Sinclair of Mey, and a friend of his named James Sinclair, writer in Edinburgh, were lodging in the house of John Brown, vintner, in the Kirkgate of Leith, when, at a late hour, the Master of Tarbat and Ensign Andrew Mowat came to join the party. The Master, who was eldest son of the Viscount Tarbat, a statesman of no mean note, was nearly related to Sinclair of Mey. There was no harm meant by any one that night in the hostelry of John Brown; but before midnight, the floor was reddened with slaughter.

The Master and his friend Mowat, who are described on the occasion as excited by liquor, but not beyond self-control, were sitting in the hall drinking a little ale, while beds were getting ready for them. A girl named Jean Thomson, who had brought the ale, was asked by the Master to sit down beside him, but escaped to her own room, and bolted herself in. He, running in pursuit of her, blunderingly went into a room occupied by a Frenchman named George Poiret, who was quietly sleeping there. An altercation took place between Poiret and the Master, and Mowat, hearing the noise, came to see what was the matter. The Frenchman had drawn his sword, which the two gentlemen wrenched out of his hand. A servant of the house, named Christian Erskine, had now also arrived at the scene of strife, besides a gentleman who was not afterwards identified. At the woman’s urgent request, Mowat took away the Master and the other gentleman, the latter carrying the Frenchman’s sword. There might have now been an end to this little brawl, if the Master had not deemed it his duty to go back to the Frenchman’s room to beg his pardon. The Frenchman, finding a new disturbance at his door, which he had bolted, seems to have lost patience. He knocked on the ceiling of his room with the fire-tongs, to awaken two brothers, Elias Poiret, styled Le Sieur de la Roche, and Isaac Poiret, who were sleeping there, and to bring them to his assistance.

These two gentlemen presently came down armed with swords and pistols, and spoke to their defenceless and excited brother at |1691.| his door. Presently there was a hostile collision between them and the Master and Mowat in the hall. Jean Thomson roused her master to come and interfere for the preservation of the peace; but he came too late. The Master and Mowat were not seen making any assault; but a shot was heard, and, in a few minutes, it was found that the Sieur de la Roche lay dead with a swordwound through his body, while Isaac had one of his fingers nearly cut off. A servant now brought the guard, by whom Mowat was soon after discovered hiding under an outer stair, with a bent sword in his hand, bloody from point to hilt, his hand wounded, and the sleeves of his coat also stained with blood. On being brought where the dead man lay, he viewed the body without apparent emotion, merely remarking he wondered who had done it.

The Master, Mowat, and James Sinclair, writer, were tried for the murder of Elias Poiret; but the jury found none of the imputed crimes proven. The whole affair can, indeed, only be regarded as an unfortunate scuffle arising from intemperance, and in which sudden anger caused weapons to be used where a few gentle and reasonable words might have quickly re-established peace and good-fellowship.[[59]]

The three Frenchmen concerned in this affair were Protestant refugees, serving in the king’s Scottish guards. The Master of Tarbat in due time succeeded his father as Earl of Cromarty, and survived the slaughter of Poiret forty years. He was the father of the third and last Earl of Cromarty, so nearly brought to Tower-hill in 1746, for his concern in the rebellion of the preceding year, and who on that account lost the family titles and estates.

Apr.

Down to this time, it was still customary for gentlemen to go armed with walking-swords. On the borders of the Highlands, dirks and pistols seem to have not unfrequently been added. Accordingly, when a quarrel happened, bloodshed was very likely to take place. At this time we have the particulars of such a quarrel, serving to mark strongly the improvements effected by modern civilisation.

Some time in August 1690, a young man named William Edmondstone, described as apprentice to Charles Row, writer to the Signet, having occasion to travel to Alloa, called on his master’s brother, William Row of Inverallan in passing, and had an interview |1691.| with him at a public-house in the hamlet of Bridge of Allan. According to a statement from him, not proved, but which it is almost necessary to believe in order to account for subsequent events, Inverallan treated him kindly to his face, but broke out upon him afterwards to a friend, using the words rascal and knave, and other offensive expressions. The same unproved statement goes on to relate how Edmondstone and two friends of his, named Stewart and Mitchell, went afterwards to inquire into Inverallan’s reasons for such conduct, and were violently attacked by him with a sword, and two of them wounded.

The proved counter-statement of Inverallan is to the effect that Edmondstone, Stewart, and Mitchell tried, on the 21st of April 1691, to waylay him, with murderous intent, as he was passing between Dumblane and his lands near Stirling. Having by chance evaded them, he was in a public-house at the Bridge of Allan, when his three enemies unexpectedly came in, armed as they were with swords, dirks, and pistols, and began to use despiteful expressions towards him. ‘He being all alone, and having no arms but his ordinary walking-sword, did rise up in a peaceable manner, of design to have retired and gone home to his own house.’ As he was going out at the door, William Edmondstone insolently called to him to come and fight him, a challenge which he disregarded. They then followed him out, and commenced an assault upon him with their swords, Mitchell, moreover, snapping a pistol at him, and afterwards beating him over the head with the but-end. He was barely able to protect his life with his sword, till some women came, and drew away the assailants.

A few days after, the same persons came with seven or eight other ‘godless and graceless persons’ to the lands of Inverallan, proclaiming their design to burn and destroy the tenants’ houses and take the laird’s life, and to all appearance would have effected their purpose, but for the protection of a military party from Stirling.