Leith] MACKINTOSH OF BORLUM. 191
the further strengthened by the fact that the Speedy
Return, a Scottish ship, had been absent unusually
long, and the rumours regarding her fate were
very much akin to the confessions of the crew of
the Worcester.
A report of these circumstances having reached
the Privy Council, the arrest was ordered of Captain
Green and thirteen of his crew on charges of
piracy and murder. The evidence produced against
them would scarcely be held sufficient by a jury of
the present day to warrant a conviction; but the
Scots, in their justly inflamed and insulted spirit,
viewed the matter otherwise, and a sentence of
death was passed. This judgment rendered many
uneasy, as it might be an insuperable bar to the
union, and even lead to open strife, as the relations
in which the two countries stood to each other were
always precarious ; and even Macaulay admits ?that
the two kingdoms could not possibly have continued
another year on the terms on which they had been
during the preceding century.? The Privy Council
were thus reluctant to put the sentence into execution,
and respited the fourteen Englishmen ; but
there arose from the people a cry for vengeance
which it was impossible to resist. On the day appointed
for the execution, the 11th of April, the
populace gathered h vast numbers at the. Cross
and in the Parliament Square ; they menaced the
Lords?of the Council, from which the Lord Chancellor
chanced to pass in his coach. Some one
cried aloud that ? the prisoners had been reprieved.?
On this the fury of the people became boundless ;
they stopped at the Tron church the coach of the
Chancellor-the pitiful Far1 of Seafield-and
dragged him out of it, and had he not been rescued
and conveyed into Mylne Square by some friends,
would have slain him ; so, continues Arnot, it became
absolutely necessary to appease the enraged
multitude by the blood of the criminals. This was
but the fruit of the affairs of Darien and Glencoe.
Now the people for miles around were pouring
into the city, and it was known that beyond doubt
the luckless Englishmen would be tom from the
Tolbooth and put to a sudden death.
Thus the Council was compelled to yield, and
did so only in time, as thousands who had gathered
at Leith to see the execution were now adding to
those who filled the streets of the city, and at
eleven in the forenoon word came forth that three
would be hanged-namely, Captain Green, the first
mate Madder, and Simpson, the gunner.
According to Analecfu Scofica they were brought
forth into the seething masses, amid shouts and
execrations, under an escort of the Town Guard,
and marched on foot through the Canongate to the
Water Port of Leith, where a battalion of the Foot
Guards and a body of the Horse Guards were
drawn up. ? There was the greatest confluence of
people there that I ever saw in my life,? says
Wodrow; ?for they cared not how far they were
off so be it they saw.?
The three were hanged upon a gibbet erected
within high-water mark, and the rest of the crew,
after being detained in prison till autumn, were set
at liberty; and it is said that there were afterwards
good reasons to believe that Captain Drummond,
whom they were accused of slaying on the high seas,
was alive in India after the fate of Green and his
two brother officers had been sealed. (Burton?s
?? Crim. Trials.?)
On the site of the present Custom House was
built the Fury (a line-of-battle ship, according tb
Lawson?s ?Gazetteer?) and the first of that rate
built in Scotland after the Union.
In I 7 I 2 the first census of Edinburgh and Leith
was taken, and both towns contained only about
48,000 souls.
The insurrection of 1715, under the Earl of
Mar, made Leith the arena of some exciting scenes.
The Earl declined to leave the vicinity of Perth
with his army, and could not co-operate with the
petty insurrection under Forster in the north of
England, as a fleet under Sir John Jennings, Admiral
of the White, including the RqaC Anm, Pew4
Phnix, Dover Custk, and other frigates, held the
Firth of Forth, and the King?s troops under Argyle
were gathering in the southern Lowlands. But, as
it was essential that a detachment from Mar?s army
should join General Forster, it was arranged that
2,500 Highlanders, under old Brigadier Mackintosh
of Borlum-one of the most gallant and resolute
spirits of the age-should attempt to elude the fleet
and reach the Lothians.
The brigadier took possession of all the boats
belonging to the numerous fisher villages on the
Fife coast, and as the gathering of such a fleet as
these, with the bustle of mooring and provisioning
them, was sure to reveal the object in view, a
clever trick was adopted to put all scouts on a false
scent.
All the boats not required by the brigadier he
sent to the neighbourhood of Burntisland, as if he
only waited to cross the Firth there, on which the
fleet left its anchorage and rather wantonly began
to cannonade the fort and craft in the harbour.
While the ships were thus fully occupied, Mackintosh,
dividing his troops in two columns, crossed the
water from Elie, Pittenweem, and Crail, twenty miles
eastward, on the nights of the 12th and 13thOctober,
without the loss of a single boat, and lwded
192 OLD AND PEW EDINBUKGH. [Leith.
on the coast of East Lothian, from whence the way
to England was open and free.
But the daring Mackintosh suddenly conceived
a very different enterprise. The troops under him
were all picked men, drawn from the regiments of
the Earls of Mar and Strathmore, of Lord Nairn,
Lord Charles Murray, and Logie-Drummond, with
his own clan the Mackintoshes. With these he
conceived the idea of capturing Edinburgh, then
only seventeen miles distant, and storming the
Castle. But the Provost mustered the citizens,
placed the City Guard, the Trained Bands, and
the Volunteers, at all vulnerable points, and sent to
Argyle, then at Stirling, on the 14th October, for
aid.
At ten that night the Duke, at the head of only
300 dragoons mounted on farm horses, and 200
infantry, passed through the city just as the Highlanders,
then well-nigh worn out, halted at Jock?s
Lodge.
Hearing of the Duke?s arrival, and ignorant of
what his forces might be, the brigadier wheeled off
to Leith, where his approach excited the most ludicrous
consternation, as it had done in Edinburgh,
where, Campbell says in his History, ?? the approach
of 50,000 cannibals? could not have discomposed
the burgesses more. Mackintosh entered Leith
late at night, released forty Jacobite prisoners from
the Tolbooth, and took possession of the citadel,
the main fortifications of which were all intact, and
now enclosed several commodious dwellings, used
as bathing quarters by the citizens of Edinburgh.
How Argyle had neglected to garrison this strong
post it is impossible to conjecture; but ?Old
Borlum ?-as he was always called-as gates were
wanting, made barricades in their place, took eight
pieces of cannon from ships in the harbour, provisioned
himself from the Custom House, and by
daybreak next morning was in readiness to receive
the Duke of Argyle, commander of all the forces
in Scotland.
At the head of 1,000 men of all arms the latter
approached Leith, losing?on the way many volunteers,
who ? silently slipped out of the ranks and
returned to their own homes.? He sent a message
to the citadel, demanding a surrender on one hand,
and threatening no quarter on the other. To
answer this, the Laird of Kynachin appeared on
the ramparts, and returned a scornful defiance.
?? As to surrendering, they laughed at it ; and as to
assaulting them, they were ready for him ; they
would neither give nor take quarter; and if he
thought he was able to force them, he might try his
hand.?
Argyle carefully reconnoitred the citadel, and,
? I
with the concurrence of his officers, retired with
the intention of attacking in strength next day ;
but Borlum was too wary to wait for him. Resolving
to acquaint Mar with his movements, he
sent a boat across the Firth, causing shots to be
fired as it left Leith to deceive the Hanoverian
fleet, which allowed it to pass in the belief that it
contained friends of the Government ; and at nine
that night, taking advantage of a cloudy sky, he
quitted the citadel with all his troops, and, keeping
along the beach, passed round the head of the pier
at low water, and set out on his march for England.
Yet, though the darkness favoured him, it led to
one or two tragic occurrences. Near Musselburgh
some mounted gentlemen, having fired upon the
Highlanders, led the latter to believe that all horsemen
were enemies; thus, when a mounted man
approached them alone, on being challenged in
Gaelic, and unable to reply in the same language,
he was shot dead.
The slain man proved to be Alexander Malloch,
of Moultray?s Hill, who was coming to join them.
? The brigadier was extremely sorry for what had
taken place, but he was unable even to testify the
common respect of a friend by burying the deceased.
He had only time to possess himself of the money
found on the corpse-about sixty guineas-and then
leave it to the enemy.??
The advance of Mar rendered Argyle unable to
pursue Borlum, who eventually joined Forster,
shared in his defeat, and would have been hanged
and quartered at Tyburn, had he not broken out
of Newgate and escaped to France.
A few days after his departure from Leith, the
Trained Bands there were ordered to muster on the
Links, to attend their colours and mount guard,
?? at tuck of drumme, at what hour their own officers
shall appoint, and to bring their best armes along
with them.?
There is a curious ? dream story,? as Chambers
calls it in his ?Book of Days,? connected with
Leith in 1731, which Lady Clerk of Penicuik ( d e
Mary Dacre, of Kirklinton in Cumberland), to
whom we have referred in our first volume, communicated
to BZwkwood?s Magazine in 1826. She
related that her father was attending classes in
Edinburgh in 1731, and was residing under the
care of an uncle-Major Griffiths-whose regiment
was quartered in the castle. The young man had
agreed to join a fishing party, which was to start
from .Leith harbour next morning. No objection
was made by Major or Mrs. Griffiths, from whom
he parted at night. During her sleep the latter
suddenly screamed out : ?The boat is sinkingoh,
save them !? The major awoke her, and said :
