Feb. 19.
Donaldson’s paper, The Edinburgh Gazette, which had been established in 1699, continued in existence; and in the intermediate |1705.| time there had also been many flying broadsides printed and sold on the streets, containing accounts of extraordinary occurrences of a remarkable nature, often scandalous. The growing inclination of the public for intelligence of contemporary events was now shewn by the commencement of a second paper in Edinburgh, under the title of The Edinburgh Courant. The enterpriser, Adam Boig, announced that it would appear on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, ‘containing most of the remarkable foreign news from their prints, and also the home news from the ports within this kingdom, when ships comes and goes, and from whence, which it is hoped will prove a great advantage to merchants and others within this nation (it being now altogether neglected).’ Having obtained the sanction of the Privy Council, he, at the date noted, issued the first number, consisting of a small folio in double columns, bearing to be ‘printed by James Watson in Craig’s Close,’ and containing about as much literary matter as a single column of a modern newspaper of moderate size. There are two small paragraphs regarding criminal cases then pending, and the following sole piece of mercantile intelligence: ‘Leith, Feb. 16.—This day came in to our Port the Mary Galley, David Preshu, commander, laden with wine and brandy.’ There are also three small advertisements, one intimating the setting up of post-offices at Wigton and New Galloway, another the sale of lozenges for the kinkhost [chincough] at 8s. the box.
The superior enterprise shewn in the conducting of the Courant, aided, perhaps, by some dexterous commercial management, seems to have quickly told upon the circulation of the Gazette; and we must regret, for the sake of an old soldier, that the proprietor of the latter was unwise enough to complain of this result to the Privy Council, instead of trying to keep his ground by an improvement of his paper. He insinuated that Boig, having first undersold him by ‘giving his paper to the ballad-singers four shillings [4d. sterling] a quire below the common price, as he did likewise to the postmaster,’ did still ‘so practise the paper-criers,’ as to induce them to neglect the selling of the Gazette, and set forth the Courant as ‘preferable both in respect of foreign and domestic news.’ By these methods, ‘the Courant gained credit with some,’ though all its foreign news was ‘taken verbatim out of some of the London papers, and most part out of Dyer’s Letter and the London Courant, which are not of the best reputation.’ He, on the other hand, ‘did never omit any domestic news that he judged pertinent, though he never meddled |1705.| with matters that he had cause to believe would not be acceptable [flattery to the Privy Council], nor every story and trifling matter he heard.’
A triumphant answer to such a complaint was but too easy. ‘The petitioner,’ says Boig, ‘complains that I undersold him; that my Courant bore nothing but what was collected from foreign newspapers; and that it gained greater reputation than his Gazette. As to the first, it was his fault if he kept the Gazette too dear; and I must say that his profit cannot but be considerable when he sells at my price, for all my news comes by the common post, and I pay the postage; whereas John Bisset, his conjunct [that is, partner], gets his news all by the secretary’s packet free of postage, which is at least eight shillings sterling a week free gain to them. As to the second, I own that the foreign news was collected from other newspapers, and I suppose Mr Donaldson has not his news from first hands more than I did. But the truth is, the Courant bore more, for it always bore the home news, especially anent our shipping, which I humbly suppose was one of the reasons for its having a good report; and Mr Donaldson, though he had a yearly allowance from the royal burghs, never touched anything of that nature, nor settled a correspondent at any port in the kingdom, no, not so much as at Leith. As to the third, it’s left to your Grace and Lordships to judge if it be a crime in me that the Courant had a greater reputation than the Gazette.’
Connected, however, with this controversy, was an unlucky misadventure into which Boig had fallen, in printing in his paper a petition to the Privy Council from Evander M‘Iver, tacksman of the Scots Manufactory Paper-mills, and James Watson, printer, for permission to complete the reprinting of an English book, entitled War betwixt the British Kingdoms Considered. While these petitioners thought only of their right to reprint English books ‘for the encouragement of the paper-manufactory and the art of printing at home, and for the keeping of money as much as may be in the kingdom,’ the Council saw political inconvenience and danger in the book, and every reference to it, and at once stopped both the Courant, in which the advertisement appeared, and the Gazette, which piteously as well as justly pleaded that it had in no such sort offended. It was in the course of this affair that Donaldson complained of Boig’s successful rivalry, and likewise of an invasion by another person of his monopoly of burial-letters.
After an interruption of three months, Adam Boig was allowed to resume his publication, upon giving strong assurance of more |1705.| cautious conduct in future. His paper continued to flourish for several years. (See under March 6, 1706.)
Mar. 5.
In the early part of 1704, the sense of indignity and wrong which had been inspired into the national mind by the Darien disasters and other circumstances, was deepened into a wrathful hatred by the seizure of a vessel named the Annandale, which the African Company was preparing for a trading voyage to India. This proceeding, and the subsequent forfeiture of the vessel before the Court of Exchequer, were defensive acts of the East India Company, and there can be little doubt that they were grossly unjust. In the subsequent autumn, an English vessel, named the Worcester, belonging to what was called the Two Million Company (a rival to the East India Company), was driven by foul weather into the Firth of Forth. It was looked upon by the African Company as fair game for a reprisal. On the 12th August, the secretary, Mr Roderick Mackenzie, with a few associates, made an apparently friendly visit to the ship, and was entertained with a bowl of punch. Another party followed, and were received with equal hospitality. With only eleven half-armed friends, he that evening overpowered the officers and crew, and took the vessel into his possession. In the present temper of the nation, the act, questionable as it was in every respect, was sure to meet with general approbation.
Before Captain Green and the others had been many days in custody, strange hints were heard amongst them of a piratical attack they had committed in the preceding year upon a vessel off the coast of Malabar. The African Company had three years ago sent out a vessel, called the Speedy Return, to India, with one Drummond as its master, and it had never since been heard of. It was concluded that the people of the Worcester had captured the Speedy Return, and murdered its crew, and that Providence had arranged for their punishment, by sending them for shelter from a storm to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Vainly might it have been pointed out that there was no right evidence for even the fact of the piracy, still less for the Speedy Return being the subject of the offence. Truth and justice were wholly lost sight of in the universal thirst for vengeance against England and its selfish mercantile companies.
Green, the captain of the Worcester, Mather, the chief-mate, Reynolds, the second-mate, and fifteen others, were tried at this date before the Court of Admiralty, for the alleged crime of |1705.| attacking a ship, having English or Scotch aboard, off the coast of Malabar, and subsequently murdering the crew—no specific vessel or person being mentioned as the subjects of the crime, and no nearer date being cited than the months of February, March, April, or May 1703. The jury had no difficulty in bringing them in guilty, and they were all condemned to be hanged on the sands of Leith, the usual place for the execution of pirates.