Aug.
William Mure of Caldwell travelling with a party of friends from Edinburgh to Ross-shire, came the first stage—namely, to the Queensferry—in a coach, and afterwards proceeded on horseback. Writing an account of his journey to his wife, from |1716.| Chanonry, August 30, he says: ‘We came in coach to the Ferry on Friday; and though we were once overturned, yet none of us had any misfortune.’ Probably Mr Mure considered himself as getting off very well with but one overturn in a coach-journey of eleven English miles. He goes on: ‘We came that night to Perth, where the Master of Ross and Lady Betty met us. On Saturday, we came to Dunkeld, and were all night with the Duke of Athole. On Sunday, after sermon, we left the ladies there, and came to the Blair.’ The ladies probably had scruples about Sunday travelling; but Mr Mure, although a man of notedly religious character, appears to have had none. ‘On Monday,’ he adds, ‘we made a long journey, and went to Glenmore, where my Lord Huntly’s fir-woods are. On Tuesday, we came to Kilravock’s house [Kilravock], and yesternight came here, which is the first town in the shire of Ross.’[[482]] Thus a journey of about 170 miles occupied in all six days.
In April 1722, the king being about to visit Hanover, certain Scottish lords, amongst others, were appointed to attend him. It is intimated in a London paper of April 28,[[483]] that they set out from Edinburgh for this purpose on the previous Monday, the 23d; and ‘the roads being laid with post-horses, they are expected here as to-morrow.’ That is, the journey would occupy in the way of posting from Monday to Sunday, or seven days. It was one day more than the time occupied in a journey from London to Edinburgh by the Duke of Argyle in September 1715, when he posted down in the utmost haste, with some friends, to take command of the troops for the resistance to the insurgent Earl of Mar.
It appears that about this time there were occasional packet-ships, by which people could travel between Edinburgh and London. In 1720, the Bon Accord, Captain Buchanan, was advertised as to sail for London on the 30th June, having good accommodation for passengers, and ‘will keep the day, goods or no goods.’ Two years later, the ‘Unity packet-boat of Leith’ was in like manner announced as to proceed to London on the 1st September, ‘goods or no goods, wind and weather serving, having good accommodation for passengers, and good entertainment.’ The master to be spoke with in the Laigh Coffee-house.[[484]] But this mode of transit was occasionally attended with vicissitudes |1716.| not much less vexatious than those of the pious voyager of the Æneid. For example, we learn from a paragraph in an Edinburgh newspaper, on the 15th November 1743, that the Edinburgh and Glasgow packet from London, ‘after having great stress of weather for twenty days, has lately arrived safe at Holy Island, and is soon expected in Leith harbour.’
During the decade 1720–30, return chaises for London, generally with six horses, are occasionally advertised. The small amount of travelling which then prevailed is marked by the fact, that we find such a conveyance announced on the 11th of May to set out homeward on the 15th or 16th, and on the 18th re-advertised as to go on the 2d or 3d of June, no one having come forward in the interval to take advantage of the opportunity. We find, however, in 1732, that a periodical conveyance had at length been attempted. The advertisement states, ‘that the Stage Coach continues to go from the Canongate for London, or any place on the road, every Wednesday fortnight. And if any gentleman want a by-coach, they may call at Alexander Forsyth’s, opposite to the Duke of Queensberry’s Lodging, where the coach stands.’
In May 1734, a comparatively spirited effort in the way of travelling was announced by John Dale and three other persons—namely, a coach to set out towards the end of this week [pleasant indefiniteness!] for London, or any place on the road, to be performed in nine days, or three days sooner than any other coach that travels the road.’
The short space between the two populous towns of Edinburgh and Leith must have been felt as a particularly favourable field for this kind of enterprise; and, accordingly, a ‘Leith stage’ was tried both in 1610 and 1660,[[485]] but on both occasions failed to receive sufficient encouragement. In July 1722, we are informed that, on the 9th instant, ‘two stage-coaches are to begin to serve betwixt Edinburgh and Leith, and are to go with or without company every hour of the day. They are designed to contain six persons, each paying threepence during the summer, and fourpence during the winter for their fare.’
Sep. 1.
This day met at Edinburgh a set of commissioners appointed under a late act ‘to inquire of the estates of certain traitors, and of popish recusants, and of estates given to superstitious uses, in order to raise money out of them for the use of the public.’ The |1716.| first and most prominent object was to appropriate the lands of the Scottish nobles and gentlemen who had taken part in the late insurrection for the House of Stuart. Four out of the six commissioners were Englishmen, members of the House of Commons, and among these was the celebrated Sir Richard Steele, fresh from the literary glories he had achieved in the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, from his sufferings in the Whig cause under Anne, and the consolatory honours he attained under the new monarch.
It was a matter of course that strangers of such distinction should be honoured in a city which received few such guests; and doubtless the government officials in particular paid them many flattering attentions. But the commissioners very soon found that their business was not an easy or agreeable one. There was in Scotland plenty of hatred to the Jacobite cause; but battling off its adherents at Sheriffmuir, and putting down its seminaries, the Episcopal chapels, was a different thing from seeing an order come from England which was to extinguish the names and fortunes of many old and honourable families, and turn a multitude of women and children out of house and home, and throw them upon the charity of their friends or the public. Most of the unfortunates, too, had connections among the Whigs themselves, with claims upon them for commiseration, if not assistance; and we all know the force of the old Scottish maxim—eternal blessings rest on the nameless man who first spoke it!—that bluid is thicker than water.