Leith.] SCENES UN THE LINKS. 263
a teacher of fencing and cock-fighting in Edinburgh,
published an ? Essay on the Innocent and Royal
Recreation and Art of Cocking,? from which it
may be learned that he it was who introduced it
intQ the metropolis of Scotland, and entered into
it con amot-e.
?I am not ashamed to declare to the world,?
he wrote, ?that I have a specialveneration and
esteem for those gentlemen, without and about this
city; who have entered in society for propagating
and establishing the royal recreation of cocking, in
order to which they have already erected a cockpit
in the Links of Leith; and I earnestly wish
that their generous and laudable example may be
imitated in that degree that, in cock-war, village
may be engaged against village, city against city,
kingdom against kingdom-nay, father against son
-until all the wars in Europe, where so much
Christian blood is spilt, may be turned into the
innocent pastime of cocking.?
This barbarous amusement was long a fancy of
the Scottish people, and the slain buds and fugies
(or cravens) became a perquisite of the village
schoolmaster.
On the 23rd of December, 1729, the Hon. Alexander,
Elphinstone (before mentioned), who was
leading a life of idleness and pleasure in Leith,
while his brother was in exile, met a Lieutenant
Swift, of Lord Cadogan?s regiment (latterly the 4th
or King?s Own), at the house of Mr. Michael
Watson, in Leitk
Some hot words had arisen between them, and
Elphinstone rose haughtily to depart ; but before he
went he touched Swift on the shoulder with the
point of his sword, and intimated that he expected
to receive satisfaction next morning on the Links.
Accordingly the two met at eleven in the forenoon,
and in this comparatively public place (as it
appears now) fought a duel with their swords.
Swift received a mortal wound in the breast, and
expired.
For this, Alexander Elphinstone was indicted
before the High Court of Justiciary, but the case
never came on for trial, and he died without
molestation at his father?s house in Coatfield Lane,
three years after. Referring to his peaceful sport
with Captain Porteous, the author of the ? Domestic
Annals ? says ? that no one could have imagined,
as that cheerful game was going on, that both the
players were not many years after to have blood
upon their hands, one of them to take on the murderer?
s mark upon this very field.?
Several military executions have taken placethere,
and among them we may note two.
The first recorded is that of a drummer, who was
shot there on the 23rd of February, 1686, by sentence
of a court-martial, for having, it was alleged,
said that he ?? had it in his heart to run his sword
through any Papist,? on the occasion when the Foot
Guards and other troops, under General Dalzell and
the Earl of Linlithgow, were under arms to quell the
famous ?Anti-Popish Riot,? made by the students
of the university.
One of the last instances was in 1754.
On the 4th of November in that year, John
Ramsbottom and James Burgess, deserters from
General the Hon. James Stuart?s regiment (latterly
the 37th Foot), were escorted from Edinburgh
Cast19 to Leith Links to be shot. The former
suffered, but the latter was pardoned.
His reprieve from death was only intimated to
him when he had been ordered to kneel, and the
firing? party were drawn up with their arms m
readiness. The shock so affected him that he
fainted, and lay on the grass for some time
motionless ; but the temble lesson would seem to
have been given to him in vain, as in the Scots
Magazine for the same year and month it is announced
that ?James Burgess, the deserter so
lately pardoned when on his knees to be shot, was
so far from being reformed by such a near view of
death, that immediately after he was guilty of theft,
for which he received a thousand lashes on the
parade in the Castle of Edinburgh, on November
zznd, and was drummed out of the regiment with
a rope round his neck.?
During the great plague of 1645 the ailing were
hutted in hundreds on the Links, and under its
turf their bones lie in numbers, as they were interred
where they died, with their blankets as
shrouds. Balfour, in his ? Annales,? records that
in the same year the people of Leith petitioned
Parliament, in consequence of this fearful pest, to
have 500 bolls of meal for their poor out of the
public magazines, which were accordingly given,
and a subscription was opened for them in certain
shires.
A hundred years afterwards saw the same ground
studded with the tents of a cavalry camp, when,
prior to the total rout of the king?s troops at
Prestonpans, Hamilton?s Dragoons (now the 14th
Hussars) occupied the Links, from whence theymarched,
by the way of Seafield and the Figgate
Muir, to join Sir John Cope.
During the old war with France the Links were
frequently adopted as a kind of Campus Marrius
for the many volunteer corps :hen enrolled in the
vicinity.
On the 4th of June, 1797, they had an unusual
display in honour of the king?s birthday and the
264 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
teers and the Royal Midlothian Artillery, with two
field-pieces ; the Royal Highland Volunteers and
the Royal Leith Volunteers, all with their hair
powdered and greased, their cross-belts, old ? brownbesses,?
and quaint coats with deep cuffs and short
squarecut skirts, white breeches, and long black
gaiters. ?
Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, commanded the
whole, which he formed first in a hollow square
of battalions on the Links, and, by the hands
?of Mrs. Colonel Murray,? their colours were
presented to the Highland Volunteers, aiter they
had been (? consecrated? by the chaplain of the
corps-the Rev. Joseph Robertson Macgregor,
the eccentric minister of the Gaelic Chapel.
presentation of colours to the Royal Highland
Regiment of Edinburgh Volunteers, who wore
black feather bonnets, with grey breeches and
Hessian boots.
On that occasion there paraded in St Andrew
Square, at twelve o?clock noon, the Royal Edinburgh
Volunteer Light Dragoons (of whom, no
doubt, Scott would make one on his black charger) ;
the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers, and the Volunteer
Artillery, with two field-pieces ; the first battalion
of the Second Regiment of Royal Edinburgh Volunevery
hovel displayed the verdant badges of loyalty
as the procession passed. The elegant dress and
appearance of the several corps formed a spectacle
truly delightful ; but the sentiment which neither
mere novelty nor military parade, which all the
pomp, pride, and circumstance, could never inspire,
seemed to warm the breast and animate the countenance
of every spectator.?
What this ?? sentiment? was the editor omits to
tell us; but, unfortunately for such spectacles in
those days, the great cocked hats then worn by
most of the troops were apt :to be knocked off
when the command ?( Shoulder arms ! ? was given,
and the general picking-up thereof only added to
the hilarity of the spectators.
The ground was kept by the Lankshire Light
Cavalry while the troops were put through the
then famous ?? Eighteen Manoeuvres,? published
in 1788 by Sir David Dundas, after he witnessed
the great review at Potsdam, and which was
long a standard work for the infantry of the British
army.
? The crowd of spectators,? says the Ed&durgh
flerald, ?attracted by the novelty and interest of
the scene, was great beyond example. The city
was almost literally unpeopled. Every house and
