2 48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LCowgate.
the historian) became senior minister of the Cowgate
chapel.
One of his immediate predecessors, the Rev.
Mr. Fitzsimmons, an Englishman, became seriously
embroiled with the authorities, and was arraigned
Two of these four, Vanvelde and Jaffie, had
escaped from the Castle by sawing through their
window bars with a sword-blade furnished to them
by John Armour, a clerk in the city. The other
two were on parole. The Hon. Henry Erslcine
THE MEAL MARKET, COWGATE.
before the High Court of Justiciary in July, 1790,
on the charge of aiding the escape of Jean Bap
tiste Vanvelde, Jean Jacques Jaffie, Re'ne' Griffon,
and Hypolite Depondt, French prisoners, from the
Castle of Edinburgh, by concealing them in his
house, and taking them in the Newhaven fishing
boat of Neil Drysdale to the Isle of Inchkeith,
where they remained hidden till taken to a cartel
ship, commanded by Captain Robertson, in Leith
Roads.
defended Mr. Fitzsimmons, who was sentenced to
three months' imprisonment in the Tolbooth. In
the following September 600 French prisoners (including
the crew of the Vicforicux) were marched
from the Castle, under a guard of the North York
Militia, to Leith, where they embarked for England
in care of 150 bayonets of the 7rst Highlanders,
After the erection of St. Paul's Church, in York
Place, the Cowgate Chapel was purchased by the
