gear; and that the back pay or aliment of
Lieutenants Middleton and Halyburton, and of
Ensign Dunbar, should be made good by the
government!

These ample and remarkable terms were
signed by the whole privy council of Scotland
then present, to wit, John, Marquis of Tweedale,
high chancellor; George, Earl of Linlithgow:
Archibald, Earl of Forfar; William, Earl of
Annandale; and William, Lord Ross—four
commissioners of the treasury; the Earl of
Sutherland, a colonel of foot; Viscount Tarbet,
the clerk register; Lord Belhaven, who had
been a captain of horse at Killycrankie; Lord
Carmichael, a colonel of dragoons; Sir Thomas
Livingstone, commander-in-chief of the Scottish
troops, and others.

On the 20th of April, 1694, after having
resided four years on the rock, the little garrison
departed in their boat, and ten days after
the fortifications were dismantled. After all
their risks and perils, they had won only honour,
and with it the admiration and gratitude of all
the friends of King James.

Traces of the siege are still found at times.
An antique cannon, broken in two, is still
lying on the giddy verge of the northern cliff,
and fragments of exploded bombs and cannonballs
are frequently found embedded in the rank
guano of the sea-birds. From a passage in the
works of Hugh Millar, the garrison would seem
to have been put to their shifts for flints.
In describing the Bass, "I saw," continues the
great geologist, "a large cannon-shot, much
encased in rust, which had been laid bare by
the rabbits in this curious deposit. It had
sunk in the debris to the depth of about four
feet, immediately under a partial breach in the
masonry, and had not improbably dealt a severe
blow in the quarrel of William of Nassau. But
what I considered the most curious remains
were splinters of black flint, exactly resembling
the rejectamenta of a gun-flint maker's shop.
In digging to ascertain, if possible, for what
purpose chips of black flint could have been
brought to the Bass, my companion disinterred
a rude gun-flint, exactly such a thing as I have
seen a poverty-stricken poacher chip for his
piece out of a mass of agate or jasper. The
matchlock had yielded its place, only a short
time before, to the spring-lock with its hammer
and flint; and so, during their leisure hours on
the ramparts, the soldiers of the garrison had
been in the practice of fashioning their flints
for themselves, and of pitching the chips, with
now and then an occasional abortion, such as
the one we had just picked up, over the
walls."*

* Geology of the Bass. Some interesting details
of the isle and of its siege, will be found in the
Appendix to Crichton's Memoirs of Blackadder.

David Blair joined King James in France,
where he died in exile; but William Crawford,
of Ardmillan, remained at home, and was
married to Margaret Kennedy, of Balderstone.
He died soon after.

Captain Charles Maitland, the ex-deputy
governor of the Bass, went to Flanders on a
visit to his brother, Brigadier-General James
Maitland, who had been a subaltern of the
Scots Foot Guards in 1675, and who became a
lieutenant-general on the British establishment
in 1709. By this officer he was presented to
King William (then at the head of the allied
armies), by whom he was offered a captain's
commission. The king added, that he was
"confident that an officer who had served King
James with such uncommon fidelity would be
equally true to him."

"I thank your majesty," replied Maitland,
"but I beg to decline your offer."

This anecdote (which is recorded among the
Transactions of the Scottish Antiquaries)
reflects equal credit upon both.

Bearded hermits, sandalled monks, plumed
courtiers, and blue-bonneted covenanters, have
all passed away, and been numbered, in
succession, with the things that were, and the
solitary isle has long since been abandoned to
its primitive inhabitants, the wild sea-birds;
but, by the events we have just narrated, it
still retains, what a writer has styled, "the
dubious honour of being the last spot of British
ground to yield to the more constitutional
government introduced by the Revolution of
1688."

Exactly sixty years before, the Bass rock was
successfully held against a less formidable
enemy by its proprietors. George Lauder and
his mother, "Dame Isobel Hepburn, Lady
Bass, ensconced themselves in the tower and
defied their creditors. At length the Scottish
lords of council granted them "protection,"
which is, it thus appears, not solely the modern
bankrupt's privilege.

PAST AND FUTURE.

I COUNT it profitless to muse and sigh
     O'er memory's record of our buried years;
Were it not best to lay it gently by,
     And bid our eyes, while yet unwet with tears,
Look onward, upward: onward to the grey
     Dim haze-which shrouds the future from our
         sight:
And upward, towards the bright, infinite day,
     Whose mystic dawn shall triumph o'er our night?
Well might we sigh and weep, if sigh or tear
     Could change the volume in a single page,
Cleanse one foul spot, or soothe one fretting fear;
     Well might we weep and sigh, from youth to
         age,
If sigh, or tear, or prayer, could e'er prevail
To blot the evil from our life's told tale.

Well might we weep and sigh if that could bring
     Back to our groping arms and empty hearts, our
         lost;
Or win the sun of youthful hope to fling
     Its olden brightness on our tempest-tost
And waste heart waters. But it cannot be;
     And since it cannot, wherefore should we weep?
Were it not easiest to trust that He,
     Who all things past and future aye doth keep,