[627] Should be Bligh’s regiment, the 20th, now the Lancashire Fusiliers.
[628] Letter xxx. p. 396.
[629] Letter xxxi. p. 396.
[630] William, 8th earl, suc. 1720. In 1745 he was a captain in the 3rd (Scots) Guards: he served on Cope’s staff at Prestonpans; commanded the Glasgow (volunteer or militia) regiment at Falkirk; was also colonel of the Edinburgh regiment. In 1757 he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, where he died in 1761, being then a lieut.-general.
[631] Letter xxxiii. p. 398.
[632] This is that Thomas Smith who, in 1728, for an act of consummate audacity acquired vast fame, became for a while the darling of the British nation, and in the Navy received the nickname of ‘Tom of Ten Thousand.’ Although only junior lieut. of H.M.S. Gosport, while in temporary command he forced the French corvette Gironde to lower her topsail as a salute to the British flag when passing out of Plymouth Sound. For this exploit he was summarily dismissed the service on the complaint of the French ambassador, but, according to tradition, was reinstated the following day with the rank of post-captain (see Thackeray’s Roundabout Papers, No. 4, ‘On Some Late Great Victories’). Modern investigation has somewhat qualified the dramatic story of the reinstatement, but not of the initial act. Smith was naval commander-in-chief in Scotland from February 1746 to January 1747 when he became rear-Admiral; in 1757, Admiral of the Blue. He presided at the court-martial which condemned Admiral Byng. He died 1761.
To those interested in Jacobite history his memory should ever be cherished as the benignant guardian, if jailer, of Flora Macdonald. When Flora was first made prisoner in Skye in the second week of July, she was taken on board the ship of the merciless Captain Ferguson (ante, p. 244), in which she was detained for three weeks. Luckily for her, General Campbell was also on board and treated Flora with great kindness. The general handed her over to Commodore Smith, with whom she remained a prisoner until her arrival in London in the middle of November, a period of three and a half months. Home, in his History, says that ‘this most worthy gentleman treated Flora not as a stranger, nor a prisoner, but with the affection of a parent.’ Bishop Forbes tells the same story: he ‘behaved like a father to her, and tendered her many good advices as to her behaviour in her ticklish situation.’ Smith permitted Flora to go ashore in Skye to see her mother. When lying in Leith roads he presented her with a handsome suit of riding clothes and other garments, as well as an outfit for a Highland maid who had hurriedly left Skye to accompany the lady in her captivity.
[633] Guild Hall Relief Fund. See Appendix.
[634] The 8th now The King’s (Royal Liverpool) Regiment.
[635] Apparently meaning ‘notify.’