Part 11

It was not till the spring of this year that the measures of the government for cutting off supplies from the Bass began sensibly to tell upon the besieged. When reduced to a point near starvation, and treating with the enemy, Middleton and his companions [Sidenote: 1694.] contrived still to appear well off, and full of good spirits. When the commissioners came to the rock, the governor gave them what appeared a hearty lunch of French wine and fine biscuit, telling them to eat and drink freely, as there was no scarcity of provisions. On their departure, he had the walls bristling with old muskets, with hats and coats, as if there had been a large garrison. The consequence was, that the cavaliers of the Bass finally came off with life, liberty, and property—even with payment of their arrears of aliment as prisoners—and, it is needless to say, the unmixed admiration and gratitude of the friends of King James.

[Sidenote: MAY 3.]

The Hon. William Livingstone of Kilsyth, after enduring almost every form of captivity for several years, was now at length liberated, along with the Lord Bellenden, both on similar conditions—namely, that they should leave their native land for ever within little more than a month, under security to the extent of a thousand pounds sterling each, and engage thereafter in no movement of any kind against the existing government. We hear of the two gentlemen soon after asking a short respite, as the Dutch vessel in which they had hired a passage from Leith for Holland, was not yet ready to sail; and this grace they obtained, but only till the vessel should be ready.

Livingstone, in his forlorn voyage, was accompanied by his wife, Jean Cochrane, of the Ochiltree family, and the widow of Lord Dundee. This union had happened about a year after Killiecrankie, in consequence of Mr Livingstone meeting the lady on a visit at Colzium House, in Stirlingshire. As a pledge of his love, he presented her with a ring, which, unluckily, she lost next day while walking in the garden. This was considered an evil omen. A reward was offered to any one who should find the bijou, but all in vain.

The pair now went with their only child, an infant, to Rotterdam. One afternoon, the lady attended the Scotch church there, when Mr Robert Fleming, the minister, was officiating. This is a divine of some celebrity, on account of a singular work he published in 1701 on _The Rise and Fall of the Papacy_, in which he announced the likelihood that the French monarchy would experience a humbling about the year 1794. On the present occasion, if we are to believe a story reported by Wodrow, he stopped in the middle of his discourse, and declared that ‘he was, he knew not how, impressed with the thought that some heavy [Sidenote: 1694.] and surprising accident was, within a few hours, to befall some of the company there present.’[122]

This vaticination, if it ever was uttered, was sadly fulfilled. That afternoon, Kilsyth, his wife, and another gentleman, went into the room where the child lay with its nurse, Mrs Melville. Suddenly, the roof, which was thickly covered with turf-fuel, fell down, and buried the whole party. Kilsyth and his male visitor got out alive and unhurt, after being under the ruins for three-quarters of an hour. The lady, the nurse, and child, were all found dead. The bodies of Lady Dundee and her infant were carefully embalmed, and sent to be interred in their own country.[123]

Much interest was felt a century after, when it was announced (May 1795) that the body of this unfortunate lady and her babe had been found in perfect preservation in the vault of the Viscounts of Kilsyth in Kilsyth Church. Some idle boys, having made their way into the vault, tore up a lead coffin, and found a fresh one of fir within, enclosing the two bodies embalmed, and looking as fresh as if they were only asleep. The shroud was clean, the ribbons of the dress unruffled, not a fold or knot discomposed. The child, plump, and with the smile of innocence arrested on its lips, excited pity and admiration in every beholder. A patch on the lady’s temple concealed the wound which had caused her death. When the face was uncovered, ‘beautiful auburn hair and a fine complexion, with a few pearly drops like dew upon her face, occasioned in the crowd of onlookers a sigh of silent wonder;’ so says the contemporary account. There was no descendant of the family to enforce respect for these remains: the husband of the lady had, as Viscount Kilsyth, forfeited title and estate in the insurrection of 1715,[124] and his name was no more. But after public curiosity had been satisfied, a neighbouring gentleman caused the vault to be again closed.

There was not yet an end to the curious circumstances connected with Dundee’s widow. The year after the discovery of the [Sidenote: 1694.] embalmed corpses in Kilsyth Church, a tenant of Colzium garden, digging potatoes, found a small glittering object in a clod of earth. He soon discovered it to be a ring, but at first concluded it was a bauble of little value. Remembering, however, the story of Lady Dundee’s ring, lost upwards of a century before, he began to think it might be that once dear pledge of affection, and soon ascertained that in all probability it was so, as within its plain hoop was inscribed a posy exactly such as the circumstances would have called for—_Zovrs onlly & Euer_. The lover and his family and name were all gone—his chosen lay silent in the funeral vault: but here was the voice of affection still crying from the ground, and claiming from another generation of men the sympathy which we all feel in each other’s pure emotions.

[Sidenote: JUNE 14.]

James Young, writer in Edinburgh, stated to the Privy Council that he had been at great pains and expense in bringing to perfection ‘ane engine for writing, whereby five copies may be done at the same time, which it is thought may prove not unuseful to the nation.’ He requested and obtained a nineteen years’ privilege of exclusively making this ‘engine’ for the public.

Young seems to have been a busy-brained man of the inventive and mechanical type, and as such, of course, must have been a prodigy to the surrounding society of his day. In January 1695, we find him again coming before the Privy Council, but this time in company with Patrick Sibbald, locksmith, the one as inventor, the other as maker, of a new lock of surprising accomplishments. It ‘gives ane account of how oft it is opened, and consequently may be very useful in many cases’—for example, ‘though the key were lost, and found by another person, it discovers if that person has opened the lock; if your servant should steal the key, and take things out of the room or cabinet, it discovers how oft they have done it; if you find one of your servants is dishonest, but know not whom to challenge, this lock may set you on the right man; if you have any rooms with fine furniture, pictures, glasses, or curiosities, if you desire your servants not to let any of their acquaintances in to see the room, lest they abuse or break anything in it, though you leave them the key, as in some instances it is necessary, yet this lock discovers if they break your orders, and how oft; if you be sick, and must intrust your keys to a servant, this lock discovers if he takes occasion when you are asleep, to look into your cabinet, and how oft.’ It was conceived [Sidenote: 1694.] that this clever lock ‘would be for the public good,’ if it were only ‘to frighten servants into honesty.’ Wherefore the inventor and maker had no hesitation in asking for an exclusive privilege of making it for fifteen years, at the same time agreeing that the price of the simplest kind should be not more than fifteen shillings sterling. The petition was complied with.[125]

There was at this time at Grange Park, near Edinburgh, a house called the _House of Curiosities_, the owner of which made an exhibition of it, and professed to have new articles on view every month of the passing summer. A colloquy between Quentin and Andrew[126] gives an account of it, from which it appears that one of the most prominent articles was the ingenious lock above described. Another was the aforementioned writing-engine, but now described as calculated to produce fifteen or sixteen copies by one effort with the pen, and so proving ‘an excellent medium between printing and the common way of writing.’ A third was thus described by Andrew: ‘They took me up to a darkened room, where, having a hole bored through the window, about an inch in diameter, upon which they had fixed a convex lens, the objects that were really without were represented within, with their proper shapes, colours, and motions, reversed, upon a white board, so that, it being a very clear sunshiny day, I saw men, women, and children walking upon the road with their feet upwards; and they told me, the clearer the day, it does the better.’ It may be inferred with tolerable confidence that this House of Curiosities was a speculation of James Young, the inventor of the lock and writing-engine.

It is curious to trace the feeling of strangeness expressed in this brochure towards scientific toys with which we are now familiar. Much is made of a _Magical Lantern_, whereby pictures of Scaramouch, Actæon, and Diana, and twenty others, ‘little broader than a ducatoon,’ are ‘magnified as big as a man.’ _Eolus’s Fiddle_, which, being hung in a window, ‘gives a pleasant sound like an organ, and a variety of notes all the day over,’ is descanted upon with equal gusto. ‘Sometimes it gives little or no satisfaction,’ Andrew admits; ‘but when I was there, it happened to do very well.’ There is also a very animated account of a machine for telling how far you have travelled—the modern and well-known pedometer.

[Sidenote: 1694.]

One of the articles for the month of June was of such a kind that, if reproduced, it would even now be original and surprising. It is a _Horizontal Elastic Pacing Saddle_—horizontal, because it had four pins to keep it level; elastic, because of four steel springs; and pacing, because designed to make one have the sensation and experiences of pacing while in reality trotting. ‘I saw it tried by three or four gentlemen, who all gave good approbation of it.’

Another of the June articles serves to shew that the principle of the _revolver_ is no new invention. It is here called _David Dun’s Machine_, being a gun composed of ten barrels, with forty breeches adapted to the ends of the barrels, ‘somewhat like that of a rifled gun.’ ‘The breeches are previously charged, and in half a minute you may wheel them all about by tens, and fire them through the ten barrels.’

Amongst the other articles now well known are—a Swimmingbelt—a _Diving Ark_, identical with the Diving Bell since re-invented—a _Humbling Mirror_, the object of which is to reflect a human being in a squat form—and the _Automatical Virginals_, which seem neither more nor less than a barrel-organ with clock-work. ‘It plays only foreign springs, but I am told it might be made to play Scots tunes.’ There was also the now little-heard-of toy called _Kircher’s Disfigured Pictures_. A sheet of strangely confused colouring being laid down on a table, a cylinder of polished metal is set down in the midst of it, and in this you then see reflected from the sheet a correct picture of some beautiful object. ‘There happened to be an English gentleman there, who told it was one of the greatest curiosities now in Oxford College.’ It was a toy, be it remarked, in some vogue at this time among the Jacobites, as it enabled them to keep portraits of the exiled royal family, without apprehension of their being detected by the Lord Advocate.

Not long after, we find Young coming forward with an invention of a much more remarkable kind than either the detective-lock or the manifold writing-engine. He stated (July 23, 1696) that he had invented, and with great expense perfected, ‘ane engine for weaving, never before practised in any nation, whereby several sorts of cloths may be manufactured without manual operation or weaving-looms.’ He had ‘actually made cloth thereby, before many of the ingenious of this kingdom.’ He believed that this engine might, with due encouragement, prove highly useful, ‘especially for the trade to Africa [Sidenote: 1694.] and the Indies,’ and therefore petitioned the Privy Council for the privileges of a manufactory and for a patent right. The Lords complied with his request, giving him exclusive use of his machine for thirteen years.

On the 12th December 1695, Nicolas Dupin, whom we have seen engaged in preparations for the manufacture of linen and of paper in Scotland, comes before us in the character of a mechanical inventor. He professed, in association with some ingenious artists, and after much cost and travel in foreign parts, to have ‘brought to perfection the yet never before known art and mystery of drawing water out of coal-pits.’ ‘In twenty fathoms deep,’ says he, ‘we can raise in two minutes’ time a ton of water, provided the pit or _sheft_ will admit of two such casks to pass one another.’ It was done easily, the work being performed ‘by the true proportions and rules of hydrostaticks, hydronewmaticks, and hydrawliacks.’[127] The machine was calculated to be useful for ‘all manner of corn-mills work, where water is scarce or frozen,’ for ‘we can grind by one man’s hand as much as any water-mill doth.’ It was adapted ‘for draining of lochs [lakes] or bringing of water to any place where water is wanting,’ and ‘for clearing of harbour-mouths from great rocks or sand.’ ‘In a short time, any vast weight that seems to be past lifting by men’s strength, this our engine shall lift by one man’s strength, more than twenty men shall do, being present altogether to the same lift.’ Our mechanist had also a smaller engine, with the same economy of power, for a more household sort of work, such as mincing of tallow for candles, ‘ane very exact way of cutting tobacco,’ for cutting of tanner’s bark, &c., ‘without the assistance of either wind or water.’ Several noblemen and gentlemen were said to be ready to treat with the inventor for the draining of certain drowned coal-pits; but it was necessary, before such work was undertaken, that the engines should be protected by a patent. On his petition, the Privy Council granted a patent for eleven years.[128]

Two years later (1696) Mr David Ross, son of a deceased provost of Inverness, succeeded, to his own satisfaction, in discovering a _perpetuum mobile_. He divulged his plan to certain persons, his neighbours, who consequently prepared to enter into a bond or oath, giving assurance that they should not, by word, write, or sign, divulge the secret before the inventor should obtain [Sidenote: 1694.] a patent, unless he should himself do so, or should be removed from the world, ‘in which it shall be both lawful and expedient that we discover the same.’[129]

[Sidenote: JULY 10.]

We get an idea of what was at this time considered a fair price for land in proportion to rent in Scotland, from a case now before the Court of Session. Sir John Clerk of Pennecuik and Archibald Primrose of Dalmeny had bought the baronies of Nicolson and Lasswade at a roup or auction, the one estate at _twenty-four_, the other at _twenty-two years’ purchase_, which they afterwards represented as ‘a dear rate.’ There being a doubt as to the party who should receive the price, the purchasers would have to pay six per cent. on the purchase-money, by way of interest, until that point was settled, while only realising about four per cent. for their outlay: hence they applied to the court for leave to consign the money—which was refused.[130]

[Sidenote: AUG.]

Among numberless symptoms of dissatisfaction with the church now established by law, one of a trivial yet characteristic nature occurred in this and the preceding month, when several students and others made a practice of interrupting the minister of Old Aberdeen by striking up the doxology in several corners of the church, at the moment he was pronouncing the benediction. In the charge brought against them, October 3, before the Privy Council, it was alleged that this must have been done merely to disturb the congregation and vex the minister, as being a Presbyterian, albeit they could not but know that Presbyterians do nowhere condemn the doxology, ‘which, where it is in use, is reverently regarded, and never offered to be interrupted by any good Christian.’ It was likewise alleged of the same young men that they were in the custom of offering affronts and indignities to the elders at their meetings ‘by hootings, bellowings, throwing of stones, and offering to rabble them when they walk on the streets.’

Three of the accused, having appeared and made submission, were absolved. The other three, not having appeared, were put to the horn, and their goods escheat.[131]

[Sidenote: OCT. 19.]

Lord Lindsay’s regiment was now quartered in Glasgow, under the temporary command of Major James Menzies, whom, from his [Sidenote: 1694.] name, we may conclude to have been of Highland birth. Some of the towns-people had been apprehended by the major as deserters, and put into confinement, whence they claimed the protection of the magistrates, who quickly interceded in their behalf, requesting that the alleged culprits might be brought before them for an investigation of the case. This being pointedly refused by the major, the magistrates issued a formal edict demanding that the men might be produced; but this the major treated with the same contempt. They then sent a civil request for a conference on the case, and the major having consented, the provost, two bailies, and Mr Robert Park, the town-clerk, met Menzies and three of his captains in the town-clerk’s chamber.

The conference commenced with a request in gentle terms from the provost, that the people might be brought forward, and in this request Mr Park very civilly joined. An altercation then took place between the major and the town-clerk, the former calling the latter a fool, the latter in return calling the major an ass, who, then losing patience, struck the man of peace with his cane. A heavy blow of the fist of the town-clerk was instantly replied to by the major with a lunge of his sword, whereupon Mr Park fell dead at his feet.

There was immediately a great hubbub in the chamber, and it soon spread to the streets, into which Menzies rushed without hat or wig, and with the bloody sword in his hand. He called his men—he planted them three-deep across the chief line of street, to stop the mob, and, mounting his horse at the Gorbals, fled amain.

Mr Francis Montgomery, a member of the Privy Council, was in Glasgow at the time. He readily concurred with the magistrates in authorising three citizens to pursue the murderer. They were John Anderson of Dowhill,[132] John Gillespie, merchant, and Robert Stevenson, glazier. As they travelled along the line of the Clyde on Menzies’s track, they were joined by Peter Paterson, late bailie of Renfrew. Anderson alone was armed; he had two pistols.

The unfortunate major was traced to the house of Rainhill, where, entering the garden, the pursuers soon found him. Gillespie, who had got one of Anderson’s pistols, accompanied by Stevenson, advanced upon the murderer, who came up with a fierce [Sidenote: 1694.] countenance, asking what was the matter. Paterson told him there had been a man slain in Glasgow, and the murderer was supposed to be here: ‘If you be he,’ added Paterson, ‘may God forgive you!’ Menzies replied: ‘It is no business of yours;’ whereupon one of the others called out: ‘Dowhill, here is the man.’ Then the major, drawing his sword, and using a horrible imprecation, came forward, crying: ‘What have the rascals to do with me?’ The men retreated before him, and a pistol was fired in self-defence, by which Menzies was slain. When Paterson returned a minute after, he found him lying on his back, dead, with his drawn sword across his breast.

Strange to say, Henry Fletcher, brother of Lord Salton, and Lieutenant-colonel Hume, for the interest of his majesty’s forces, raised a prosecution against the three Glasgow citizens for murder. It ended in a verdict of _Not proven_.[133]

[Sidenote: OCT.]

Previous to 1705, when the first professor of anatomy was appointed in the university of Edinburgh, there were only a few irregular attempts in the Scottish capital to give instructions in that department of medical education. We first hear of dissection of the dead body in our city in the latter part of the year 1694, a little before which time the celebrated Dr Archibald Pitcairn had left a distinguished position as professor of medicine in the university of Leyden, and marrying an Edinburgh lady, had been induced finally to settle there in practice. On the 14th October, Pitcairn wrote to his friend, Dr Robert Gray of London, that he was taking part in an effort to obtain subjects for dissection from the town-council, requesting from them the bodies of those who die in the correction-house called Paul’s Work, and have none to bury them. ‘We offer,’ he says, ‘to wait on these poor for nothing, and bury them after dissection at our own charges, which now the town does; yet there is great opposition by the chief surgeons, who neither eat hay nor suffer the oxen to eat it. I do propose, if this be granted, to make better improvements in anatomy than have been made at Leyden these thirty years; for I think most or all anatomists have neglected or not known what was most useful for a physician.’

The person ostensibly moving in this matter was Mr Alexander Monteith, an eminent surgeon, and a friend of Pitcairn. In compliance with his request, the town-council (October 24) gave [Sidenote: 1694.] him a grant of the dead bodies of those dying in the correction-house, and of foundlings who die on the breast, allowing at the same time a room for dissection, and freedom to inter the remains in the College Kirk cemetery, but stipulating that he bury the intestines within forty-eight hours, and the remainder of the body within ten days, and that his prelections should only be during the winter half of the year.

Monteith’s brethren did not present any opposition to his movement generally; they only disrelished his getting the Council’s gift exclusively to himself. Proposing to give demonstrations in anatomy also, they preferred a petition to the town-council, asking the unclaimed bodies of persons dying in the streets, and foundlings who died off the breast; and the request was complied with, on condition of their undertaking to have a regular anatomical theatre ready before the term of Michaelmas 1697.[134]

Such were the beginnings of the medical school of Edinburgh.

REIGN OF WILLIAM III.: 1695–1702.