your Grace to do an act of justice when the whole world, and I in
particular, have such proofs of the greatness of your minde and
virtue, I shall only add my most sincere and humble acknowledgement
of your Grace's justice and dispatch in the melancholie affair, of
which I shall ever retain the most gratefull sense; and remain under
the strictest tyes of dutie, with the most profound respect, my
Lord, your Grace's most humble, most obedient, obliged, and faithful
servant," &c.
With this letter, and some memorials of Sir John Schaw's public service,
end all known appeals for justice on the murderer. But conscience
avenged the crime. Many years afterwards, when living in opulence upon
his patrimonial estate at Dysart in Fife, the Master received from an
humble individual a bitter, though involuntary reproach. When preparing
to cross the Frith, he stopped at an inn in order to engage a running
footman to attend him. Detested by his neighbours, and ever in dread of
the Schaws, Sinclair preserved a sort of incognito. A youth was
presented for his approval. The Master inquired of the young candidate
what proof he could give of his activity, on which this remarkable reply
was given: "Sir, I ran beside the Master of Sinclair's horse when he
rode post from the English camp to escape the death for which he was
condemned for the murder of the two brothers." "The Master," adds Sir
Walter Scott, "much shocked, was nearly taken ill on the spot."[228]
During the insurrection of 1715, the Master of Sinclair took at first an
active part, and became the commander of a company of Jacobite gentlemen
of Fife. He joined the Earl of Mar at Perth,[229] and was employed in an
expedition which gained some credit to the Jacobites. Some arms having
been brought out of Edinburgh for the use of the Earl of Sutherland, and
being put on board a ship at Leith, the Earl of Mar resolved to
intercept these supplies. The wind being contrary, the master of the
vessel thus loaded had dropped into Brunt Island, and had gone into the
town on that island to see his family. A party of four hundred horse and
as many foot was meantime detached on the second of October, 1715, and
arrived at the island about midnight. They pressed all the boats in the
harbour, and boarded the vessel, carrying off three hundred and six
complete stand of arms, together with a considerable number which they
found in the town. This expedition was skilfully contrived and managed,
the horse surrounding the town whilst the foot ransacked it; and the
invasion was made so silently that the Duke of Argyle gained no tidings
of it.[230]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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