76 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
plantation, which added materially to the shelter and fertility of the land, as
well as to the amenity of the place.
Catherine Home was married to a near Berwickshire neighbour, Robert
Johnston, Esq. of Hilton, then a captain in the 39th Regiment of Infantry, who
served in Gibraltar during the noted siege, and afterwards, with much credit,
during the last war with France, as Lieut.-Colonel of the Berwickshire Light
Dragoons-a well-disciplined, provincial corps, raised towards our defence against
French invasion and Irish insurrection. Of this marriage there survived two
daughters, Margaret and Catherine Johnston. An elder daughter, Agnes, was
married to the Rev. Alexander Scott, a cadet of the distinguished house of Scott
of Harden, and rector of Egemont, and then of Bowtel, in Cumberland. She
died, leaving issue two sons, Francis, a Lieutenant in the royal navy, and the
Rev. Robert Scott, fellow of one of the Colleges, Cambridge.
Agnes Home was of a more delicate constitution than her sister, and died at
her brother David's house in Edinburgh, unmarried, on 9th March 1808.
No. CXCVI.
MR. WILLIAM GRINLY,
BROKER AND AUCTIONEER.
THE Royal Leith Volunteers, of which corps this gentleman was Quartermaster,
were embodied in 17 9 5, and received their colours on the 26th September of that
year. The regiment was drawn up on the Links-a detachment of the Royal
Edinburgh Volunteers being present to keep the ground-when shortly after
one o'clock the Lord-Lieutenant, attended by some of the Deputy-Lieutenants,
arrived on the field, and presented the colours to Captain Bruce,' the Commandant,
who delivered them to two ensigns. The ceremony concluded with a
prayer by the chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Macknight.
Mr. Grinly was originally a merchant and shipowner at Borrowstounness,
the place of his nativity, where his father and brothers were respectable shipmasters.
In early life he had frequently gone supercargo to Holland, France,
Spain, Russia, and America, and was no stranger to the vicissitudes of a seafaring
life, having been twice captured by privateers, and as often shipwrecked.
The Isabella, a fine new ship, homeward bound, with a,valuable cargo, was one
of the vessels taken by the enemy. The ship's company, after being robbed,
were put on shore, and Mr. Grinly was stripped of everything but his watch.
One of the cases of shipwreck occurred in a storm off the coast of France, when
the crew narrowly escaped with their lives, and the ship and cargo were totally
Brother of the late Mr. Bivce of Kennett, whose father, Loid Kennett, waa one of the Senators
of the College of Justice.