Edinburgh Bookshelf

Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V

Search

Leith] SHIPPING OF COVENANTERS FOK BARBADOES. I80 of Edinburgh,? by order of the Privy Council and magistrates, were ordered to make up lists of all the dwellers in these districts, while nightly lists of all lodgers were to be furnished by the bailies to the captain of the City Guard. was a profane, cruel wretch, and used them barbarously, stowing them up between decks, where they could not get up their heads except to sit or lean, and robbing them of many things their friends sent for their relief. They never were in such ~ ~ OLD HOUSE IN WATER?S CLOSE, 1879. (Aftw U Sketch hy /. RomiZh Allnr.) The November of the same year saw those poor victims of a dire system of misrule, the Covenanters, who had been for months penned up like wild animals in the Greyfnars? Churchyard, Edinburgh, marched through Leith. To the number of 257, who had refused the bond, they were on the 15th shipped on board an English vessel for transportation to Barbadoes, there to be sold as slaves ! The captain, says the Rev. Mr. Blackadder, strait and peril, particularly through drought, as they were allowed little or no drink, and pent up together till many of them fainted and were almost suffocated.? This was in Leith Roads, and in sight of the green hills of Fife and Lothian, on which they were looking their last. Their ship was cast away among the Orkneys ; the hatches were battened down ; zoo perished with her, while the captain and seamen made their
Volume 5 Page 189
  Shrink Shrink   Print Print   Pictures Pictures