At anchor in the stream, or moored beside that wooden pier, which was burned by the English, 1544, lay those quaint old merchantmen, with their basketed tops, their lofty poops, and pinck-built, or square projecting sterns, which were retained until lately by some of the Leith whalers, and may yet be found among our Orkney shipping. Leith was full of armed men; the nobles and their forces thronged every street and alley; their banners waved over the houses they occupied, and armour, spears, swords, and axes flashed incessantly in the sunshine, especially in the Wynd of St. Nicholas and the vicinity of the house of the Bartons. This was a lofty, strong, and turreted mansion, situated near the site of the present Custom-house, on the west bank of the Leith; and in after years, Henry VIII. gave the admiral of England special orders to cannonade and destroy it, during Hertford's invasion. In the hall or chamber of dais of this noble dwelling of the old merchant, whose son and heir was then on board the _Yellow Frigate_, the Duke of Rothesay was seated in council with the victorious insurgent lords; and the splendour and luxury with which the enterprising trader (a man far in advance of them in "the march of intellect" and civilization, and far in advance of the age,) was enabled to decorate the dwelling his industry had won, must have formed a strong contrast to their rude stone-halls and the wooden benches of their secluded towers on the braes of Angus, or in the dells of Galloway; and so, no doubt, each earl, lord, and laird thought, as they twisted their wiry mustachios under their steel caps, and surveyed the apartment in which they held council--the dining hall of a Leith merchant, in the year of the first revolution.