AFTER CIJLLODEN
A.I.B. Stewart
On 24th March 1748 an unusual and unexpected visitor stepped ashore on Campbeltown Quay. He was Alexander Stewart, valet to Prince Charles Edward from whom he had parted shortly after “the murder of Culloden” as he called it, on 16th April 1746.
He had crossed the water of Nairn with the Prince and, having the Canteens offered His Royal Highness refreshment to which the Prince replied “Stewart, no meat or drink”. The Prince told his servant to go to Ruthven of Badenoch while he went his own way. After being passed from house to house Stewart was taken prisoner, along with Sir James Kinloch and Mr Rattray of Rannegoolen, with members of their families, by a “pairtie of the Queen of Hungaries hussars”, commanded by a “Cornell, a Pollander, he was, of which they robed the two ladys and gentlemen of all their money and watches”.
Eventually they were lodged in Perth prison where they were examined by George Miller, “that common hangman”, the Sheriff Clerk of Perth. Several persons of quality had asked that Stewart should he sent to Edinburgh for examination by the Justice Clerk but Miller had remarked that he would see to it that Stewart should go to Carlisle to hang. David Bruce, Judge Advocate finally came to Perth to examine the prisoners and told Stewart he would be sent to Carlisle and the prisoners would hang each other to which Stewart replied he would hang no one but himself.
On 9th August Stewart and other prisoners were taken via Falkland to Edinburgh from which on 12th August they departed for Carlisle where they arrived on Sunday 17th August.
That same afternoon the prisoners had to draw numbers out of a hat - the unlucky one in twenty was to he hanged - the rest transported. Thereafter the lucky ones were taken from Carlisle Castle to the County Gaol where they remained till the 24th April 1747. During all that time he was pestered by Miller and by one Campbell, a Gaelic interpreter, to betray his trust and to turn King’s evidence.
Eventually the Carlisle prisoners were moved via Penrith, Kendal, Lancaster, Preston, and Orrom Kirk to Liverpool where they arrived on 30th April and were lodged aboard two ships the Gillder and Johnstown both belonging to the Member of Parliament for Liverpool Mr Gillder.
They were stripped and searched and then in Stewart’s words had the Hanovarian pleat put on their legs. They lay in irons till 14th May when the ships set sail. Off the Isle of Man a pilot boat offered brandy for sale and the eighty-eight prisoners in the Gillder bought two casks. They also got word that there were two privateers lurking in the Channel, on which news the Captain returned to Liverpool. However next day he had the courage to make for Belfast Loch where they dropped anchor on 15th May. There they spoke with a "verie large Dutchman” who reported there were two privateers in latitude 58, that they had been waiting so long for the prison ships that they had run out of provisions and had confiscated the Dutchman’s stores. However two days later another Dutchman arrived and said the privateeers had gone.
The following day they departed in a convoy of four ships which four days out of Belfast was dispersed by a most violent storm.
As soon as they berthed the Captain had their irons removed and then on the 19th July 1747 anchored in the Port of Wecomica, Maryland.
Mr Robert Homer, the supercargo, that is the Person in charge of the cargo, then told the prisoners that if they would sign up for seven years as bondsmen their owners would probably give them two years off their time and would give them a gun, a pick, a mattock and a suit of clothes and they would be free to move about.
Inspired by Stewart all the prisoners refused to sign upon which Homer vowed to get the Governor to imprison them until they did sign. In the event the Governor said he had no power to imprison them until they transgressed the laws of the colonies.
The ship’s Captain Richard Holmes meantime sent letters to local Roman Catholic and other sympathetic gentlemen. Stewart himself was a Protestant.
Homer returned with a crowd of uncouth native-born Americans but the Captain’s friends also turned up and at the sale on 22nd July 1747 all the prisoners except two were purchased by sympathetic gentlemen. Stewart described his own experiences thus
“Doctor Stewart and his brother William, both living in Annapolis, and both brothers to David Stewart of Ballachalun in Monteith who were all my loyal masters fast friends paid the nine pound six shillings sterling money that was my price when sold to Mr Benedict Callvert in Annapolis who is a very pretie fellow, and on who hade my being set at libertie at least as much as any man in the province. And now being at my owen libertie, I came down the countrie from Annapolis and got the len of a horse from Mr Callvert, 26 miles down to Mr Ignasious Digs in Prince George Countie and 2 horss and a servant from Mr Digs, 17 miles down to Mr Henre Neils and from Mr Neils 2 horss and servant, 10 miles to Portobaco to on Mr Collen Mitchell who keeps a great ins their, who used me very sivale and never would take anything from me neither in passing nor repassing: and their I met my good friend Mr John Mushet and his brother Doctor Mushet where I stayed when I had the ague.... These two Mushets ar sister sons of old Lendricks in Stirlingshire, Scotland. And from then I went 20 miles down to on Viddow Neils who was as kind a motherly woman as ever I meet with in all my travels and her sone-in-laws Mr Edward Digs who was on of the gentlemen that assisted in purchasing my freedom: and I stayed there untill Mr John Mushet found out ane honest man, a captain of a shipe (called the Peggie of Dumfries) bound for Dumfreece one David Blair, who was lying at Matticks in Virgine........."
Stewart boarded the Peggie on 13th January 1748 but did not set sail till the 28th and immediately because of an east wind had to lie at anchor for 12 days. On 13th February they cleared the Capes and in 27 days sighted Irish land but “because of contrary winds we sailed back and for in St. Georg Channel till the 24th of March that we was obliged to put in to Campbell town in Argyleshire, being Friday’s afternoon."
“I sheaued the Captain and two or three other merchants that was comming for Scotland, and because it was a very long way to travel by land to Edinburgh I begged the favour of the Captain if he could hear of any fishing boats going to Air or Irven or Saltcots, which he accordingly found on Mr Knight going for Saltcots on the Monday morning by four of the morning but he had all his lines to fish before we went in, and we catched 80 fine cod on our way. But to return to my Captain’s kindness. He could have used me no better if I hade been the best in Scotland, for I eated and drunk as good rume punch allong at his own table, and we eated not a mouthful of salt provisions all the voyage. And then I asked him what my passage was to be. So he told me he would make me a present of that till he would see me in France and then we should speak about it. But your verie welcum, says he, till then. And he spoke to Mr Knight not only to cairrie me over to Saltcots, but he begged the favour of him that as the said Blair had made me a present of my passage from Maryland, hoped that he would do the same from Campbelltown to Saltcots, and he would do him the like favour if he asked it To which Knight agread to, for, say Blair, Mr Knight, I give my word for it, supose he has been transported, it was for no bad actione but loyaltie to his king and his countrie so says Knight, was it for that, then. Captain, says he, if it was for that affair I would give hime or any of his master’s men their passage ten times farther then that supose it had not been by your desire".
So Stewart set off for Saltcots in Captain Knight’s fishing boat at four a.m. on 28th March arriving at Saltcots about sunset. The first thing he saw on the pier was a band of Hamilton’s dragoons that he had seen prisoner at Cladsmuir. In the morning Captain Knight paid for his lodgings and convoyed him for a mile out of town, lamenting that, not having sold his fish he had no ready cash to give him except sevenpence which he pressed in his hand.
Stewart arrived in Edinburgh on the evening of 1st April 1748 almost two years after Culloden.
He defiantly ends his narrative with the words “Vivat Rex”.
(After the events of 1745—1748 Robert Forbes, Bishop of Ross and Caithness painstakingly took notes from every person he could find who could give personal reminiscences. His manuscript edited by Henry Paton was published under the title of “The Lyon in Mourning” by the Scottish History Society in three volumes (Nos. 20/22 of the First Series) in 1895/6. This story is taken from the Second Volume.)
A MELDER WI’ THE MILLER
A.I.B. STEWART
“That ilka melder wi’ the miller
Thou sat as long as thou had siller”
There must be many who like myself have heard or read Tam o’Shanter a hundred times without troubling to look up every unfamiliar word in the Dictionary.
I had cause, recently to read statements taken from witnesses in a thirlage case in Kintyre in 1819 and my curiosity was aroused sufficiently to consult the concise Scots Dictionary when I found the word ‘melder’ used as a matter of course.
In former times it was usual for a feudal superior or the landlord of a substantial estate to erect at his own expense a mill for grinding grain. He took his vassals or tenants, as the case may be, bound to take their grain to his mill to be ground. In legal parlance the lands in question became thirled or astricted to the particular mill.
Thirlage involved (1) payment to the miller of a duty called multures (2) payments to the miller’s servants known as sequels consisting of knaveship bannock, lock or gowpen and (3) services in keeping up the millhouse dam dykes and water gaits and in bringing home the millstones.
The Bannock was literally a cake, sometimes called a ‘lick of goodwill’. A Gowpen is the Scots word for a double handful and was due to the servants and knaveship was a payment in kind due to the under miller.
If a farmer whose lands were thirled to a particular mill took his corn to be ground elsewhere he could be sued for damages in an action for abstracted multures and since servants had to be kept for the service of the mill an action for the sequels could be included.
Multures, the payments to the miller were of three kinds - "outsucken multures” were paid by persons who were under no obligation to go to the mill and were considerably less than the somewhat penal “insucken multures” charged to persons whose lands were thirled. In the case of a person who paid to a mill a certain yearly sum of money or quantity of grain whether he ground grain at the mill or not the payment became known as a dry multure.
The farmers own requirement of seed and horse corn was always excluded from the obligation.
In 1819 George McNeal, who had just succeeded on the death of his father Captain Hector McNeal to, among other lands, the Mill of Knocknaha raised an action in the Court of Session against Charles Rowatt of Kilkivan alleging that the estate of Kilkivan was thirled to the mill and that the Kilkivan tenants were abstracting the multures.
The Court commissioned Sheriff Duncan Campbell to take the evidence of certain ancient inhabitants and even today their evidence makes interesting reading.
Duncan Smith a 74 year old native of Islay who had lived in the neighbourhood for 50 years or more and had been tenant for most of that time of Crockcrunrig was clear that the multures payable at Knocknaha for oats was the one and twentieth peck and a pint over for the fanners. He believed the thirteenth peck was paid for manufacturing twelve pecks of bear.
Malcolm McNeill aged 85 had been tenant of Crockintruan - part of the farm of Trodigal - for thirty seven years. He always understood that Kilkivan and Drumfin, Drumlemble, Big and Little Strath, Tonrioch and many others were thirled to the Mill of Knocknaha where they paid the one and twentieth peck for oats. When he first remembered the mill there were no fanners in it and at the time there was a “goppen of sheilling paid to the miller for his lock or for payment to the millers servant but after the fanners were got there was the fourth of a peck of grain exacted for the fanners every time a melder went to the Mill”. He knew nothing about water sheilling being paid to that mill. When he was a schoolboy he saw the Kilkivan tenants going to Knocknaha mill - they often had good melders there.
James Raeside, aged 82 had lived all his life at Kilkivan. When he first knew the Mill, sometimes called Killeonan Mill it was a black mill covered with thatch and the stuff was often spoiled with rain and mice but it was rebuilt and slated by Mr Charles McNeal of Kilchrist, the son of Provost Lachlan McNeal. Kilkivan, Drumlemble, Killeonan, Tirfergus Glen and many other lands were thirled to Knocknaha Mill. He remembered being a whole cold winter night in the Miln with a melder belonging to John Rae Langwill, a former tenant of Kilkivan. All the Kilkivan tenants invariably went to that Mill and when they couldn’t get the grain ground for want of water the miller was obliged to give them a little meal to serve their families till he could manufacture their own.
He remembers once he got a little corn ground elsewhere but the miller challenged him and the affair was settled by agreeing to let the miller take the multures out of the next melder.
Mr Raeside knew that the Kilkivan tenants also assisted in bringing home the millstones to the Miln of Knocknaha.
Then he goes on to conjure up a picture of long forgotten jollifications which perhaps were relics of pagan fertility rights.
“Upon these occasions there was a great deal of work in pitching upon the best horses and preparing the strongest ropes for bringing home the stone and as in his young days the horses were dressed with ribbons and a piper playing before them, great crowds of spectators used to gather upon these occasions to enjoy the fun, and that the tenants of the estate of Kilkivan concurred with the other tenants of the sucken in repairing the milldam”.
In his young days it was the practice at the Miln to give over and above the multure a maum or goppin out of every sack of the melder to the miller for his servant but afterwards an agreement was reached by which the miller was to get, in lieu of a maum or goppin, a fourth part of a peck out of every twenty pecks.
In the concise Scots dictionary a melder is defined
as:
1 The quantity of one person’s corn taken to the mill to be ground at
one time;
2 The occasion of such a grinding and;
3 The meal ground from the corn which formed part of a farm-servant's wages.
I can’t find maum but it may derive from the same root as the Buchan word ‘maumie’ meaning ripe or mellow. ‘Sheeling’ was the grain removed from the husk by milling or sometimes the husks or bran but I cannot suggest what “water sheeling” means. Lock is defined as “a small quantity of any readily divisible dry substance
Page 2: Half a Highlander / North Carolina 1739-1989 (short) / Ring Net Fishing (short)
Page 3: The Lowland Church Baptismal Basin / The Lowland Church Baptismal Laver
Page 4: Seventeenth Century Agricultural Tenancys in Kintyre
Page 5: A Miniature Volcano
Page 6: The Private Journal of Robert Picken, Smerby, 1810-1840
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Another foray from the pen of Mr. Angus Martin
Page 9: Three Interesting e-mails and some Bits and Bobs
Page 10: Researching your Family History