Leith; LETTERS OF MARQUE. 219
to Hull, Newcastle, Thurso, Orkney, and Shetland,
to Inverness, Fort George, and Invergordon, Cra
marty, Findhom, Burghead, Ban6 and other places
in the north, twice weekly; to Dundee, Aberdeen,
Stonehaven, Johnshaven, Montrose, and places
farther south, four days a week. A number of
steamers run in summer, on advertised days, between
Leith, Aberdour, Elie, North Berwick, Alloa, etc.
The first screw steamer fromLeith to London
was put on the station in 1853.
Several ships belonging to the port are employed
in the Greenland whale fishery, and a considerable
number trade with distant foreign ports,
especially with those of the Baltic and the West
Indies.
? In consequence of the want of a powder magazine,?
says a statistical writer, ?gunpowder sent
from the mills of Midlothian for embarkationtoo
dangerous a commodity to be admitted to any
ordinary storing-place, or to lie on board vessels
in the harbour-has frequently, when vessels do not
sail at the time expected, to be carted back to
await the postponed date of sailing, and, in some
instances, has been driven six times between the
mills and the port, a distance each time, in going
and returning, of twenty or twenty-four miles, before
it could be embarked?
The lighthouse has a stationary light, and exhibits
it at night so long as there is a depth of not
less than nine feet of water on the bar, for the
guidance of vessels entering the harbour.
The tall old signal-tower has a manager and
signal-master, who display a series of signals during
the day, to proclaim the progress or retrogression of
the tide.
The general anchoring-place for vessels is two
miles from the land, and in the case of large
steamers, is generally westward of Leith, and opposite
Newhaven. During the French and Spanish
war, the roadstead was the station of an admiral?s
flagship, a guardship, and squadron of cruisers.
Inverkeithing is the quarantine station of the
port, eight and three-quarter miles distant, in a direct
h e , by west, of the entrance of Leith Harbour.
In connection with the naval station in the
Roads, Leith enjoyed much prosperity during the
war, as being a place for the condemnation and
sale of prize vessels, with their cargoes; and in
consequence of Bonaparte?s great Continental
scheme of prevention, it was the seat of a most
extensive traffic for smuggling British goods into
the north of Europe, by way of Heligoland, a
system which employed many armed vessels of all
kinds, crowded its harbour, and greatly enriched
many of its bold and speculative inhabitants.
Foreign ventures, however, proved, in some instances,
to be severely unsuccessful ; ? and their
failure combined, with the disadvantages of the
harbour and the oppression of shore dues, to produce
that efflux of prosperity, the ebb of which
seems to have been reached, to give place,? says a
writer in 1851, ?to a steady and wealth-bearing
flood.?
The last prizes candemned and sold in Leith
were some Russian vessels, chiefly brigs, captured
by Sir Charles Napier?s fleet in the Baltic and
Gulf of Finland during the Crimean War.
It is singular that neither at the Trinity House,
in the Kirkgate, nor anywhere else, a record has
been kept of the Leith Letters of Marque or other
armed vessels belonging to the port during the
protracted wars with France, Spain, and Holland,
while the notices that occur of them in the brief
public prints of those days are meagre in the extreme
; yet the fighting merchant marine of Leith
should not be forgotten.
Taking a few of these notices chronologically,
we find that the ship Edinburgh, of Leith, Thomas
Murray commander, a Letter of Marque, carrying
eighteen 4-pounders, with swivels and a fully-armed
crew, on the 30th of August, 1760, in latitude 13O
north, and longitude 58O west, from London, fell in
with a very large French privateer, carrying fourteen
guns, many swivels, and full of men.
This was at eleven in the forenoon. The
Edinburgh, we are told, attacked, and fought her
closely ? for five glasses,? and mauled her aloft so
much, that she was obliged to fill her sails, bear
away, and then bring to, and re-fit aloft. The Edinburgh
continued her course, but with ports triced
up, guns loaded, and the crew at quarters ready to
engage again.
The privateer followed, and attempted to board,
but was received with such a terrible fire of round
shot and small-arms, that she was again obliged to
sheer of. Many times the conflict was renewed,
and at last ammunition fell short on board the
The gallant Captain Murray now lay by, reserving
his fire, while a couple of broadsides swept his
deck; and then, when both ships were almost
muzzle to muzzle, and having brought all his guns
over to one side, poured in his whole fire upon her,
? which did such execution that it drove all hands
from their quarters j she immediately hoisted all
her sails, and made OK?
The crew of the Ednaurgh now ?? sheeted home,?
and gave chase, but she was so heavily laden with
the spoils of her cruise that the enemy out-sailed
her, upon which Captain Murray, with a great
Edinburgh.
