A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain III

A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN III

the ruins of a good face; but is also apparently not only decay’d and declin’d, but decaying and declining every day, and from being the fifth town in Scotland, as the townsmen say, is now like a place so saken; the reason of its decay, is, the decay of its trade, so true is it, that commerce is the life of nations, of cities towns, harbours, and of the whole prosperity of a country: What the reason of the decay of trade here was, or when it first began to decay, is hard to determine; nor are the people free to tell, and, perhaps, do not know themselves. There is a good river here, and a handsome stone bridge of four arches.

The town is well situated, has a very large antient church, and has still a very good market for all sorts of provision. But nothing will save it from death, if trade does not revive, which the townsmen say it begins to do since the Union.

From Air, keeping still north, we came to Irwin, upon a river of the same name; there is a port, but barr’d and difficult, and not very good, when you are in; and yet, here is more trade by a great deal than at Air; nay, than at all the ports between it and Dumfries, exclusive of the last; particularly here is a considerable trade for Scots coal, of which they have plenty in the neighbouring hills, and which they carry by sea to Ireland, to Belfast, to Carickfergus, and to Dublin itself, and the commerce occasioned by this navigation between the two countries is very considerable, and much to the advantage of the town of Irwin. They have also of late, as I was told, launch’d into a considerable trade abroad to other countries, and have some share in the fishery: but this I cannot come into the particulars of here. The town is the capital of that division of the shire of Ayre, which they call Cunningham, and is really

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within the Firth of Clyde, though not actually within the river itself; they stand so advantagiously for the herring fishing, that they cannot but go beyond their neighbours of Greenock, who sometimes cannot come out as the wind may blow, when the fishing-boats of Irwin can both go out and return.

As the town is better employ’d in trade than the other parts I have been speaking of, so it is better built: Here are two handsome streets, a good key, and not only room in the harbour for a great many ships, but a great many ships in it also; and, in a word, a face of thriving appears every where among them.

As is the town, so is the country in which it is situated; for when we came hither, we thought ourselves in England again. Here we saw no more a Galloway, where you have neither hedge or tree, but about the gentlemen’s houses; whereas here you have beautiful enclosures, pleasant pastures, and grass grounds, and consequently store of cattle well fed and provided.

The whole country is rich and fruitful, fill’d with gentlemen’s seats and well-built houses: It is said this enclosing the country was owing to the English soldiers, who were placed here and in Kyle by Oliver Cromwell; for at Ayre he built a citadel, the visible appearances of which remain still, and the English soldiers prompted and encouraged the people to endose and improve their lands, and instructed them in the manner of husbandry practis’d in England, which they have never left off to this day.

A little from Irwin is Kilmarnock castle, the seat of the family of Boy’d, Earl of Kilmarnock; and on the other side

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the castle of Eglington, the seat of the family of Montgomery, Earl of Eglington, an antient house; and the present Earl is one of the richest peers in Scotland. Just upon the borders of this county, north east, and where it joins to Clydsdale, is the castle of Loudon, the family-seat of the Earl of Loudon, of the family of Campbell, formerly Secretary of State to Queen Anne; it is a noble and beautiful seat.

But I cannot describe houses: they come too thick upon me; besides, in a country, as this is, full of noblemen’s and gentlemen’s seats, I should never travel any farther if I did, I mean in this volume.

With the division of Cunningham I quitted the shire of Ayre, and the pleasantest country in Scotland, without exception: Joining to it north, and bordering on the Clyde itself, I mean the river, lyes the little shire of Renfrew, or rather a barony, or a sheriffdom, call it as you will.

It is a pleasant, rich, and populous, tho’ small country, lying on the south bank of the Clyde; the soil is not thought to be so good as in Cunningham: But that is abundantly supply’d by the many good towns, the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and of the Clyde, and great commerce of both. We kept our rout as near along the coast as we could, from Irwin; so that we saw all the coast of the Firth of Clyde, and the very opening of the Clyde itself, which is just at the west point, or corner of this county, for it comes to a narrow point just in that place. There are some villages and fishing towns within the mouth of the Clyde, which have more business than large port towns in Galloway and Carrick: But the first town of note is call’d Greenock; ’tis not an antient place, but seems to be grown up in

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later years, only by being a good road for ships, and where the ships ride that come into, and go out from Glasgow, just as the ships for London do in the downs. It has a castle to command the road and the town is well built, and has many rich trading families in it. It is the chief town on the west of Scotland for the herring fishing; and the merchants of Glasgow, who are concern’d in the fishery, employ the Greenock vessels for the catching and curing the fish, and for several parts of their other trades, as well as carrying them afterwards abroad to market.

Their being ready on all hands to go to sea, makes the Glasgow merchants often leave their ships to the care of those Greenock men; and why not? for they are sensible they are “their best seamen; they are also excellent pilots for those difficult seas.

The Abbey of Pasely is famous in history, and to history I refer the enquirer; it lyes on the west side of the Clyde, over against Glasgow, the remains of the building are to be seen, and the town bears still the marks of being fortify’d. When I tell you this was one of the most eminent monasteries in Scotland; that the building was of a vast extent, and the revenue in proportion; you need not ask if the soil was good, the lands rich, the air healthful, and the country pleasant. The priests very seldom fail’d to chuse the best situation, and the richest and most pleasant part of the country wherever they came; witness St. Albans, St. Edmond’s -Bury, Glastenbury, Canterbury; and innumerable other instances in England, and also many in Scotland; as St. Andrew’s, Haly-Rood, Pasely, and others.

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The country between Pasely and Glasgow, on the bank of Clyde, I take to be one of the most agreeable places in Scotland, take its situation, its fertility, healthiness, the nearness of Glasgow, the neighbourhood of the sea, and altogether, at least, I may say, I saw none like it.

Glasgow and central Scotland

I am now come to the bank of Clyde: My method here as in England, forbids me wandring north, till I have given you a full view of the south. Two rivers seem to cross Scotland here, as the Trent and the Mersee, cross England in the south, or as the Tyne and the Eden cross it in the north, or as the two Calders cross it in Yorkshire and Lancashire, which rise both out of the same hill, and with a mile of each other, and run one into the German ocean at Hull, and the other entring first into the Ribble, runs into the Irish Sea below Preston.

Thus the Clyde and the Tweed may be said to cross Scotland in the south, their sources being not many miles asunder; and the two firths, from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth, have not an interval of above twelve or fourteen miles, which, if they were join’d, as might easily be done, they might cross Scotland, as I might say, in the very center.

Nor can I refrain mentioning how easy a work it would be to form a navigation, I mean a navigation of art from the Forth to the Clyde, and so join the two seas, as the King of France has done in a place five times as far, and five hundred times as difficult, namely from Thouloze to Narbonne. What

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an advantage in commerce would this be, opening the Irish trade to the merchants of Glasgow, making a communication between the west coast of Scotland, and the east coast of England, and even to London itself; nay, several ports of England, on the Irish Sea, from Liverpool northward, would all trade with London by such a canal, it would take up a volume by itself, to lay down the several advantages to the trade of Scotland, that would immediately occur by such a navigation, and then to give a true survey of the ground, the easiness of its being perform’d, and the probable charge of it, all which might be done: But it is too much to undertake here, it must lye till posterity, by the rising greatness of their commerce, shall not only feel the want of it, but find themselves able for the performance.

I mention’d the neighbouring situation of the Clyde, and the Forth in this place, only to observe that I make that line the bound of this circuit, and shall speak of nothing beyond it till my next. Supposing a line drawn from Dunbarton to Sterling, exclusive of the first, and inclusive of the last; or rather suppose it drawn from Glasgow to Sterling, inclusive of both, because both relate to the south or lowland part of Scotland.

I am now cross’d the Clyde to Glasgow, and I went over dryfooted without the bridge; on which occasion I cannot but observe how differing a face the river presented itself in, at those two several times when only I was there; at the first, being in the month of June, the river was so low, that not the horses and carts only pass’d it just above the bridge, but the children and boys playing about, went every where, as if there was no river, only some little spreading brook, or wash, like such as we

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have at Enfield-Wash, or Chelston-Wash in Middlesex; and, as I told you, we cross’d it dry-foot, that is, the water was scarce over the horses’ hoofs.

As for the bridge, which is a lofty, stately fabrick; it stood out of the water as naked as a skeleton, and look’d somewhat like the bridge over the Mansanares, near Madrid, which I mention’d once before; of which a French ambassador told the people the king should either buy them a river, or sell their bridge, or like the stone-bridge at Chester in the Street, in Northumberland, where the road goes in the river, and the people ride under the bridge in dry weather instead of riding over it. So when I saw such a magnificent bridge at Glasgow, and especially when I saw three of the middle arches so exceeding large and high, beyond all the rest, I could not but wonder, hardly thinking it possible, that where the passage or channel is so exceeding broad, for the bridge consists of eight arches; the river, which in its ordinary channel is so narrow as it is higher up, and at a distance from it, could ever fill up such a height, where it has so grand a space to spread itself as at the bridge.

But my next journey satisfy’d me, when coming into Glasgow from the east side, I found the river not only had fill’d up all the arches of the bridge, but, running about the end of it, had fill’d the streets of all that part of the city next the bridge, to the infinite damage of the inhabitants, besides putting them into the greatest consternation imaginable, for fear of their houses being driven away by the violence of the water, and the whole city was not without apprehensions that their bridge would have given way too, which

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would have been a terrible loss to them, for ’tis as fine a bridge as most in Scotland.

Glasgow is, indeed, a very fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together. The houses are all of stone, and generally equal and uniform in height, as well as in front; the lower story generally stands on vast square dorick columns, not round pillars, and arches between give passage into the shops, adding to the strength as well as beauty of the building; in a word, ’tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.

It stands on the side of a hill, sloping to the river, with this exception, that the part next the river is flat, as is said above, for near one third part of the city, and that expos’d it to the water, upon the extraordinary flood mention’d just now.

Where the streets meet, the crossing makes a spacious marketplace by the nature of the thing, because the streets are so large of themselves. As you come down the hill, from the north gate to the said cross, the Tolbooth, with the Stadhouse, or Guild-Hall, make the north east angle, or, in English, the right-hand corner of the street, the building very noble and very strong, ascending by large stone steps, with an iron balustrade. Here the town-council sit, and the magistrates try causes, such as come within their cognizance, and do all their publick business.

On the left-hand of the same street is the university, the building is the best of any in Scotland of the kind; it was founded by Bishop Turnbull, Ann. 1454. but has been much enlarg’d since, and the fabrick almost all new built. It is a very

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spacious building, contains two large squares, or courts, and the lodgings for the scholars, and for the professors, are very handsome; the whole building is of freestone, very high and very august. Here is a principal, with regents and professors in every science, as there is at Edinburgh, and the scholars wear gowns, which they do not at Edinburgh. Their gowns here are red, but the Masters of Arts, and professors, wear black gowns, with a large cape of velvet to distinguish them.

The cathedral is an antient building, and has a square tower in the middle of the cross, with a very handsome spire upon it, the highest that I saw in Scotland, and, indeed, the only one that is to be call’d high. This, like St. Giles’s at Edinburgh, is divided now, and makes three churches, and, I suppose, there is four or five more in the city, besides a meeting or two: But there are very few of the episcopal dissenters here; and the mob fell upon one of their meetings so often, that they were oblig’d to lay it down, or, if they do meet, ’tis very privately.

The Duke of Montrose has so great an interest here, and in the country round, that he is, in a civil sense, Governor of this city, as he is legally of their university. His fine house at the north end of the city is not finished, so I need not enter upon a description of it. As his Grace’s family is antient, and respected very much in these parts, so is his interest preserv’d in his own person, who is generally as much respected by the people as most, if not as any of the nobility of Scotland.

Glasgow is a city of business; here is the face of trade, as well foreign as home trade; and, I may say, ’tis the only city in Scotland, at this time, that apparently encreases and improves in both. The Union has answer’d its end to them

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more than to any other part of Scotland, for their trade is new form’d by it; and, as the Union open’d the door to the Scots in our American colonies, the Glasgow merchants presently fell in with the opportunity; and tho’, when the Union was making, the rabble of Glasgow made the most formidable attempt to prevent it, yet, now they know better, for they have the greatest addition to their trade by it imaginable; and I am asssur’d that they send near fifty sail of ships every year to Virginia, New England, and other English colonies in America, and are every year increasing.

Could this city but have a communication with the Firth of Forth, so as to send their tobacco and sugar by water to Alloway, below Sterling, as they might from thence again to London, Holland, Hambrough, and the Baltick, they would, (for ought I know that should hinder it) in a few years double their trade, and send 100 sail, or more.

The share they have in the herring-fishery is very considerable, and they cure their herrings so well, and so much better than is done in any other part of Great Britain; that a Glasgow herring is esteem’d as good as a Dutch herring, which in England they cannot come up to.

As Scotland never enjoy’d a trade to the English plantations till since the Union, so no town in Scotland has yet done any thing considerable in it but Glasgow: the merchants of Edinburgh have attempted it; but they lye so out of the way, and the voyage is not only so much the longer, but so much more hazardous, that the Glasgow men are always sure to outdo them, and must consequently carry away that part of trade from them, as likewise the trade to the south, and to the Medi-

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