Volume II. Guth na Bliadhna ' leabhar II.]

Conal Crobhi.

cumha oisein do chraoibh a bha air tuiteam

[Air do'n aois a bhi air luidhe air a' Bhàrd, chaidh e mach air feasgar àraidh, agus ghabh e ceum air a' bheinn. Chunnaic e chraobh a bha air tuiteam, agus rinn e cumha dhi.]

Cia mar a tha thu air tuiteam, a chraobh ? Bu mhi-chaoimhneil a' ghaoth a bhuail gu làr thu! Tha thu mar ghaisgeach, 's a latha seachad. Tha thu 'nad luidh leat fèin air taobh na beinne. Os do cheann tha gaothan nan neamhan a' bruchdadh; agus cha'n aithnichear thu ni's mò leis an ionad a dharaich thu.

Bha thu miorbhuileach 'nad ardan, agus 'nad neart, a chraobh! Thogadh leat do cheann sgiam-hach ris na speuraibh. Annad dh' fhalaich eunlaith an athair an nid, agus le do sgail chomhdaich thu treudan nan raontan. Chunnacas leis a 'ghrein thu, agus rinn i aoibhneas.

Bu mhaiseach thu 'nad oige, a chraobh! Sgaoil thu do ghairdeanan boillsgeach ris na speuraibh. Chrath thu gu h-ardanach d' fhalt bòidheach sùm-aideach ris a' ghaoith. Thanig gaothan nan neam­han agus thugaidh air falbh e.

Bha thu subailte anns gach ball mar ghaisgeach òg. Air do shon-sa bha gairdeachas air a' choille : b'aoibhneach chridhe do mhathar an Talamh. Chun­naic oighean maiseach na coille thu, agus ghabh! iad tlachd annad : bha eagal air thùs chàich air dol shon-sa.

Bha thu, mar a bha mise, ro-shona am meadhon a' chatha. Bhruchd gaothan borba a' gheamhraidh 'nad aghaidh ; agus bhuail thusa sgiath chopanacfl do gheugan, agus chuir thu ruaig orra. Ach a nisi mar a tha Oisein.tha thu sean 'us gun fheum. 'Sa claidheamh na gaoithe a bhuail gu làr thu!

the capture of perth. 1715

If Stirling was the military key to the Western] Highlands, the same may be said of Perth witffl regard to Central Scotland and the northern and] eastern portions of the Gaelic territory. To a coml mander marching south, or to one bound west on north-west, that crook of the winding Forth in] which Stirling is situated was a necessary objective.! He must first capture or hold Stirling in hand,] otherwise he could not be sure of his communical tions. Hence arose probably the familiar saying] that a

"Crook of the Forth

Is worth an Earldom in the North," which I am disposed to assign to military rather than] to other considerations; for in former days whatever] store might be set by beasts and corn, it is obvious] that pistols, claymores, dirks and other ironmongery of war were more esteemed, because more potent! than the mild possessions of peace. So Stirling] prospered, at all events from the military point on view, whilst Perth declined. Deprived of the seat] of government, she seems to have been left to shiftì pretty much for herself—her military importance as the key to the eastern sea-board, and the Central and Northern Highlands and the centre of a great corn-producing country being scarce recognised. Her hedges, in the shape of her ancient fortifications, were broken down and her vineyard invaded and despoiled by any chance marauder that had a mind to replenish his empty garners at her expense. Her warlike character gradually deserted her, so that by the beginning of the eighteenth century we are not altogether surprised to learn that Perth produced little but ladies' gloves and " Scotch cloth " ; whilst -0 shrunk was her social importance that she could '.but boast of a couple of sedan chairs, wherein gentry and strangers might take the not too salu­brious town's air!

It was unfortunate, indeed, for the Jacobite cause that when Mar led his forces south in 1715, he found old St. Johnstown completely unfortified. Perth did not then possess even a bridge across the Tay. The old bridge had been destroyed by a tremendous flood in the year 1641, and local enterprise (or may­be the " troubles of the times," which seem to have .kept men perennially lazy, were adverse) had proved unequal to its reconstruction. Communication with the north was supposed (by popular fiction) to be effected by means of "an inconvenient and frequently obstructed ferry," upon which, if report speaks truly, a numerous and motley rascality, with a considerable number of boats, were employed.¹ Once the northern shores of the Tay were gained, three great roads invited the adventurous traveller —one leading to Dundee by the Carse of Gowrie, one to " Cupar of Angus," and the other by Scone to Kinclaven.

1 No fewer than thirty boats were employed on this ferry r as it was one of the most frequented in Scotland ".

What, precisely, the old fortifications consisted of we have no means of knowing. In ancient days, Perth, as befitted her importance as a civil and mili­tary centre, was undoubtedly a place of considerable strength. Her castle, however, was burnt by that bloody Saxon traitor Cromwell, and at the Restora­tion (of Charles of merrie memory) the fosse which surrounded the ancient building was destroyed. Mar, as I have said, found Perth " scarcely fortified at all". And when he quitted it (in 1716) the pur­suing Hanoverian rag-tag and bob-tail encountered little in the shape of fortifications or earthworks, to obstruct their entry. " No wonder," wrote a Whig sympathiser, " that the Jacobites left Perth. There was no proper defence. Argyll's force en­tered on Wednesday morning at two, finding only some little iron guns and wheeled carriages, the three brass guns having been cast (through the ice) into the Tay." His Grace of Mar himself spokej very contemptuously of the town's defences, though he seems to have done little during the long time] he wasted there to make good this deficiency. Hia men, however, spent their money lavishly, and tèj the presence of the Gaelic army, Pennant, manyl years afterwards, attributed the town's prosperity!

With regard to the internal aspect of the city in 1715, it is we know for sure, at all events, that the] Town Cross (built in 1688) was then standing, anòS that the ports of Perth were five in number. Thern was a port at Bridge of Tay, i.e., where the bridgj had formerly been ; one at Castlegavil, one calleS High Gate, and ports to the South and North Inches! The population of the town was about 8,000; i* was ill-lighted and drained—if drained at all—and] Gowrie's house (built by a Countess of Huntly circm 1520) was still standing.

When Mar crossed the Tay " with forty horse "" in the early autumn of 1715, he forded the river a Ijouple of miles below the town, at a place called the Ford of Arne. The night previous to his jour­ney to the north was passed at Duplin, where he was joined by a number of prominent Nationalists, as we should nowadays call them. Leaving Dup­lin early in the morning of 17th August, the party journeyed to the house of Paterson of Craigie, a local Jacobite of a very warm complexion. With Craigie and sundry of his friends, Mar appears to have plotted the subsequent seizure of Perth, before setting out with his attendant cavalcade for his own country in the Braes of Mar. Such at all events is my not unreasonable supposition, and the part which Craigie and his sons subsequently played in that affair lends every colour to the theory.

On the 6th of September following, the standard I of King James VIII. was raised at the Castle town of Mar, and a few days afterwards the Gaelic host-commenced its southward march. Meanwhile, all had not been prospering with the English cause in the fair city of Perth. The citizens were divided. Some were in favour of the dynasty made in Ger­many, whilst others preferred a native sovereign and national rights. Indeed, Mar, whose talents lay |Shat way, rather than in the field, where his want of military knowledge rendered him inconspicuous, had , plotted not in vain. But on the appearance of con­siderable feeling in behalf of the National cause, some of the magistrates had sided with Hanoverian George, and had applied to the Duke of Atholl for men to support them in that interest. In response to these representations, his Grace had sent down some 300 or 400 well-armed, but half-hearted Gaels to help the magistrates. At the same time Lord

Rothes, a more zealous Whig than Atholl, advanced
towards Perth with 400 militia from Fife. Tha
officer in command of the Hanoverian forces was
General Wheetham, the same who figured somewhat
ingloriously at the Sherra Muir, if the grand old
ballad is to be believed—and it seems to be as good
history as it certainly is humour. Wheetham was
incompetent, if honest. He appears to have done
nothing to prepare the town against that surprise
which was now being actively hatched under his
very nose. Craigie and his friends were everywhere
.active, which should have sufficed to put him on
his guard ; but he seems to have had more than his
proper share of Saxon stupidity, and did little or |
nothing to justify his appointment. j

On the 9th September, Mar, then in the High­lands, issued his proclamation on behalf of the law­ful king ; and a day or two afterwards suspicious-looking parties— suspicious, that is to say, from the Whig point of view—began to appear in the neigh­bourhood of Perth. Hay, afterwards governor of the city and Earl of Inverness, was at the head of 50 to 100 horse ; whilst the young and gallant Earl of Strathmore was on the move with 200 men from Angus and the braes thereof. The Fifeshire gentle­men and their retainers, who were good Jacobites to a man, appeared in the neighbourhood to the number of several hundred, as pretty and well equipped a body of horsemen as ever Scotland saw. Inside the town, too, affairs were fast coming to a head. The rule of the Whig magistrates was gener­ally unpopular, and Craigie and his emissaries had -little difficulty in aggravating the feeling against them and the cause they represented. At last the attitude of the townspeople became so threatening that the Whig Provost (one Austin by name) drew

[out his loan of Gaels (from Atholl) in order to over­awe the Jacobites; whereupon the Scots changed Bides; and declared for King James amidst the plaudits of the mob. The defection of the military was a sore blow to the Whigs who had hoped to Hefeat the conspiracy there was on foot, amongst a powerful section of the citizens, to hand over (Perth to the army of King James, with the aid of ktholl's Gaels. Thus reinforced, the Jacobites of Perth, headed by Mr. James Ramsay, factor to the ffiarl of Kinnoul (who " was very active in the Rebellion") and the redoubtable Craigie and his [friends soon sent the unpopular Whigs about their business. But I am anticipating somewhat. On the 16th of September, before the actual fall of Jthe city, that is to say, the Jacobites inside the Rown "formed themselves into different companies at different parts of the town, and attacked the fourgher guard kept by order of the magistrates, and [made themselves masters of the town, and then teave intelligence to Colonel Hay and others, with [whom they were in correspondence, and invited [them to take possession of the town, and sent over jboats to transport themselves and men; and after [they were come over, they and the burgesses to­gether seized the persons of the Whig magistrates fend imprisoned them ". Some days, however, be-[fore this successful èmeute took place there had been [the usual premonitions of the coming storm in the chape of unrest amongst the populace, accompanied [with the customary drinking (by night) of " dis-Doyal" toasts. Thus on the 9th, one John M Arthur pnd six others, "armed with a gun charged with Eve small balls, a pistol, sword and dirk" were lccused of the heinous crime of drinking the true Bang's health. Bold bad Jacobites, too, appeared openly wearing the white cockade, and in many other ways the nerves of sensitive Whigs were set agog.

About this time, too, one "John Gourlay, a writer," arose, who made himself extremely un­pleasant (to the meek, long-suffering Whigs), and Craigie above-mentioned went about 'listing re­cruits for a shameless " rebel town company " that he had formed. On the night previous to the 16th (the date on which the town fell into the hands of the local royalists) Mr. Mark Wood (?the future printer) sent a man to Scone where lay Colonel Hay, doubtless to tell him that all was prepared. Hay sent the messenger to Threipland (Sir David) of Fingask, and the man subsequently returned to Perth, which was in the hands of the local Jacobites, "about eleven a.m." the following forenoon. The same afternoon the express went post haste from Colonel Hay to Kirkmichael, where the Earl of Mar then was, and returned from thence the day after with a letter from Mar to Hay, evidently ap­pointing the latter military governor of Perth.

Preliminary to the capture of the city, the Jacobites took possession of the several ports of the town, and then drew up in arms "on the street, without any magistrate with them (depones Thomas Moncrieff who appears to have been much shocked at the omission), till they sent some of their number to the shore (of the Tay) and call over the water the armed party (under Southesk : Hay appears to have remained at Scone) who were on the other side, whom they joined upon their land­ing in town, and with whom they marched up the street". And "a little after he (Moncrieff) saw the Provost and Baillie Scot under confinement by the said party ". Another account is to the effect that the party (in arms) " went up to the guard­house and disarmed the magistrates. One of the number had a sash of tartan about him, which was then the badge of that party " (the Nationalists).

On the capture of Perth the Whigs retired from the city. Provost Austin declined to continue to serve as chief magistrate, so " Hay of Cromlix, go­vernor of Perth," appointed Patrick Davidson, late Provost, to serve in his room. The new magistrates soon testified their zeal for the Jacobite cause by raising and subsisting two companies of infantry {with forty men to each company); but finding the charge not easy to be borne, they petitioned the Earl of Mar to have them provided for out of the regular establishment of the army. The Provost commanded one company, and the Dean of Guild the other. The former was present, I believe, at the battle of the Sherra Muir. At all events he de­clared his utmost willingness " to go with the army " when at long last it moved out towards Dunblane.

The Whigs appear to have offered little resist­ance to the seizure of Perth by the Jacobites. Provost Austin, who seems to have been a person of some spirit, led out the inhabitants to the num­ber of 458 to resist the Jacobite attack, but on the Gaels of Atholl changing sides, the Whig resistance incontinently collapsed. " The ordinary posts were stopped, all public money fell into the hands of Mar, who granted receipts for it in the King's name, and the different gentlemen were assessed and obliged to comply on pain of military execu­tion."

The capture of Perth was a most important ad­vantage for Mar. It secured to him the whole of the central Highlands and the eastern coast of Scot­land. Moreover, it made him master of a country well stocked with beasts and grain. The pity of it is, he did not know how to improve his advantage. He made little or no attempt to repair the town's, fortifications, but appears rather to have busied himself about trifling affairs. Thus he selected texts for the episcopal clergy to preach from on Sundays, and instead of spending his time in mili­tary preparations or in actual excursions, embarked on a wordy warfare with the rebels through the medium of Wood's press. He seems, however, to have insisted on the rough and ready justice of the times being systematically done. Thus a woman accused of theft was publicly whipped by the hang­man through the town by his orders, and a Pres­byterian and Whig minister whose horses were lifted by some acquisitive Gaels, on complaining to Mar, received abundant compensation. During the Jacobite occupation, the town's affairs were managed, and well managed too, it appears, by a commission consisting of five individuals, whose names were, Patrick Davidson, Nathaniel Fife, James Smith, Mark Wood and Patrick Glas. Pat­rick Hay, the Provost, did not long remain in office, and on his retirement (for what reason I know not) received the honour of knighthood. Paterson of Craigie was appointed chief magistrate in his stead. Trade was regulated, the prices of various articles were fixed, and certain things were forbidden to be sold above a stated value. With a view, too, to-encouraging enlistment in the Perth Town Com­pany, persons joining the local corps were entitled to the freedom of the burgh after three months' service with the colours.

Not long after the unsatisfactory engagement at the Sherra Muir, the King landed at Peterhead. His person and parts are variously described and estimated by his Scottish subjects in arms. One wrote: " The next day I saw the Prince of Wales, who is a handsome, sprightly youth. He per­forms all his exercises to perfection, and is one of the best marksmen in France. He delights so much in shooting that when he is abroad, he will make shift with any sort of victuals, and eat on grass without linen, perhaps on a sheet of white paper. He bears fatigue so well that he tires all his attendants with walking. He is not like the late King, but very much resembles the Queen." By another he is described as "an upright, moral man, very far from any sort of bigotry ". He usually had a chaplain in Anglican orders with him. In person he was said to resemble Charles II., and was a " well-fixed, clean-limbed man," who " from his infancy had made it his business to acquire the knowledge of the laws, customs, and families of his country, so as he might not be reputed a stranger when the Almighty pleased to call him thither ". Spottiswood adds some particulars about the king's household in France which would be much appre­ciated by modern newspaper readers. " There is every day," says he, " a regular table of ten or twelve covers, well served, unto which some of the qualified persons of his court, or travellers, are invited. It is supplied with English and French cookery, and French and Italian wines ; but I took notice that the King ate only of the English dishes " ! This was patriotism in a King who designed to be ruler of England as well as Scotland, with a vengeance ! Face Spottiswood, let us hope that the Anglican cookery, as the Anglican chaplain, were more for show than actual use. A Whig describes the King, whom he saw at his landing, as " a tail, lean, black man, loukes half-dead already, very thine, long-


faced, and very ill cullored and melancholy ". But against this, we have the word of a Jacobite obser­ver, to whom the royal adventurer appeared as " the handsomest man in the world, and the most metled, dos business to a wonder, and understands everything without being told ".

The King "lost all his baggage in coming over" (to Peterhead), but " the laird of Grantullie presented him with his gold and silver (? plate), and Lady Panmure arranged his household affairs, so that Scoon House was now well mounted ". It is ne­cessary to observe here that Scone was in a dis­mantled state before the King took up his residence there. On his way to Perth his Majesty stayed at Glamis, where he was hospitably entertained, over eighty covers being laid at the dinner which was given in his honour. His arrival at Perth, how­ever, failed to put much new life into the languish­ing Jacobite cause, though the magistrates dutifully expressed their satisfaction at the event in an ad­dress of welcome. " 5 Jan., 1716. This day the Council resolved to address His Majesty upon his safe arrival at this place, in being brought through the dangers of the sea, and saved from the horrible attempts of malicious enemies " ; and the address being read " they were very well satisfied therewith and appointed the same to be written with a fair hand on a clean skin of parchment, to be subscribed by this house ". Alas ! that so promising beginnings were destined to have so melancholy an end.

M. A
eire agus alba

Is geall le dha mhar a cheile Eire agus Alba. Ta cnuic ailne mora leathana; ta aibhne binne geala, ta gleannta glasa ceomhara, ta comair dhoimhne dhiamhara, ta coillte gorma scathmhara i ngach tir diobh ; ta daoine fiala failteacha daoine calma crodha, daoine spioraideamhla cneasta, daoine muinte beasacha 'n-a gcomnuidhe i ngach gleann is cumar da ruaidh-shleibhtibh. 'Seadh agus ta a dteanga dhuthchais ar mairthean fos aca. Is fior go bhfuil an Bearla ag iarraidh an ruagadh do chur uirthi agus e fein do chur 'n-a hionad : acht ta greim daingean aici fos ar na shleibhtibh is na reidh-chnocaibh i n-a bhful comhnuidhe na nGaedheal.

Is