GNsmarket.1 THE GAELIC CHAPEL. 235
target, andnogentlemantookthe road without pistols
in his holsters, and was the chief place for carriers
putting up in the days when all the country traffic
was conducted by their carts or waggons. In 1788
fortysix carriers arrived weekly in the Grassmarket,
and this number increased to ninety-six in 1810.
In those days the Lanark coach started fiom
George Cuddie?s stables there, every Friday and
Tuesday at 7 am. ; the Linlithgow and Falkirk
flies at 4 every afternoon, ?( Sundays excepted ; ?
and the Peebles coach from ? Francis M?Kay?s,
vintner, White Hart Inn,? thrice weekly, at g in
the morning.
Some bloodshed occurred in the Castle Wynd
in 1577. When Morton?s administration became
so odious as Regent that it was resolved to deprive
him of his power, his natural son, George Douglas
of Parkhead, held the Castle of which he was
governor, and the magistrates resolved to cut off
all supplies from him. At 5 o?clock on the 17th
March their guards discovered two carriages of
provisions for the Castle, which were seized at
the foot of the Wynd. This being seen by Parkhead?s
garrison, a sally was made, and a combat
ensued, in which three citizens were killed and six
wounded, but only one soldier was slain, while sixteen
others pushed the carriages up the steep slope.
The townsmen, greatly incensed by the injury,?
says Moyse, ?? that same night cast trenches beside
Peter Edgafs house for enclosing of the Castle.?
Latterly the closes on the north side of the
Market terminated on the rough uncultured slope
of the Castle Hill; but in the time of Gordon of
Rothiemay a belt of pretty gardens had been there
from the west fiank of the city wall to the Castle
Wynd, where a massive fragment of the wall of
1450 remained till the formation of Johnstone
Terrace. On the west side of the Castle Wynd
is an old house, having a door only three feet
three inches wide, inscribed:
BLESSIT. BE. GOD. FOR. AL. HIS. GIFTIS.
16. 163 7. 10.
The double date probably indicated arenewal of
the edifice.
The first Gaelic chapel in Edinburgh stood in
the steep sloping alley named the Castle Wynd.
Such an edifice had long been required in the
Edinburgh of those days, when such a vast number
of Highlanders resorted thither as chairmen, porters,
water-carriers, city guardsmen, soldiers of the
Castle Company, servants and day-labourers, and
when Irish immigration was completely unknown.
These people in their ignorance of Lowland Scottish
were long deprived of the benefit of religious
instruction, which was a source of regret to themselves
and of evil to society.
Hence proposals were made by Mr. Williarn
Dicksos, a dyer of the city, for building a chapel
wherein the poor Highlanders might receive religious
instruction in their own language; the contributions
of the benevolent flowed rapidly in; the
edifice was begun in 1767 and opened in 1769,
upon .a piece of ground bought by the philanthropic
William Dickson, who disposed of it to the Society
for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. The
church cost A700, of which LIOO was given by
the Writers to the Signet.
It was soon after enlarged to hold about 1,100
hearers. The minister was elected by the subscribers.
His salary was then only LIOO per
annum, ?and he was, of course, in communion with
the Church- of Scotland, when such things as the
repentance stool and public censure did not
become thing of the past until 1780. ?Since the
chapel was erected,? says Kincaid, ?the Highlanders
have been punctual in their attendance on
divine worship, and have discovered the greatest
sincerity in their devotions. Chiefly owing to the
bad crops for some years past in the Highlands,
the last peace, and the great improvements Carrying
on in this city, the number of Highlanders has of late
increased so much that the chapel in its present
situation cannot contain them. Last Martinmas,
above 300 applied for seats who could not be
accommodated, and who cannot be edified in the
English language.?
The first pastor here was the Rev. Joseph
Robertson MacGregor, a native of Perthshire, who
was a licentiate of the Church of England before
he joined that of Scotland., ?The last levies of
the Highland regiments,? says Kincaid, ?? were
much indebted to this house, for about a third of
its number have, this last and preceding wars,
risqued (xi.) their lives for their king and country ;
and no other church in Britain, without the aid or
countenance of Government, contains so many
disbanded soldiers.?
Mr. MacGregor was known by his mother?s
name of Robertson, assumed in consequence of
the proscription of his clan and name ; but, on the
repeal of the infamous statute against it, in 1787,
on the day it expired he attired himself in a fill
suit of the MacGregor tartan, and walked conspicuously
about the city.
The Celtic congregation continued to meet 51
the Castle Wynd till 1815, when its number had
so much increased that a new church was built for
them in another quarter of the city.
The Plainstanes Close, with Jatnieson?s, Beattie?s,
s
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