308 OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur's Scat.
sey, and a deep excitement prevailed, when it was
whispered-none knew how-that they were under
secret orders for the distant East Indies-in other
words, that they had been SOU to the East India
Company by the Government, and that, worse than
the authorities basely having an idea that the poor
clansmen of Kintail "were ignorant, unable to comprehend
the nature of their stipulations, and incapable
of demanding redress for any breach of trust."
But the Seaforth men were neither so ignorant
all, they had been sold by their officers and by the
chief, whom they had looked upon as a father and
leader.
All their native jealousy and distrust of the
Saxon was now kindled and strengthened by their
love of home. General David Stewart, in his
'' Sketches of the Highlanders," boldly asserts that
the regiment was secretly under orders for India,
nor so confiding as the Government supposed, and
they were determined at all hazards not to submit
to the least infraction of the terms on which they
were enlisted as Fencible Infantry-limited service
and within the British Isles ; and when the day for
embarkation came, the zznd September, their longsmothered
wrath could no longer be hidden.
" The regiment paraded on the Castle hill, and
310 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur?s L t .
General Robert Skene, the Adjutant-General there,
summoned all the troops they could collect to
attack ? the wild Macraas,? and next day the I Ith
Dragoons, under Colonel Ralph Dundas, zoo of
the Fencible Regiment ofHenry Duke of Buccleuch,
and 400 of the Royal Glasgow Regiment of Volunteers,
or old 83rC Foot, commanded by Colonel
Alexander Fotheringham Ogilvie, all marched into
Edinburgh, and were deemed sufficient to storm
Arthur?s Seat.
On that day the Earl of Dunmore, Duncan Lord
Macdonald and General Oughton, visited the revolters,
who received them with military honours,
while they ceased not to inveigh against their officers,
whom they accused of peculation, and of having
basely sold them to the India Company.
In their ranks at this time there was an unfortunate
fellow named Charles Salmon, who had been
born in Edinburgh about 1745, and had filled a
subordinate position in the Canongate theatre,
after being in the service of Ruddiman the printer.
He was a companion of the poet Fergusson, and
became a local poet of some note himself, He
was laureate of the Jacobite Club, and author of
many Jacobite songs; but his irregular habits
led to his enlistment in the Seaforth Highland
Regiment.
His superior education and address now pointed
him out as a fit person to manage for his comrades
the negotiations which ultimately led to a peaceful
sequel to the dispute ; but after the corps went to
India poor Stmayf Salmon, as he called himself,
was heard of no more. On the 29th of September
this revolt, which promised to have so tragic an
end, was satisfactorily adjusted by the temperate
prudence of the Duke of Buccleuch and others.
The Earl of Dunmore again visited the revolters,
presented them with a bond containing a pardon,
and promise of all arrears of pay. They then
formed in column by sections of threes, and with
the Earl and the pipers at their head,they descended
by the Hunter?s Bog to the Palace Yard, where they
gave Sir Adolphus Oughton three cheers, and threw
all their bonnets in the air. He then formed them
in hollow square, and addressed them briefly, but
earnestly exhorting them to behave well and
obediently. On that night they all sailed from
Leith to Guernsey, from whence they were soon aftei
despatched toIndia-a fatal voyage to the poor 78th,
for Lord Seaforth died ere St. Helena was in sight,
then a great grief, with the maC du pays, fell upon
his clansmen, and of 1,100 who sailed from Ports.
mouth, 230 perished at sea, and only 390 were able
to any arms, when, in April 1782, they began the
march for Chingleput.
In 1783 an eccentric named Dr. James Graham,
then lecturing in Edinburgh, in Carrubbeis Close
chiefly, the projector of a Temple of Health, and a
man who made some noise in his time as a species
of talented quack, who asserted that our diseases
were chiefly caused by too much heat, and who
wore no woollen clothes, and slept on a bare
mattress with all his windows open, was actually in
terms with the tacksman of the King?s Park for
liberty to build a huge house on the summit of
Arthur?s Seat, in order to try how far the utmost
degree of cold in the locality of Edinburgh could
be borne ; but, fortunately, he was not permitted
to test his cool regimen to such an extent.
Two localities near Arthur?s Seat, invariably
pointed out to tourists, are Muschat?s Cairn, and
the supposed site of Davie Deans? cottage, where
an old one answering the description of Scott still
overlooks the deep grassy and long sequestered dell,
where gallants of past times were wont to discuss
points of honour with the sword, and where Butler,
on his way to visit Jeanie, encounters Effie?s lover,
and receives the message to convey to the former
to meet him at Muschat?s Cairn ? when the moon
rises.?
Muschat?s Cairn, a pile of stones adjacent to
the Duke?s Walk, long marked the spot where
Nicol Muschat of Boghall, a surgeon, a debauched
and profligate wretch, murdered his wife in 1720.
On arraignment he pled guilty, and his declaration
is one of the most horrible tissues of crime imaginable.
He mamed his wife, whose name was Hall,
after an acquaintance of three weeks, and, soon
tiring of her, he with three other miscreants, his
aiders and abettors in schemes which we cannot
record, resolved to get rid of her. At one time it
was proposed to murder the hapless young woman
as she was going down Dickson?s Close, for which
the perpetrators were to have twenty guineas.
Through Campbell of Burnbank, then storekeeper
in Edinburgh Castle, one of his profligate friends,
Muschat hoped to free himself of his wife by a
divorce, and an obligation was passed between
them in November, 1719, whereby a claim of
Burnbank, for an old debt of go0 merks, was to be
paid by Muschat, as soon as the former should be
able to furnish evidence to criminate the wife.
This scheme failing, Burnbank then suggested
poison, which James Muschat and his wife, a
couple in poor circumstances undertook to administer,
and several doses were given, but in vain.
The project for criminating the victim was revived
again, but also without effect.
Then it was that James undertook to kill her in
nickson?s Close, but this plan too failed. These
