Part 48

The editor of a very scarce reprint of this curious volume,[545] remarks that, from the manifest sincerity of the author’s delineations of good breeding, and the graphic character of many of his scenes, it may fairly be presumed that they were painted from nature. We are told by the same writer, that ‘Helen Countess of Haddington, who died in 1768, at the advanced age of ninety-one, [Sidenote: 1720.] and to whom Petrie was well known, used to describe his own deportment and breeding as in strict accordance with his rules.’

[Sidenote: 1721. JAN. 4.]

James Dougal, writing the news of Edinburgh to his friend Wodrow at Eastwood, has a sad catalogue to detail. ‘There was four pirates hanged at Leith this day ... very hardened. They were a melancholy sight, and there is three to be hanged next Wednesday. Nicol Mushet is to be hanged on Friday ... for murdering his wife: he appears to be more concerned than he was before. Ane woman brought from Leith is to die the first Wednesday of February for putting down [destroying] a child. Another man is laid up in prison, that is thought to have murdered his wife. The things falling out now are very humbling.’

He goes on to tell that several persons ‘in trouble of mind’ are frequently prayed for in Edinburgh churches. ‘But they do not name them but after such a manner—A man there is in such trouble (or a woman), and desires the congregation to praise God with them for signal deliverance that the Lord hath given them from great troubles that they have been in.’

The end of the letter is terrible: ‘There is some of the Lord’s people that lives here, that are feared for melancholy days, iniquity doth so abound, and profanity; and if there were not a goodly remnant in this town, it would sink.’[546]

[Sidenote: JAN. 30.]

A sperm whale, ‘the richest that has ever been seen in this country,’ was advertised in the _Courant_ as having come ashore in the Firth of Forth near Culross, and to be sold by public roup.

At the end of June 1730, three wounded whales ran ashore at Kilrenny in Fife, on the property of Mr Bethune of Balfour. The produce, consisting of a hundred and forty-six barrels of _speck_, or blubber, and twenty-three barrels of spermaceti _speck_, was afterwards advertised for sale.

[Sidenote: OCT.]

With regard to several of the forfeited estates which lay in inaccessible situations in the Highlands, the Commissioners had been up to this time entirely baffled, having never been able even to get surveys of them effected. In this predicament in a special manner lay the immense territory of the Earl of Seaforth, extending from Brahan Castle in Easter Ross across the island to [Sidenote: 1721.] Kintail, and including the large though unfertile island of Lewis. The districts of Lochalsh and Kintail, on the west coast, the scene of the Spanish invasion of 1719, were peculiarly difficult of access, there being no approach from the south, east, or north, except by narrow and difficult paths, while the western access was only assailable to a naval force. To appearance, this tract of ground, the seat of many comparatively opulent ‘tacksmen’ and cattle-farmers, was as much beyond the control of the six Commissioners assembled at their office in Edinburgh, as if it had been amongst the mountains of Tibet or upon the shores of Madagascar.

During several years after the insurrection, the rents of this district were collected, without the slightest difficulty, for the benefit of the exiled earl, and regularly transmitted to him. At one time, a considerable sum was sent to him in Spain, and the descendants of the man who carried it continued for generations to bear ‘the Spanyard’ as an addition to their name.[547] The chief agent in the business was Donald Murchison, descendant of a line of faithful adherents of the ‘high chief of Kintail’—the first of whom, named Murcho, had come from Ireland with Colin the son of Kenneth, the founder of the clan Mackenzie in the thirteenth century. The later generations of the family had been intrusted in succession with the keeping of Ellan Donan Castle, a stronghold dear to the modern artist as a picturesque ruin, but formerly of serious importance as commanding a central point from which radiate Loch Alsh and Loch Duich, in the midst of the best part of the Mackenzie country. Donald was a man worthy of a more prominent place in his country’s annals than he has yet attained; he acted under a sense of right which, though unfortunately defiant of acts of parliament, was still a very pure sense of right; and in the remarkable actions which he performed, he looked solely to the good of those towards whom he had a feeling of duty. A more disinterested hero—and he was one—never lived.

When Lord Seaforth brought his clan to fight for King James in 1715, Donald Murchison and a senior brother, John, went as field-officers of the regiment—Donald as lieutenant-colonel, and John as major. Sir Roderick I. Murchison, the distinguished geologist, great-grandson of John, possesses a large ivory and silver ‘mill,’ which once contained the commission sent from France to Donald, as colonel, bearing the inscription: ‘JAMES [Sidenote: 1721.] REX: FORWARD AND SPARE NOT.’ John fell at Sheriffmuir, in the prime of life; Donald, returning with the remains of the clan, was intrusted by the banished earl with the management of estates no longer legally his, but still virtually so, through the effect of Highland feelings in connection with very peculiar local circumstances. And for this task Donald was in various respects well qualified, for, strange to say, the son of the castellan of Ellan Donan—the Sheriffmuir colonel—had been ‘bred a writer’ in Edinburgh, and was as expert at the business of a factor or estate-agent as in wielding the claymore.[548]

In bold and avowed insubordination to the government of George the First, the Mackenzie tenants continued for ten years to pay their rents to Donald Murchison, on account of their forfeited and exiled lord, setting at nought all fear of ever being compelled to repeat the payment to the commissioners.

In 1720, these gentlemen made a movement for asserting their claims upon the property. In William Ross of Easterfearn, and Robert Ross, a bailie of Tain, they found two men bold enough to undertake the duty of stewardship in their behalf over the Seaforth property, and also the estates of Grant of Glenmorriston and Chisholm of Strathglass. Little, however, was done that year beyond sending out notices to the tenants, and preparing for strenuous measures to be entered upon next year. The stir they made only produced excitement, not dismay. Some of the duine-wassels from about Loch Carron, coming down with their cattle to the south-country fairs, were heard to declare that the two factors would never get anything but leaden coin from the Seaforth tenantry. Donald was going over the whole country, shewing a letter he had got from the earl, encouraging his people to stand out; at the same time telling them that the old countess was about to come north with a factory for the estate, when she would allow as paid any rents which they might now hand to him. The very first use to be made of this money was, indeed, to bring both the old and the young countesses home immediately to Brahan Castle, where they would live as they used to do. Part of the funds thus acquired, he used in keeping on foot a party of about sixty armed Highlanders, whom, in virtue of his commission as colonel, he proposed to employ in resisting any troops of George the First which might be sent to Kintail. [Sidenote: 1721.] Nor did he wait to be attacked, but, in June 1720, hearing of a party of excisemen passing near Dingwall with a large quantity of _aqua-vitæ_, he fell upon them, and rescued their prize. The collector of the district reported this transaction to the Board of Excise; but no notice was taken of it.

In February 1721, the two factors sent officers of their own into the western districts, to assure the tenants of good usage, if they would make a peaceable submission; but the men were seized, robbed of their papers, money, and arms, and quietly remanded over the Firth of Attadale, though only after giving solemn assurance that they would never attempt to renew their mission. Resenting this procedure, the two factors caused a constable to take a military party from Bernera barracks into Lochalsh, and, if possible, capture those who had been guilty. They made a stealthy night-march, and took two men; but the alarm was given, the two men escaped, and began to fire down upon their captors from a hillside; then they set fire to the bothy as a signal, and such a _coronach_ went over all Kintail and Lochalsh, as made the soldiers glad to beat a quick retreat.

After some further proceedings, all of them ineffectual, the two factors were enabled, on the 13th of September, to set forth from Inverness with a party of thirty soldiers and some armed servants of their own, with the design of enforcing submission to their legal claims. Let it be remembered there were then no roads in the Highlands, nothing but a few horse-tracks along the principal lines in the country, where not the slightest effort had ever been made to smooth away the natural difficulties of the ground. In two days, the factors had got to Invermorriston; but here they were stopped for three days, waiting for their heavy baggage, which was storm-stayed in Castle Urquhart, and there nearly taken in a night-attack by a partisan warrior bearing the name of Evan Roy Macgillivray. The tenantry of Glenmorriston at first fled with their bestial; but afterwards a number of them came in and made at least the appearance of submission. The party then moved on towards Strathglass, while Evan Roy respectfully followed, to pick up any man or piece of baggage that might be left behind. At Erchless Castle, and at Invercannich, seats of the Chisholm, they held courts, and received the submission of a number of the tenants, whom, however, they subsequently found to be ‘very deceitful.’

There were now forty or fifty miles of the wildest Highland country before them, where they had reason to believe they should [Sidenote: 1721.] meet groups of murderous Camerons and Glengarry Macdonalds, and also encounter the redoubted Donald Murchison, with his guard of Mackenzies, unless their military force should be of an amount to render all such opposition hopeless. An appointment having been made that they should receive an addition of fifty soldiers from Bernera, with whom to pass through the most difficult part of their journey, it seemed likely that they would appear too strong for resistance; and, indeed, intelligence was already coming to them, that ‘the people of Kintail, being a judicious opulent people, would not expose themselves to the punishments of law,’ and that the Camerons were absolutely determined to give no further provocation to the government. Thus assured, they set out in cheerful mood along the valley of Strathglass, and, soon after passing a place called Knockfin, were reinforced by Lieutenant Brymer, with the expected fifty men from Bernera. There must have now been about a hundred well armed men in the invasive body. They spent the next day (Sunday) together in rest, to gather strength for the ensuing day’s march of about thirty arduous miles, by which they hoped to reach Kintail.

At four in the morning of Monday the 2d October, the party set forward, the Bernera men first, and the factors in the rear. They were as yet far from the height of the country, and from its more difficult passes; but they soon found that all the flattering tales of non-resistance were groundless, and that the Kintail men had come a good way out from their country in order to defend it. The truth was, that Donald Murchison had assembled not only his stated band of Mackenzies, but a levy of the Lewis men under Seaforth’s cousin, Mackenzie of Kildun; also an auxiliary corps of Camerons, Glengarry and Glenmorriston men, and some of those very Strathglass men who had been making appearances of submission. Altogether, he had, if the factors were rightly informed, three hundred and fifty men with long Spanish firelocks, under his command, and all posted in the way most likely to give them an advantage over the invading force.

The rear-guard, with the factors, had scarcely gone a mile, when they received a platoon of seven shots from a rising ground near them to the right, with, however, only the effect of piercing a soldier’s hat. The Bernera company, as we are informed, left the party at eight o’clock, as they were passing Lochanachlee, and from this time is heard of no more: how it made its way out of the country does not appear. The remainder still advancing, Easterfearn, as he rode a little before his men, had eight shots [Sidenote: 1721.] levelled at him from a rude breastwork near by, and was wounded in two places, but was able to appear as if he had not been touched. Then calling out some Highlanders in his service, he desired them to go before the soldiers, and do their best, according to their own mode of warfare, to clear the ground of such lurking parties, so that the troops might advance in safety. They performed this service pretty effectually, skirmishing as they went on, and the main body advanced safely about six miles. They were here arrived at a place called Aa-na-Mullich (_Ford of the Mull People_), where the waters, descending from the Cralich and the lofty mountains of Kintail, issue eastwards through a narrow gorge into Loch Affaric. It was a place remarkably well adapted for the purposes of a resisting party. A rocky boss, called Tor-an-Beatich, then densely covered with birch, closes up the glen as with a gate. The black mountain stream, ‘spear-deep,’ sweeps round it. A narrow path wound up the rock, admitting only of passengers in single file. Here lay Donald with the best of his people, while inferior adherents were ready to make demonstrations at a little distance. As the invasive party approached, they received a platoon from a wood on the left, but nevertheless went on. When, however, they were all engaged in toiling up the pass, forty men concealed in the heather close by fired with deadly effect, inflicting a mortal wound on Walter Ross, Easterfearn’s son, while Bailie Ross’s son was also hurt by a bullet which swept across his breast. The bailie called to his son to retire, and the order was obeyed; but the two wounded youths and Bailie Ross’s servant were taken prisoners, and carried up the hill, where they were quickly divested of clothes, arms, money, and papers. Young Easterfearn died next morning. The troops faced the ambuscade manfully, and are said to have given their fire thrice, and to have beat the Highlanders from the bushes near by; but, observing at this juncture several parties of the enemy on the neighbouring heights, and being informed of a party of sixty in their rear, Easterfearn deemed it best to temporise.

He sent forward a messenger to ask who they were that opposed the king’s troops, and what they wanted. The answer was that, in the first place, they required to have Ross of Easterfearn delivered up to them. This was pointedly refused; but it was at length arranged that Easterfearn should go forward, and converse with the leader of the opposing party. The meeting took place at Bal-aa-na-Mullich (_the Town of the Mull Men’s Ford_), and Easterfearn found himself confronted with Donald Murchison. [Sidenote: 1721.] It ended with Easterfearn giving up his papers, and covenanting, under a penalty of five hundred pounds, not to officiate in his factory any more; after which he gladly departed homewards with his associates, under favour of a guard of Donald’s men, to conduct them safely past the sixty men lurking in the rear. It was alleged afterwards that the commander was much blamed by his own people for letting the factors off with their lives and baggage, particularly by the Camerons, who had been five days at their post with hardly anything to eat; and Murchison only pacified them by sending them a good supply of meat and drink. He had in reality given a very effectual check to the two gentlemen-factors, to one of whom he imparted in conversation that any scheme of a government stewardship in Kintail was hopeless, for he and sixteen others had sworn that, if any person calling himself a factor came there, they would take his life, whether at kirk or at market, and deem it a meritorious action, though they should be cut to pieces for it next minute.[549]

A bloody grave for young Easterfearn in Beauly Cathedral concluded this abortive attempt to take the Seaforth estates within the scope of a law sanctioned by statesmen, but against which the natural feelings of nearly a whole people revolted.[550]

[Sidenote: 1721. DEC.]

A newspaper advertisement informed the world that ‘There is a certain gentleman living at Glasgow, who has put forth a problem to the learned—proposing, if no man answer it, to do it himself in a few weeks—viz., Whether or not it is possible so to dispose a ship, either great or small, that, although she, or it, be rent in the bottom, and filled full of water, or however tossed with tempest, she, or it, shall never sink below the water; and also that the same may be reduced to practice.’[551]

[Sidenote: 1722. APR. 27.]

An election of a member of parliament for a Highland county was apt to bring forth somewhat strenuous sentiments, and the scene sometimes partook a good deal of the nature of a local civil war.

A representative of Ross-shire being to be chosen, there came, the night before, to Fortrose, the greatest man of the north, the Earl of Sutherland, heading a large body of armed and mounted retainers, who made a procession round the streets, while an English sloop-of-war, in friendly alliance with him, came up to the town and fired its guns. Hundreds of Highlanders, his lordship’s retainers, at the same time lounged about. The reason of all this was, that the opposition interest was in a decided majority, and a defeat to the Whig candidate seemed impending. When the election came on, there were thirty-one barons present, of whom eighteen gave their votes for General Charles Ross of Balnagowan, the remainder being for Captain Alexander Urquhart of Newhall. Hereupon, Lord Sutherland’s relative and friend, Sir William Gordon of Invergordon, sheriff of the county, retired with the minority, and went through the form of electing their own man, notwithstanding a protest from the other candidate. ‘Immediately after this separation, Colin Graham of Drynie, one of the deputy-lieutenants of the county, came into the court-house, with his sword in his hand, accompanied by Robert Gordon of Haughs and Major John Mackintosh, with some of the armed Highlanders whom they had posted at the door, with drawn swords and cocked firelocks, and did require the majority (who remained to finish the election), in the name of the Earl of Sutherland, to remove out of the house, otherwise they must expect worse treatment. Major Mackintosh said they would be dragged out by the heels. Upon which the barons protested against those violent proceedings, declaring their resolution to [Sidenote: 1722.] remain in the court-house till the election was finished, though at the hazard of their lives; which they accordingly did.’[552]

[Sidenote: APR. 29.]

The Catholics had of late been getting up their heads in the north, especially in districts over which the Gordon family held sway; and the open practice of the Romish rites before large congregations in the Banffshire valleys, was become a standing subject of complaint and alarm in the church-courts. When at length the government obtained scent of the Jacobite plot in which Bishop Atterbury was concerned, it sympathised with these groans of the laden spirits in Scotland, and permitted some decided measures of repression to be taken.

Accordingly, this day, being Sunday, as the Duchess-Dowager of Gordon—Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk—was having mass performed at her house in the Canongate, Edinburgh, in the presence of about fifty professors like herself of the Catholic religion, Bailie Hawthorn, a magistrate of the Canongate, broke open the doors, and seized the whole party. The ladies were bailed, and allowed to depart; but the priest, Mr John Wallace, was marched to prison. We are informed by Wodrow that Wallace had been ordained a Protestant minister thirty-five years before.[553] The Lord Advocate would not at first listen to any proposal for his liberation, though several persons of distinction came to plead for it; but at length bail was taken for him to the extent of a thousand merks Scots. Being indicted under the statute of 1700, he failed to stand his trial, and was outlawed.[554]

Before the upbreak of this plot, considerable numbers of gentlemen under attainder daily presented themselves on the streets of Edinburgh, emboldened of course by the mildness of the government; but, one or two of them having been seized and put up in the Castle, it came to pass, 15th May, that not one was any longer to be seen. Mr Wodrow, who records these circumstances, expresses the feeling of the hour. ‘It’s certain we are in a most divided and defenceless state; divisions on the one hand, rancour and malice on the other, and a wretched indolence among too many. But the Lord liveth!’[555]

[Sidenote: AUG. 3.]

The Canongate, which had so often, in the sixteenth century, [Sidenote: 1722.] been reddened with the best blood in Scotland, was still occasionally the scene of wild transactions, though arising amongst a different class of persons and from different causes. A local journalist chronicles a dreadful tragedy as occurring on its pavé at this date.

‘In the afternoon, Captain Chiesley and Lieutenant Moodie, both of Cholmly’s Regiment, which lies encamped at Bruntsfield Links, having quarrelled some time before in the camp, meeting on the street of the Canongate, the captain, as we are told, asked Mr Moodie whether he had in a certain company called him a coward? And he owning he had, the captain beat him first with his fist, and then with a cane; whereupon Mr Moodie drew his sword, and, shortening it, run the captain into the great artery. The captain, having his sword drawn at the same time, pushed at Mr Moodie, who was rushing on him with his sword shortened, and thus run him into the lower belly, of which in a few minutes he died, without speaking one word, having had no more strength or life left him than to cross the street, and reach the foot of the stair of his lodgings, where he dropped down dead. The captain lived only to step into a house near by, and to pray shortly that God might have mercy on his soul, without speaking a word more. ’Tis said Mr Moodie’s lady was looking over the window all the while this bloody tragedy was acting.’[556]

A duel which happened about the same time between Captains Marriot and Scroggs proved fatal to both.

[Sidenote: AUG. 7.]

‘Four of those poor deluded people called Quakers, two men and two women, came about noon to the Cross [of Edinburgh], when one of the women, who by her accent seemed to be of Yorkshire, after several violent agitations, said, that she was appointed by God to preach repentance to this sinful city; that a voice of mortality, as she called it, had sounded in her ears, and that desolation and all kinds of miseries would befall the inhabitants if they did not repent. After she had spoke about a quarter of an hour, a party of the city-guard carried her and the other three prisoners to the main guard.’