OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (South Bridge. 378
then paid for the dean?s gown. This Hugh Blair was
the grandson of the eminent Covenanting clergyman
Robert Blair, who accompanied the Scottish army
into England in 1640, and assisted at the negotiations
which led to the Peace of Ripon; and he
was the grandfather of his namesake, author of the
famous Sermons and ficttires on 3dZes-fiitres.
One of the earliest movements of any importance
in the history of the company was its acquisition
.of a hall. Bailie Robert Blackwood, who was master
in 169i, found a large mansion in the Congate, belonging
to Robert Macgill, Viscount Oxenford, the
price of which would be about IZ,OOO merks, or
A670 sterling ; and this house the company purrhased
with subscriptions. It was a large quadrangle,
surrounding a courtyard, and in a portion
.of it several persons of rank and position had apartments,
including the widow of the temble old
?persecutor,? Sir Thomas Dalyell of Binns. It
contained one large apartment, that was adopted
as a hall, which one of the company, Alexander
Brand, a bailie of the city-who had a manufactory
for stamping Spanish leather with gold, then used
for the decoration of rooms, before paper-hangings
were known-liberally offered to decorate, and
only to charge what was due over and above his
own contribution of A150 Scots. ?? Ten years afterwards,
when accounts came to be settled with the
then Sir Alexander Brand, it appeared that a
hundred and nineteen skins of gold leather with a
black ground had been used, at a total expense of
A253 Scots, including the manufacturer?s contribution.
There was also much concernment about a
piece of waste ground behind; but the happy
thought occurred of converting it into a bowlinggreen
for the use of the members in the first place,
.and the public in the second. Many years afterwards
we find Allan Ramsay making Horatian
.allusions to this place of recreation, telling us
that now in winter, douce folk were no longer
seen using the biassed bowls on Thomson?s Green
(Thornson being a subsequent tenant). It is not
unworthy of notice,? continues Dr. Chambers,
?that from the low state of the arts in Scotland,
the bowls required for this green had to be
brought from abroad. It is gravely reported to
the company on the 6th of March, 1693, that the
bowls are ?upon the sea homeward.? Ten pairs
cost &6 4s. 3d. Scots.?
Brand got himself into trouble in 1697 for
making what were called ? donations ? to the Pnvy
Council. In 1693, he, together with Sir Thomas
Kennedy of Kirkhill, Provost in 1685, and 6ir
William Binning, Provost in 1676, had contracted
with the national Government for a supply of 5,000
,
stand of arms at a pound each ; but when abroad
for their purchase, he alleged that the arms could
not be got under twenty-six shillings a stand. To
obtain payment of the extra sum (tf;1,500), the
two knights bribed the Earls of Linlithgow and
Breadalbane by a gift of 250 guineas. Hence, when
the affair was discovered, the then contractors, ?fox
the compound fault of contriving bribery and de.
faming the nobles in question,? were cast in heavy
fines-Kennedy, in A800, Binning in A300, and
Brand in A500, ? and to be imprisoned till payment
was made.?
It is long since the company?s connection with the
Cowgate ceased, and even the house they occupied
there has passed away, being removed to make
room for a pier of George IV.?s Bridge; and in
that quarter no memorial of the company now
remains but the name of Merchant Street, applied
to a petty line of buildings behind the Cowgate ;
but the company has still a title to ground rents in
that part of the city.
Rich members died, leaving bequests to the
company for the relief of decayed brethren ; but
so wealthy and prosperous was the body, that
when a legacy of A;3,5oo was left to them in 1693
by Patrick Aikinhead, a Scottish merchant of Dantzig,
they had not a single member in need of monetary
aid ; and soon after, the company became engaged
in the erection of a hospital for the education
of the daughters of the less prosperous members, on
the ground now occupied by the Industrial Museum.
Though originally designed by Mrs. Mary Erskine,
a scion of the House of Mar, the principal expense
of the institution fell on the company, and the
governors were made a body corporate by an Act
of Parliament in 1707.
In 1723, a merchant named George Watson,
who, in 1696, had commenced life as a clerk with
Sir John Dick, died and left the company AI 2,000
sterling for children of the other sex, and enabled
them to found the hospital which still bears his
name.
After the Union, long years followed ere national
enterprise or industry found a fair field for action,
and produced the results that created the Edinburgh
of to-day ; and it was not till the reign of
George 111. that her merchants, like those elsewhere,
had ceased in any degree to depend upon
prohibitions and the exclusive rights of dealing
in merchandise.
In the eighteenth century a considerable aristocratic
element was infused into mercantile life in
Edinburgh. ?To take the leading firms,? says
Chambers, ?among the silk mercers: Of John
Hope and Company, the said John Hope was a
