six to Dover-where it was going on other business-and then took ship for Calais. Lady Winifred, after the lapse of several weeks, succeeded in getting an interview with King George, when she presented a petition, praying that the forfeited Nithsdale peerage and estates might be conferred upon her son; but his Majesty, resenting her conduct, not only disregarded her petition, but treated her with rudeness. She had the gratification of knowing, however, that her husband was beyond the King's reach. Lord Nithsdale lived twenty-nine years after the date of his extraordinary deliverance, and died at Rome in 1744, on the very eve of another great rebellion in favour of the House of Stuart. Lord Derwentwater and Viscount Kenmure were beheaded on the 24th of February; both of them continuing firm Jacobites to the last. The estates of the convicted insurgents were forfeited to the Crown; and though the property belonged to nearly forty individuals, its annual revenue was comparatively small-only £30,000. A Government surveyor, appointed for the purpose, estimated the rental of the Earl of Nithsdale, from depositions made by the tenants, at £803 2s. 8d., of which fully £749 was payable in money; the rest in goods, including such items as forty-four bolls of barley, at 10s. 5d. per boll; about the same quantity of oatmeal, at the same price; three hundred and fortyseven hens, at 5d. each; and 13s. 6d. for peats, at 1d. per dozen loads. The forfeited estates were purchased from the Crown by a London company; but as this speculative investment was badly managed, they were afterwards exposed for sale, and for the most part bought at moderate rates for the late proprietors by their friends. The Nithsdale peerage was never restored, though the estates continue to be possessed by the Maxwell family. Lady Kenmure survived her chivalrous and unfortunate husband sixty-one years, and so managed the property that when her son Robert reached majority it was delivered to him free of debt. She died at Terregles House in 1776; and in 1824 the attainted title was given back to her grandson, John, the sixth Viscount of Kenmure. We complete our account of the Rebellion by a local episode that ought not to be overlooked. Whilst the Marquis of Annandale was busy superintending the defences of Dumfries, his brother, Lord John Johnstone, who had served James the Seventh in Ireland, was doing his best to promote the pretensions of that monarch's son. His design was to assist in the meditated attack upon the town at the head of some of his brother's retainers; but before he could marshall them, he was seized at the instance of the magistrates, and kept in the Tolbooth till the whole affair was over. According to a tradition in his lordship's family, the authorities honoured his exit from prison with a procession, and expressed a hope, in parting with him, that they had not acted improperly. What the liberated Jacobite said in reply is not recorded; but when, fifteen years afterwards, a deputation from the magistrates waited upon him at his house, to compliment him on his birth-day, he presented the town with two valuable pictures, accompanied by the following note, addressed to the Provost:-"Sir,-The great civilities the good town of Drumfries has been pleased to show my brother and his family, makes me earnestly wish for an opportunity to show them my sense of the obligation this lays upon both of us. King William and Queen Mary is so well, that I have chosen to send their pictures as a present to the Corporation; and I hope, as I value those great deliverers, on public as well as private considerations, they will receive them as a pledge of my disposition to do all the good in my power to this County and Burgh; and beg you would take the trouble to make these, and my compliments, acceptable to the Corporation, which tie me to be still more, sir, your most humble servant,-JOHN JOHNSTONE. Dumfries, 30th August, 1730." Though a slight vein of irony is visible in this letter, the writer of it had reason to be truly thankful to the magistrates for keeping him out of an embroilment by which he might have lost his head; and the beautiful portraits presented by him remain in the Town Hall-the mementoes of his gratitude, and the best pictorial treasures possessed by the Burgh. CHAPTER XLII. FOR ITS EXTENSIVE BUILDING SCHEMES ENTERED INTO IMPROVEMENTS IN DWELLING- SMUGGLING-FRESH ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE "RUNNING" TRADE-GIPSY WHEN the excitement caused by the Rebellion had fairly subsided, a spirit of improvement sprang up in Dumfries which produced valuable results; and before the first half of the eighteenth century had passed away, the sky-line of the townto use an artist's term-did not differ very materially from what it is at present. At the date of the Union, the Mid-Steeple rose up in the centre of the Burgh; a spire-surmounted church soon afterwards was erected at its northern extremity, which was ere long followed by another in the south; whilst, in the meantime, many houses were rebuilt, several roads were formed to connect the town with the neighbouring district, new schools were instituted or endowed, and several springs of charity began to flow for behoof of the poor. Leaving the building of the churches to be noticed afterwards at greater length, we shall briefly glance at some of the other operations and occurrences belonging to the period. For many years after 1715, the Town Council books contain numerous references to the removal of ruinous tenements, and their replacement by new erections; as if in the course of a generation or so a considerable proportion of the Burgh had been rebuilt. And the new houses were, it may be inferred, much better than the old ones had ever been. The latter for the most part were roofed with straw or other vegetable substance, and many of them were of wood or clay. As a consequence, fires were of frequent occurrence: a most destructive one nearly ruined Lochmaben-gate in 1691, and another of less extensive sweep did much damage to Friars' Vennel in 1701. Not till 1724 did the town possess a water engine" for use on such occasions. On the 15th of July, 1723, the Council, after taking into account the great loss caused by fires, ordained that henceforth all heritors and others, in reconstructing or reroofing houses joining with or fronting into High Street, should cause the roofs to be made of slates or tiles, and not of straw, heather, broom, breckans, or other combustible matter, under the penalty of one hundred pounds Scots. In the old fighting times, as has been repeatedly noticed, Lochar Moss was prized by the inhabitants as a natural barrier of defence. Now, however, they had no reason to dread hostile incursions from the South; and, in order to open up a closer communication with Lower Annandale and Cumberland, the Council, assisted by neighbouring proprietors, projected a passage through the Moss. In terms of the contract, it was to extend "from Hannay's Thorn to the syde of the Lake of Lochare, in the place where the bridge went over to Colin;" was to cost a hundred and fifty pounds sterling; and to be completed by Michaelmas, 1724, about which time it was duly opened for public use.* Soon after the Reformation a grammar school was set up in the Burgh, and a parish school beyond it for the rural districts. Ninian Dalyell-who, it is said, gave lessons to the great Reformer Welsh-is the first teacher of the Burgh school of whom we read. At first its masters taught English as well as the classical languages; and up till nearly the close of the seventeenth * Pennant, writing in 1770, says: "Over Lochar Moss is a road remarkable for its origin. A stranger, a great number of years ago, sold some goods to certain merchants in Dumfries upon credit; he disappeared, and neither he nor his heirs ever claimed the money. The merchants, in expectation of the demand, very honestly put out the sum to interest; and after the lapse of more than fifty years, the town of Dumfries obtained a gift of it, and applied the same to the making of this useful road. Another is now in erection for the military, to facilitate the communication between North Britain and Ireland by way of Portpatrick.”—Tour in Scotland, vol. ii., p. 95. century, there seems to have been only one authorized teacher in the whole town. When, in 1663, Mr. Matthew Richmond was appointed to succeed Mr. M'George as rector of the grammar school, he was spoken of in comprehensive terms as "schoolmaster of this Burgh." The duties assigned to him were multifarious, he being required to precent in the church, to officiate as parish clerk, as well as to give instructions in Greek, Latin, and English, all for £100 Scots a year, "with the benefit of quarter-days" (free-will offerings from the pupils), and fees for marriage proclamations, baptisms, and burials. Mr. John Fraser was schoolmaster in 1673, with a salary of £40 Scots per quarter. In June, 1724, the Council were fortunate enough to secure the services as rector of the Rev. Robert Trotter, A. M., who by his learning threw a bright lustre over the Burgh school. He was son of the Laird of Prentonnan, parish of Eccles, Berwickshire, head of the old Border clan of the Trotters, who boast of a Norman lineage, and who fought gallantly at Flodden under the Earl of Home. Rector Trotter published a valuable Latin grammar, that was long popular as a school book.* On his induction he * "Grammatica Latina Compendium ad Puerorum captum summa ope concinnatum. In usum Scholæ Drumfriesiensis, Auctore Roberto Trottero, A.M., Scholarcha ibidem. Edinburgi: Typis Thomae Lumisden and Joannis Robertson. Anno Dom., 1732." In a presentation copy to him of Johnston's Latin Psalms of David, from the editor, Gulielmus Landerus, he is styled "Doctissimo Viro Roberto Trottero, A. M., Scholæ Drumfriesiensis Proefecto meritissimo, 1740" The year of his death is not certain; but he was alive in 1760, in the winter of which year he went to place his grandson Robert at College in Edinburgh, and travelled with him on foot from Dumfries in one day to Morton Hall, the seat of Mr. Trotter, a relation of his. A thruch stone, with a Latin inscription written by himself, was erected to his memory in St. Michael's churchyard, but has unaccountably disappeared, and when searched for about forty years ago, it could not be found; but the late Mr. Crombie said he had seen the stone some years previously, He is mentioned in "Heron's Tour" as an eminent Latin scholar, in the "Scottish Nation,' also in a note to Anderson's "Lives of the Poets," and by other authors; and could converse with learned men in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. When at church, he always used a Greek Testament. It is also related of him, that when engaged in prayer during the great storm known as "Windy Saturday," the window was violently blown in on his sick grandson, then in bed, hurting him severely. This grandson was afterwards an eminent physician for fifty-five years in the Glenkens, Galloway, where the family have long maintained a respectable position in society. In Douglas's "Baronage" the family is said to |