Lord Balmerino, son of the lord who had been the subject of a notable prosecution under the tyrannical government of Charles I.,[[702]] was now residing in advanced age at his house in Coatfield Lane, in Leith. One of his younger sons, named Alexander (the immediate younger brother of Arthur, who made so gallant a death on Tower Hill in 1746), was leading a life of idleness and pleasure at the same place. As this young gentleman was now to be involved in a bloody affair which took place in Leith Links, it may be worth while to recall that, five years back, he was engaged on the same ground in an affair of gaiety and sport, which yet had some ominous associations about it. It was what a newspaper of the day calls ‘a solemn match at golf’ played by him for twenty guineas with Captain Porteous of the Edinburgh Town-guard; an affair so remarkable on account of the stake, that it was attended by the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Morton, and a vast mob of the great and little besides, Alexander Elphinstone ending as the winner.[[703]] No one could well have imagined, as that cheerful game was going on, that both the players were, not many years after, to have blood upon their hands, one of them to take on the murderer’s mark upon this very field.
On the 23d of December 1729, the Honourable Alexander |1729.| Elphinstone met a Lieutenant Swift of Cadogan’s regiment at the house of Mr Michael Watson, merchant in Leith. Some hot words having risen between them, Elphinstone rose to depart, but before he went, he touched Swift on the shoulder with his sword, and dropped a hint that he would expect to receive satisfaction next morning on the Links. Next day, accordingly, the two gentlemen met at eleven in the forenoon in that comparatively public place (as it now appears), and fought a single combat with swords, which ended in Swift receiving a mortal wound in the breast.
Elphinstone was indicted for this act before the High Court of Justiciary; but the case was never brought forward, and the young man died without molestation at Leith three years after.
1730.
The merit of the invention of that noble instrument, the Reflecting Telescope, is allowed to rest with David Gregory, a native of Scotland, although that of first completing one (in 1671) is due to the illustrious Newton. It was thought very desirable by Sir Isaac to substitute glass for metallic reflectors; but fifty years elapsed without the idea being realised, when at length, about this date, a very young Edinburgh artist, named James Short, ‘executed no fewer than six reflecting telescopes with glass specula, three of which were fifteen inches, and three nine inches in focal length,’ to which Professor Maclaurin gave his approbation, though ultimately their light was found fainter than was deemed necessary.
Two years afterwards, when Short had only attained the age of twenty-two, he began to enter into competition with the English makers of reflecting telescopes, but without attempting to make specula of glass. ‘To such perfection did he carry the art of grinding and polishing metallic specula, and of giving them the true parabolic figure, that, with a telescope of fifteen inches in focal length, he and Mr Bayne, Professor of Law in the University of Edinburgh, read the Philosophical Transactions at the distance of five hundred feet, and several times, particularly on the 24th of November and the 7th of December 1734, they saw the five satellites of Saturn together, an achievement beyond the reach of Hadley’s six-feet telescope.’
This ingenious man, attaining some celebrity for the making of reflecting telescopes, was induced, in 1742, to settle in London, where for a number of years he continued to use his remarkable |1730.| talents in this way, occasionally furnishing instruments at high prices to royal personages throughout Europe.[[704]]
Oct. 26.
One William Muir, brother of two men who had recently been hanged at Ayr for theft, was this day tried before a jury, for housebreaking, by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, acting as ‘High Sheriff within burgh.’ The man was condemned to death, and the sentence was duly executed on the ensuing 2d of December, he dying penitent.[[705]]
It seems strange to us, but about this time the condemnation of criminals to capital punishment by sheriffs of counties, and by the chief-magistrate of Edinburgh, was by no means infrequent, being entirely in accordance with the statutory arrangements of the country. Nay more, great territorial lords, especially in the Highlands, still acted upon their ancient privileges of pit and gallows. It is related that the Duke of Athole one day received at Blair an application from his baron-bailie for pardon to a man whom he had condemned to be hanged for theft, but who was a person of such merits otherwise that it seemed a pity to put justice in force against him. The Lord President Forbes, who had stopped to dine with his Grace in the course of a journey to Edinburgh, expressed his surprise that the power of pardoning a condemned criminal should be attributed to any person but the king. ‘Since I have the power of punishing,’ said the duke, ‘it is but right that I should have the power of pardoning.’ Then, calling a servant, he quietly added: ‘Send an express to Logierait, and order Donald Stewart, presently under sentence, to be set at liberty.’[[706]]