Fletcher of Saltoun

by George W. T. Omond

Henceforth Fletcher’s life was that of a private ‘person of quality.’ He never married. When asked the reason why, he used to answer, ‘My brother has got the woman that should have been my wife.’ This was Margaret Carnegie, the eldest daughter of Sir David Carnegie of Pittarrow. Perhaps Andrew Fletcher did not attract her—‘the low, thin man of brown complexion, full of fire, with a stern, sour look,’ to quote the well-known description of the Laird of Saltoun. At all events she fell in love with Henry, the younger brother, who, besides, had this in his favour, that Andrew was an outlaw in Holland while he was paying his court to the young lady. Her father was at first against the marriage; but the young people insisted on having their own way, and they were married on the 27th of April 1688.[21] The couple were very poor, and Henry became tenant of the mill at Saltoun, after the estate had been restored to his brother. Mrs. Henry Fletcher was a woman of great capacity, and it was she who, acting probably on hints given by her brother-in-law, got machinery from Holland, introduced the Dutch system of making ‘pot barley,’ till then unknown in Scotland, imported a winnowing machine, or fanners, and, in short, was the founder of the Saltoun Barley Mill, which was a household word in Scotland for many years. ‘So jealous,’ says Sir William Fraser, ‘was Lady Saltoun of the secret of the construction of her machinery, and so anxious was she to retain a monopoly of this particular trade, that, whilst she occupied, during the day, a room in the mill specially fitted up for herself, all orders for barley were received across a door which was securely fastened by a chain to prevent strangers from entering.’

[21] Sir William Fraser’s History of the Carnegies, Earls of Southesk, ii. 275.

This clever Scottish lady of the old school also started the manufacture of Holland cloth on a wide field near the mill; and in a hollow near Saltoun Hall the British Linen Company worked for many years, until they changed their business into that of a banking company. Perhaps a dame of so very practical a turn would not have sympathised with the Utopian dreams of her famous brother-in-law, and had chosen wisely. The walls of a new mill which was erected at Saltoun in 1710 are still as strong as when they were built; and some fragments of the old machinery still remain.

During the latter part of his life Fletcher lived chiefly in England or abroad. Wodrow has preserved an account of some conversations which he had with him. On one occasion Fletcher told him that ‘he used to say to Sunderland, Wharton, and the leading Whigs in England, that they were the greatest fools imaginable in three things, and acted directly contrary to their interest: 1st, In the settling of the Succession upon Hanover, he remarked that the Lutherans, and still the nearer people goes to Popery, they are still the more for absolute government; and so much the more for a Tory. 2nd, In promoting and violently pushing the Union with Scotland, which now they are sensible is an addition to the power of the Court, and makes the Prince by far more absolute than before; and 3rd, In the affair of Sacheverell, when he (Fletcher) was in London, and conversed with them at that time, their pushing of his trial was the most unpopular thing they could do, and raised the cry of the “Danger of the Church,” and proposed nothing in the world to themselves by such a prosecution. Things were openly vented upon the behalf of absolute Government and non-resistance; and the event has sadly verified all his thoughts as to this.’[22]

[22] This conversation was in 1712, when the Tory Government of Harley and St. John was in office.

On another occasion Fletcher expounded his ideas on the subject of church patronage. He said a Presbytery was no judge of a young man’s fitness to be minister of a congregation, and he had a plan of his own ready. He would appoint six Professors of Divinity in each University, none of whom were to teach more than ten or twelve students; for they could not know more than that number intimately. These Professors were not only to lecture, but to watch the temper and character of each student, and license him when he was really capable of being a minister. Then, when a vacancy occurred, the Presbytery was to ask the Professor to send down a man whom they thought suited to the parish which was vacant. If the people did not like the man who was sent, another was to come; and so on until the congregation was satisfied.

Wodrow asked Fletcher if he had not thought of writing a History of the Union; but he replied that he had kept no notes of the proceedings, and his memory was not to be relied on. He lamented his bad memory, and said he used to write out all his speeches, and repeat them, over and over again, to himself, like a schoolboy learning his lessons. He also said that he had so little readiness in debate, that if he did not know what subject was to be brought forward, he was obliged to prepare several speeches, which he laboriously learned by heart.

In 1716 Fletcher was in Paris, where he took ill. His nephew Andrew, afterwards a judge of the Court of Session under the title of Lord Milton, who was then studying at Leyden, hearing that his uncle wished to return home, hurried to Paris. They reached London, but the old gentleman was unable to go further. Lord Sunderland called on him, and asked if there was anything he wished done. ‘I have a nephew,’ he replied, ‘who has been studying the law. Make him a judge when he is fit for it.’[23]

[23] ‘I have heard,’ says Mr. Ramsay, ‘Sir Hugh Paterson say, who knew Saltoun well, that he early predicted his nephew would turn out a corrupt fellow, and a perfect courtier. Saltoun, however, hated all Kings and Ministers of State.’—Ochtertyre MS. 1. 87.

On the 15th of September 1716 he died; and his nephew brought his body to Scotland in a leaden coffin, which was laid in the family vault under the parish church of Saltoun, where it still remains.