Leith.] RENNIE?S REPORT ON THE HARBOUR EXTENSION. ?I2
In 1753 an Act was passed, in the reign of
George II., for enlarging and deepening the harbour
of Leith, but less was achieved than had been done
in the reign of King James II., three hundred years
before. As there were no adequate means provided
by the statute for defiaying the expense, says
h o t , ?nothing was done in consequence.?
Yet soon after we find that a curious scheme
mras formed for enlarging it on a greater scale, by
making a canal from it eastward ?through Bernard?s
Nook to the old Glass House, and from thence
into a basin. To carry this project into execution
a Bill was framed by which an additional duty, from
a penny to sixpence per ton, was to be laid upon
the tonnage of all shipping in the harbour ; but in
consequence of the poverty and lethargy entailed
by the Union, and some opposition also, the scheme
was rapidly dropped.
These suggestions, however, led ultimately to the
formation by the Town Council of Edinburgh of a
short pier in 1777 on the west side of the harbour,
afterwards known as the Custom House Quay;
and the harbourwas at the same time widened and
deepened.
In 1785 a miserable apology for a naval yard
(as it was pompously named) was established in
Leith as a depBt for supplying such material as
might be wanted by His Majesty?s ships coming
into the Forth.
Five bridges now connect North and South
Leith, the latest of which is the Victoria swing
bridge.
One of the drawbridges at the foot of the Tolbooth
Wynd (superseding that of Abbot Ballantyne)
was erected in 1788-9, by authority of an Act of
Parliament. The second drawbridge, opposite the
foot of Bernard Street, was erected in 1800; and
a thud bridge, finished about 1820, connected the
new streets at Hill House Field and the Docks
with Leith Walk.
Notwithstanding the erection of the Custom
House Quay, the accommodation for shipping remained
insufficient and unendurable, the common
quays being the chief landing-places, where the
vessels lay four and five abreast, discharging their
cargoes across each other?s decks, amid confusion,
dirt, and much ill-temper on the part of seamen and
porters. Besides, the channel of the river, at the
recess of the tides, offered only an expanse of uncovered
and offensive mud and ooze, till, as the
kade of the port increased towards the close of the
kentury, demands were loud and long for an ameli.
Oration and enlargement of the then accommodation.
In 1789, the light that had first been placed a1
the pier-end was replaced by a new and improved
131
one, with reflectors, as the Edinburgh Advertiser
specially mentions, adding that ?its effect at sea
is surprising, and the expense of maintaining it
does not exceed that of the former one.?
In 1799, John Rennie, the celebrated engineer,
was employed to examine the entire harbour, and
to form designs for docks and extended piers, on a
scale somewhat proportioned to the necessities of
the advancing age.
The gravamen of his report was that no permanent
and uniform depth of water along the
mouth of the harbour of Leith could ever be obtained,
and that no achievement of science could
destroy or prevent the formation of the shifting
bar, unless by carrying a pier, or weir, on the east
side of the channel, and quite across the sands
into low water, and that, by this means, three, or
possibly four, feet of additional depth of water
might be obtained; but though the soundness of
his principle has been fully vindicated by the result
of subsequent operations which were carried out by
its guidance, little or nothing was done at his suggestion,
nor for many years afterwards, with regard to
the piers or entrance.
The crowded state of the harbour was the cause
of many a fatal accident, and of constant confusion.
Thus we read that, between nine and ten in the
morning of the 13th of August, 1810, as a foreign
vessel, after passing the beacon, was about to enter
the harbour, with two pilots on board, a shot was
suddenly fired into her from a boat. This, the
pilots imagined, was from a Greenland whaler, and
they did not bring to. A few minutes after a second
musket-shot was fired, which mortally wounded
the mate in the right breast, and he expired in
fifteen minutes. The boat belonged to H.M. gunbrig
GaZZanf, of fourteen guns, commanded by
Lieutenant William Crow, which was at that time
what is technically called ?rowing guard.? The
fatal shot had been fired by a rash young midshipman,
named Henry Lloyd, whose hail had
been unheard or unnoticed; and for this he was
lodged in the prison of Edinburgh. As too often
is the case in such calamities, the prints of the
time announce that ?? the sufferer has left a widow
and three young children, for whose relief a subscription
has been opened.?
In 1818 Messrs. J. and H. Morton invented
their patent slip, and the first one was laid down
by themse1ves.h the upper part of the old harbour
-an invention of more than European reputation.
The firm began to build iron ships, but after completing
a few steamers, a sailing-ship, and some large
dredges, the trade came to a temporary stand ; yet
the business of ship-building was not abandoned
.
214 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
by the enterprising firm, but was conducted by
them in conjunction with other departments of
their trade.
The harbour of Leith is now a noble one, as it
underwent vast improvements, at an enormous
cost, during a long series of years up to 1877, including
various docks, to be described in their
place, with the best appliances of a prime port,
and great ranges of storehouses, together with two
magnificent wooden piers of great length, the west
being 3,123 feet, the east 3,530 feet. Both are
delightful promenades, and a small boat plies between
their extremities, so that a visitor may pass
out seaward by one pier and return by the other.
The formidable Martello Tower, circular in form,
bomb-proof, formed of beautiful white stone, and
most massive in construction, occupies a rock
called, we believe, of old, the Mussel Cape, but
which forms a continuation of the reef known as the
Black Rocks,
It stafids 1,500 feet eastward, and something
less than 500 south of the eastern pier-head, and
3,500 feet distant from the base of the ancient
signal-tower on the shore.
It was built to defend what was then the entrance
of the harbour, during the last long war
with France, at the cost of A17,ooo ; but now,
owing to the great guns and military inventions of
later times, it is to the fortifications on Inchkeith
that the port of Leith must look for protection.
CHAPTER XXXII.
MEMORABILIA OF THE SHIPPING OF LEITH AND ITS MARITIME AFFAIRS.
(Old Shipping laws-Early Whale Fishing--Letters of Marque against Hamburg-Captures of English Ships, 16p-x-First recorded Tonnage
of Leith-Imports-Arrest of Captain Hugh Palliser-Shore Dues, 1763-Wors? Strike, 17g2-Tonnage in 188I-Passenger Traffic, etc.
-Letters of Marque-Exploits of ~me-Glance at Shipbuilding.
THE people of Scotland must, at a very early
period, have turned their attention to the art in
which they now excel-that of shipbuilding and
navigation, for in these and other branches of
industry the monks led the way. So far back as
1249, the Count of St. Paul, as Matthew of Paris
records, had a large ship built for him at Inverness:
and history mentions the fleets of William the
Lion and his successor, Alexander 11.; and it has
been conjectured that these were furnished by the
chiefs of the isles, so many of whom bore lymphads
in their coats-of-arms. During the long war
with the Edwards, Scottish ships rode at anchor
in their ports, cut out and carried off English
craft, till Edward III., as Tytler records from the
? Rotuli Scotiz,? taunted his admirals and captains
with cowardice in being unable to face the
Scots and Flemings, to whom they dared not give
battle.
In 1336 Scottish ships swept the Channel coast,
plundering Guernsey, Jersey, and the Isle of Wight;
and Tyrrel records that the fleet which did so was
under the command of David Bruce, but this seems
doubtfuL
When Edward of England was efigaged in the
prosecution of that wicked war which met its just
reward on the field of Bannockbum, he had two
Scottish traitors who led his ships, named John
of hrn, and his son, Alan of Argyle, whose
names have deservedly gone to oblivion.
We first hear of shipping in any quantity in the
Firth of Forth in the year 1411, when, as Burchett
and Rapin record, a squadron of ten English ships of
war, under Sir Robert Umfraville, Vice-Admiral of
England, ravaged both shores of the estuary for
fourteen days, burned many vessels-among them
one named the Greaf GalZiof of Scotland--and returned
with so many prizes and such a mass of
plunder, that he brought down the prices of everything,
and was named ? Robin Mend-the-Market.?
The Wars of the Roses, fortunately for Scotland,
gave her breathing-time, and in that period she
gathered wealth, strength, and splendour ; she took
a part in European politics, and under the auspices
of James IV. became a naval power, so much so,
that we find by a volume culled from the ?Archives
of Venice,? by Mr. Rawdon Brown, there are many
proofs that the Venetians in those days were
watching the influence of Scotland in counteracting
that of England by land and sea
Between the years 1518 and 1520, the ?Burgh
Records ? have some notices regarding the skippers
and ships of Leith ; and in the former year we find
that ? the maner of fraughting of schips of auld ? is
in form following: and certainly it reads mysteriously.
? Alexander Lichtman hes lattin his schip cdlit
the Mairfene, commonly till fraught to the nychtbouns
of the Toune for thair guidis to be furit to
Flanders, for the fraught of xix s. gr. and xviij s. gr.
