322 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [1745!.
CEIAFTER XL.
E D I N B U R G H IN 1745.
Provost Stewart-Advance of the Jacobite Clans-Preparations for Defence-CapturC of the City-Lochiel?s Surprise--Entmnce of Prince
Charles-Arrival at Holyrood-James VIII. Proclaimed at the Cross+onduct of the Highland Troops in the City-Colquhoun Grant-
A Triumphal Procession-Guest?s Council of War-Preston?s Fidelity.
WE have referred to the alleged narrow escape of
Prince Charles Edward in the house of Provost
Stewart in the West Bow. Had he actually been
captured there, it is difficult to tell, and indeed useless
to surmise, what the history of the next few
years would have been. The Castle would probably
have been stormed by his troops, and we might
never have heard of the march into England, the
fields of Falkirk or Culloden. One of the most
singular trials consequent upon the rising of 1745
was that of Provost Stewart for ?( neglect of duty,
misbehaviour in public office, and violation of trust
and duty.?
From his house in the Bow he had to proceed to
London in November, 1745. Immediately upon
his arrival he sent notice of it to the Secretary of
State, and underwent a long and vexatious trial
before a Cabinet CounciL He was taken into
custody, but was liberated upon the 23rd of
January, 1746, on bail to the extent of ~15,000,
to appear, as a traitor, before the High Court of
Justiciary at Edinburgh.
Whether it was that Government thought he was
really culpable in not holding out the extensive
and mouldering wal!s of Edinburgh against :troops
already flushed with success, and in opposition to
the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants, or
whether they meant only to intimidate the disaffected,
we shall not determine, says Arnot. Provost
Stewart was brought to trial, and the court
?fotind it relevant to infer the pains of law, that ihe
panel, at the time and place libelled, being then
Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, wilfully
neglected to pursue, or wilfully opposed, or obstqcted
when opposed by others, such measures as
were necessary for the defence of the city against
the rebels in the instances libelled, or so much
of them as do amount to such wilful neglect.?
After a trial, which occupies zoo pages of an
octavo volume (printed for Crawford in the Parlia-
.merit Close, r747), on the and of November, the
jury, the half of whom were country gentlemen,
returned a vcrdict, unanimously finding Provost
Stewart not guilty; but he would seem to have left
the city soon after. He settled in London, where
he became an eminent merchant, and died at
Bath, in 17S0, in the eighty-third year of hisage.
No epoch of. the past has left so vivid an
impression on the Scottish mind as the year 1745 ;
history and tradition, poetry and music, prove
this from the days of the Revolution down to those
of Burns, Scott, and others ; for the whole land
became filled with melodies for the lost cause and
fallen race ; while it is a curious fact, that not one
song or air can be found in favour of the victors.
Considerable discontent preceded the advent
of the Highlanders in Edinburgh, which then had
a population of only about 40,000 inhabitants.
Kincaid tells us that thep was an insurrection
there in 1741 in consequence of the high price of
food; and another in 1742, in consequence of a
number of dead bodies having been raised. The
former of these was not quelled without bloodshed,
and in the latter the houses of many suspected
persons were burned to the ground; and that
imaginary tribulation might not be wanting, we
learn from the autobiography of Dr. Carlyle of
Inveresk, that people now began to recall a prophecy
of Peden the pedlar, that the Clyde should
run with blood in 1744.
A letter from the Secretary of State to the Town
Council had made that body aware, so early as the
spring of 1744, that it was the intention of Prince
Charles to raise an insurrection in the Highlands,
and they hastened to assure the king of their
loyalty and devotion, to evince which they prepared
at once for the defence of the city, by
augmenting its Guard to 126 men, and mustering
the trained bands. After landing in the wilds of
Moidart, with only seven men, and unfurling his
standard in Glenfinnan, on the 19th of August,
1745, Charles Edward soon found himself at the
head of 1,200 followers, whose success in a few
petty encounters roused the ardour and emulation
of the Macdonalds, McLeans, and other warlike
septs, who rose in arms, to peril life and fortune
for the last of the old royal race.
The news of his landing reached Edinburgh on
the 8th of August, and it was quickly followed by
tidings of the muster in Glenfinnan, and the capture
of a company of the. 1st Royal Scots, at the
Spean Bridge, by Major Macdonald of Teindreich.
Early in July 5,000 stand of arms had been placed
in the Castle, which Lieutenant-General Sir John
Cope ordered to be provisioned, while he reinforced
its ordinary garrison by two companies of the 47th
regiment; and theLieutenant-Governor, Lieutenant-
General Preston, of Valleyfield (who had been
2
323 *la.] ADV.4NCE OF THE * HIGHLANDERS, -__
appointed thereto in 1716), mustered the outpensioners
of Chelsea, and officered them, locally,
from the half-pay list.
Doubtful of the faith of Preston, as a Scotsman,
the Government superseded him in command, and
sent in his place Lieutenant-General Joshua Guest,
an Englishman, who proved a staunch Jacobite,
and on the approach of the Highlanders he was
the first to propose a capitulation, a measure
vigorously opposed by Preston, a resolute Whig 01
the old King William school, who thereupon undertook
the defence, with a gamson which consisted
only of the old Castle company, the two companies
of the 47th, each mustering about seventy bayonets,
under Major Robertson, the Chelsea Pensioners,
and Lieutenant Brydone?s artillery company, which
had landed at Leith on the 4th of September, and
marched in with a great quantity of the munitions
of war.
The other troops in Scotland at this time consisted
only of the 13th and 14th Light Dragoons
at Edinburgh, the company of the Royals captured
at Spean Bridge, the 6th Foot at Aberdeen, two
companies of the 21st Scots Fusiliers at Glasgow,
the 25th Edinburgh regiment in Fifeshire, two
companies of the 4znd at Crieff, five of the 44th
in the West, and another five at Berwick, the 46th
(known as ?? Murray?s Bucks ?) scattered over the
Highlands, Loudon?s Highlanders (disbanded in
1749) stationed in the north ; in all not quite 4,ooc
men ; but, collecting these, Sir John Cope prepared
to bar the Prince?s way into the Lowlands.
Quitting Perth at the head of little more than
2,000 men,* only the half of whom had arms, the
latter, on the 11th September, resumed his adventurous
march southward, and crossing the Forth
by the perilous fords of Frew, to avoid the guns
of Stirling, he held on his way by the Scottish
Marathon, by the Torwood and Linlithgow, traversing
scenes that he, the heir of the ancient regal
line, could not have beheld without emotion, engaged,
as he was, on an enterprise more daring
and more desperate than had ever been undertaken
by any of his ancestors since Bruce fought
the battle of Dalry.
On the 1,gth he was at Corstorphine, less than
A true account of thestrengthof the Highland army, aph August, 1745.
Lochiel ........................... 700
Clanmnald, having men of his Islands ...... 050
The Stewarts of Appin under Ardsheil ...... a50
Keppoch ........................... 260
and the Grants of Glenmorriston ...... 600
, Glengawy?s men, induding Knoydart, Glencoe.
2 . h
(? Culloden Papers. ?3
?The Highlanders were not more than 1,800, and the half of them only
Were armed.? (?Autobiography of Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk?)
lour miles distant from the capital, and to avoid
exposing his troops to the Castle guns in advancing,
he wheeled southward towards Slateford, and fixed
his quarters at Gray?s Mill, two miles from the
city.
Great was now the excitement within the walls.
The militia, called the trained bands, consisted of
sixteen companies, or 1,000 men, entirely undisciplined,
and many of them entirely disloyal to the
Hanoverian cause. In their own armoury the
citizens had 1,259 muskets and zoo bayonets, 300
sets of accoutrements, a considerable quantity of
ammunition, with seventy-five stand of arms and
Lochaber axes belonging to the City Guard. On
Sunday, 16th September, Hislop, keeper of this
arsenal, issued 500 rounds of ball ammunition and
sixty firelocks to each company of the trained
bands, thirty-nine firelocks to the additional
company of the City Guard, and twenty-four to the
company of the Canongate-head, 500 rounds of
ball to the Seceders, whose muster-place was the
Infirmary, and 450 Ibs. of powder for the cannon on
the walls. All the rest he sent to the Castle. The
banner borne by the Seceders is now in the Museum
3f Antiquities, and was once used at Bothwell
Brig. It is blue, with a white St. Andrew?s saltire,
charged with five roses, and the motto, Cmenanfs,
Ueligion, Kin& and Kingdoms.
Towards the end of the preceding month the
nore zealous citizens had proposed to raise a
regiment 1,000 strong for the defence of the town ;
but the royal permission therefor was not accorded
till the 9th of September, and by the time that
the Prince drew near only zoo men had been
enrolled, all of the most dissolute character, and
tempted by the proffered pay alone. In addition
to these was the regiment of Edinburgh Volunteers,
400 strong, divided into six companies, and drilled
regularly twice daily. Cannon from the ships at
Leith were mounted on the walls together with
swivels or pateraroes (i.e., small cannon). The ports
were barricaded ; there was much military bluster,
with much Singing of psalms ; but as the Highlanders
drew nearer all this show of valour died away.
When the Prince?s vanguard was at Kirkliston, it
was proposed by General Guest that the two Light
Dragoon regiments, supported by the City Guard,
the so-called Edinburgh Regiment, and 250 volunteers,
should march out and give battle to the
insurgents !
The signal was given ; on the forenoon of Sunday
the 15th of September the clang of the alarm
bells came during sermon, and the people rushed
rorth from the churches to find the detailed force
&-awn up under arms ia the High Street; but the
