinburgh had direct
communication with sixty post-towns in Scotland, and in the month of
August the total sum received for letters passing to and from these
offices and Edinburgh, was £44, 3s 1d. The postage on letters to and from
London in the same month amounted to £157, 3s. 2d., and the postage
for letters per the London road, amounted to £9, 19s., making the total
sum for letters to and from Edinburgh, during that month, amount to £211,
5s. 3d.—equal to £2535, 3s.
per annum.
‘In 1716, the Duke of Argyle, who had then
supreme control in Scotland, gave orders to Mr Anderson to place relays of
horses from Edinburgh to Inverness, for the purpose of forwarding
dispatches to, and receiving intelligence from, the army in the Highlands
under General Cadogan. These posts worked upon two lines of roads—the one
went through Fife, and round by the east coast, passing through Aberdeen;
the other took the central road via Perth, Dunkeld, and Blair
Athole. These horse-posts were, however, discontinued immediately after
the army retired.’
In October 1723, the authorities of the
Edinburgh Post-office announced a thrice-a-week correspondence with
Lanark, by means of the horse-post to Glasgow, and a runner thence to
Lanark. The official annonce candidly owns: ‘This at first sight
appears far about’ (it was transforming a direct distance of thirty-one
miles into sixty-six). But ‘the Glasgow horse-post running all night makes
the dispatch so quick, that the letters come this way to Lanark in twenty,
or at most twenty-two hours, and from Lanark to Edinburgh in twenty-four
hours at most.’
July 18
Two Rcnfrewshire gentlemen, of whose previous dealings with each other in
friendship or business we get but an obscure account, came to a hostile
collision in Edinburgh. Mr James Houston, son of the deceased Sir Patrick
Houston of that Ilk, was walking on a piece of pavement called the
Plainstones, near the Cross, when Sir John Shaw of Greenock came up with a
friend, and the two gentlemen, designedly or not, slightly jostled each
other. Mr Houston put his hand to his sword, but had not time to draw it
before Sir John fell a-beating him about the head and shoulders with his
cane, which, however, flying out of his hand, he instantly took to his
sword, and before the bystanders could interfere, passed it twice through
Mr Houston’s body.
It was at first thought the man was slain
outright; but he was surviving in a sickly state in the ensuing January,
when he raised a criminal prosecution against the knight of Greenock, and
succeeded in obtaining from him a solatium to the amount of five hundred
pounds.
Sep
On the breaking out of the Rebellion this month, there was a run upon the
Bank of Scotland rather encouraged by the directors than otherwise, from a
desire to escape the responsibility and danger of keeping money during
such a critical time. When the whole coin was drawn out, the Bank rendered
up about thirty thousand pounds of public money which lay in its hands,
that it might be lodged in the Castle, and then very calmly stopped
payment, or rather discontinued business, intimating that their notes
should bear interest till better times should return. In May 1716, the
troubles being over, the Bank began to take in their notes and resume
business as usual.
Sep 29
At this crisis, when a formidable insurrection was breaking out, the
officers intrusted with the support of the government were not in the
enjoyment of that concord which is said to give strength. The
Justice-clerk (Cockburn of Ormiston) was on bad terms with both the Earl
of Ilay and the Lord Advocate, Sir David Dalrymple. The animosity between
two of these men came to a consummation which might be said to prefigure
the celebrated wig-pulling of Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Townshend. The
Earl of Ilay writes at this date from Edinburgh: ‘There has happened an
accident which will suspend the Justice-clerk’s fury against me; for he
and the King’s Advocate have had a corporal dispute; I mean
literally, for I parted them.’’
Oct 18
In a letter of this date, written at Musselburgh by the Rev. J.
Williamson, minister of that place, some recent domestic events are
alluded to—as ‘the lamentable murder of Doctor Rule last week by
Craigmilar’s second son, and the melancholy providence of a jeweller’s
servant, who was under some dejection for some time, and did, on Monday
last, immediately after sermon, at Leith, run into the sea deliberately,
and drown himself.’ There had been a new election of Scots peers at
Holyrood for the first parliament of the new reign, and they were all of
one sound loyal type— ‘a plain evidence of our further slavery to the
English court.’ In reference to this, a fruit-woman went about the
Palace-yard, crying: ‘Who would buy good pears, old pears, new pears,
fresh pears—rotten pears, sixteen of them for a plack
!‘
Dec 28
Died, William Carstares, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, noted
as having been the intimate friend of King William, and his adviser about
all Scottish affairs; for which reason, and his influence over the
fortunes of the church, he was popularly known by the name of Cardinal
Carstares. It must ever be considered a great honour to the Church of
Scotland to have had the affectionate support of such a man. A sufferer
under the seventies of the pre-Revolution government, he inclined, when
his day of power came, to use it with moderation. His temperate counsels
and practice are believed to have had a great effect in smoothing the
difficulties which at first surrounded the Presbyterian establishment. His
probity and disinterestedness have been above all question. King William
said ‘he had known him long and well, and he knew him to be an Honest
Man.’ In the midst of the contentious proceedings of this period, to light
upon the gentle prudence, the unostentatious worth, and the genial
unselfishness of Carstares, has the effect of a fine, soothing melody
amidst discord. There are a few anecdotes of this eminent man, which no
one can read without feeling his heart improved.
A newly widowed sister coming from the
country to see him, when he was engaged in consultations of importance
with some of the officers of state, he instantly left these personages and
came to her; insisted, against her remonstrances, on staying a short while
with her, and giving her a prayer of consolation; then, having appointed a
more leisurely interview, he returned with the tears scarcely effaced from
his countenance, to his noble company.
His charities, which were truly diffusive,
were often directed to the unfortunate Episcopal clergy. One, named
Caddell, having called upon him, he observed that the poor man’s clothes
were worn out, and discreditable to his sacred calling. Instantly ordering
a suit to be prepared for a man of Caddell’s size, he took care to have
them first tried upon his own person when his friend next waited upon him.
‘See,’ said he, ‘how this shy fellow has misfitted me! They are quite
useless to me. They will be lost if they don’t fit some of my friends.
And, by the by, I daresay they might answer you. Please try them on, for
it is a pity they should be thrown away.’ Caddell, after some hesitation,
complied, and found that the clothes fitted him exactly. With his
hard-wrung permission, they were sent home to him, and he found a
ten-pound note in one of the pockets.
It is said that many of the ‘outed’ clergy
were in the custom of receiving supplies, the source of which they never
knew till Mr Carstares’s death. At his funeral, two men were observed to
turn aside together, quite overcome by their grief. Upon inquiry, it was
found they were two non-jurant ministers, whose families, for a
considerable time, had been supported by the benefactions of him they were
laying in the grave.
If the partisans of particular doctrines
and formu1ae were to try occasionally upon each other the effect of kindly
good offices such as these, might they not sometimes make a little way
with their opponents, instead of merely exasperating and hardening them,
as, under existing circumstances, they almost invariably do?
1716, Apr 21
John Kellie, corporal in the Earl of Stair’s regiment, was put into the
Edinburgh Tolbooth for killing John Norton, sergeant of the same regiment,
in a duel near Stirling. He was liberated at the bar, on the 23d July
ensuing.
The fighting of duels by private soldiers,
now never heard of; seems then to have been not uncommon. The Edinburgh
Courant of February 16, 1725, states: ‘This morning, two soldiers of
the regiment that lies in the Canongate were whipped for fighting a duel.’
May 21
The Whig government of George I., having now got the lay Jacobites
effectually put down, bethought itself of the clergy of the defeated
party, the Episcopalians, who had made several active demonstrations
during the late insurrection, and constantly stood in a sort of negative
rebellion, in as far as they never prayed for the king de facto.
Under a prompting from a high quarter, the Commissioners of Justiciary now
ordered the advocate-depute, Duncan Forbes, to proceed against such of the
Episcopal clergy in Scotland as had not prayed for King George, or
otherwise obeyed the late Toleration Act by registering orders from a
Protestant bishop. The consequent proceedings reveal to us a curious view
of the condition of Episcopacy at that time in Edinburgh—at once
comprehending a large number of clergy, and existing in the greatest
obscurity.
There were Mr William Abercrombie and Mr
David Freebairn, Mr Robert Marshall and Mr William Wylie, each described
as ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Bailie Fyfe’s Close;’ Mr
George Johnston, Mr Robert Keith, and Mr Andrew Lumsdam, severally
described as ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in Barrenger’s
Close;’ Mr Jasper Kellie, ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house below
the Fountain-well;’ Mr Thomas Rhind, ‘preacher in the Episcopal
meeting-house in Sandilands’ Close;’ Mr George Grahame, ‘preacher and user
of the English Liturgy in his own house, to which many do resort as an
Episcopal meeting-house, in Canongate-head;’ Mr Andrew Cant, Mr David
Lambie, Mr David Rankine, and Mr Patrick Middleton, ‘preachers in the
Episcopal meeting-house in Skinner’s Close;’ Mr Henry Walker and Mr
Patrick Home, each described as ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house
in Todrig’s Wynd;’ Mr Robert Calder, ‘preacher, sometimes in Edinburgh,
sometimes in. Tranent’; Mr William Milne and Mr Willian Cockburn
‘preachers in the Episcopal meeting-house in Blackfriars’ Wynd’ (the
latter probably he who had lately been chased by the mob out of Glasgow);
Mr James Walker, ‘preacher
in the Episcopal meeting-house in Dickson’s Close;’ Mr Alexander
Sutherland, senior, and Mr Robert Chein, ‘preachers in the Episcopal
meeting-house at the back of Bell’s Wynd.’ Thus, we see there were ten
places of worship in Edinburgh—all in retired situations, and, strange to
say, all within two hundred yards or so of each other; having in all
twenty-two ministers; being considerably more than the number of the
Established clergy then in Edinburgh; but in what poverty they lived may
he partly inferred from the fact, that Thomas Ruddiman, the grammarian,
when attending an Episcopal meeting-house in Edinburgh in 1703, paid only
‘forty shillings’ (3s. 4d.)
for his seat for two years.
Besides the twenty-two Edinburgh clergy,
there were Mr Arthur Miller, ‘preacher in the Episcopal meeting-house in
Leith,’ and Mr Robert Coult and Mr James Hunter, ‘Episcopal preachers in
Mussleburgh,’ all involved in the same prosecution.
The result of their trial was a sentence,
applicable to all except Mr William Cockburn, forbidding them to exercise
their ministerial functions till they should have fulfilled the
requirements of the law, and amerciating them in twenty pounds each for
not praying for King George. The only visible difference between the old
persecutions and this was, that there was a populace to howl in the one
case, and not in the other. However, the authorities were humane. The
magistrates of Edinburgh were content to see that letters of ordination
were registered. When the Prince of Wales, acting as regent, some time
after sent them a secretary of state’s letter, complaining that the
sentence was not fully carried out—the object being to compel a praying
for his father—the magistrates applied for instructions to the
commissioners of Justiciary, and were told that, having once passed
sentence, the court could do nothing more in the case. So the Episcopal
meeting-houses in Bailie Fyfe’s, Barrenger’s, Sandilands’, and other
closes went on as before.
Aug
William Mure of Caldwell travelling with a party of friends from Edinburgh
to Ross-shire, came the first stage—namely, to the Queensferry—in a coach,
and afterwards proceeded on horseback. Writing an account of his journey
to his wife, from Chanonry, August 30, he says: ‘We came in coach to the
Ferry on Friday; and though we were once overturned, yet none of us had
any misfortune.’ Probably Mr Mure considered himself as getting off very
well with but one overturn in a coach-journey of eleven English miles. He
goes on: ‘We came that night to Perth, where the Master of Ross and Lady
Betty met us. On Saturday, we came to Dunkeld, and were all night with the
Duke of Athole. On Sunday, after sermon, we left the ladies there, and
came to the Blair.’ The ladies probably had scruples about Sunday
travelling; but Mr Mure, although a man of notedly religious character,
appears to have had none. ‘On Monday,’ he adds, ‘we made a long journey,
and went to Glenmore, where my Lord Huntly’s fir-woods are. On Tuesday, we
came to Kilravock’s house (Kilravock), and yesternight came here, which is
the first town in the shire of Ross.’’ Thus a journey of about 170 miles
occupied in all six days.
In April 1722, the king being about to
visit Hanover, certain Scottish lords, amongst others, were appointed to
attend him. It is intimated in a London paper of April 28
that they set out from Edinburgh
for this purpose on the previous Monday, the 23d; and ‘the roads being
laid with post-horses, they are expected here as to-morrow.’ That is, the
journey would occupy in the way of posting from Monday to Sunday, or seven
days. It was one day more than the time occupied in a journey from London
to Edinburgh by the Duke of Argyle in September 1715, when he posted down
in the utmost haste, with some friends, to take command of the troops for
the resistance to the insurgent Earl of Mar.
It appears that about this time there were
occasional packet-ships, by which people could travel between Edinburgh
and London. In 1720, the Bon
Accord, Captain Buchanan, was advertised as to sail for London on
the 30th June, having good accommodation for passengers, and ‘will keep
the day, goods or no goods.’ Two years later, the ‘Unity
packet-boat of Leith’ was in like manner
announced as to proceed to London on the 1st September, ‘goods or no
goods; wind and weather serving, having good accommodation for passenger;
and good entertainment.’ The master to be spoke with in the Laigh
Coffee-house. But this mode of transit was occasionally attended with
vicissitudes not much less vexatious than those of the pious voyager of
the Sneid. For example, we learn from a paragraph in an Edinburgh
newspaper, on the 15th November
1743, that the Edinburgh and Glasgow packet from London, ‘after having
great stress of weather for twenty days, has lately arrived safe at
Holy Island, and is soon expected in Leith harbour.’
During the decade 1720—30, return chaises
for London, generally with six horses, are occasionally advertised. The
small amount of travelling which then prevailed is marked by the fact,
that we find such a conveyance announced on the 11th of May to set out
homeward on the 15th or 16th, and on the 18th re-advertised as to go on
the 2d or 3d of June, no one having come forward in the interval to take
advantage of the opportunity. We find, however, in 1732, that a periodical
conveyance had at length been attempted. The advertisement states, ‘that
the Stage Coach continues to go from the Canongate for London, or any
place on the road, every Wednesday fortnight. And if any gentleman want a
by-coach, they may call at Alexander Forsyth’s, opposite to the
Duke of Queensberry’s Lodging, where the coach stands.’
In May 1734, a comparatively spirited
effort in the way of travelling was announced by John Dale and three other
persons—namely, a coach to set out towards the end of this week [pleasant
indefiniteness!] for London, or any place on the road, to be performed in
nine days, or three days sooner than any other coach that travels the
road.’
The short space between the two populous
towns of Edinburgh and Leith must have been felt as a particularly
favourable field for this kind of enterprise; and, accordingly, a ‘Leith
stage’ was tried both in 1610 and 1660,
but on both occasions failed to receive
sufficient encouragement. In July 1722, we are informed that, on the 9th
instant, ‘two stage-coaches are to begin to serve betwixt Edinburgh and
Leith, and are to go with or without company every hour of the
day. They are designed to contain six persons, each paying threepence
during the summer, and fourpence during the winter for their fare.’
Sep 1
This day met at Edinburgh a set of commissioners appointed under a late
act ‘to inquire of the estates of certain traitors, and of popish
recusants, and of estates given to superstitions uses, in order to raise
money out of them for the use of the public.’ The first and most prominent
object was to appropriate the lands of the Scottish nobles and gentlemen
who had taken part in the late insurrection for the House of Stuart. Four
out of the six commissioners were Englishmen, members of the House of
Commons, and among these was the celebrated Sir Richard Steele, fresh from
the literary glories he had achieved in the Tatler, Spectator, and
Guardian, from his sufferings in the Whig cause under Anne, and the
consolatory honours he attained under the new monarch.
It was a matter of course that strangers
of such distinction should be honoured in a city which received few such
guests; and doubtless the government officials in particular paid them
many flattering attentions. But the commissioners very soon found that
their business was not an easy or agreeable one. There was in Scotland
plenty of hatred to the Jacobite cause; but battling off its adherents at
Sheriffmuir, and putting down its seminaries, the Episcopal chapels, was a
different thing from seeing an order come from England which was to
extinguish the names and fortunes of many old and honourable families, and
turn a multitude of women and children out of house and home, and throw
them upon the charity of their friends or the public. Most of the
unfortunates, too, had connections among the Whigs themselves, with claims
upon them for commiseration, if not assistance; and we all know the force
of the old Scottish maxim—eternal blessings rest on the nameless man who
first spoke it that bluid is thicker than water.
It was with no little surprise and no
little irritation that these English Whig gentlemen discovered how hard it
was to turn the forfeited estates into money, or indeed to make any decent
progress at all in the business they came about. The first and most
vexatious discovery they made was, that there was a code of law and frame
of legal procedure north of the Tweed different from what obtained to the
south of it. The act was framed with a regard to the practices of English
law, which were wholly unknown and could not be recognised in Scotland.
Then as to special impediments—first came the Scotch Court of Exchequer,
with a claim under an act of the preceding year, imposing a penalty of
five hundred pounds and loss of liferents and whole movables on every
suspected man who did not deliver himself up before a certain day: all of
the men engaged in the late insurrection had incurred this penalty; the
affair came under the Exchequer department; and it was necessary to
discriminate between what was forfeited by the one act and what was
forfeited by the other.
There was something more obstructive,
however, than even the Scottish Exchequer. The corn missioners discovered
this in the form of a body
called the Court of Session, or, in common
language, ‘the Fifteen,’ who sat
periodically in Edinburgh, exercising a mysterious influence over
property throughout the country, and indulging in certain phrases of
marvelous potency, though utterly undreamed of in Southern Britain. Here
is how it was. The act had, of course, admitted the preferable claims of
the creditors of the traitors, and of those who had claims for marriage
and other provisions on their estates. On petitions from these persons—in
whose reality the commissioners had evidently a very imperfect faith—this
Court of Session had passed what, in their barbarous jargon, they called
sequestrations of the said estates, at the same time appointing
factors to uplift the rents, for the benefit of the aforesaid persons in
the first place, and only the commissioners in the second. What further
seemed to the commissioners very strange was, that these factors were all
of them men notedly disaffected to the Revolution interest, most of them
confidential friends, some even the relatives, of the forfeited persons,
and therefore all disposed to make the first department of the account as
large, and the second as small, as possible. Nor was even this all, for,
as had been pointed out to them by some of the Established clergy of
Forfarshire, these factors were persons dangerous to the government. For
example, Sir John Carnegie of Pitarrow, factor on the Earl of Southesk’s
estate, was the man who, on the synod of Angus uttering a declaration in
1712 for the House of Hanover, had caused it to be burned at the head
burgh of the shire. John Lumsdain, who was nominated to the charge of the
estates of the Earl of Panmure, had greatly obstructed the establishment
of the church in the district, and proved altogether ‘very uneasy to
presbyteries and synods.’ Suppose the unruly king of Sweden should land on
the east of Scotland, there were all the tenants of those large estates in
the obedience of men who would hail his arrival and forward his objects!
The general result was, that the
commissioners found themselves stranded in Edinburgh, as powerless as so
many porpoises on Cramond sands, only treated with a little more outward
respect. One proposal, indeed, they did receive (January 1717), that
seemed at first to be a Scottish movement in their favour —namely, an
affer from the Lord Advocate (Sir David Dalrymple), with their
concurrence, to commence actions in the Court of Session for
determining the claims of creditors; but, seeing in this only an endless
vista of vexatious lawsuits, they declined it, preferring to leave the
whole matter to be disposed of by further acts of the legislature.’
By virtue of the treason-law for Scotland,
passed immediately after the Union, the government this day suddenly
removed eighty-nine rebel prisoners from Edinburgh to Carlisle, to be
there tried by English juries, it being presumed that there was no chance
of impartiality in Scotland. The departing troop was followed by a wail of
indignant lament from the national heart. Jacobites pointing to it with
mingled howls and jeers as a proof of the enslavement of Scotland—Whigs
carried off by irresistible sympathy, and unable to say a word in its
defence—attested how much the government did by such acts to retard the
desirable amalgamation of the two nations. Under the warm feeling of the
moment, a subscription was opened to provide legal defences for the
unfortunate Scotsmen, and contributions came literally from all sorts and
conditions of men. Even the Goodman of the Tolbooth gave his pound. The
very government officials in some instances were unable to resist an
appeal so thrilling.
The list includes the names of nineteen of
the nobility—namely, Errol, Haddington, Rosebery, Morton, Hopetoun,
Dundonald, Moray, Rutherglen, Cassillis, Traquair, March, Galloway,
Kinnoull, Eglintoune, Elibank, Colville, Blantyre, Coupar, and Deskford,
all for considerable sums. Amongst other entries are the following: Lady
Grizel Cochrane, £6, 9s.; the Commissioners of Excise, £7, l0s. 8d.;
Mr George Drummond, Goodman of the Tolbooth Edinburgh, £1; John
M’Farlane, Writer to the Signet, 10s. 0d.; the Merchant Company,
£5; the Incorporation of Goldsmiths, £5; the Incorporation of Tailors, £5;
the Incorporation of Chirurgeons, £5; the four Incorporations of Leith
(aggregate, £53,
10s. 7d.; the Episcopal Clergy of
Edinburgh, £8, 8s.; Magistrates of Haddington (and collected by them),
£28; Society of Periwigmakers in Edinburgh, £24, 4s. 3d.;
Inhabitants of Musselburgh,
Inveresk, and Fisherrow, £20; collected by Lady Grizel Cochrane, at
Dumbarton, £.30; Colonel Charteris’s lady, £5, 7s. 6d.; collected
by Lady Grizel Cochrane, from sundry persons specified, £180.
To do the government justice, the rebel
prisoners were treated mildly, not one of
them being done to death, though several
were transported. An attempt was made, two years later, by a commission
of Oyer and Terminer sent into Scotland, to bring a number of other
Jacobite delinquents to punishment. It sat at Perth, Dundee, and Kelso,
without being able to obtain true bills: only at Cupar was it so far
effective as to get bills against Lord George Murray, of the Athole
family; Sir James Sharpe, representative of the too famous archbishop; Sir
David Threipland of Fingask; and a son of Moir of Stonywood; but it was to
no purpose, for the trials of these gentlemen were never proceeded with.
Oct 2
Captain John Cayley (son of Cornelius Cayley of the city of York), one of
the commissioners of his majesty’s customs, was a conspicuous member of
that little corps of English officials whom the new arrangements following
on the Union had sent down to Scotland. He was a vain gay young man,
pursuing the bent of his irregular passions with little prudence or
discretion. Amongst his acquaintance in Edinburgh was a pretty young
married woman—the daughter of Colonel Charles Straiton, well known as a
highly trusted agent of the Jacobite party—the wife of John M’Farlane,
Writer to the Signet, who appears to have at one time been man of business
to Lord Lovat. Cayley had made himself notedly intimate with Mr and Mrs
M’Farlane, often entertained them at his country-house, and was said to
have made some valuable presents to the lady. To what extent there was
truth in the scandals which connected the names of Commissioner Cayley and
Mrs M’Farlane, we do not know; but it is understood that Cayley, on one
occasion, spoke of the lady in terms which, whether founded in truth or
otherwise, infinitely more condemned himself. Perhaps drink made him rash;
perhaps vanity made him assume a triumph which was altogether imaginary;
perhaps he desired to realise some wild plan of his inflamed brain, and
brought on his punishment in self-defence. There were all sorts of
theories on the subject, and little positively known to give any of them
much superiority over another in point of plausibility. A gentleman,
writing from Edinburgh the second day after, says: ‘I can hardly
offer you anything but matter of fact, which was—
that upon Tuesday last he came to her
lodging after three o’clock, where he had often been at tea and cards: she
did not appear till she had changed all her clothes to her very smock.
Then she came into a sort of drawing-room, and from that conveyed him into
her own bed-chamber. After some conversation there, she left him in it;
went out to a closet which lay at some distance from the chamber; (thence)
she brought in a pair of charged pistols belonging to Mr Cayley himself;
which Mr M’Farland, her husband, had borrowed from him some days before,
when he was about to ride to the country. What further expressions there
were on either side I know not; but she fired one pistol, which
only made a slight wound on the
shackle-bone of his left hand, and slanted down through the floor—which I
saw. The other she fired in a slant on his right breast, so as the bullet
pierced his heart, and stuck about his left shoulder-blade behind. She
went into the closet, (and) laid by the pistols, he having presently
fallen dead on the floor. She locked the door of her room upon the dead
body, (and) sent a servant for her husband, who was in a change-house with
company, being about four afternoon. He came, and gave her what money he
had in the house, and conducted her away; and after he had absented
himself for about a day, he appeared, and afterwards declared before the
Lords of Justiciary he knew nothing about it till she sent for him. I saw
his corps after he was cereelothed, and saw his blood where he lay on the
floor for twenty-four hours after he died, just as he fell, so as it was a
difficulty to straight him.’
Miss Margaret Swinton, a grand-aunt of Sir
Walter Scott, used to relate to him and other listeners to her
fireside-tales, that, when she was a little girl, being left at
home at Swinton house by herself one Sunday, indisposed, while all the
rest of the family were at church, she was drawn by curiosity into the
dining-room, and there saw a beautiful female, whom she took for ‘an
enchanted queen,’ pouring out tea at a table. The lady seemed equally
surprised as herself, but presently recovering self-possession, addressed
the little intruder kindly, in particular desiring her to speak first to
her mother by herself of what she had seen. Margaret looked for a
moment out of the window, and, when she turned about, the enchanted queen
was gone! On the return of the family, she spoke to her mother of the
vision, was praised for her discretion, and desired to keep the matter
from all other persons—an injunction she strictly followed. The stranger
was Mrs M’Farlane, who, being a relative of the family, had here received
a temporary shelter after the slaughter of Captain Cayley. She had
vanished from Margaret Swinton’s sight through a panel-door into a closet
which had been arranged for her concealment. The family always admired
the sagacity shewn in asking Margaret to speak to her mother of what she
had seen, but to speak to her alone in the first instance, as thus
the child’s feelings found a safe vent. It will be remembered that Scott
has introduced the incident as part of his fiction of Peveril of the
Peak.
In the ensuing February, criminal letters
were raised against Mrs M’Farlane by the Lord Advocate, Sir David
Dalrymple, and the father and brother of the deceased, reciting that ‘John
Cayley having, on the 2d of October last, come to the house of John
M’Farlane in order to make a civil visit, she did then and there shoot a
pistol at John Cayley, and thereby mortally wounded him.’ Not appearing to
stand her trial, she was declared outlaw. Sir Walter Scott
states it as certain, that she was afterwards enabled to return to
Edinburgh, where she lived and died but I must own that some good evidence
would be required to substantiate such a statement.
The romantic nature of the incident, and
the fact of the sufferer being an Englishman, caused the story of Mrs
M’Farlane to be famed beyond the bounds of Scotland. Pope, writing about
the time to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, breaks out thus: ‘Let them say I am
romantic; so is every one said to be that either admires a fine thing or
does one. On my conscience, as the world goes, ‘tis hardly worth anybody’s
while to do one for the honour of it. Glory, the only pay of generous
actions, is now as ill-paid as other just debts; and neither Mrs
Macfarland for immolating her lover, nor you for returning to your lord,
must ever hope to be compared to Lucretia or Portia.’