|
Farewell, our fathers’
land,
Valley and fountain!
Farewell, old Scotia’s strand,
Forest and mountain!
Then hush the drum, and hush the flute,
And be the stirring bagpipe mute -
Such sounds may not with sorrow suit -
And fare thee well, Lochaber!
-- D.M MOIR
He’s away! he’s away
To far lands o’er the sea-
And long is the day
Ere home he can be;
But where his steed prances,
Amid thronging lances,
Sure he’ll think of the glances
That love stole from me!
-- MOTHERWELL
The loved of early days!
Where are they? – where?
Not on the shining braes,
The mountains bare; -
Not where the regal streams
Their foam bells cast –
Where childhood’s time of dreams
And sunshine pass’d.
Some in the mart and some
In stately halls,
With the ancestral gloom
Of ancient walls;
Some where the tempest sweeps
The desert waves;
Some where the myrtle weeps
On Roman graves.
And pale young faces gleam
With solemn eyes;
Like a remember’d dream
The dead arise;
In the red track of war,
The restless sweep;
In sunlit graves afar
The loved ones sleep.
-- ROBERT MILLER
The extraordinary
activity of the emigrant or traveling and adventurous Scot all over the
world is an anomaly not readily explicable without understanding fully
the antecedents of the country and the people, as we have attempted to
set them forth in the preceding part. Other nations, English-speaking
and foreign, have either been impelled to migrate fitfully, or strayed
far afield, in slender detachments; but the Scots have been wanderers
for the last seven or eight centuries systematically, and with little or
no interruption. The extraordinary statements of Thomas Dempster, a Scot
at the University of Paris, that there were learned Scots at all the
learned institutions in Europe as early as the eighth century. From the
nature of things that was an impossibility, and only a perverted
patriotism could have made, or would persist in, the assertion. Mr.
Burton in his work, The Scots Abroad * lays down the more
reasonable rule, that all men called Scots on the Continent before the
eleventh century, were Irish Scots. This includes at home and abroad,
such distinguished names as those of St. Columba, St. Adamnan, Marianus
Scotus, the historian Sedulius, author of the first hymn-book, St. Gall,
the Apostle of Germany, and John Scotus Erigena.
On the other hand, Duns
Scotus, the great founder of a school of medieval philosophy, specially
known as Scottists, was unquestionably a Scot in the modern sense of the
word. His full name was Johannes de Dunse, Scotus—John of Dunse, a
Scot—and he left Oxford for France in 1307, alarmed at the persistent
assaults of Edward upon the independence of his country.** A few only of
the scholars who established the credit of Scottish intellect and
erudition abroad need be mentioned—John Mair or Major, tutor at the
Sorbonne, Hector Boece, James (the Admirable) Crichton, satirised in
Rabelais, George Buchanan, tutor of Montaigne and James VI., Urquhart,
translator of Rabelais, and Dempster. It was the War of Independence,
and the intimate alliance of Scotland with France, in the face of a
common enemy, which gave the great impetus to Scottish emigration to the
continent and laid the foundation for their influence for ages to come,
especially in France. There can be no doubt that whether Wallace visited
France between his defeat at Falkirk and his capture, or not, the
foundations of what is known as "The Ancient League" were laid
early in the reign of Philip IV., if not earlier.*** It was not,
however, until 1326, twelve years after Bannockburn, that a treaty,
offensive and defensive, was concluded between the two powers. This
compact, which was renewed from time to time, had important consequences
in the progress and results of "The One Hundred Years’ War."
The Scots, unlike the foreign mercenaries serving under the House of
Valois, stood upon the footing of allies. They fought for the Scottish
national cause on the soil of France, and were no mere adventurers. More
than that, as Sismondi says they were soon destined to prove "the
nerve of the French army, at a time when the people were sunk in
wretchedness, dispirited by defeats of no ordinary character, and had
lost all hope or self-helpfulness."
England had been in
possession of the French capital for more than ten years when, in 1424,
John Stewart, Earl of Buchan, landed with a small force, which
succeeded, by the valley of the Loire, in reaching the heart of Anjou. A
few French had joined him and the result was a battle in which the
English chivalry were defeated with terrible slaughter. Honours
unusually magnificent were heaped upon Buchan. He was made High
Constable of France, ranking next to the princes of the blood and
received large estates extending between Avranches and Chartres.
Archibald, Earl of Douglas, Buchan’s father-in-law, joined with
several thousand Scots and was created Duke of Touraine. Meanwhile the
English had collected their strength, allied themselves with the
powerful Duke of Burgundy and proved too much for the Scots. They were
defeated at Crevant with great slaughter, and at the disastrous battle
of Verneuil the Scots force was all but annihilated, their brave
leaders, Buchan and Douglas, being left dead on the field. "Verneuil,"
says Mr. Burton, "was no Crecy, Poitiers or Agincourt, and Bedford
and Salisbury were so nearly defeated as to be alarmed. Scotland
independent and hostile to England had saved France. Had Henry V. been
King of Great Britain, with France at his feet, he might have
re-established a Western Empire. The enjoyers of English liberty owe a
debt of gratitude to the victors of Bannockburn."+
More than that, France
was rehabilitated, and became again a warlike nation. Henry V. was no
more, and there was a minority; Burgundy forsook the English alliance,
and Charles VII. stood on his feet again. Out of the survivors of
Verneuil was formed the Scots Guard. This consisted of one hundred gens
d’armes and two hundred archers, and its captain was to be named
by the Scots king; when that became absurd, the first French captain,
the Count of Montgomery, was appointed solely to preserve the name. The
first captain was John Stewart, Lord of Aubigne, the founder of an
illustrious Scots house in France.
"Louis XI."
says Mr. Burton, "perhaps of all monarchs whose character is well
known to the world, the most unconfiding and most skeptical of anything
like simple faith and honesty—was content, amid all his shifting,
slippery policy and his suspicions and precautions, to rely implicitly
on the faith of his Scots Guard." (Vol i., p. 35). Indeed, more
than once, Louis, when his habitual suspicions yielded to the tempting
allurements of his craft, had good reason to believe, if he believed
nothing else, that "simple faith" is more than "Norman
blood." Throughout his wily career, he was ever learning lessons of
the futility of trusting in promises, hard and loud mouthed; and, on one
occasion, at Liege, in the celebrated Peronne expedition, he was saved
from Burgundian treachery by the faithful Scots. The Guard were not only
faithful beyond the breath of suspicion; but their bravery became
proverbial. "Fier comme un Ecossais""—proud as a
Scot—says the Chronicler was long a French proverb,
"because" he adds "they preferred rather to die in
preserving their honour than to live in disgrace." In 1503, it was
that their banner-bearer, William Turnbull, fighting the Spaniards in
Calabria, was found dead, with the staff in his rigid arms, and the flag
gripped in his clenched teeth, with the little cluster of his countrymen
around him, killed at their posts.
Mr. Burton’s account of
illustrious Scots in France is very full, but it will be obviously
impossible to note more than a few of them here. ++ In the early
centuries they were a wild lot in the North of Scotland, one of the
wildest was Alexander, brother of Robert III, known, in history, as
"The Wolf of Badenoch." A natural son of Alexander, named
after his father, in the early part of his career, followed the paternal
example. He not only "wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,"
like the Laird o’ Cockpen, but he wanted the braw house to boot. He
was not long in securing both; thinking, with the Laird, that "favour
wi’ wooing is fashions to seek," so Alexander wooed the widowed
Countess of Mar, "as the lion wooes his bride." He took both
the lady and her castle of Kildrummy by storm, married the one, and
quietly installed himself as Earl of Mar, in the other. But there was
evidently a want of elbow-room for him in his new domains; so he
naturally went over to France with his retainers, and cut a splendid
figure at court. Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, was a brother of
James III., but his conduct to that monarch was hardly fraternal. That
both the King’s brothers, Albany and Mar, had some cause for complaint
is true; at any rate both were imprisoned in Edinburgh, where the latter
was murdered, and from which the former escaped to France. Albany, says
Robertson, was inspired by what had happened, "with more ambitious
and criminal thoughts. He concluded a treaty with Edward IV. of England,
in which he assumed the title of Alexander, King of Scots," and
thus brought northward an invading English army, under a more celebrated
character in history and drama, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. In France,
Albany was in the court sunshine. A favourite of Louis XI. he acquired
immense estates, and married Anne, daughter of the proud family of
Auvergne and Boulogne, a scion of which was Marshal Turenne.
Of the Darnley Stewarts,
there were Sir John, founder of the D’Aubignys, and Sir Alexander, who
figures as "Viceroy of Naples, Constable of Sicily and Jerusalem,
Duke of Terra Nova," &c. Also Matthew, Earl of Lennox, who
sought the hand of Mary of Guise, widow of James V. and mother of Mary
Stuart. His rival, oddly enough, was the father of that Bothwell
"who settled all matters of small family differences, by blowing
his son into the air."+++ Of the nobility closely allied to
royalty, there were the Earls of Douglas, Lords of Touraine, and the
Dukes of Hamilton and Chatelherault. The Dukes of Richmond, Lennox and
Gordon, are, of course, entitled to the D’Aubigny dignity. Michel and
the chroniclers give a host of Scottish names, most of them long since
sunk in territorial titles; some of these may be noted as proof of the
vast influence of the Scot upon the destinies of France. There are
Guillaume Hay, Jacques Scrimgour, Helis de Guevremont (Kinrinmond),
Andrien Stievart, Guillebert, Sidrelant (Sutherland), Alexandre de
Jervin (Girvin), Jehan de Miniez (Menzies), Nicholas Chambres, Sieur de
Guerche, Coninglant (Cunningham), Jean de Hume, George de Ramesay,
Gohory (Gowrie or Govrie, De Glais (Douglas), D’Hendresson, Mauriçon,
Dromont (Drummond), Crafort (Crawford), Léviston (Livingstone), Bercy,
Locart, Tournebulle, Moncrif, Devillencon or D’Aillençon
(Williamson), Maxuel, Herrison (Henryson), Doddes, De Lisle (Leslie), De
Lauzun (Lawson), D’Espence (Spence), Sinson (Simpson), &c.,
&c. The Blackwoods play a distinguished part, and there are also,
Thomas de Houston, seigneur, and Robert Pitteloch, a Dundee man, and
many others. These exiles from their native land, in fact, regenerated
France. At a time when the national pulse beat so feebly as to forbode
dissolution, the hardy sons of the north impregnated the veins of France
with their own vigorous Scottish blood. Like the Normans of England
centuries before, the Scots colony "was received as a sort of
aristocracy by race or caste; and hence it became to be a common
practice for those who were at a loss for a pedigree to find their way
to some adventurous Scot, and stop there, just as, both in France and
England, it was sufficient to say that one’s ancestor’s came in with
the Normans."*+ In all biographies of the great Colbert, he is said
to be of Scottish descent. Moreri says that his ancestor’s tomb is at
Rheims. Sully, whose family name was Bethune, Scottish enough of itself,
thought to trace relationship with the Beatons. Moliere, to disguise the
vulgarity of his patronymic which was Poquelin, suggested noble descent
from a Scot. Mr. Burton mentions that some Scots who were petty landed
proprietors, in later times, found it to their advantage to use the
prefix "de" before the name of their petty holding. John Law,
of Lauriston, is a case in point; but the most ludicrous was an invented
title palmed off upon Richelieu. Monteith’s father was a fisherman on
the Forth, and when the Cardinal asked him to what branch of the
Monteiths he belonged, the candidate for patronage boldly replied,
"Monteith de Salmonet."
With the Reformation
struggle the Scottish influence abroad took, for a time at any rate,
another direction. During the struggle for independence in the
Netherlands the Scots were divided: part of them adhering to the
"old" cause of Mary Stuart and Spain, and part attached to the
Protestant resistance of the United Provinces. In Holland they appeared
as champions of liberty, in the Scottish brigade, and it is said that,
on the eve of the English Revolution, John Graham of Claverhouse, and
Mackay, of Scourie, afterwards William’s general at Killiecrankie were
rivals for promotion in that corps. At that time, of course, the Scots
contingent in Holland had ceased to subserve its original purpose,
although there was still plenty of work to accomplish in the struggle
with Louis XIV. It was the cause of the Elector Palatine which had hold
upon the hearts of patriotic Scots, and the glorious struggle made by
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Frederick V. had married Elizabeth, the
third child and eldest daughter of James I., from whom is descended in a
direct line, Her Majesty the Queen.
In the service of
Gustavus Adolphus, there were thirteen Scottish regiments, which kept
together in whatever particular part of the field they might be
temporarily in the fight. Under Mansfeldt, the king of Denmark, or
"the lion of the North," they fought for principle and
achieved undying renown. Of the illustrious names which came to the
surface in this desperate struggle are those of Sir Andrew Gray, Robert
Monro, Sir John Hepburn, Hamilton, Turner, Lumsden, Forbes, Ruthven,
Grant, Ramsay, the Leslies, the Lindsays, Rutherford, Spence, Ker,
Drummond, Douglas, Baillie, Cunningham, Meldrum, Innes, Ballantine,
Sandilands and Leckie—most of them in the rank of general officers.
The Thirty Years’ War was the school of discipline from which the Scot
emerged a trained soldier. It produced especially a body of the bravest,
and most skilful officers of the time, as Mr. Burton remarks, men of the
calibre of Alexander Leslie, who led the Covenanting forces, and David
Leslie, "who divides with Oliver Cromwell, the fame of Marston
Moor."
Before referring to the
most illustrious of the Jacobite Scots who performed service abroad, it
may be well to note one or two distinguished otherwhere. It has been
related that a Scot named Thomas Garne or Garden was once elected
"King of Bukheria"; but as that appears to have been on
account of the height and grossness of his physical framework, Thomas
may be passed over. During that singular period when the Muscovite power
was emerging from barbarism under Peter the Great, there were a number
of Gordons who, by their fidelity, courage and native intelligence
performed essential service. The chief of them was General Patrick
Gordon, who wrote a biography of the great, though somewhat erratic,
Czar. It is not recorded that Patrick was "the seventh son of a
seventh son," but only a "younger son of a younger
brother," which brings no luck with it. As he inherited the sound,
practical sense of his country, and therefore did not expect his fortune
to come down from the stars, he determined to seek it somewhere or other
on the surface of the earth. Touching at Elsinore, a classic spot where
he may, or may not, have taken Shakespearian observations, he found of
course a "brither Scot," one John Donaldson, who sped him on
his way. "As he began, so he went on, finding fellow-countrymen
dotted here and there, at convenient posting distances, on through
Austria and Russia to the very extremities of civilization.*++ Of his
great services in Sweden and Poland under John Sobieski, and during his
later years in Russia, where he was the right arm of Peter the Great,
there is no need to speak in detail. One fact, with the closing scene
must suffice. When the Czar went on his celebrated wanderings to Western
Europe, he left General Gordon in charge of the Kremlin at Moscow, with
four thousand men, and but for the Scot’s valour, address and skilful
management, Peter might have worked in the dockyard in England to the
day of his death.
Another celebrated
character connected with Russia was Samuel Greig, the founder of the
Russian navy, and the projector of the fortifications of Cronstadt.*+++
He was a Fife-shire skipper’s son, born at Inverkeithing in 1735, and
entered the Royal navy at an early age. He was a lieutenant when the
British Government, having been solicited by Russia to send out some
naval officers of skill, amongst the rest dispatched Greig. Apart from
his organizing abilities, this Scot had all the dash of his race, as
shown in the war with the Turks in the Mediterranean, especially by his
daring exploits at Scio. He was loaded with honours by the Empress
Elizabeth; but whilst he triumphantly swept the Baltic, after blocking
up the Swedish fleet in harbour, he caught a violent fever of which he
died, in spite of the efforts of Dr. Rogerson, the chief physician, whom
the Czarina had promptly sent to his side. Greig had not completed his
fifty-third year.+* Of the diplomatists of the period may be specially
mentioned Alexander Erskine, who represented Sweden in the conferences
which terminated in the Treaty of Westphalia; Sir William Lockhart, of
Lee, the Commons’ ambassador to France at the Restoration;. Sir Robert
Keith, who rendered invaluable services to the Queen of Denmark, and Sir
Alexander Mitchell’s important work at the Court of Prussia.
It would be impossible to
give any satisfactory account of the great amount of ability which the
Jacobite movement spread over Europe after the Revolution, but more
especially at the accession of George I. It took various shapes from the
military skill of the Duke of Berwick to the controversial skill of
Father Innes or the plottings of a thousand intriguers. Andrew Michael
Ramsay, usually called "The Chevalier," was none of these, but
a scholarly man, who became a Catholic by accident, and not perhaps a
Jacobite at all. He was the son of a baker at Ayr, was educated at
Edinburgh, and then at Leyden, where he met Poiret the mystic, who
subsequently introduced him to the sainted Fenelon. Under his influence
he ceased to be a sceptic, as he had been, and joined the Church of
Rome. After this he educated the duke de Chateau-Thierry and Prince
Turenne, and at Rome, the children of the Pretender. He visited England,
and was made a doctor of laws at Oxford. He was altogether an
exceedingly remarkable Scot, even at a time when the star of Voltaire
was rapidly nearing its zenith.
We may now give a brief
notice of the Keith brothers—one of whom has a brilliant historical
reputation. The Earls Marischal are principally associated with the
college at Aberdeen, established by the fifth earl, and called by his
title. The two of whom we speak are known by the more familiar family
name of Keith. Attainted, and the hereditary estates confiscated for the
part taken by the brothers in 1715, they went abroad. Of the elder,
little need be said, except that he rose in the light of his brother’s
genius, and became Frederick the Great’s ambassador to France. He was
a man of considerable ability and force of character; but it is James,
Marshal Keith, who fills the eye of the historic student. He was only
nineteen when the Earl of Mar set up the standard of the Pretender, and
had been designed for the bar—a very prescient choice of profession,
as appears from the event, but the natural destiny of a younger son. His
martial instincts were apparent before he smelt powder; his own remark
was that he had begun his studies at his mother’s desire, but, he
continued, "commend me to stand before the mouth of a cannon for a
few minutes; this either makes a man in an instant, or he dies
gloriously in the field of battle." It was Keith’s fate to
compass his first enjoyment many a time; the other was to be the fitting
conclusion of an illustrious career. His first taste of glory was a
wound at Sheriffmuir, and thence he wandered to the Isles, where the
brothers found the means of transportation to Brittany. Their road, of
course, led to Paris and the mimic court of the Pretender; but there was
nothing to do there. The story of his life for years thereafter is one
of the most romantic perhaps that could be written of a great military
genius, tossed between commissions in Sweden, descents on Scotland under
Ormond’s auspices, service in the Irish brigade in Spain, and so on,
until he found himself "as the French have it, au pie de
la lettre sur le pave"—he had the key of the street. At last
with a royal purse in his pocket, he set off for Moscow. The great
obstacle in Spain had been that he was a heretic—in Russia that was a
matter of small consequence. He now saw some service which attracted the
notice of all Europe, and particularly the notice of the great
Frederick. In the Prussian service he thereafter lived and died. His
exploits are matters of history; in all Frederick’s great movements,
he was a leading spirit. One anecdote illustrates his Scottish fidelity,
courage and pertinacity. He had been left to defend Leipsic with 8,000
men, and when, at the age of 60, he answered a summons to surrender in
these words; "Let your master know that I am by birth a Scotchman,
by inclination as well as duty a Prussian, and shall defend the town in
such a manner that neither the country which gave me birth, nor that
which has adopted me, shall be ashamed of me. The King, my master, has
ordered me to defend it to the last extremity, and he shall be
obeyed." At Hochkirchen, however, he "died gloriously on the
battle-field." Wounded severely in the morning, he refused to quit
his post; an hour after he received a shot in the breast and fell
lifeless to the ground. Thus, in the sixty-third year of his age,
perished one of the bravest soldiers that were ever stirred by the blast
of a war trumpet.+**
There is no need to enter
in detail upon the proof of the admitted fact that the enterprising Scot
has set foot on every land, and traversed every sea, almost invariably
leaving beneficent traces of his presence and his energy. There used to
be an old saying that there is no part of the world where a Scotsman and
a Newcastle grind-stone cannot be found, and the same notion is conveyed
in a less complimentary form in an old verse preserved by Michel. +***
The unsavoury connection in which the universal spread of the Scot is
introduced, was no doubt the fruit of a national jealousy, similar to
that traceable in England after the Union in Swift, Horace Walpole,
Johnson and others, as well as in the letters of Junius. In these last,
which are still read and admired as brilliant specimens of splendid, but
scorching and unscrupulous invective, this outburst of jealousy, was not
altogether without defence, if we make allowance for the natural
indignation which must have burned in the breast of a patriotic
Englishman, when he saw the illustrious Chatham supplanted by the Earl
of Bute, as a minister, and that the influence of the latter continued,
as was then supposed, in the form of "a power behind the
Throne," after he had been driven from office. Still when he
assailed William Murray, Lord Mansfield, the most eloquent lawyer, and
the ablest judge who ever presided in the King’s Bench, even Junius
felt that he was wrong. "National reflections," he remarks in
his Preface,**+ "I confess are not to be justified upon theory, nor
upon any general principles." His plea was that the Scots formed an
exception to any general rule. Their "characteristic prudence,
selfish nationality, persevering assiduity," the qualities for the
most part, which were the cause of their success annoyed him, and the
"assiduous smile" with which they refused to take offence
touched him to the quick. Sir Philip Francis was not the first nor the
last, to envy the Scotsman, his intelligence, or success in life. It is
the fashion in quarters nearer home than Mr. Woodfall’s Public
Advertiser office to assign the uniform prosperity and elevation of
the Scot in every walk of life to all possible causes but the true ones.
He has been accused of "clannishness;" and yet in most
European countries, he has either toiled up the ladder of success, round
after round, unaided and alone by his own shrewd intelligence, force of
character and innate probity, or he has triumphed in spite of national
prejudices instead of by their aid in communities where anything like
associated effort on the part of Scotsmen would have been at once fatal
to him.
An attempt having been
made to give a general conception of what the Scot has done on the
continent of Europe ought now to be supplemented by a sketch of his work
in the United States and in the British Colonies. It would, however be
obviously out of the question to do more than glance at a branch of the
general subject, so extensive and important.
Occasionally, as in New
Jersey, where an entire valley was peopled by immigrants from Roxburgh
and Selkirk shires, they immigrated in compact bodies to various parts
of the Union; but generally speaking there was not systematic movement
to particular localities, such as we shall have to describe hereafter in
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Glengarry and other parts of Ontario.
Still in the old Colonial times the Highland movements, particularly of
a Jacobite character, had contributed a large number of settlers. At the
Revolution there was a considerable amount of proscription if not of
terrorism employed by the "Sons of Liberty," and the new
nationality lost as many of its best inhabitants as France did by the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes.**++ The Scots were scattered along
the Atlantic seaboard from New York to Georgia and even Florida, and
they bore more than their share of loss and suffering. Even the clergy
were not exempt. The Rev. Dr. Auchmuty, Rector of Trinity Church, New
York, was brutally treated by the "Whigs." The Rev. Alexander
Macrae, also an Episcopalian, from Edinburgh, boldly defied the patriots
in Virginia, and was waylaid and beaten. But for the intervention of
Patrick Henry he would either have been banished or murdered. A
similarly bold loyalist was also a Scot belonging to the Methodist
Episcopal Church, the Rev. Thomas Rankin. He was to have been seized by
a militia party; but managed to affect the officers by his sermon. The
loyalty of Rev. Dr. William Smith of Aberdeen University, enraged John
Adams, and Col. Enos, who proposed to seize him, was betrayed into the
declaration that the Doctor was "the most consummate villain that
walked on the face of God’s earth."
Patrick Henry, the most
brilliant of the Revolutionary orators, was the son of Col. John Henry,
a native of Aberdeen. Alexander Campbell, father of "the Poet of
Hope" was a Scottish loyalist living at Falmouth, Va., who returned
home about 1776; Thomas was his youngest son; another son married
Patrick Henry’s daughter. On the mother’s side, the eloquent
American was allied to Robertson, the historian, "and in that way
to Lord Brougham." On the loyalist side, we may note Sir Robert
Abercrombie, brother of the more celebrated Sir Ralph. He fought in the
French war, and through the Revolution. William, first earl of Cathcart,
raised the Caledonian Volunteers, afterwards known as Tarleton’s
British Legion. During the same period we note Admiral Marriott
Arbuthnot, a nephew of the poet, Pope and Swift’s coadjutor in
Martinus Scriblerus. Col. Moncrieff planned the works at the siege of
Charleston. Besides we have George Keith, son of Lord Elphinstone, the
noted Admiral who, after the Revolution, distinguished himself at
Aboukir Bay. Finally we may note on the King’s side, Lord William
Campbell, youngest son of the fourth Duke of Argyll, and Lieutenant
Governor of Nova Scotia in 1766 and 1772. In 1774-5 he was Governor of
South Carolina and met the brunt of the Revolutionary storm there. After
having gallantly done his best, he retired on board a frigate, and died
bravely at his post before Charleston, being mortally wounded on the Bristol
in an attack on Fort Moultrie.
[Note sent in by
Carol Mitchell - I believe
the well documented records show that it was Patrick Henry's Sister,
Elizabeth "Betsy" Henry 171749-1804 that married 2 Apr 1776 Gen William
Campbell b1744 Augusta Co., VA-22 Aug 1781, they had two children
Charles Henry Campbell dsp; and Sarah Buchanan Campbell m. Gen Francis
Preston. Now Gen William Campbell was the son of Capt Charles Campbell
1744-1781 and Margaret Buchanan d. 1777 (well documented in Augusta Co.
VA Records) Capt. Charles Campbell was the son of Patrick Campbell 1696
Ireland - 1767 August Co. VA. and probably his wife Elizabeth (but some
traditions say Delilah Thompson, have seen no proof of this); Elizabeth
was believed to be a Taylor. Patrick Campbell emigrated with his family
from Ireland to Philiadelphia & then to Orange/Augusta Co., VA where his
headrights are listed 1740. Patrick is said to be the son of JOhn
Campbell & Grizzel/Gracy Hay. The above Elizabeth (Henry) Campbell m.
2nd Edward Carrington and 3rd 1783 William J. Russell.]
On the revolutionary
side, there was a good sprinkling of Scots. One of the most singular of
these was William Alexander, who claimed the Earldom of Stirling, and
utterly failed.**+++ He subsequently turned patriot, and became a
major-general in the revolutionary army. James Alexander was a colonel
on the same side. Born in Edinburgh Castle he had sat for some time in
the Nova Scotian Assembly. In 1776 he aroused the Micmacs to repeated
assaults on Miramichi. He finally withdrew to Maine. Alexander Macdonald
was a general, commanding chiefly on the Hudson and in New Jersey. Gen.
Lachlan McIntosh, of Inverness, was not only a "patriot"
himself, but had seven sons and grandsons engaged with him at the same
time in 1776. Gen. Hugh Mercer was a Scot and Major-General Arthur St.
Clair, who gave his name to the smallest of our chain of lakes. He was a
grandson of the Earl of Rosslyn, born at Thurso, and studied medicine
under the great John Hunter. Having received a legacy, he abandoned the
lancet, and took up the sword as an officer in the 60th Foot; in that
capacity he served at Louisbourg and Quebec. Having married at Boston,
he resigned his commission in 1762 and settled in Pennsylvania, erecting
saw-mills and putting his shoulder to the wheel as Scots generally do.
When the Revolution broke out he espoused the popular cause, and served
as colonel from Princeton to Yorktown. His subsequent career was a
romantic one. Engaging in Indian wars, he fought on the Miami and
Wabash. It was he who founded and named Cincinnati, not as is generally
supposed from the self-denying Roman dictator, at least directly, but
from the Cincinnati, a Pennsylvania society of which he had been
President. In 1791 he passed under a cloud, in consequence of an Indian
surprise resulting in the loss of half his men; Congress, however,
acquitted him in 1802. Nevertheless Jefferson deprived him of his
western governorship, and poor St. Clair retired to his log-house to die
in poverty. While speaking of Indians we may notice Gen. William
McIntosh, a Creek half-breed, and Alexander McGillivray Chief of the
Creek Indians in Georgia and Florida, whose father was Lachlan
McGillivray and his mother the half-breed daughter of a French officer.
The course of American history during the past century would give a long
list of eminent men; but of the soldiers and public men we shall mention
only General Ulysses S. Grant, twice already elected to the Presidency.
Only a short time since he took the opportunity of expressing pride in
his Scottish descent.
In other walks of
American life we may take at random George Bruce, who introduced
stereotyping, Adam Ramage, the inventor of the Ramage printing press,
Scott, an Ayrshireman, who devised the press about to be used
extensively in the Dominion, and Henry Burden, who made the first
cultivator, are only a few of the ingenious Scots who have developed
their powers in the United States. Many of the early editors, both prior
to the Revolution and since, were Scots. The most distinguished, judged
by his success, is James Gordon Bennett, the founder of the New York
Herald. He was a salient example of Scottish shrewdness, industry,
and enterprise. Born at New Mill Keith, in Banffshire, he was educated
at the Roman Catholic Seminary at Aberdeen, with a view to holy orders.
On a sudden impulse, however, he started off for Nova Scotia, in 1819,
where he taught school. Removing thence to Boston, he read proofs, and,
strange to say, he wrote poetry. In 1822, he betook himself to New York,
and became connected with the press; at last, in May 1835, he found his
real work, when he published the first number of the Herald. In
another direction, a salient instance will be found in the Rev. Dr.
McCosh, the learned President of Princeton College. One of the tenderest
poets of fifty years ago in the Union was Hew Ainslie, like Burns, an
Ayrshire man. His poems were collected so late as 1855, and published
with a sympathetic preface by Quincy. George Chalmers, the author of
"Caledonia" was a non-combatant loyalist. His life extended
from 1742 to 1825. He was an indefatigable delver in the dusty rolls of
antiquity, and had, as a writer on the American Revolution a perfect
hatred of New England. He ultimately went back to "the pent-up
Utica," and ended his days there.
In the craft of
ship-building, the Scots have made their mark in America. The work of
Napier on the Clyde, Laird of Birkenhead and Lindsay, was pursued by
Henry Eckford, in the United States. His mother was sister of John
Black, the first layer of keels at Quebec. Commodore Perry’s ships on
Erie, as well as Yeo’s for Ontario, were Eckford’s work, and the
noble Scottish tar, Commodore Barclay, whose defeat by Perry was no
fault of his own, was also a Scot. Donald McKay, a Nova Scotian by
birth, of Scottish parentage, was the ship-builder who set the American
commercial navy on its feet, and his vessels still hold their own
between San Francisco and Australasia. In natural science it is only
necessary to name Alexander Wilson, the author of "American
Ornithology," whose life is a most impressive example of labours
honestly undertaken, and persevered in with true Scottish pertinacity.
It would be easy to show
the influence of Scotsmen in American art. The names of William Thom,
the sculptor, and James Williamson, the landscape-painter, or, still
earlier, that of John Smibert, the founder of the American school to
which Copley, Allston and Trumbull belonged. Having thus rather
suggested, than surveyed comprehensively the work of the Scot in the
American republic, and without attempting to follow him into colonies,
other than our own, we shall turn at once to the Provinces which
together form the Dominion.
* Vol. ii. pp. 9,10. As Mr. J. H. Burton’s
work is not readily accessible, it may be as well to acknowledge our
obligation to it here once for all, as well as the Chambers’ Biographical
Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. This former is largely founded on
Michel: Les Ecossais en France.
** See irrefragable proof of this in
Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary, Vol. ii., pp. 198-9.
*** Michel, quoted by Mr. Burton,
distinctly affirms that Wallace did take refuge and that his agent at
home was the patriotic Lamberton, Archbishop of St. Andrews. It was one
of the complaints made by Edward against the prelate that he was
carrying on intrigues with France.
+ Scot Abroad, Vol. i., p. 47.
++ Michel, as already mentioned, is Mr.
Burton’s chief authority; but Boyle, in his Dictionary, had
previously provided much raw material – the result, it is said, of the
fact, either that he had got hold of a Scottish bookseller in Paris, or
that the latter had got hold of him.
+++ Scot Abroad, Vol. i, page 75.
*+ Scot Abroad, Vol. i, page 93.
*++ Scot Abroad, Vol. ii p. 183.
This may well have been if, as has been stated, there were no less than
two thousand Scots pedlars in Poland alone during the reign of Charles
I.
*+++ "A French writer, speaking of
these redoubtable works, says, that a Scotchman built those walls which,
years afterwards, checked the career of his fellow-countryman, Sir
Charles Napier." Burton, Vol. ii p. 222.
+* Chambers" Biog. Dict. Vol.
ii pp. 532-3.
+** The story regarding Keith, which
illustrates the universality of Scottish influence, is worth repeating,
although it is found in the Percy Anecdotes. At the conclusion of
a peace between the Russians and Turks, an interview took place between
Field Marshal Keith, and the Grand Vizier. Business over, and the
parting bow and salaam, the Turkish minister suddenly approached the
Marshal, took him by the hand, and in the broadest Scots dialect,
assured him, with warmth, that he was "unco happy, now he was sae
far frae hame, to meet a countryman in his exalted station." Keith
was astounded, but the Vizier replied, "my father was bellman o’
Kirkcaldy, in Fife, I remember to have seen you, sir, and your brother
occasionally passing." The Empress Catherine, by the way, had a
famous physician who was the son of a miller at the head of Peebleshire.
+*** The original may be given without
venturing on a translation: -
"Que d’Escossois,
de rats, de poux,
Ceux qui voyagent jus qu’ au bout
Du monde, en rencontrent partout."
**+ Letters of Junius (Bohn’s
Edition), Vol. i. p. 99.
**++ See the historical essay prefixed to
Sabine’s "Loyalists of the American Revolution."
**+++ See for a full account of this cause
celebre, Samuel Warren’s Miscellanies.
|
