Leith.] THE BARTONS. 203
is the second of the name, who died in 1513,
John the senior was certainly dead in 1508.
Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was so incensed by
the capture of the Juliuna in Flemish waters that
he demanded the surrender of Pret and Velasquez
to himself, with due compensation to Barton, but
failed in both cases. Joam 111. was then King of
Portugal.
Robert Barton would seem also at one time to
have faHen into the hands of the Portuguese ; and
there is extant a letter sent by James IV. to the
Emperor Maximilian, requesting his influenCe to
have him released from prison, and therein the
king refers to the quarrel of 1476, and merely
states that old John Barton was thrown into a prison
also.
In 1506, at a tournament held by James IV. in
Stirling, we read of a blackamoor girl, captured
from the Portuguese by Captain Barton, seated in
a triumphal chariot, being adjudged the prize of
the victor knight ; but the Bartons sent other gifts
to the king, in the shape of casks full of pickled
Portuguese heads.
In 1498, when Perkin Warbecli and his wife, the
Lady Katharine Gordon, left Scotland for Flanders,
they were on board a ship which, Tytler says, was
commanded by and afterwards the property of the
celebrated Robert Barton. Amongst her stores,
noted in the ?.Treasurefs Accounts,? are ?? ten tuns
and four pipes of wine, 8 bolls of aitmele, 18 marts
of beef, 23 muttons, and a hogshead of herring.?
Andrew Barton, the brother of the captain (and,
like him, a merchant in Leith), is mentioned as
having furnished biscuit, cider, and beer, for the
voyage.
In 1508 this family continued their feud with the
Portuguese. In that year Letters of Marque were
granted to them by James IV., and they run thus,
according to the ?Burgh Records of Edinburgh ? :-
?]~callus Dei Gratia Rex Scatorurn, deZectis semit
o d u s nosiris. John Barton and Robert Barton,
sons of our late beloved servant John Barton, shipmaster,
and other shipmasters our lieges and subjects,
in company of the said John Barton for the
time (greeting) :
? Some pirates of the nation of Portugal attacked
a ship of our late illustrious ancestor (James HI.),
which, under God, the late John commanded, and
with a fleet of many ships compelled it to surrender,
robbed it of its merchandise, of very great
value, and stripped it of its armament On account
of which, our most serene father transmitted his complaint
to the King of Portugal.? Justice not having
been done, the document runs, Jarnes 111. decreed
Letters of Reprisal against the Portuguese. ? We,
moreover, following the footsteps of our dearly
beloved ancestor . . . . . concede and grant by
these presents to you, John and Robert aforesaid,
and our other subjects who shall be in your company
for the time, our Letters of Marque or Reprisai,
that you may receive and bring back to us
from any men whomsoever of the nation of Portugal,
on account of the justice aforesaid being.
desired, to the extent of 3,000 crowns of money
of France . . . . Givenunder our Privy Seal, &c.?
Under these letters the brothers put to sea in
the quaint argosies of those days, which had low
waists with towering poops and forecastles, and
captured many Portuguese ships, and doubtless
indemnified themselves remarkably well ; while
their elder brother, Andrew, an especial favourite
of James IV., who bestowed upon him the then
coveted honour of knighthood, ? for upholding
the Scottish flag upon the seas,? was despatched
to punish some Dutch or Flemish pirates who had
captured certain Scottish ships and destroyed theircrews
with great barbarity. These he captured,
with their vessel, and sent all their heads to LeitL
in a hogshead.
As is well known, he was killed fighting bravely
in the Downs on the 2nd August, 1511, after a
severe conflict with the ships of Sir Thomas and Sir.
Edward Howard, afterwards Lord High Admiral of
England, when he had only two vessels with him,
the Lion of 36 great guns, and a sloop name$ the.
Jenny. The Howards had three ships of war and
an armed collier. The Lion was afterwards added
to the English navy, as she was found to be only
second in size and armament to the famous Great
Harry. His grandson Charles married Susan
Stedman of Edinburgh, and from them are said tobe
descended nearly all of that name in Fife, Kinross,
and Holland.
For his services as Admiral on the West Coast,
John Barton received the lands of Dalfibble ; and
in April, 1513, he returned from a diplomatic mission
to France, accompanied by the Unicorn Pursuivant;
and so important was its nature that he
took horse, and rode all night to meet the king,
who was then on the eve of departing for Flodden.
On the 26th of July in the Same year he joined
the squadron, consisting of the Great Michael, the
James, Marguret, the S/$ of Lynne (an English
prize), a thirty-oared galley, and fourteen other
armed ships, commanded by Gordon of Letterfourie
(and having on board the Earl of Arran and
3,000 soldiers), which sailed from Leith as a present
to Anne, Queen of France-a piece of ill-timed
generosity on the part of the princely Jarnes IV.,
who accompanied the armament as far as the Isle
204 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
of May. As history records, Gordon and Arran
could not resist doing a little on their own account
to annoy the English, so they sacked Carrickfergus,
and anchored off Kyle.
Sir-Andrew Wood, with a herald, was sent to take
command of the fleet, but found that it had sailed;
so this little armada, which might have aided in the
invasion of England, was eventually destroyed by
tempests, and the magnificent Michael (which will
be described in a later chapter, in which some
voyage to Bourdeaux, or eke die, rather than be
taken."
His brother Robert was captain of the Great
MichaeZ in I 5 r I.
James IV., stirred by the discovery of America,
was early determined to create a Scottish navy, and
he went about it with all the zeal of a Peter the
Great. In 1512 he had no fewer than forty-six
ships of war ; four of these were of more than 300
tons, and two were of IOO tons. The Lion (Sir
SIGNAL TOWER, LEITH HARBOUR, 1829. (A/w S k ~ ~ . )
account will be given of Newhaven) was suffered
to rot in the harbour of Brest.
Prior to this John Barton had died of fever at
Kirkcudbright, and was buried in the churchyard
of St. Cuthbert; but he left a son named John,
who was captain of the Mav WiZloughby (English
prize), the same ship found in Leith Harbour by
the Earl of Hertford in 1544. " John-a-Barton is
not yet gone to sea," writes Sir Ralph Sadler on
the 25th October, 1543 ; " but it is told me that as
soon as the wind serveth he will go with the Mary
Willoughby and nine sail more, half merchantmen
and half men-of-war, as well furnished of men and
artillery as any ships that went from Scotland these
many years, being determined to accomplish their
Andrew Barton's ship), which was built in 1504,
was, as has beer. said, only inferior to the Greai
Harry, and the MichaeZ was the largest ship in the
world. Some of his galleys had triple banks of
oars raised over each other, and were capable of
containing each sixty inen in complete armour,
besides the rowers, who numbered to each galley
one hundred and four men. Besides the guns
interspersed between the banks of oars, they had
both artillery and small arms planted at the forecastle
and stern.
James encouraged the merchant skippers to
extend their voyages, to fully arm their vessels, to
purchase foreign ships of war, t6 import artillery,
and superintend the construction of large craft at
