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THERE was much in
the Revolutionary movement which resulted in the formation and
independence of the United States to attract Scotsmen to the cause. In
Scotland the people were by no means intense in their loyalty to the
Orange King or the Hanoverian Dynasty, and in the Highlands especially,
the fact that "a stranger filled the Stuarts' throne" rankled in the
hearts of every one. Even in the Lowlands, where the majority of the
people were not in favor of the restoration of the "Auld Stuarts,"
movements looking to greater freedom under the prevailing Government
were rife. Such movements were termed seditions and were repressed with
all the severity and cruelty possible. Many of those concerned in these
movements were glad to fly to America, and we can easily imagine that
their views anent human freedom and the right of all citizens to a voice
in the affairs of State did not change after they had crossed the sea.
The close of the seventeenth century and the whole of the eighteenth was
a period of unrest in Scotland as well as in Continental Europe, and
would probably have found vent in the end in rebellion there, if not in
revolution, as in France and America, had not Robert Burns crystallized
the sentiments of the people into many of his matchless lyrics and
inspire them with hope for the future in such reassuring prohetic-like
words as those of "A man's a man for a' that."
The Scotch soldiers
who were settled on grants of land in the States, as a reward for their
military services, were steadfast in their loyalty to Britain at the
outbreak of hostilities. They still regarded themselves as soldiers of
King George, and considered, in view of their land holdings, that they
were under obligation to continue to fight his battles when occasion
demanded, without any consideration as to the merits of the question
which was to be settled by a resort to arms. The well-known loyalty of
these men and their military reputation drew upon them -- and, to a
certain extent, upon their countrymen -- the ill-will of many, and
caused some of the patriots to describe the Scots as being generally
anti-revolutionary in their ideas, although, had they chosen to look
around a little, exactly the opposite truth might become apparent to
them. It was on this erroneous idea that John Trumbull of Connecticut
wrote the doggerel lines of "McFingal." Describing that fictitious hero,
Trumbull says:
"His high descent our
heralds trace,
To Ossian's famed
Fingalian race;
For tho' their name some
part may lack
Old Fingal spelt it with
a Mac;
Which great McPherson,
with submission
We hope will add, the
next edition.
His fathers flourished
in the Highlands
Of Scotia's
fog-benighted islands."
In commenting on
this passage, the late Benson J. Lossing, the latest and best editor of
the poem, wrote:
"The
Scotch were noted for their loyalty, in this country, and were generally
found among the Tories, especially in the Carolinas. This fact and the
odium that rested upon the Jacobites in the Mother Country made the
Americans, during the Revolution, look with suspicion upon all Scotsmen.
Jefferson manifested this feeling when he drew up the Declaration of
Independence. In the original draft he alluded to 'Scotch and foreign
mercenaries. This was omitted on motion of Dr. Witherspoon, who was a
Scotsman by birth. In most minds the word Jacobite was synonymous with
Popery. Trumbull showed his dislike of the Scotch by his choice of a
hero in this poem. Frenau, another eminent poet of the Revolution, also
evinced the same hatred. In one of his poems, in which he gives Burgoyne
many hard rubs, he consigns the Tories, with Burgoyne at their head, to
an ice-bound, fog-covered island of the north coast of Scotland, thus:
'There, Loyals, there,
with loyal hearts retire;
There pitch your tents
and kindle there your fire,
There desert nature will
her strings display,
And fiercest hunger on
your vitals prey.' "
The bulk of the
Scots who crossed the Atlantic, other than those in the military
service, from 1700 till the outbreak of the Revolution, and long after,
were discontented with the prevailing condition of things at home. Some
wonder, knowing the intense loyalty of the Scots of the present day,
that settlers of that country should have taken such an active part in
the pre-Revolutionary movements in America, and been so ready to throw
off their allegiance; but no one who has studied the history of the
people, particularly in the period named, will be in the least
surprised. The exiles of Dunbar and of Cromwell's regime may have had
some sentimental regard for the King they fought for, but the news of
his doings after the "blessed restoration" crushed it out. The prisoners
of the Covenanting frays had little reverence for the royal authority
and their descendants had none. After religious liberty had been won,
the movement for civil liberty commenced in earnest and men were sent to
prison for holding sentiments as well as for standing out in actual
opposition to "the powers that be." Even such sentiments as "The nation
is essentially the source of all sovereignty" and "Equal representation,
just taxation, and liberty of conscience" were deemed treasonable enough
to cause the arrest of their utterers, and such policy sent hundreds of
good men and true across the sea. These wanderers found in America an
opportunity for securing that religious liberty and that freedom and
perfect equality before the law they could not obtain at home. When the
Revolutionary troubles began they or their descendants entertained no
loyalty for King George or his dynasty; they knew that Scotland had
suffered deeply, not only at the hands of the last two Kings of the old
royal house, but at those of King William "of blessed memory." Besides,
from the time that John Knox had established in the Kirk the most
perfect form of republican government of which the world has yet had
knowledge, a growing sentiment, although in most instances an
unconscious sentiment, in favor of a republican form of government for
State as well as for Kirk existed in the country. These are some of the
reasons which made Scotsmen in America, or rather the majority of them,
be as devoted to the principles at stake in the American Revolution as
were any of the native patriots.
Thus, in the highest
circle of American patriotism, among the Signers of the Declaration of
Independence we find the Scottish race well represented. Quite a number
were of Scotch descent, such as George Ross, who was the son of a
Scottish minister, and Thomas McKean, afterward Governor of
Pennsylvania. Two were natives of Scotland. One of these was James
Wilson, a representative of Pennsylvania, who ws born near St. Andrews,
Fifeshire, in 1742. He was educated at the university in that ancient
city and also at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. After
settling in America he was employed for a time as a teacher in
Philadelphia, and won a high reputation for his knowledge of the
classics. Then he turned his attention to the study of the law and in
due time was admitted to the bar and practiced, among other places, in
Annapolis, Md., and in Reading, Pa., afterward making his home again in
Philadelphia. He was a prominent advocate of the rights of the Colonies,
and in the Congress of 1775, of which he was a member, he strongly
advocated independence as the only possible means of escape from the
evils which had brought the various Commonwealths into such a state of
turmoil and dissatisfaction. In 1779 he was appointed Advocate General
for the French Government in the United States, but resigned the office
in 1781. He continued, however, to give professional advice to the
French Government until 1783, when he received from Paris a gift of
10,000 livres in recognition of his services. He served in Congress in
1783 and 1786, and in 1789 became, by appointment of George Washington,
one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the Untied States. A capable
lawyer, an upright and honorable citizen, wise in his counsels, and
moderate, yet determined, in all his public utterances, we can easily
understand that Judge Wilson held a high position in the Revolutionary
councils, and how, after the turmoil of the struggle was over, he should
be elevated to a seat on the highest tribunal of the country and so
assist in placing the legal system of the new nation on a sure
foundation. He died, while on a circuit journey, at Edenton, N.C., in
1798.
One of the most
notable figures among the group of Signers, and said by some to have
indeed b een the real author of the Declaration, was the Rev. Dr. John
Witherspoon, President of Princeton College. This great and good man was
born at Yester, Haddingtonshire, in 1722. He could trace his descent
from John Knox in the female line and on the other side from John Knox's
heroic son-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Welsh. His father was the minister of
the parish of Yester, and Witherspoon was educated for the pulpit in the
University of Edinburgh. His first charge was the parish of Beith,
Ayrshire, and there the excellence of his pulpit discourses, the high
standard of his published writings and his natural qualities as a leader
soon won for him a high rank among the Scottish clergy. In the General
Assembly he bacame a power on the side of the Evangelical party -- the
party that was trying to rouse the Church from the lethargy into which
it had been thrown by the rhetoric, the prhases, the artificiality of
the "Moderates." Probably his work on "Ecclesiastical Characteristics,"
published in 1753, and directed against the Moderate party in the
Scottish Church, was the most pithy and pungent bit of genuine sarcasm
which Scottish theological writing had up to that time produced, and it
proved the literary sensation of the hour. In 1757 he accepted a call
from Paisley, and, although he had afterward calls from Dublin, Dundee,
Rotterdam and other places, he remained in "Seestu" until 1768, when he
accepted a demand for his services as presiding officer over Princeton
College, a demand which when made on a previous occasion he had refused.
Dr. Witherspoon was
a noted man before crossing to America; he had attained by his preaching
and his literary capacity the highest ranking among his contemporaries.
In America he soon became equally popular and influential. Princeton
College quickly became, under his direction, the foremost in the
country, and it would have soon been regarded as among the noted seats
of learning in the world had not the troubles of the Revolution
paralyzed its usefulness, as they did that of all the higher educational
institutions in the country. The college was finally compelled to close
its doors, for around Princeton the tide of war for a time beat rudely.
While the duties of his assigned office thus fell away from him however,
Dr. Witherspoon assumed others, which have given him a commanding place
in the history of the Revolution. "He assisted," writes Lossing, "in
framing a republican Constitution for New Jersey, and in June (1776) he
was elected to a seat in the Continental Congress, where he hotly
advocated independence and signed his name on the Declaration thereof.
He was a faithful member of Congress until 1782 and took a conspicuous
part in military and financial matters." In 1783 the time seemed ripe
for renewing the activity of Princeton, and Dr. Witherspoon turned his
attention from secular affairs to engage solely in that work, and he
combined teaching and preaching until his death, in 1794. The saddest
feature of his closing years was a visit he paid to his native land,
primarily in search of financial assistance to carry on the work of his
college. He was deeply pained to find his efforts in this direction a
failure, but the saddest blow came from the personal treatment he
received, mainly at the hands of his brother clergy. He was denounced as
a traitor on every side and shunned by many who knew him well and were
his friends and allies before he threw in his lot with the new republic.
That sort of treatment was, however, to be expected, and it seems that
even Witherspoon dreaded it when he left America on his journey to his
native land. The clergy of Scotland at that time (1785) were by no means
the believers in popular liberty their predecessors were, and it needed
the discipline of the Disruption to bring them, as a class, once more to
appreciate the power and influence of the people when rightly enlisted
and directed.
Dr. Witherspoon was
by no means the only Scottish clergyman who was active on the side of
the Revolution. There were in reality very many such, and, indeed, it
might be said that the Presbyterians and the great majority of those
then classed as "nonconformists" were outspoken in favor of
independence. A noted example was that of the Rev. John Roxburgh, who
was born at Berwick in 1714 and settled in America in 1740. He studied
for the ministry at Princeton, graduating from there in 1761, and soon
after was ordained as pastor of a church in Warren County, New Jersay.
In 1769 he assumed a pastorate at the Forks of Delaware and held that
charge at the time of his death. He was early distinguished by his
empahitc views in favor of separation, and soon after the conflict broke
out he joined in the formation of a military company from his own
vicinity. He became chaplain of a battalion of militia and served during
most of the New Jersey campaign. At the battle of Trenton, in 1777, he
was taken prisoner by a gang of Hessians and brutally murdered.
As ardent an
American patriot, although less militant in his disposition, was the
Rev. Henry Patillo, who was taken to America from Scotland, where he was
born, in 1736, when only nine years of age. Beginning life as a clerk in
a store, he studied for the ministry, was ordained in 1758, and settled
in North Carolina. His ministerial labors were confined thereafter to
that State, and among the negroes, especially, his work was very
effective. He ranked as an excellent classical scholar, and his
published volume of sermons prove him to have been a preacher of more
than ordinary power. From the first, as might have been expected, he was
in favor of the complete independence of the Colonies, and spoke on that
once dangerous topic on every possible occasion. He was a member of the
Provincial Council in 1775 and had the satisfaction of seeing the
country fairly started in his national career long before he died, in
1801.
Another Scottish
clergyman deserves to be recalled here, because he was outspoken in his
advocacy of the principles at stake in the Revolution while still
residing in Scotland and preaching there. This was the Rev. Charles
Nisbet, who was born at Long Yester, Haddingtonshire, where his father
was a schoolmaster, in 1728. He was educated at Edinburgh University and
became pastor of a church at Montrose. It was while there that his
utterances in favor of the American Revolution were delivered, and his
justification of Washington and his associates was regarded with
disfavor by the leading people of the district and caused him to be
considered as, politically, a suspicious character. In 1783, when John
Dickinson of Delaware founded at Carlisle, Pa., as a Presbyterian
college, the institution which still bears his name, an offer of the
Presidency was tendered to Nisbet, and he gladly accepted. He was even
anxious to leave Scotland and take up his abode in a country where his
sentiments concerning human liberty would be regarded as orthodox, or
where at least he would have opportunity of expressing and ventilating
those sentiments without giving offense. In the Statistical Account of
Haddington, written in 1835, by the Rev. John Thomson, we read the
following summary of Nisbet's American experiences: "Although a man of
distinguised attainments, he seems to have enjoyed little comfort and
less worldly prosperity in 'the land of liberty.' Although the names
'college' and 'President' sounded well, yet he found that his situation
was neither more profitable nor more respectable than that which his
worthy father held before him. On one occasion he wrote to his friends
that 'America was certainly a land of promise, for it was all promise
and no performance.' " This dolesome report was probably sent to
Scotland soon after Nisbet's settlement at Carlisle, for he had at the
beginning some disagreement with the trustees of the college, and he
resigned his position within a few months after assuming it. The matter
was, however, arranged to his satisfaction, for he was re-elected to the
Presidency and continued his connection with the institution until his
death, in 1804. Besides acting as President, Nisbet lectured on
philosophy, systematic theology, logic, and belles-lettres. His
collected writings were published in 1806, and show him to have been a
man of wide reading and great ability, and a just estimate of his
career, and of its value in the cause of American education, may be
found in the excellent memoir which was published in 1840, by Dr. Samuel
Nullis. Long after his death President Nisbet's library, a large and
extensive collection, including many very rare works, was presented by
his grandsons to the library of Princeton College, so that to the
present day some of the usefulness of his lifetime may be said to
continue in active operation.
Seeing that the
clergy were so active in the Revolution, it is an easy matter to turn
from them to those who in the tented field bore the brunt of the
struggle and willingly encountered the horrors of war to secure the
independence of the land in which they were born or which they had
adopted as their own.
One of the most
renowned of these heroes was Hugh Mercer, who was born at Aberdeen in
1721. He graduated in medicine at Aberdeen University and served as a
surgeon or assistant surgeon in the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie,
closing his Scottish military career on the field of Culloden. As soon
after that as possible he crossed the Atlantic, and in 1747 we find him
practicing as a physician near what is now the pleasant town of
Mercersburg, in Pennsylvania. He was, however, fonder of military
matters than of his own profession, and he took an active part in the
campaign of General Braddock, that ended so disastrously for that
warrior's reputation. In the defeat on the Monongahela, Mercer was
severely wounded, and either wandered from the main force of the
retreating troops or was left behind by them intentionally as being so
near death that there was no use of being cumbered with him. The
business of human butchery does not inspire men with kindly feelings
toward each other any more than the butchery of sheep invests the breast
of the butcher with pity for his bleating victims. Mercer found himself
alone in the unknown forest, but with the energy so characteristic of
his countrymen in many like cases, he determined to attempt, at least,
to gain the nearest settlement, Fort Cumberland, about a hunderd miles
distant. The journey occupied several weeks, and each day had its story
of remarkable adventure and constant peril. On one occasion he escaped
from the clutches of a band of Indians by climbing into the trunk of a
hollow tree and remaining there till they disappeared. For his bravery
and suffering in this campaign he received a medal from the city of
Philadelphia. Afterward he was placed in command, for a time, of Fort
Duquesne.
Mercer removed, when
that campaign was over, to Fredericksburg, Va., to resume the practice
of his profession. By that time, however, the Revolutionary tide had
fairly set in, and Mercer's abilities as a soldier were too well known
to Washington and the other leaders in Virginia to allow him to remain
in a peaceful walk of like when sterner work had to be done. Besides,
Mercer's own entire sympathies were with the movement and he was
pronounced in his views for independence as soon as the first glimmer of
its light was seen. One who had already fought against King George in
Scotland was not very likely to be enthusiastic in his support in
America, even although circumstances led him to fight under a General
(Braddock) who was one of the commanders in the victorious army at
Culloden. He agitated with all his might for the maintenance of the
rights of the Colonies, and in 1775 organized the afterward famous
Minute Men of Virginia. He also put the militia of the State in rediness
for campaigning. In 1776 Congress commissioned him a Brigadier General,
on the advice of Washington, and he at once took a high place in the
forces of the young republic. His military career was cut short,
however, in the campaign in New Jersey. After leading the forces in a
night march on Princeton, he was mortally wounded in the battle at that
place on January 3, 1777, and expired a few days later. The loss of this
brave man was deeply regretted by General Washington and the nation, and
Congress resolved not only to erect a monument to his memory at
Fredericksburg, but to educate his infant son. The body of the hero was
interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, and the funeral is said
to have been attended by 30,000 persons. Among the associations
represented in the throng was the Philadelphia St. Andrew's Society, of
which he had been a member, and which still possesses, as its most
precious relic, his sword. The American writers of the Revolution vie
with each other in their tributes to his honesty of purpose, his valor,
and his abilities as a leader, and the words of General Wilkinson may be
regarded as stating the general sentiment when he wrote: "In Mercer we
lost, at Princeton, a chief who for education, talents, disposition,
integrity and patriorism was second to no man but the
Commander-in-Chief, Washington, and was qualified to fill the highest
trusts in the country."
A much more varied,
and, on the whole, a much sadder American career was that of Arthur St.
Clair. This brave and at one time greatly maligned man was born at
Thurso in 1734, and learned the "sodgerin' trade" in the British Army.
He entered the British service as an ensign and served under Amherst at
Louisbourg and under Wolfe at Quebec. In 1762 he resigned his
commission, but continued his residence in America. On the outbreak of
the Revolutionary War he threw in his lot with the Colonists, and was
commissioned Colonel. His services and bravery were so conspicuous that
in 1777 he was raised to the rank of Major General, and placed in
command of the important post of Ticonderoga. That post was regarded by
many of the most experienced officers as untenable, and even St. Clair
was compelled to abandon it to General Burgoyne on July 5, 1777.
Although some fault might be found with the details of St. Clair's
defense, there was no way of evading the inevitable result, for at best
the most he could have done was to delay the further movements of the
enemy. The surrender of the place, however, was learned with much
disfavor by the American troops, and to appease their dissatisfaction
St. Clair was deprived of his active position in the forces and tried by
court-martial. That tribunal completely exonerated him, and he remained
with the army as a volunteer, gradually winning back by his services in
that capacity his former popularity and influential position. He served
in Congress from 1785 to 1787, and presided over its deliberations in
the latter year. From 1788 to 1802 he was Governor of the Northwest. His
last military service was in command of an expedition against the Miami
Indians, in 1791, when he suffered a humiliating defeat and lost over
700 men. This disaster again turned the tide of popularity against him,
and the loud censures then pronounced were more distinguished by their
bitterness than by their logic. A defeated soldier, defeated under any
circumstances, is never an object of much respect or regard, and
although St. Clair was honorably acquitted of all blame by a committee
of Congress, he never again recovered his former reputation. When, in
1802, Ohio was admitted into the sisterhood of States, St. Clair
relinquished, or had to relinquish, his Governorship, and retired into
obscurity and private life. He was old, poor, and dispirited, and even
suffered, it is said, the terrors of poverty - the most relentless foe
of old age. At length, Congress voted him a pension of sixty dollars a
month, and with that his few wants were abundantly supplied and the
evening gloom was not tortured by the spectre of actual want. The
veteran died in 1818 at Greensburg, and over his grave a handsome
monument was erected several years later by his brethern of the Masonic
fraternity.
A type of military
commander evolved out of the warlike exigencies of the time without
previous military training, many more recent examples of which were
furnished by the civil war, was Alexander McDougall, who was born in
Argyllshire, in the year 1731, and settled in America with his father in
1755. He was a seaman at times, but appears to have learned, somehow,
the printing trade. When the dissatisfaction with the home government
had nearly reached its height, McDougall became noted in New York as one
of the leading members of the Sons of Liberty, an organization called
into existence by the opposition to the Stamp Act, in 1765. The feeling
of loyalty which the rescinding of that act aroused did not, for various
reasons, last very long. One would almost think, by reading the history
of the time, that the Home Government really wanted to drive the
Colonists into open rebellion, and in 1769 McDougall was arrested and
thrown into prison as being the author, or chief compiler, of an address
to the people, which was decreed by the authorities to be "an infamous
and seditious libel." His career as a popular hero dated from the moment
of his incarceration. In Booth's "History of the City of New York" we
read: "A daily ovation was rendered him by his friends, who regarded him
as a martyr to the cause of liberty. The ladies flocked in crowds to the
cell of the imprisoned patriot, and so numberous were his visitors that,
in order to gain leisure for the defense of his cause, he was obliged to
publish a card fixing his hours for public receptions. He remained in
jail to the April term of the court, when the Grand Jury found a bill
against him, to which he pleaded not guilty. A few days afterward he was
released on bail." When war was declared, McDougall went to "the front"
as Colonel of the regiment from New York City. His military merit was
such that he was speedily raised to the rank of Major General, and he
was particularly conspicuous in the battles of White Plains and
Germantown. Between 1778 and 1780 he had command of the forts along the
Hudson River, one of the most important posts in the American Army, and
fulfilled his trust to the entire satisfaction of his colleagues. In
1781 he was elected to Congress, was for a time Minister of marine, and
was sent to the United States Senate in 1783. He died some three years
later, while still filling that position, to the great regret of General
Washington and all who were associated with him in military or political
life.
Another instance of evolution from civil
life to high military command is afforded by the career of Lachlan'
McIntosh, who from being a merchant's clerk and a land surveyor
developed into a Brigadier General. His father, John Mohr McIntosh, was
head of a small sept of the MacIntosh clan, and in 1736 settled in
Georgia, with 100 of his followers, on a place to which they gave the
name of Inverness, but which is now known as Darien. Lachlan was born at
Badenoch, Inverness-shire, in 1727, accompanied his father to Georgia,
and grew up an enthusiastic American patriot. When the war broke out he
volunteered his services, and was commissioned Colonel, becoming a
General in 1776. As a result of a duel, in which he mortally wounded
Button Gwinnett, one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence,
considerable ill-feeling was aroused against him in Georgia, although he
was not the challenger in the duel, and was acquitted after standing his
trial on a charge of murder. The trouble, however, was so serious that
McIntosh was given for a time a command in the West, with headquarters
at Pittsburgh. In 1779 he was second in command at the siege of
Savannah, and took part in the defense of Charleston. When that town was
surrendered, in 1780, McIntosh was made a prisoner, and with that
terminated his military career. He retired to Virginia until the close
of the war, and then settled in Savannah. His closing years were marked
by poverty, and he was un-doubtedly glad when his period of waiting came
to an end, and he entered into rest, in 1806.
In many ways one of the most prominent
figures in the Revolutionary struggle was the liero who was known to his
contemporaries as the Earl of Stirling. He was generally addressed by
his title; but he was a devoted adherent of the republic, and the son of
a man who was in every respect as ardent an American patriot as he
became. With the justice of his claim to be Earl of Stirling, we have
nothing here to do. He preferred the claim in due form to the British
House of Lords in 1759 and backed it up with various proofs, notably a
genealogical tree showing his descent from John, the uncle of the first
Earl. The House of Lords took nearly three years to digest the material
placed before it, and then decreed against the validity of the claim. He
refused to acquiesce in this decision, and continued to assume the title
until the end of his career. The American family commenced with James
Alexander, who, for his share in the rebellion of 1715, had to leave
Scotland. He settled in New York and was appointed its Surveyor General,
and Governor Burnet made him a member of his council. He was held in
high esteem, and, along with Benjamin Franklin and others, was one of
the founders of the Philosophical Society of America. By his marriage
with the Scotch widow of an American trader, he had four daughters (one
of whom married General John Reid, founder of the Chair of Music in
Edinburgh University and composer of the famous song "In the Garb of Old
Gaul ") and one son, the claimant of the Stirling peerage and its
acknowledged holder in America. He died in 1756.
Major William Alexander, or the Earl of
Stirling, as he preferred to be called, and as, for that reason if for
no other, we will call him, was born in New York in 1726. After a short
experience in commercial affairs, he became private secretary and
aide-de-camp to General Shirley, then commanding the Colonial forces,
and when that officer was recalled, Lord Stirling accompanied him to
England. His time there was mainly devoted to the prosecution of his
peerage claims, with the unfavorable result already mentioned. On his
return to America, he was appointed Surveyor General of New York and a
member of the Council in New Jersey. He threw himself with the utmost
ardor into the movement for independence, although thereby he knew that
he dissipated any chance he might have for a legal acknowledgment of his
claims to the peerage, and started in the war as Colonel of a regiment.
His promotion was rapid and his military career brilliant. In January,
1776, he captured a British transport in the Bay of New York with a
small force, and in March of that year he was placed in command of New
York and dexterously fortified the city and harbor. He was taken
prisoner near Brooklyn, on Long Island, but exchanged, and took part in
the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. In 1781, with the
rank of Major General, he was placed in command of the Northern Army,
with headquarters at Albany, and he died in that city in 1783. "It is a
singular fact," says Lossing, "that during the War of Independence, Lord
Stirling had command at different times of every brigade in the American
Army, except those of South Carolina and Georgia." By his marriage with
Sarah, eldest daughter of Philip Livingston, Lord Stirling had two
daughters, but no son, and so the claims of his branch of the Alexander
family to the peerage died with him. In the brilliant galaxy of
Revolutionary heroes, he holds an honored place, but his memory is
perhaps now held in greener remembrance for the services he performed
for Columbia College, of which he was for a long time one of the
Governors.
These soldiers we have just named are all
recognized as leaders in the Revolutionary cause, and their deeds and
lives have become part and parcel of American history. There were
hundreds of others less prominent, however, but by no means less brave,
less loyal to the cause, less self-sacrificing, or, in a sense, less
needful. That struggle was one in which all who took part in it had to
do their utmost and to fulfill the duties allotted to them with
scrupulous fidelity, and when every man's work was really necessary to
success. Among these now less known heroes mention may be made of
Colonel John Murray, one of the bravest of men, who represented
Pennsylvania in the struggle. He was born in Perthshire in 1731 and
settled near the town of Dauphin, Pa., with his father, in 1766. He
commenced his active career as a military patriot in March, 1776, when
he was appointed to the command of a company in a regiment of rifles. A
year later he had won the rank of Major, and in 1778 was Colonel of the
Second Pennsylvania Regiment. He continued in active service until the
termination of hostilities, in 1783, having been present at the battles
of Iona Island, White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Germantown, and
Brandywine, besides skirmishes innumerable. When the struggle was over
he retired to Dauphin County, was appointed a justice of the Peace in
1791 and so continued in the duties of active citizenship until his
death, in 1798. A brother of this hero, James Murray, who came from
Scotland with the rest of the family, served through the war, mostly as
Captain in the Pennsylvania troops.
Another Scottish-American who figured very
conspicuously in Pennsylvania's quota of patriots was William Leifer,
who was one of the founders of the famous Philadelphia City Troop, and
served with it during the greater part of the war. He was born at
Strathaven in 1745, settled in Maryland in 1763, but removed to
Philadelphia two years later, and thereafter made it his home. He
engaged in the business of storing and exporting tobacco and the
manufacture of tobacco and snuff, and amassed a large fortune. For years
he was looked upon as one of the most public-spirited of the citizens of
Philadelphia, and every scheme for the advancement of the city or for
the promotion of its interests found in him a liberal and thoughtful
patron. The first tramway in America was laid under Leiper's direction,
in 1809, and as President of the Philadelphia Common Council he proved a
model official by the interest he took in every matter pertaining to the
welfare of the city. He served also as a Presidential Elector, and was
one of the first, if not the first, to nominate Andrew Jackson, his beau
ideal among America's public men, for the Presidency. Mr. Leiper's later
years were spent in dignified retirement, and as he survived till 1825,
he had the satisfaction of seeing his adopted country prosperous and
progressive after almost half a century of independence.
William Fleming, who was born in Lanarkshire
in 1740, may serve as a type of the Southern soldier. He emigrated when
twenty years of age and settled on a large tract of land at Botecourt,
Augusta County, Va.
His property steadily increased in value
until, in the prime of life, Fleming could regard himself as a fairly
rich man. In the district in which he had settled he was very popular.
He had received a good education, was well read, and was a man of fine
appearance, and these qualities, joined with his fondness for athletic
sports, together with a commonly credited report that he was really of
aristocratic parentage, his generous hospitality, and his interest in
public affairs, won him hosts of friends. When the outbreak with the
mother country was imminent. Fleming raised a regiment which he
afterward commanded at the battle of Point Pleasant. His military career
ended with that engagement, however, for in it he received a wound, from
the effects of which he never fully recovered. Colonel Fleming is said
by some authorities to have served for a short time as Governor of
Virginia during the troubles.
Of all the soldiers in the Revolution, none
had, on the whole, a more extraordinary career than James Swan who was
born in Fifeshire in 1754 and settled in Boston when a young man. He was
for a time a mercantile clerk, but soon became more noted for his
advocacy of the movement for independence than for his business
abilities, although, as long subsequent events showed, his business
qualities were of a high order. He formed one of the celebrated "Boston
Tea Party" and acted as an aide de camp to Gen. Warren at Bunker Hill.
In that famous skirmish he was severely wounded. Afterward as a Captain
in Crafts's regiment of artillery Swan saw much active service, and he
was in the expedition that compelled the British forces to leave Boston
Harbor. As Secretary to the Massachusetts Board of War, as member of the
State Legislature, and as Adjutant General of the State, he rendered a
series of magnificent services to the Commonwealth. But while thus
winning honors as a patriot his private fortunes were not flourishing,
and, despairing of meeting with much financial success in the then
unsettled state of the country, Swan retired from public life and went
to France. There in a few years he accumulated a fortune, and when he
returned to the United States, in 1795, he was noted equally for his
wealth, his charity, and his munificence. In 1798 he returned to Europe
and engaged in large commercial ventures, all of which were wonderfully
successful. In 1815 his career was cut short by his being arrested and
lodged in prison on charges preferred by a German with whom he had had
dealings. He remained in durance until 1830, living meantime in a style
of the greatest luxury and enjoying the additional prodigality of a
score of law-suits. A year later he died in Paris. Swan was a man of
brilliant genius, of that there is no doubt, and he possessed many of
the qualities of a statesman, as well as those of a soldier and a
merchant. His pamphlets on the fisheries of Massachusetts show that he
was alive to the importance of an industry then wholly unappreciated,
while his work against the slave trade, published at Boston in 1773,
demonstrated his belief that all men, black and white, are born free and
equal, long before that sentiment became recognized, even as a figure of
speech, in the Declaration of Independence.
It is singular to find that several Scots
took part in the battle of Bunker Hill, and, having just mentioned one
who fought on the American side, it may not be out of place to recall
another Scot, and also another native of Fifeshire, who was in the
opposing ranks—in the ranks of King George. This was John Pitcairn, son
of the Rev. David Pitcairn, minister of Dysart, and a representative of
the old Fifeshire house of Pitcairn of Pitcairn. John Pitcairn, when
twenty-five years of age, became a Captain in the Royal Marines, and was
commissioned a Major in 1771. He was for a considerable time stationed
at Boston, and had the reputation of being the only British officer who
showed any consideration for the people in their frequent petty troubles
with the soldiery. On April 19, 1775. he was in command of the British
squad in the famous skirmish at Lexington, generally regarded as the
opening contest in the Revolutionary War. Bancroft says: "Pitcairn rode
in front, and, when within five or six rods of the Minute Men, cried
out: 'Disperse, ye villains! Ye rebels, disperse! Lay down your arms!
Why don't you lay down your arms and disperse?' The main part of the
countrymen stood motionless in the ranks, witnesses against aggression;
too few to resist, too brave to fly. At this Pitcairn discharged a
pistol and with a loud voice cried 'Fire!' The order was followed first
by a few guns which did no execution, and then by a close and deadly
discharge of musketry." This very circumstantial story has, however,
been denied in most of its details by other historians, and Pitcairn
himself always averred that it was the Minute Men who fired the first
shot. Seven of the latter were killed, among them being Robert Munroe, a
Scotsman, who as an ensign in one of the Highland regiments had helped
to win Louisbourg for his country from the French in 1758. In the
retreat from Concord on the afternoon of the Lexington affray Pitcairn
had to abandon his horse and pistols, and very nearly lost his life. At
Bunker Hill he was conspicuous for his bravery. In the last assault made
on the hill he was the first to climb to the redoubt, which he did,
crying: "Now for the glory of the marines!" but fell mortally wounded by
a shot fired by a negro—the last shot, it is said, fired in the fight.
Major Pitcairn was carried to the City of Boston, and died within a few
hours.. He had married early in life Elizabeth, daughter of Robert
Dalrymple of Annefield, Dumfries-shire, and left her a widow with eleven
children. She secured a pension of £100 a year from the British
Government, and her eldest son, David, became one of the most noted
physicians in London, dying in that city in 1809, the recognized head of
his profession.
We have probably said enough about the
military heroes of the Revolution—adduced sufficient instances to prove
the importance of the Scotch element in it. We may, therefore, turn to
another field—that of statesmanship—which was as essential to the
success of the movement as the military prowess of the warriors. Had the
advice of the Scotch settlers, or of the majority of the Scotch
representatives of the Home Government, been taken, there would never
have been any revolution at all—at least at the time and under the
circumstances it did. Alexander Kennedy, for example, who was Collector
of Customs at the Port of New York, and in 1750 a member of the
Provincial Council, was continually, in his letters to headquarters, in
his reports, and in his published writings, urging the importance of the
American Colonies to the mother country and advocating measures and
giving suggestions which, if carried out, would undoubtedly have
strengthened their loyalty and added to their wealth and prosperity. But
no attention was paid to such warning voices. Kennedy, who became
Receiver General of the Province of New York—proof sufficient that he
was a man possessing some influence with the home powers—was descended
from the third Earl of Cassilis. He married a Miss Massam of New York,
and when he died, in 1763, left a son, Archibald. This son became a
Captain in the Royal Navy, and in 1792, on the death of the tenth Earl
of Cassilis without issue, succeeded to the Earldom. He had married
Anne, sister of John Watts, at one time President of the St. Andrew's
Society of New York, and their descendants still hold the old title and
the newer one of Marquis of Ailsa. Anne Watts lies buried in the Chapel
of Holyrood under a plain flat stone. One of the younger sons of this
marriage married the sister of Alexander Macomb, who, in 1828, became
Commander in Chief of the United States Army.
The most brilliant statesman of the
Revolution was Alexander Hamilton, who was born in the island of Nevis,
British West Indies, his father being a native of Scotland and his
mother a Frenchwoman. He learned business routine in a mercantile house
at St. Croix, and when sixteen years of age came to this country with
his widowed mother. He then entered King's College and studied law. His
public life may be said to have begun when, at the age of seventeen
years, he commenced making speeches in favor of freedom, and in 1775 he
helped the Sons of Liberty to carry off the cannon from Fort George,
(now the Battery,) in New York. To trace this man's career would be to
write the history of the country during its continuance. He served in
the war, in Congress, and was Secretary of the Treasury in Washington's
first Cabinet. No one enjoyed to a greater extent the confidence of the
"Father of his Country," and when, in 1798, Washington assumed command
of the provisional army it was with the distinct understanding that
Hamilton should be his chief associate. His later years were spent in
New York in the prosecution of his private law business, but he took the
keenest interest in politics and national affairs. It was this interest
and a knowledge of the influence he deservedly exerted that led to a
dispute with the notorious Aaron Burr and to the latter sending him a
challenge to a duel. According to the fashion of the time, Hamilton had
to accept, and the parties met near Weehawken on July 11, 1804, almost
on the spot where Hamilton's son had been killed in a similar encounter
a few years before. Hamilton fired in the air. Burr shot straight at his
opponent, who fell, mortally wounded, and died the next day. There was a
terrible outburst of public indignation when the news of the duel spread
abroad, and Burr was denounced as a murderer, and for the remainder of
his long life was not only ostracised by society, but was everywhere
shunned, and he sank into obscurity. Hamilton was interred with all
possible honors in Trinity Churchyard. He was throughout his life proud
of his Scotch descent: joined the New York St. Andrew's Society in 1784,
and that organization marked the spot where he fell by a neat memorial
stone. That monument has long ago disappeared—removed by relic hunters
for the most part—and although the erection of another stone on the site
has often been discussed by New York Scotsmen in recent years nothing
practical has resulted. It is even doubtful if the exact site could now
he determined, so great have been the changes in the vicinity.
The family of Watts was a conspicuous one in
the Revolution, and, like many others, was divided by that outbreak into
loyalists and Americans. According to Gen. De Peyster, the present able
and cultured representative of the family, its American progenitor was
John Watt of Rosehill, near Edinburgh, who settled in America toward the
close of the seventeenth century. His son, John, became a noted figure
in local affairs, and, had the Revolution been suppressed, would have
been Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of New York. He represented the
city in the Assembly for many years and was a member of Council. As one
of the wealthiest landed proprietors in the colony, he was munificent in
his private charity and in his public benefactions. He was one of the
founders and Trustees of the New York Society Library, and in 1760 was
the first President of the New York City Hospital. In the early
Revolutionary struggle he was noted for his strong loyalist
proclivities, and when hostilities began he went to England and there
remained till his death, in 1789. By his marriage with the daughter of
Stephen De Lancey he had a large family. "Robert, the eldest son,"
writes Gen. De Peyster, "married Mary, eldest daughter of William
Alexander, titular Earl of Stirling; Ann, their eldest daughter, married
the Hon. Archibald Kennedy and became Countess of Cassius; Susan married
Philip Kearney and was mother of Major Gen. Stephen Watts Kearney, the
conqueror of New Mexico and California; Mary married Sir John Johnston,
Bart., and, like her father, suffered the pains of exile and
confiscation of property; Stephen, the famous Major Watts of Oriskany,
and John, the public benefactor." We give this really correct
genealogical record as an examplification of the way in which most of
the old Scotch families have spread through what are now regarded as
leading American houses, very few of which at the present day cannot
point to some Scotch name in their family tree.
John Watts, the son of this expatriated
colonist, was bred to the study of the law, and was the last of the
Royal Recorders of New York, serving in that capacity from 1774 to 1777.
As he threw in his lot with the winning side in the war, a large
proportion of the confiscated estate of his father was returned to him
and his brothers. He became Speaker of the New York Assembly—from 1791
to 1794—served in Congress for two years, and in 1806 became first Judge
of Westchester County, N. Y. He performed many good services to his
country and deserved all the honors he enjoyed, but his memory is best
preserved by his noble act in founding and endowing with a legacy that
came to him under distressful circumstances the Leake and Watts Orphan
House, in New York, a charity which to the present day continues its
beneficent work. Like his father, he showed his partiality to his
ancestral country by joining the ranks of the St. Andrew's Society, and
in many other ways he demonstrated his warm heart for the old land. A
fine statue of this patriot-jurist, representing him in his robes as
Recorder, has been erected in Trinity Churchyard, New York, by his
descendant, Gen. J. Watts de Peyster. A more suitable site for such a
memorial could not be found, excepting, perhaps, the corner of
Twenty-sixth Street and Second Avenue, on the grounds upon which
Bellevue Hospital is now located—grounds which formerly belonged to his
family.
A much less known statesman than any of
those we have yet mentioned, yet a man whose services were of the utmost
consequence to the young republic, was John Ross, a native of Tain, who,
in his day—a day before the Revolutionary sentiment developed into
war—was one of the wealthiest citizens of Philadelphia. Ross had learned
the principles of business in Perth, to which his family had removed
when he was very young. He settled in Philadelphia in 1763, and soon was
noted for his enthusiastic advocacy of the principles which were tending
to Political independence; and for separation as the natural and only
possible outcome of the entire sea of troubles brought about by the
incapacity or carelessness or arrogance, or all three combined, of the
Home Government, he was decidedly outspoken. In 1776 he was appointed by
Congress to attend to the purchase of stores—clothing, arms, ammunition,
wagons, camp utensils, &c. for the army, and his whole lousiness energy
and tact were devoted to his duties in that connection. He was too
honest a man to fill such a position—one of the few honest army
contractors on record—and his own means were liberally placed at the
disposal of his office. He proved his patriotism by his bawbees, and
cheerfully invested his whole fortune in supplementing the grants given
by Congress for the purposes of his department. In this way he not only
exhausted his own resources, but found himself confronted by debts
amounting to over £20,000. This sum he had to make good, for Congress
was unable to pay it, and dallied over the matter, as is customary for
deliberative bodies on too many occasions when real business has to be
transacted. Mr. Ross was a man of great intelligence, and enjoyed the
friendship of such men as Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert
Morris. After the war he resumed business in Philadelphia, and died in
that city in 1800, in the seventy-first year of his age.
Another Scot who did much in his own sphere
to bring about the Revolution was William Murdoch, who was born at
Glasgow in 1720. He came to America with his father, the Rev. George
Murdoch, when that gentleman was appointed Rector of Prince George
County, Maryland, by Lord Baltimore. William was a member of the lower
house of the General Assembly of Maryland from 1745 till 1770, and was
determined in his opposition to all tax edicts not imposed by or
sanctioned by the people. He became recognized as one of the leaders of
the House, and it was mainly through him that it was placed so clearly
on record on the popular side. In the resistance to the Stamp act he was
particularly conspicuous, and there is no doubt he would have taken the
field to support his principles had he not died in 1775, just as the
crisis had been reached.
Hitherto we have been dealing with honorable
men - men who, however much people might differ with them as to their
views or actions, were still entitled to be respected on account of the
honesty of their motives and the uprightness of their conduct, if for no
other reasons. It may be well, therefore, for the sake of variety to
recall one who was a timeserver and traitor, the only one deserving of
these epithets which the writer of this book has met with (with the
exception, probably, of Gen. Andrew Williamson, who for his dubious
conduct at Charleston and elsewhere was called "the Benedict Arnold of
the South,") in his study of the part Scotsmen took in the founding of
America. This was John Allan, a native of Edinburgh. He was taken to
Nova Scotia by his father when only three years of age, so that on
behalf of puir auld Scotland we may take what comfort we can in the
reflection that the good influences of Auld Reekie did not have much to
do with the molding of his character—a fortunate thing for the
reputation of Auld Reekie. John prospered in the colony. He studied law,
became Clerk to the Supreme Court, and from 1770 to 1776 was a member of
the House of Assembly. He sided with the Americans in the Revolutionary
War, although Nova Scotia was intense in its loyalty, and he used his
position to aid the Revolutionists against the Home and Colonial
Governments. He secretly sent them information, tried to sway over the
Indians to their side, and in many other ways attempted to weaken the
influences which held Nova Scotia aloof from the Revolution, and all the
while that he was bound by his oath and his office and salary to protect
British and Colonial interests. His perfidy was at last discovered, and
he found it expedient to fly across into Maine. His wife was imprisoned
by the authorities in the hope of learning from her as much as possible
of the extent of his machinations, while his angry neighbors burned his
house to the ground. He seems, however, unlike most traitors, to have
been very well repaid for his losses and troubles by those to whom he
had rendered his foul services. In 1792 Massachusetts gave him a gift of
22,000 acres of land, (on part of which the town of Whiting now stands,)
and in 1801 Congress granted him 2,000 acres in Ohio. It seems
impossible to say a word in favor of this man's course. Had he openly
avowed his attachment to the principles of the Revolution and, like the
heroes of that struggle, candidly thrown off his allegiance to Britain,
no stigma could have attached itself to his memory, but to act the part
of a traitor is inexcusable. This man, in a minor degree, simply played
the part which Benedict Arnold played, and deserves to be held in
proportionate contempt.
Many well-known American families date their
rise into prominence from the part their progenitors on this side took
in the pre-Revolutionary movement, as well as in the struggle itself,
and several of them can trace their descent clearly from well-known and
ancient Scottish houses. The Rutherfurds, for instance, are descended
from Sir John Rutherfurd of Edgerston, whose eldest son fought in
America in 1758, and was killed in the attack on Ticonderoga that year,
and through him from a Bishop of Caithness, from whom Sir Walter Scott
claimed descent. The late Gen. Winfield Scott, who was in command of the
American Army at the outbreak of the civil war, a position which he
attained after a long series of distinguished services, and from which
he retired on account of the infirmities of age, was the grandson of a
Scot who fought for Prince Charlie at Culloden and was glad to make his
escape to Virginia. His son, the General's father, was a determined
advocate of separation when the crisis came, and the General himself
lived in retirement until May, 1866—long enough to learn that the Nation
had emerged from the greatest civil war on record, with the Stars and
Stripes still the flag of the country from the lakes to the Gulf.
Another noted and earlier warrior of the same name was Gen. John Morin
Scott, who was born in America in 1730 and was fourth in descent from
Sir John Scott of Ancrum, one of the first baronets of Nova Scotia,
descended in his turn from the Scotts of Balwearie—the head of the
house. Gen. J. Morin Scott was a graduate of Yale University, and,
possessing a ready and vigorous pen, used it with marked purpose in
assailing the measures by which the British Government finally drove the
Colonies into armed opposition. He was long a member—and a very
influential one—of the Provincial Council of New York, and in 1776,
having been appointed a Brigadier General, he fought with distinction at
the battle of Long Island and elsewhere. In 1777 he was Secretary of
State for New York; for a time he was at the head of a Committee of
Safety when the exigencies of the struggle left the Government of New
York in a chaotic condition, and he closed a memorable and in every way
honorable career by serving in Congress for three years. He retired from
active work in 1783, died a year later, and was buried in Trinity
Churchyard—the historic God's-acre of New York.
But by far the most noted of the Scottish
American families of the Revolutionary period and after, from a
national, State and municipal point of view, was that of the Livingstons.
A family which numbers among its members one of the greatest of the old
Patroons, a Chancellor of the State of New York, a Signer of the
Declaration of Independence, a Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, a Secretary of State of the United States, a Governor of New
Jersey, besides soldiers, poets, and statesmen of all degrees, is surely
entitled to be regarded as pre-eminent. A volume or two would be
required to relate its story, and in this place there is no opportunity
for doing more than briefly indicating what the family has done to mold
and develop the great republic of today. It is commonly said that the
American patriots had no fathers, meaning by that, of course, that their
fathers were of the commonplace order and were not worth mentioning
except as links in a genealogical chain, of no more importance than the
links in the chain supporting a gorgeous badge of office are to the
gorgeous badge itself. But the Scotch ancestor from whom the American
Livingstons sprung had a life history as interesting as any individual
who ever founded a family, and in many ways more important than most
others. For that reason we refer to it here, for, although John
Livingstone of Ancrum was not a Scottish-American and never saw America,
it was not his fault. He made the attempt and the elements were against
him. It is difficult to learn much about the progenitors of the American
Revolutionary heroes, to know what manner of men they were, how far
their careers were likely to influence their children, and the
principles which animated them while they were engaged in the battle of
life. But the character of the immediate ancestor of the American
Livingstons is known by all who care to read his writings or study the
records of his career and of his opinions, which he himself and others
have handed down to us. In him we find all the features which made the
family in America so prominent in public life. He was a typical
Scotsman. He was steadfast, brave, outspoken, yet cautious. He stood
resolutely for the truth, sacrificed everything rather than give up his
convictions, and would have preferred passing through life in the
character of a humble but devoted minister of the Gospel rather than
that of the public defender of a principle which, in the long run, all
the machinery and power of the Government were to be employed to crush
out. His own ambition was to remain a minister—"a servant in the
vineyard of the Lord," as he expressed it. Circumstances, instead,
forced him to become a leader; to carry on what has been called the
evangelical succession in the Kirk of Scotland, after it had been in the
hands of John Knox, Andrew Melville, and Alexander Henderson.
Robert Livingston, the first of the American
family and the youngest son of this patriot preacher, was born in the
manse at Ancrum in 1654. He was educated in Holland, with the view of
following a commercial career, and left that country for America about a
year after his father's death. He first tried Charleston, but soon moved
from there and settled in New York State, where he at once entered upon
a successful career. In 1680 he became Secretary of the Commissaries at
Albany, made money as an Indian trader and in practicing law, and in
1686 became Town Clerk of the City of Albany, a position he held till
1721. In 1686 he received from Governor Dongan a large tract of land on
the Hudson, the beginning of the vast territorial possessions of the
family, and this Colonial grant was in 1715 confirmed by royal charter
from George I., a charter which conferred manorial privileges to the
holder of the estate. He served in the Colonial Assembly for many years,
and was once Speaker of that body. He had the Scotch "knack" of holding
on to whatever he acquired, and long before he died, in 1725, he was
regarded as one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of the
colony.
Robert Livingston married the widow (nee
Schuyler) of a minister, a member of the Van Rensselaer family, and this
union brought him into social relations with the oldest and most
dignified Knickerbocker families of the colony. By her he had three sons
and several daughters. The eldest son, Philip, succeeded to the
principal family possessions and added to them mainly by his success as
an Indian trader, and among his sons was Peter Van Hugh Livingston, who
was President of the New York Congress; Philip, one of the Signers of
the Declaration of Independence, and William, Governor of New Jersey. It
was to one of his descendants that Robert Fulton, the engineer and steam
navigation pioneer, was married—a marriage to which was due the
necessary financial backing to make the Clermont a success. From the
second son, Robert, who acquired the estate of Clermont, perhaps the
most noted branch of the family was descended. His son, Judge R. R.
Livingston, was the father of the famous Chancellor R. R. Livingston,
who administered the oath of office to George Washington on the
latter's. taking up the Presidency in accordance with the voice of the
people: of Henry B. Livingston, who was one of the bravest officers in
the Revolutionary Army, and of Edward Livingston, Secretary of State
under Andrew Jackson, and whose services in the acquisition of Louisiana
are still gratefully remembered. Edward was probably the ablest plan of
his family after the ancestor of Ancrum, but his life, on the whole, was
too full of disappointments to be a happy one. One of his sisters was
married to Gen. Montgomery of Quebec fame, another to Secretary of War
Armstrong, and a third to Gov. Morgan Lewis. A score or more names of
other American descendants of the persecuted Scotch preacher might be
named as illustrious examples in various and honored walks in life, but
enough has been said to show that the influence of the humble Scottish
manse led to wonderful results in the New World. Probably no family on
record ever had so many distinguished representatives within the space
of a few generations as that of this branch of an ancient Scotch house.
Before leaving the Livingston family we may
here recall the stormy career of Col. James Moncrieff, who was related
to Gov. William Livingston and other Americans by marriage, he was born
in Fifeshire about 1735 and was educated at Woolwich as a military
engineer, but seems to have faced the world for himself in the capacity
of Captain of a privateer. He was in New York when the Revolutionary
turmoil culminated in hostilities, and it was thought that he would
throw in his lot with the Colonists, but he declined to throw off his
allegiance to the Crown. In 1776 he served under Lord Percy on Staten
Island, and two years later was taken prisoner at Flatbush, L. I.
Afterward he performed valuable services for the royal forces at
Savannah, and it was he who planned the defensive works at Charleston
when the British held that seaport. He was commissioned Lieutenant
Colonel in 1780, and certainly deserved that recognition of his
endeavors, but it is a pity that his memory should be tarnished by some
grave charges which have never been satisfactorily cleared away—notably
one of shipping 800 slaves from Charleston to the West Indies with the
view of pocketing by the sale of these human beings. He certainly was a
brave man and an able soldier, but he did not seem to impress his
military superiors very favorably or to be generally well liked. Of his
closing years nothing is known beyond the fact that he died in France in
1793.
On the sea the Scots in America, although by
no means as numerous in number as those who took part in the stirring
events on shore, won equally noteworthy records. The most famous of
these, with a reputation extending over the Old World as well as the
New, is Paul Jones, although a very varied estimate of his character is
taken. By some he is spoken about as famous, by others as notorious, and
between these extremes is very considerable ground for argument and
opinion. Briefly summed up, his career was as follows: He was born at
Arbigland, Kirkcudbrightshire, in 1747, the son of a gardener named John
Paul, after whom he was named. His parents were poor, but they kept him
in attendance at the parish school until he was twelve years of age,
long enough to give him a good rudimentary education, and then he was
sent to earn his own living as a sailor. A year later he crossed the
Atlantic for the first time and visited an elder brother, William, who
had settled on the banks of the Rappahannock, in Virginia, and married a
Virginia girl. He was welcomed there, and possibly the kindly reception
he met with warmed his heart to America. He continued in the merchant
service, making many voyages, among them at least two slave-catching
expeditions, until 1773, when, hearing that his brother had died in
Virginia childless and without leaving a will, he hastened there to
settle up the estate. It was at this time that for some reason now
unknown he assumed the name of Jones.
He seems to have invested his means in
Tobago and to have soon lost everything by the mismanagement or
dishonesty of agents there. Then he turned planter and hoped to devote
his time to peaceful pursuits. But soon the rush of events brought the
Colonies face to face with the mother country, and Capt. Jones, as he
was called, espoused the popular cause. In defending his position he
afterward wrote: "I was indeed born in Britain; but I do not inherit the
degenerate spirit of that fallen nation, which I at once lament and
despise. It is far beneath me to reply to their hireling invectives.
They are strangers to the envied approbation that greatly animates and
rewards the man who draws his sword only in support of the dignity of
freedom. America has been the country of my fond election from the age
of thirteen, when I first saw it. I had the honor to hoist, with my own
hands, the flag of freedom the first time it was displayed on the
Delaware, and I have attended it with veneration ever since on the
ocean."
This raising of the flag occurred on the
Alfred, one of the five ships which constituted the American Navy when
the Revolutionary War broke out. Jones, on the first sign of
hostilities, offered his services to the Congress, and he was appointed
First Lieutenant of the Alfred. The details of his naval career are so
well known, so fully recorded even in American school histories, that
there is little use in occupying space with recording them here. They
prove Jones to have been a most skillful seaman, an able manager of men,
an ingenious tactician, and a brave man. In the course of it, however,
he visited his birthplace and landed a force, with the intention,
according to his own letters, of capturing Lord Selkirk and carrying him
away to America as a hostage. But Lord Selkirk was not in his mansion,
and the seamen had to content themselves with robbing the premises of
all the silver plate they could find. This adventure is the great blot
upon Paul Jones's character, and his correspondence shows that he saw a
blunder had been made. He returned the plate, or as much of it as he
could, after a time, and explained his motives. It stamped him, in the
eyes of his fellow-countrymen at home, not as a patriot fighting for
freedom, but as a pirate of the most vulgar and mercenary sort, for no
one with any spark of sentiment would have wantonly carried the horrors
of war to his own birthplace. Besides, he used the early knowledge he
had obtained of St. Mary's Isle to rob the place of its treasure chest.
However the people may have been justified in their views of the
adventure or not, there is no doubt that Jones's yarn about desiring to
capture Lord Selkirk is a very improbable one, for Lord Selkirk was too
unimportant a personage to affect in any way the conduct of the war or
to bring about any wholesale discharge of American prisoners. It seems
more likely that Jones's men wanted plunder and he took them where he
knew they might get some with the utmost ease, and in a place which he
was perfectly aware was wholly unprotected. Then, having seen the
mistake he made, he tried to remedy it as best he could. Lord Selkirk
was very glad to get back as much of his property as he did, but that
did not alter the complexion of the affair with the mass of the people,
and Jones was regarded by his brother Scots as being a mercenary
cutthroat and robber, a light in which they did not consider any of the
other Scots who fought against King George in the Revolution. Jones's
subsequent descents on the British coast, notably his proposed capture
of Edinburgh and Leith while in command of a squadron of French ships
carrying the American flag, while more legitimate under the
circumstances, did not alter this popular feeling, for it was felt that
he might have left puir auld Scotland alone, if he had a Scottish heart
in his breast at all. However, his career was a wonderful one, and he
richly earned the honors which his adopted country awarded him. On the
conclusion of the war Jones attempted to establish a fur trade between
the American Northwest territories and Japan and China, but the scheme
fell through. In 1787, after being disappointed in hopes of active
service in other directions, he accepted an appointment in the Russian
service, and took a prominent part in the war with Turkey. His fortunes
seemed to rise to their highest point at that time, but he was the
victim of intrigue and jealousy on the part of others who favored the
course of the Empress Catherine, and, weary and worn out, he ultimately
resigned from her service. Then he retired to Paris, where, after a long
illness, he died in 1789, in the forty-fifth year of his age.
How a man could pose as a pure devotee of
freedom and unsheath his sword with equal readiness in the service of
the American Congress, and of that abandoned, cruel wretch, the Empress
Catherine II. of Russia, is, it seems to us, a conundrum that would
require a good deal of reasoning to demonstrate. Except for office,
there was nothing to attract any man to the service of the Russian
autocrat, least of all one who avowed to he opposed to the tyranny of
Britain. Nor can it be pretended that the campaign he waged for
Catherine against the Turks had anything to do with liberty. It was
simply a matter of position and pay. He forsook the Stars and Stripes
and all that glorious ensign meant for the world and talked glibly of
the "honor of the Russian flag and the interests of Her (Russian)
Majesty."
This, however, is not the generally
prevailing idea of the character of Paul Jones. A recent writer puts the
popular American idea very clearly as follows:
It is not necessary at this day to refute
the slanders once current against Paul Jones; but, incredible as it may
seem, within the last ten years he has been described in popular verse
as a notorious pirate, in a leading American newspaper as a privateer,
and in a book alleged to be for the instruction of American youth as a
'bold marauder!' This, be it remembered, applies to a man who headed the
list of the First Lieutenants appointed in the navy of the Colonies on
Dec. 12, 1775 who held the first Captain's commission granted under the
United States, Aug. 8, 1776; who was made the commanding officer of all
American ships in European waters in 1778; who received the thanks of
Congress in 1781; who was unanimously elected by Congress to be the
first officer of the American Navy in 1781, and who received a gold
medal from Congress, similar to that given to Washington, in 1787.
Moreover, he was presented with a gold sword by Louis XVI. of France,
and also with the Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit, never
before given to a foreigner. He was also a Rear Admiral in the service
of Russia, and received the Order of St. Anne from the Empress
Catherine. Greater tributes than any foreign honor or order he received
were the esteem in which he was held by Washington, and the affection
felt for him by Franklin, Morris, Jefferson, and Lafayette. If they are
worthy of belief, Paul Jones was an unswerving patriot, and a very great
man. * * He served with the utmost distinction in the Continental Navy,
but without pay or allowance. The British Government officially declared
him a traitor, pirate, and felon,' and put a price of 10,000
guineas upon his head; but he was no more a traitor, pirate, or felon
than Washington was, or any other man who, born a British subject, chose
to throw off his allegiance."
We fear this reasoning, even with the
impartial sentiment which prevails in these later days of peace and good
will, will hardly be accepted. There is a wide difference between the
cases of the patriots named and the case of Paul Jones. Washington,
Franklin, and Jefferson, although originally British subjects, were born
in America. Morris was by birth an Englishman, Lafayette a Frenchman;
yet neither of these men fired a shot against the countries which gave
them birth. We cannot, reviewing the career of Paul Jones, regard him in
the light of a disinterested patriot, nor hold him up to detestation as
a pirate pure and simple. He was simply a maritime Dugald Dalgetty, true
to whatever cause he fought for, and, naturally, tittering its
shibboleths and upholding its right; but, while placing this estimate
upon his worth, we cannot ignore the fact, even if we wished to ignore
it, that he did grand service to the young republic in its struggle for
freedom and nationality.
This doughty representative of auld Scotia's
naval prowess, when all is said on the subject, has—justly or unjustly—a
cloud resting on his fame, and so it may be in keeping with the fitness
of things to mention one or two representatives of the thistle at sea on
whose record no one has ventured to cast any smirch, for the best of all
reasons—that their lives were above reproach. Few people now remember
anything of Admiral Schank, although he was a man of unusual prominence
in his day. He was born at Castlerig, Kinghorn, Fifeshire, in 1740, and
was a cadet of the family of Shank of Castelrig, which received its
territorial possessions from a grant by King Robert the Bruce. Why the
Admiral changed the spelling of his name is not known; possibly simply
on account of a freak, for most great men have their weaknesses. In
early life he learned seamanship on a merchant vessel, but he entered
the Royal Navy and passed slowly through the grades of promotion till he
attained the rank of Second Lieutenant. His first position of importance
was that of senior officer of the naval squadron at St. John, N. B., and
when hostilities were rife he rendered good service to the Home
Government. One instance of his energy that attracted general attention
at the time was in connection with his ship, the Inflexible. He
commenced building it at Quebec, and within six weeks from the day its
first timbers were laid he had built, rigged, completed it from stem to
stern, put her to sea and won a battle with it. He fitted out several
armaments for employment on the great lakes, and at one time had four
dockyards under his direction. He also distinguished himself in
Burgoyne's campaign in 1777, when he acted in the capacity of engineer,
and greatly facilitated by his arrangements the movements of the troops.
When peace was declared he returned to Britain and, with the rank of
Captain, enjoyed a period of leisure, which he devoted to literary
studies and to the development of theories in seamanship which his
experience had suggested. In 1793 he published a treatise on the sailing
of vessels in shallow water by a series of sliding keels he invented,
and which could be operated easily by means of some mechanical
arrangements. He also contributed several valuable papers for the
transactions of the Society for Improving Naval Architecture, of which
he was one of the founders. He held several active appointments in
connection with his profession before being, in 1805, raised to the rank
of Rear Admiral. and he afterward received, in succession, the higher
honors of Vice Admiral and Admiral of the Blue. He died at Dawlish,
Devonshire, in 1823, leaving behind him a record, if not as brilliant,
as honorable as that of any other name on the long roll of British
Admirals.
There is a tradition that Robert R. Randall,
the founder of the noble home for aged seamen, on Staten Island, known
as Sailors' Snug Harbor, was the son of a Scottish merchant. The
commonly told story is that "Thomas Randall, a thrifty Scotchman who
amassed a competence as an 'honest private oarsman' in pre-Revolutionary
times, and whose great plantations near the then Spanish port of
New-Orleans were used as the storehouses for the products of his
enterprise as a bold buccaneer, followed the example of the rude
forefathers of his hamlet—in short, died, leaving to his 'only' son,
Robert Richard, his vast possessions and remorse." The remorse feature
of the story is the only thing that elevates the character of Randall
above that of the one commonly ascribed to Capt. Kidd. Gov. Trask,
however, who, as the executive heal of the Snug Harbor, has investigated
the career of the founder's father, says that instead of being a pirate
and all that the name implies, Thomas Randall was a well-known American
patriot, a member of the Committee of One Hundred in 1785, one of the
original founders of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and the first
President of the Marine Society of the Port of New York, an organization
which had for its object 'the relief of indigent and distressed masters
of vessels, their widows and orphan children.' Thomas Randall was for
many years intimately connected through ties of friendship and business
with Alexander Hamilton, the great soldier-lawyer-financier of the
Colonies, and it is recorded that Randall and Hamilton had built and
fitted out, at their own expense, the vessel which conveyed Gen.
Washington from Elizabethport to New York on his journey to the first
inauguration.
Capt. Trask has taken a great deal of pains
to solve the question of Thomas Randall's birth, but without success.
"If a Scotsman," he says, "he must have come to this country when young,
as at the age of twenty-five he appears to have been a shipmaster and in
command of the American brigantine, The Fox!" The son, however,
bequeathed his means unto a charity which has proved of practical
service to the class for whom it was intended, and, in the absence of
proof to the contrary, we feel justified in claiming Thomas Randall as a
Scot on the strength of the tradition. Such institutions have ever been
favorite ones with Scotsmen of means, and perhaps it may have been one
of the dreams of Thomas Randall to found such a home, a dream made a
reality by his son. |
