An event of the first importance in Graham’s life was his appointment to the post of skellat bellman of the city of Glasgow. One would naturally have thought that in this matter at least there would have been no room for any dubiety concerning the various circumstances of the appointment, especially as it was to a post of some credit under one of the most ancient municipal corporations in Scotland, but that is not so. The ‘skellat’ bell, it may be explained, was the one used for ordinary announcements by the town-crier, as the ‘mort’ bell was in use on the intimation of death. In former times the crier, on obtaining possession of the two bells, had, according to the Burgh Records, ‘to cum bund for the soume of thrie scoir pundis’ Scots, or £5 sterling; and in addition to the importance of the office, it was always regarded as being of some pecuniary value. As the appointment was in the gift of the magistrates, it is surprising that no notice is taken in the Town Council Records of Graham’s incumbency. Motherwell put himself to some trouble in this matter, and wrote to Dr. Cleland, author of the Annals of Glasgow, then Superintendent of Public Works in the city, requesting information. In October, 1828, he received this reply—‘With regard to Dougal Graham, I may safely say there is nothing in the Records concerning him. This, from my own knowledge, corroborated by Mr. Thomson, one of our Town-clerks, who lately made an index of everything in the books for 150 years back.’ In order to satisfy himself on this point, the editor of these volumes took advantage of the opportunity kindly afforded him of going over the Burgh Records in the Town Clerk’s Office, and a careful search over the Council Minutes for a period of fully forty years was unproductive of any result other than that recorded by Dr. Cleland. As to the date of the appointment, therefore, some doubt exists. Turner, a town officer of fully eighty years, told Cleland that when he was a boy of about ten years of age, he remembered Graham as bellman, and Motherwell infers from this statement that our author was enjoying the whole emoluments of office about 1750. M‘Vean, however, is of a different opinion, and says Graham could not have been bellman earlier than 1770, ‘as an old gentleman remembers other four bellmen, who held office before Dougal, and after the year 1764.’ Possibly Turner’s memory may have been failing him in his old age, and he may not have been accurate by ten or fifteen years. M‘Vean was certainly in as good a position as any one to ascertain the true version, and there seems no reason why his statement should not be accepted in preference to the haphazard guess by Motherwell.
Tradition has it that Graham did not obtain the office of bellman without some little difficulty, because of his connection with the Jacobite movement. Here is the story as given by Mr. Caldwell, the Paisley publisher:—‘In his youth he was in the Pretender’s service, and on that account had a sair faught to get the place o’ bellman, for the Glasgow bailies had an illbrew o’ the Hielanders, and were just doun-richt wicked against onybody that had melled wi’ the rebels; but Dougie was a pawkey chield, and managed to wyse them ower to his ain interests, pretending that he was a staunch King’s man, and pressed into the Prince’s service sair against his will, and when he was naithing mair than a hafflins callant, that scarcely kent his left hand frae his richt, or a B frae a bull’s fit.’ In addition to this subtle reasoning with the magistrates, Dougal is said by some writers to have effected very material alterations on the third edition of his History of the Rebellion, published in 1774, in order to please the Whig patrons of the office to which he aspired. Here is a difficulty not easily overcome. Caldwell’s information was likely to be correct, and it is further supported by the knowledge that during the Jacobite risings the Glasgow bailies, and the citizens generally, were staunch supporters of the House of Hanover. The first thought that must suggest itself to the mind is, that it was not at all likely that Graham would seek to publish in Glasgow a Jacobite history of the Rebellion, at a time when the city authorities were applying to Parliament for an indemnification for the money and supplies levied on them by the Prince and his army. But assuming that Graham did publish a history of this complexion, we have M‘Vean’s statement, to all appearance founded upon a personal knowledge of the second edition—though he seems to regard it as the first—in these words:—‘In 1752 Dougal talks of the rebels with a great deal of virulence; in 1774 he softens his tone, and occasionally introduces apologies for their conduct.’ Possibly no one of the present generation, or of the one immediately preceding it, has ever seen a copy of this second edition; and in the absence of other and more conclusive evidence, the ipse dixit of M‘Vean must be accepted, and it goes directly against the assumption that Graham changed the political colouring of the third edition of his history to please the Glasgow bailies. If his appointment as bellman took place in 1750, as Motherwell, on what have been considered too slender grounds, has suggested, there might be some reason for entertaining the idea; but taking the date given by M‘Vean as approximately accurate it seems altogether out of the question. Caldwell, with his admitted knowledge of the incident, does not even hint at such an action on Graham’s part, but only supplies a very feasible account of the explanation afforded to the magistrates. Then, again, it could not be the case surely, if the bailies were ‘wicked against onybody that had melled wi’ the rebels,’ that the best way to appease them would be to introduce into the History of the Rebellion apologies for the conduct of those whom they regarded with such detestation. Dr. David Laing, writing, apparently, with a personal acquaintance of the second edition, says:—‘The second edition, 1752, bears, “Printed for and sold by Dougal Graham, merchant in Glasgow.” In the third edition, 1774, the work was entirely re-written, and not improved.... The first edition is so extremely rare, that only one copy is known to be preserved, and, as a literary curiosity, it might be worth reprinting; although it demolishes the fine story of the author’s difficulty in obtaining the bellman’s place from the Glasgow bailies, on account of his being a Jacobite, and having joined the Pretender’s army.’[6] But more than that, there are in the third edition itself some lines which go against the notion of alterations in respect of the colouring of the events recorded. In ‘The Author’s Address to all in General’ there is this verse:—
‘Now, gentle readers, I have let ye ken,
My very thoughts, from heart and pen,
’Tis needless now for to conten’,
Or yet controule,
For there’s not a word o’t I can men’,
So ye must thole.’
He then proceeds to describe barbarities on both sides, of which he had been witness. In the preface also he says:—‘I have no dread of any Body’s finding Fault with me for telling the Truth, because Charles has no Sway here; Duke William, once the Idol of the loyal British, is gone to the House of Silence, and, I believe, if I should take the Liberty to tell the Truth of him, no Body could blame me.’ The contention here is not that Graham was not sufficiently worldly to stoop to trimming, but rather that the undoubted alterations made on the third edition were not of the character many have imagined them to be. M‘Vean says that many ‘curious passages’ in the 1752 edition were suppressed in the one of 1774, but he makes that statement with reference to the toning down of the virulence against the rebels. Of course the disappearance of the first and second editions precludes the final and decided settlement of this not unimportant question, but the arguments and citations now brought forward can only lead to the impression that Graham made no alterations on the political tone of the third edition of his history in order to win the Glasgow bailies over to his cause. There were alterations and amendments, but these, it may be surmised, would be more of a literary than political character. The suggestion that they were of a different nature appears to have arisen from a mistaken notion of M‘Vean’s statement, which notion, by some means or other, became connected with the difficulty Graham had in obtaining the office of bellman. The two together make a most probable story, but it is a story which seems to be founded upon insufficient premises. It is curious that a somewhat similar misunderstanding arose with regard to Chambers’s History of the Rebellion of 1745–6, and that in order to put the public right, the author had to pen such words as these, as a preface to his seventh edition:—‘It has been customary to call it [this history] a Jacobite history. To this let me demur. Of the whole attempt of 1745 I disapprove as most men do.... But, on the other hand, those who followed Charles Edward in his hazardous enterprise, acted according to their lights, with heroic self-devotion.... Knowing how these men did all in honour, I deem it but just that their adventures should be detailed with impartiality, and their unavoidable misfortunes be spoken of with humane feeling. There is no other Jacobitism in the book that I am aware of.’