A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain III

A TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN III

terranean, whither the ships from Glasgow go and come again with great advantage in the risque, so that even in the insuring there is one per cent, difference, which is a great article in the Business of a merchant.

The towns of Irwin and Dumfries are, as I hinted before, newly stepp’d into this trade too, and will, no question, taste the sweets of it.

The Glasgow merchants have of late suffer’d some scandal in this branch of trade, as if they were addicted to the sin of smuggling; as to that, of others, for want of opportunity, are not in capacity to do the same, let those who are not guilty, or would not, if they had room for it, throw the first stone at them; for my part I accuse none of them.

The Clyde is not navigable for large ships quite up to the town, but they come to a wharf and key at New-Port Glasgow, which is within a very little of it, and there they deliver their cargoes, and either put them on shore there, or bring them up to the city in lighters: the custom-house also is at Port Glasgow, and their ships are repair’d, laid up, fitted out, and the like, either there or at Greenock, where work is done well, and labour cheap.

I have not time here to enlarge upon the home trade of this city, which is very considerable in many things, I shall only touch at some parts of them (viz.)

1. Here is one or two very handsome sugar-baking houses, carried on by skilful persons, with large stocks, and to a very great degree: I had the curiosity to view one of the houses, and I think it equal to, if not exceeding most in London.

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Also there is a large distillery for distilling spirits from the molasses drawn from the sugars, and which they call’d Glasgow brandy, and in which they enjoy’d a vast advantage for a time, by a reserv’d article in the Union, freeing them from the English duties, I say for a time.

2.Here is a manufacture of plaiding, a stuff cross-strip’d with yellow and red, and other mixtures for the plaids or vails, which the ladies in Scotland wear, and which is a habit peculiar to the country.

3.Here is a manufacture of muslins, and, perhaps the only manufacture of its kind in Britain, if not in Europe; and they make them so good and so fine, that great quantities of them are sent into England, and sold there at a good price; they are generally strip’d, and are very much used for aprons by the ladies, and sometimes in head-clothes by the English women of a meaner sort, and many of them are sent to the British plantations.

4.Here is also a linnen manufacture; but as that is in common with all parts of Scotland, I do not insist so much upon it here, though they make a very great quantity of it, and send it to the plantations also as a principal merchandise.

Nor are the Scots without a supply of goods for sorting their cargoes to the English colonies, even without sending to England for them, or at least not for many of them; and ’tis needful to mention it here, because it has been objected by some that understood trade too, that the Scots could not send a sortable cargo to America without buying from England; which goods, so bought from, must come through many hands,

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and by long carriage, and consequently be dear bought, and so the English merchants might undersell them.

But to answer this in the language of merchants, as it is a merchant-like objection: It may be true, that some things cannot be had here so well as from England, so as to make out a sortable cargo, such as the Virginia merchants in London ship off, whose entries at the Custom-house consist sometimes of 200 particulars; and they are at last fain to sum them up thus: certain tin, turnery, millinary, upholdstery, cutlery, and Crooked-Lane wares; that is to say, that they buy something of every thing, either for wearing, or kitchen, or housefurniture, building houses or ships (with every thing else in short) that can be thought of, except eating.

But though the Scots cannot do this, we may reckon up what they can furnish, and what is sufficient, and some of which they can go beyond England in.

1.They have several woollen manufactures which they send’ of their own making; such as the Sterling serges, Musclebrow stuffs, Aberdeen stockings, Edinburgh shalloons, blankets, &c. So that they are not quite destitute in the woollen manufacture, tho’ that is the principal thing in which England can outdo them.

2.The trade with England, being open, they have now, all the Manchester wares, Sheffield wares, and Newcastle hard wares; as also the cloths, kerseys, half-thicks, duffels, stockings, and coarse manufactures of the north of England, as cheap brought to them by horse-packs as they can be car-

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ried to London; nor is the carriage farther, and, in some articles, not so far by much.

3.They have linnens of most kinds, especially diapers and table-linnen, damasks, and many other sorts not known in England, cheaper than England, because made at their own doors.

4.What linnens they want from Holland, or Hamburgh, they import from thence as cheap as can be done in England; and for muslins, their own are very acceptable, and cheaper than in England.

5.Gloves they make better and cheaper than in England, for they send great quantities thither.

6.Another article, which is very considerable here, is servants, and these they have in greater plenty, and upon better terms than the English; without the scandalous art of kidnapping, making drunk, wheedling, betraying, and the like; the poor people offering themselves fast enough, and thinking it their advantage to go; as indeed it is, to those who go with sober resolutions, namely, to serve out their times, and then become diligent planters for themselves; and this would be a much wiser course in England than to turn thieves, and worse, and then be sent over by force, and as a pretence of mercy to save them from the gallows.

This may be given as a reason, and, I believe, is the only reason why so many more of the Scots servants, which go over to Virginia, settle and thrive there, than of the English, which is

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so certainly true, that if it goes on for many years more. Virginia may be call’d a Scots than an English plantation.

I might go on to many other particulars, but this is sufficient to shew that the Scots merchants are at no loss how to make up sortable cargoes to send with their ships to the plantations, and that if we can outdo them in some things, they are able to outdo us in others; if they are under any disadvantages in the trade I am speaking of, it is that they may perhaps, not have so easy a vent and consumption for the goods they bring back, as the English have, at London, or Bristol, or Liverpool; and that is the reason why they are now, as they say, setting up a wharf and conveniences at Alloway in the Forth, in order to send their tobaccos and sugars thither by land-carriage, and ship them off there for Holland, or Hamburgh, or London, as the market presents.

Now, though this may be some advantage (viz.) carrying the tobacco from fourteen to fifteen miles over land; yet, if on the other hand it be calculated how much sooner the voyage is made from Glasgow to the capes of Virginia, than from London, take it one time with another, the difference will be found in the freight, and in the expence of the ships, and especially in time of war, when the channel is throng’d with privateers, and when the ships wait to go in fleets for fear of enemies; whereas the Glasgow men are no sooner out of the Firth of Clyde, but they stretch away to the north west, are out of the wake of the privateers immediately, and are oftentimes at the capes of Virginia before the London ships get clear of the channel. Nay, even in times of peace, and take the weather to happen in its usual manner, there must always be allow’d, one time with an-

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other, at least fourteen to twenty days difference in the voyage, either out or home; which, take it together, is a month to six weeks in the whole voyage, and for wear and tear; victuals and wages, is very considerable in the whole trade.

I went from Glasgow to the palace of Hamilton, or as we should call it in England, to Hamilton-house: It is the palace of Hamilton, and the palace at Hamilton, for the family is according to the Scots dialect, Hamilton of that Ilk, that is of a place or town of the same name, for the town of Hamilton joins to the outhouses, or offices of the house of Hamilton. The house is large as it is, tho’ part of the design is yet unfinish’d; it is now a fair front, with two wings, two wings more there are laid out in the ichnography of the building, but are not attempted; the successor if he thinks fit, may build them.

The front is very magnificent indeed, all of white freestone, with regular ornaments according to the rules of art: The wings are very deep, and when the other wings come to be added, if ever that shall be, the two sides of the house will then be like two large fronts rather than wings; not unlike Beddington House, near Croydon in Surrey, only much larger.

The apartments are very noble, and fit rather for the court of a prince than the palace or house of a subject; the pictures, the furniture, and the decoration of every thing is not to be describ’d, but by saying that every thing is exquisitely fine and suitable to the genius of the great possessors: the late duchess, whose estate it was, was heiress of the family, but marrying a branch of the house of Douglass, oblig’d him to take the name of Hamilton, so to continue the estate in the name; and it has sufficiently answer’d that end. That match being

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blest with a truly glorious succession of six sons, four of whom were peers by birth, or creation (viz.) the late Duke, or rather Earl of Arran, his mother being alive, the Earls of Orkney, Selkirk, and Ruglen, besides the Lords Basil and Archibald Hamilton. But this by the way.

The situation of the house is fix’d to all the advantage imaginable; it stands in a plain, level country, near enough to the banks of the Clyde to enjoy the prospect of its stream, and yet far enough and high enough to be out of the reach of its torrents and floods, which, as you have heard, are sometimes able to terrify a whole city.

The great park is said to be six miles in circumference, wall’d round with stone, but rough, and not well lay’d; the lesser park is rather a great enclosure than a park, yet they are both extremely well planted with trees, and add to the ornament of the whole. The great park also is well stock’d with deer, and among them some very curious for the kind, whether natives of the place, or of foreign breed, I could not learn. The gardens are finely design’d, but I cannot say they are so finely finish’d, or so nicely kept as those at Drumlanrig, particularly the courtyard; the canals and ponds, design’d with some other gardens laid out in the first plan, are not compleated, and some not so much as begun upon: so that the next heirs have room enough to divert themselves, and dispose of some of their spare treasure, to carry on and compleat the true design of their ancestor.

The misfortune of the late heir, the father of the present duke, happen’d so, as that he never came to the estate, for he was kill’d before the Duchess Dowager died; so that the es-

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tate, as I observ’d, being her own, remain’d in her hands till afterward; whether this might not be the better for the present heir, I shall not determine, let others judge of that.

I was here in some doubt, whether I should take the south or the north in the next part of my progress; that is to say, whether to follow up the Clyde, and so into, and through Clydesdale, and then crossing east, view the shire of Peebles, the country on the banks of Tweed and Tivyot, or keeping to the north, go on for the Forth; and after a short debate we concluded on the latter. So we turn’d to the left for Sterling-shire, and passing the Clyde we came to Kilsyth, a good plain country burgh, tolerably well built, but not large; here we rested, and upon a particular occasion went to see the antient seat of Calendar, which seems, as well as that of Kilsyth, to be in its widow’s weeds, those two families, collateral branches both of the name of Livingston, having had their several decays, though on different occasions. The town of Falkirk is near Calendar house, but nothing in it remarkable; but the other old decay’d house of the Earl of Calendar.

Here I must take notice, though, as I have often said, antiquity is not my business, that we saw the remains, and that very plain, of the antient work, which they call Severus’s wall, or Hadrian’s wall, or Graham’s dyke, for it is known by all these: the short of which story is this; that the Romans finding it not only difficult, but useless to them, to conquer the northern Highlands, and impossible to keep them, if conquer’d; contented themselves to draw a line, so we now call it, cross this narrow part of the country, and fortify it with redoubts, and stations of soldiers to confine the Picts and Irish, and those

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wild nations which were without, and defend the south country from their incursions. This wall reach’d from Dunbriton Firth, so they call’d the Firth of Clyde, to the Forth, and was several times restor’d and repair’d, till the Roman empire’s declining, as is well known in story. Tho’ neither this, or the yet stronger wall at New-castle, call’d the Picts wall, could preserve the country from the invasion of the Picts, and the barbarous nations that came with them.

From Kilsyth we mounted the hills black and frightful as they were, to find the road over the moors and mountains to Sterling, and being directed by our guides, came to the river Carron: The channel of a river appear’d, indeed, and running between horrid precipices of rocks, as if cut by hand, on purpose for the river to make its way; but not a drop of water was to be seen. Great stones, square and form’d, as if cut out by hand, of a prodigious size, some of them at least a ton, or ton and a half in weight, lay scatter’d, and confusedly, as it were, jumbled together in the very course of the river, which the fury of the water, at other times, I doubt not, had hurried down from the mountains, and tumbled them thus over one another: Some of them might, I suppose, have been some ages upon their journey down the stream; for it may not be once in some years that a flood comes with a force sufficient to move such stones as those; and, ’tis probable, ’tis never done, but when a weight of ice, as well as water, may come down upon them together.

Here we pass’d another bridge of one arch, though not quite so large as that we saw in Galloway, yet not much unlike, nor much short of it; ’tis finely built of freestone, but rises so

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high, the shores being flat, and the walls on either side are so low, that it is not every head can bear to ride over it.

The truth is, there was need to build the bridge but with one arch, for no piers, they could have built in the middle of the channel, ever could have born the shock of those great stones, which sometimes come down this stream.

From hence, descending on the north side, we had a view of Firth, or Forth, on our right, the castle of Sterling on the left; and in going to the latter we pass’d the famous water, for river it is not, of Bannock Bourn, famous in the Scots History for the great battle fought here between King Robert de Bruce and the English Army, commanded by King Edward II. in person, in which the English were utterly overthrown; and that with so terrible a slaughter, that of the greatest army that ever march’d from England into Scotland, very few escap’d; and King Edward II. with much ado, sav’d himself by flight. How, indeed, he should save himself by a little boat, (as Mr Cambden says) that, indeed, I cannot understand, there being no river near that had any boats in it but the Forth, and that had been to make the king fly north; whereas, to be sure, he fled for England with all the speed he could; he might, perhaps, make use of a boat to pass the Tweed; but that was at least thirty or forty miles off.

Whether the Scots magnify this victory, or not, is not my business, that it was a total overthrow of the English Army is certain, and that abundance of the English nobility and gentry lost their lives there; but ’tis as true, that it was the ill conduct of the English at that time, and the unfortunate king that led them on, which were the occasion: His glorious pre-

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