184 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rLeith .
but by bringing ordonnance from the Castell to the
shoare, to dins at them so long as they sould be
within shot.?? (Melrose?s Letter.)
Upon this the constable and his cannoniers, with
a battery of guns, came with all speed down, by the
Bonnington Road most probably, and took up a
position on the high ground near the ancient chapel
of St. Nicholas; but this aid came too late, for
Mynheer de Hautain had driven the unfortunate
Spanish frigate, after great slaughter, completely
outside the harbour, where she grounded on a dangerous
reef, then known as the Mussel Cape, but
latterly as the Black Rocks.
There she was boarded by a party of Leith seamen,
who hoisted a Scottish flag at her topmasthead
; but that afforded her no protection, for the
inexorable Dutchmen boarded her in the night,
burned her to the water?s edge, and sailed away
before dawn.
Two years after this there occurred a case of
? murder under trust, stouthrief, and piracie,? of
considerable local interest, the last scene of which
was enacted at Leith. In November, 1624, Robert
Brown, mariner in Burntisland, with his son, John
Brown, skipper there, David Dowie, a burgess there,
and Robert? Duff, of South Queensferry, were
all tried before the Criminal Court for slaying under
trust three young Spanish merchants, and appropriating
to themselves their goods and merchandise,
which these strangers had placed on board John
Brown?s ship to be conveyed from the Spanish port
3f San Juan to Calais three years before. ? Beeing
in the middis of the sea and far fra lande,? runs
the indictment, they threw the three Spaniards
overboard, ?ane eftir other in the raging seas,?
after which, in mockery of God, they ?maid ane
prayer and sang ane psalm,? and then bore away
for Middelburg in Zealand, and sold the property
acquired-walnuts, chestnuts, and Spanish wines.
For this they were all hanged, their heads struck
from their bodies and set upon pikes of iron in the
town of Leith, the sands of which were the scene
of many an execution for piracy, till the last, which
occurred in 1822, when Peter Heaman and Fransois
Gautiez were hanged at the foot of Constitution
Street, within the floodmark, on the 9th of January,
for murder and piracy upon the high seas.
On the 28th and 30th March, 1625, a dreadful
storm raged along the whole east coast of Scotland,
and the superstitious Calderwood, in his history,
seems to connect it as a phenomenon with the death
of James VI., tidings of which reached Edinburgh
on that day. The water in Leith harbour rose
to a height never known before; the ships were
dashed against each other ?? broken and spoiled,?
and many skippers and mariners who strove to
make them fast in the night were drowned. ?It
was taken by all men to be a forerunner of some
great alteration. And, indeed, the day followingto
wit, the last of March-sure report was brought
hither from Court that the King departed this
life the Lord?s day before, the 27th of March?
.
CHAPTER XX.
LEITH-HISTORICAL SURVEY (continued).
Si William Mown?s Suggestinns-Leith Re-fortified-The Covenant Signed-The Plague-The Cromwelli in Leith-A Mutiny-Newspaw
Printed in the Citadel-Tucker?s Report-English Fleet-A Windmill-English Pirates Hanged-Citadel seized by Brigadier Mackintosh&
Hessian Army Lands-Highland Mutinies-Paul Jones-Prince William Henry. .
CHARLES I. was proclaimed King of Scotland,
England, France, and Ireland, at the Cross of Edinburgh
and on the shore at Leith, where Lord Balmerino
and the Bishop of Glasgow attended with
the heralds and trumpeters.
The events of the great Civil War, and those
which eventually brought that unfortunate king to
the scaffold, lie apart from the annals of Leith, yet
they led to the re-fortifying of it after Jenny Geddes
had given the signal of resistance in St. Giles?s in
July, 1637, and the host of the Covenant began to
gather on the hills above Dunse.
Two years before that time we find Vice-Admiral
Sir William Monson, a distinguished English naval
officer who served with Raleigh in Elizabeth?s reign
in many expeditions under James VI., and who
survived till the time of Charles I., urging in his
?Naval Tracts? that Leith should be made the
capital of Scotland !
?? Instead of Edinburgh,? he wrote, I? which is
the supreme city, and now made the head of justice,
whither all men resort as the only spring that waters
the kingdom, I wish his Majesty did fortify, strengthen,
and make impregnable, the town of Leith, and
there to settle the seat of justice, with all the other
privileges Edinburgh enjoys, referring it to the
