A representative of Ross-shire being to be chosen, there came, the night before, to Fortrose, the greatest man of the north, the Earl of Sutherland, heading a large body of armed and mounted retainers, who made a procession round the streets, while an English sloop-of-war, in friendly alliance with him, came up to the town and fired its guns. Hundreds of Highlanders, his lordship’s retainers, at the same time lounged about. The reason of all this was, that the opposition interest was in a decided majority, and a defeat to the Whig candidate seemed impending. When the election came on, there were thirty-one barons present, of whom eighteen gave their votes for General Charles Ross of Balnagowan, the remainder being for Captain Alexander Urquhart of Newhall. Hereupon, Lord Sutherland’s relative and friend, Sir William Gordon of Invergordon, sheriff of the county, retired with the minority, and went through the form of electing their own man, notwithstanding a protest from the other candidate. ‘Immediately after this separation, Colin Graham of Drynie, one of the deputy-lieutenants of the county, came into the court-house, with his sword in his hand, accompanied by Robert Gordon of Haughs and Major John Mackintosh, with some of the armed Highlanders whom they had posted at the door, with drawn swords and cocked firelocks, and did require the majority (who remained to finish the election), in the name of the Earl of Sutherland, to remove out of the house, otherwise they must expect worse treatment. Major Mackintosh said they would be dragged out by the heels. Upon which the barons protested against those violent proceedings, declaring their resolution to |1722.| remain in the court-house till the election was finished, though at the hazard of their lives; which they accordingly did.’[[552]]
Apr. 29.
The Catholics had of late been getting up their heads in the north, especially in districts over which the Gordon family held sway; and the open practice of the Romish rites before large congregations in the Banffshire valleys, was become a standing subject of complaint and alarm in the church-courts. When at length the government obtained scent of the Jacobite plot in which Bishop Atterbury was concerned, it sympathised with these groans of the laden spirits in Scotland, and permitted some decided measures of repression to be taken.
Accordingly, this day, being Sunday, as the Duchess-Dowager of Gordon—Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk—was having mass performed at her house in the Canongate, Edinburgh, in the presence of about fifty professors like herself of the Catholic religion, Bailie Hawthorn, a magistrate of the Canongate, broke open the doors, and seized the whole party. The ladies were bailed, and allowed to depart; but the priest, Mr John Wallace, was marched to prison. We are informed by Wodrow that Wallace had been ordained a Protestant minister thirty-five years before.[[553]] The Lord Advocate would not at first listen to any proposal for his liberation, though several persons of distinction came to plead for it; but at length bail was taken for him to the extent of a thousand merks Scots. Being indicted under the statute of 1700, he failed to stand his trial, and was outlawed.[[554]]
Before the upbreak of this plot, considerable numbers of gentlemen under attainder daily presented themselves on the streets of Edinburgh, emboldened of course by the mildness of the government; but, one or two of them having been seized and put up in the Castle, it came to pass, 15th May, that not one was any longer to be seen. Mr Wodrow, who records these circumstances, expresses the feeling of the hour. ‘It’s certain we are in a most divided and defenceless state; divisions on the one hand, rancour and malice on the other, and a wretched indolence among too many. But the Lord liveth!’[[555]]
Aug. 3.
The Canongate, which had so often, in the sixteenth century, |1722.| been reddened with the best blood in Scotland, was still occasionally the scene of wild transactions, though arising amongst a different class of persons and from different causes. A local journalist chronicles a dreadful tragedy as occurring on its pavé at this date.
‘In the afternoon, Captain Chiesley and Lieutenant Moodie, both of Cholmly’s Regiment, which lies encamped at Bruntsfield Links, having quarrelled some time before in the camp, meeting on the street of the Canongate, the captain, as we are told, asked Mr Moodie whether he had in a certain company called him a coward? And he owning he had, the captain beat him first with his fist, and then with a cane; whereupon Mr Moodie drew his sword, and, shortening it, run the captain into the great artery. The captain, having his sword drawn at the same time, pushed at Mr Moodie, who was rushing on him with his sword shortened, and thus run him into the lower belly, of which in a few minutes he died, without speaking one word, having had no more strength or life left him than to cross the street, and reach the foot of the stair of his lodgings, where he dropped down dead. The captain lived only to step into a house near by, and to pray shortly that God might have mercy on his soul, without speaking a word more. ’Tis said Mr Moodie’s lady was looking over the window all the while this bloody tragedy was acting.’[[556]]
A duel which happened about the same time between Captains Marriot and Scroggs proved fatal to both.
Aug. 7.