[249]. Privy Council Record.
[250]. Ibid.
[251]. Privy Council Record.
[252]. Privy Council Record.
[253]. Privy Council Record.
[254]. The Lord Rankeillor who assisted in giving things this favourable turn was paternal grandfather of Dr John Hope, well known towards the close of the last century as Professor of Botany in the Edinburgh University.
[255]. Quoted in Scots Magazine, Jan. 1810, ‘from a collection of pamphlets in the possession of Mr Blackwood.’
[256]. Privy Council Record.
[257]. The irascible temper of Fletcher is well known, and his slaughter of an associate in the Monmouth expedition is a historical fact. A strange story is told of him in Mrs Calderwood of Polton’s account of her journey in Holland (Coltness Collections). ‘Salton,’ she says, ‘could not endure the smoke of toback, and as he was in a night-scoot [in Holland] the skipper and he fell out about his forbidding him to smoke. Salton, finding he could not hinder him, went up and sat on the ridge of the boat, which bows like an arch. The skipper was so contentious that he followed him, and on whatever side Salton sat, he put his pipe in the check next him, and whiffed in his face. Salton went down several times and brought up stones in his pocket from the ballast, and slipped them into the skipper’s pocket that was next the water, and when he found he had loadened him as much as would sink him, he gives him a shove, so that over he hirsled. The boat went on, and Salton came down among the rest of the passengers, who probably were asleep, and fell asleep among the rest. In a little time, bump came the scoot against the side, on which they all damned the skipper; but, behold, when they called, there was no skipper; which would breed no great amazement in a Dutch company.’
[258]. Privy Council Record.