Occurred this day at Edinburgh a thunder-storm, attended with such remarkable effects, that an account of it was published on a broadside. It was little, perhaps, that it frightened the people off the streets, caused the garrison at the Castle to look well to the powder-magazine, and killed a man and a woman at Lasswade. What attracted particular attention was the fate of a tavern company at Canonmills, where two barbers from the Lawnmarket had come to celebrate the Pretender’s birthday over a bottle of ale. They had just drunk to the health of their assumed monarch—one of the company had remarked with a curse how the bells were not rung or the Castle guns fired on ‘the king’s’ birthday—when a great thunder-clap broke over the house. ‘The people on earth,’ cried one of the party, ‘will not adore their king; but you hear the Almighty is complimenting him with a volley from heaven.’ At that moment came a second stroke, which instantaneously killed one of the barbers and a woman, and scorched a gentleman so severely that he died in a few hours. The rest of the company, being amazed, sent to Edinburgh for doctors to take blood of the gentleman; but the doctors told them they could do no good. They tried to let blood of him, but found none. ‘Their bodies were as soft as wool.’
1717.
‘There is none more blind than them that will not see: these men may see, if they wilfully will not shut their eyes, that Providence many times hath blasted their enterprises.... These men were contending for that which did not concern them; they were drinking, cursing, and passing reflections—which in all probability hath offended the King of Heaven to throw down his thunder, &c., a warning to all blasphemers, drunkards, swearers, licentious livers, and others.’[[505]] It is a little awkward for this theory, that among the killed was but one of the Jacobite barbers, the other and equally guilty one escaping.
June.
The capture of the fugitate Rob Roy seeming now an object worthy of the regard of the Duke of Athole, a negotiation took place between them, which ended in Rob being taken into custody of a strong party at Logierait, the place where his Grace usually exercised his justiciary functions, and where his prison accordingly was situated. The outlaw felt he had been deceived, but it did not appear that he could help himself. Meanwhile, the duke sent intelligence of the capture of Rob to Edinburgh, desiring a company of troops to be sent to receive him. Ultimately, however, the duke countermanded the military, finding he could send a sufficiently strong party of his own people to hand over the outlaw to justice.
While preparations were making for his transmission to the Lowlands, Rob entertained his guards with whisky, and easily gained their confidence. One day, when they were all very hearty, he made a business to go to the door to deliver a letter for his wife to a man who was waiting for it, and to whom he pretended he had some private instructions to give. One of the guard languidly accompanied him, as it were for form’s sake, having no fear of his breaking off. Macgregor was thus allowed to lounge about outside for a few minutes, till at last getting near his horse, he suddenly mounted, and was off to Stirlingshire like the wind.[[506]]
To have set two dukes upon thief-catching within a twelvemonth or so, and escaped out of the clutches of both, was certainly a |1717.| curious fate for a Highland cateran, partisan warrior, or whatever name he may be called by.
Nov.
Sir Richard Steele appears not to have attended the business of the Forfeited Estates Commission in Edinburgh during the year 1716, but given his time, as usual, to literary and political pursuits in London, and to a project in which he had become concerned for bringing fish ‘alive and in good health’ to the metropolis. It was reported that he would get no pay for the first year, as having performed no duty; but those who raised this rumour must have had a very wrong notion of the way that public affairs were then administered. He tells his wife, May 22, 1717, in one of those most amorous of marital letters of his which Leigh Hunt has praised so much, that ‘five hundred pounds for the time the commission was in Scotland is already ordered me.’ It is strange to reflect that payment of coach-horses, which he, as a man of study, rarely used, and condemned as vain superfluities, was among the things on which was spent the property wrung out of the vitals of the poor Scotch Jacobites.
When the second year’s session of the commissioners was about to commence in September 1717, Sir Harry Houghton appears to have proposed that Steele should go at the first, in which case the baronet proposed to relieve him in November; in case he did not go now, he would have to go in November, and stay till the end of January. He dallied on in London, only scheming about his journey, which, it must be admitted, was not an easy one in 1717. He informs his wife: ‘I alter the manner of taking my journey every time I think of it. My present disposition is to borrow what they call a post-chaise of the Duke of Roxburgh [Secretary of State for Scotland]. It is drawn by one horse, runs on two wheels, and is led by a servant riding by. This rider and leader is to be Mr Willmot, formerly a carrier, who answers for managing on a road to perfection, by keeping tracks, and the like.’ Next it was: ‘I may possibly join with two or three gentlemen, and hire a coach for ourselves.’ On the 30th of September, he tells Lady Steele: ‘The commission in Scotland stands still for want of me at Edinburgh. It is necessary there should be four there, and there are now but two; three others halt on the road, and will not go forward till I have passed by York. I have therefore taken places in the York coach for Monday next.’ On the 20th of October: ‘After many resolutions and irresolutions concerning my way of going, I go, God willing, to-morrow morning, |1717.| by the Wakefield coach, on my way to York and Edinburgh.’ And now he did go, for his next letter is dated on the 23d from Stamford, to which place two days’ coaching had brought him.