BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 99
was said she afterwards formed a “ mesal2knce” with John (commonly called
Jack) Fortune, a surgeon, who went abroad (brother of Matthew Fortune,
who kept the Tontine, Princes Street)-both sons of old Fortune who
kept the noted tavern in the High Street, the resort of the higher ranks in Scotland
fifty years ago ;’ but Mrs. Fortune was a younger sister.
Sir Hew’s family originally consisted of fifteen, several of whom died when
young. The eldest daughter, Miss Mary, was married in 1775 to General
Fletcher of Saltoun (then Campbell of Boquhan), and afterwards to Colonel
John Hamilton of Bardowie, in Stirlingshire; and the second, Lucken, was
married to General Gordon Cuming of Pitlurg, Aberdeenshire, by whom she
had ten children.
Mr. Kay mentions that the publication of this Print created great excitement
at the time (1784), and was the cause of several articles being written pro and
con in the periodicals of the day. Captain Crawford (brother to the lady) was
very much irritated, and threatened to cudgel the limner, at the same time
“ daring him at his peril to pencil any lady ever after.” As might have been
expected, this threat had a very contrary effect-being immediately followed by
an alteration of the Plate, making the head-dress of Miss Crawford a little more
ridiculous, and also by the caricature of ‘‘ RETALIATIO;N O R THE CUDGELLER
CAUGHT.”
RETALIATION ; OR THE CUDGELLER CAUGHT,
REPRESENTthSe gallant and high-minded Captain Crawford, who was then young,
in the hands of a brawny porter, while his sister and her companion, Miss Hay
of Montblairy, who then resided with her mother in Haddington’s Entry, Canongate,
are lustily calling out for help. This caricature, however, is supposed to
have been merely a flight of fancy, without any foundation in fact. Captain
Crawford, afterwards Sir Hew, was a very handsome man. He married a Miss
Johnston, of the county of Leitrim in Ireland, by whom he had two sons and
three daughters.
“On the 10th of October 1775, a wager w8s determined at Fortune’a tavern, Edinburgh, on the
quality of the beef of two bullocks-one fed by the Duke of Buccleuch, the other by John Lumsdaine
of Blanairn, Esq. A sirloin of each waa roasted ; and it took two men to carry each to the table.
The wager was determined in favour of the Duke. Besides his Grace and Mr. Lumsdaine, there were
a goodly number of other iioblemen, gentlemen, clergy, etc., at dinner-twenty-one in number--aZZ
dressed in the nzanufactures of Scotland.” The Duke of Bucclench is well known to have been “ a
great encourager of Scotch manufactures,” which were at that time in their infancy.-The Earl of
Hopetoun, as Commissioner to the General kssembly, used to hold state in Fortune’s tavern ; and
on election occasions the Scottish Peers frequently terminated the proceedings of the day by dining
there. The premises were at an earlier period the town residence of the Earls of Eglinton.