Clan MacQuarrie:  A History, by R. W. Munro and Alan Macquarrie

3

 

THE LAST CHIEF

 

Aspectum generosum habet.
Et generosum animum. 1

 

(He has a noble appearance. And a noble spirit.)

 

The long shadow of the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745 fell across the early life of the last MacQuarrie Chief who owned Ulva's Isle. It even followed him in the uneasy years which saw the loss of his ancestral estate, and the long landless life that he endured after that crucial event. In these Risings Scots and Highlanders had fought on both sides, while some stayed at home; they were not (as is sometimes supposed) a national rebellion in which the whole people joined to support a Stewart prince's claim to his father's throne against the might of England under a Hanoverian king.2 But they proved to be the last occasions in which many of the clans took the field in a civil war within the United Kingdom, and military defeat brought to a final end the process whereby the patriarchal system was already giving way under the forces of economic and social change.

With Campbell influence dominant in Mull and the rest of Argyll, those with Jacobite sympathies like the Macleans had little chance to take an active part in either of the Risings. MacQuarrie is listed among those who 'kept at home though prepared to join the rebels'.3 The MacQuarries had followed the Macleans while they flourished, but since the decline of that family, (as William Buchanan of Auchmar wrote in 1723) the laird of Ulva 'continues peaceable in his own island, not much concerned with any affairs that occur in any other parts of this kingdom'.4 A few of his clansmen, indeed, managed to join the rebels: one a merchant in Mull, was helped by Jacobite sympathisers in Perthshire towards the end of 1745, when Oliphant of Gask paid £2 'to Alex, Mcquary to carry him home'.5 Some MacQuarries fell at Culloden, according to one Maclean historian; and eight members of the clan, all of Clanranald's Regiment and including four from the Isle of Eigg, were among those taken prisoner during the Rising.8 They were all transported, probably to the British colonies in America or the West Indies; two prisoners named MacWarish from Moidart, one of them described as a surgeon, were pardoned, and are sometimes thought to have been MacQuarries.

Lachlan MacQuarrie of Ulva,7 last of the long line of landowning chiefs, was still a minor when his father died in 1735. Born probably between 1715 and 1722, he was acknowledged as his father's heir in the lands of Ulva, Staffa and part of Mull upon a precept of clare constat from John, second Duke of Argyll, as superior (dated at Edinburgh on 12 August 1738), and on payment of a'composition' of £106 13s. 4d. Scots in terms of the investitures of the lands. To complete the legal formalities, his title was confirmed by a sasine recorded at Dumbarton about a year later, when his uncle Allan of Culinish appeared on his behalf as tutor or 'actornatus'.8 Having reached legal age, on 10 January 1740 at Inveraray, Lachlan renewed a bond given by his father in 1734 to John Campbell, chamberlain-depute of Argyll, for £289 12s Scots.9 At the end of it all, the young chief was left in no doubt about the far-reaching power and influence of MacCailean Mor, the head of the Campbell clan.

All but the memory of the old clan system had melted away with the abolition by Parliament at Westminster in 1747 of the heritable jurisdiction exercised from father to son by landowners over their people. But some vestiges of the old pattern of a chief surrounded by his kinsmen and followers remained, as shown by four of the names in the Argyll Valuation Roll for 1751:10

 

Figure 2 Argyll Valuation Roll of 1751

Lachlan McQuary of Ulva                                                     £281   7s   0

(Cove, Ardnacallich, Soriby, Ardealm,

Farininardry, Abost, Glacknagallan)

Donald McQuary of Ormaig                                                  220 13s   0

Eolisary, Craigaig, Ormaigbeg, Ormaigmore,

Isle of Staffa, Kilvickeunichtrach)

John McQuary (wadset of Balligartan)                                   36   0s   0

Allan McQuary (wadsets of Culinish and Lagganulva)    107   6s   0

 

Even when compared with others in the same parish, it is true, these were small and relatively poor properties. MacQuarrie's neighbour Maclean of Torloisk's valuation was £671 6s, MacKinnon's £460 11s, Maclean of Coll's £367 (the last two for estates of Mishnish and Mornish on the north coast), while the Duke of Argyll's lands in the north part of Mull alone were put at £1795 7s. In the rest of Mull (Torosay and Kilfinichen parishes) the duke had a further £2960 18s., and John Maclean of Lochbuie £1641 3s.11

It is worth taking a look at these cadet branches of the house of Ulva before they disappear from view. Donald of Ormaig, head of the principal branch, was a much older man than his chief - born in the reign of Charles 11 (who died in 1685), and son of that Hector of Ormaig involved with the Macleans in their struggle against Argyll, and one of the leaders in Sir John Maclean's clan regiment at Killiecrankie. His only son Hector, by his wife who was a daughter of Hector of Lochbuie, was married to one of Sir John's daughters before 1745, and to him Donald - as 'elder of Ormaig' and eventually 'late of Ormaig' - passed on his lands in 1751, reserving a liferent to himself and providing that he should be freed from payment of any debts due him and affecting his estate.12 His lands on the south shore of Ulva, where Ormaig and Cragaig and the rest look over the sea to Staffa and Iona, are a most attractive part of the island, less desolate then than they are today. An action to protect his woods from marauding neighbours, raised by Donald in 1720, shows that they included large oak trees as well as birch and hazel, and later on one of Hector's delights was the 'little garden' which he was forced to leave at Ormaig.13

Culinish and Balligharten are on the north shore of Ulva, and crumbling walls are still to be seen there today. The former gave a territorial designation for a generation to the chief s uncle Allan, who had taken the sasine which followed on the duke's precept for registration at Dumbarton in 1739. John of Balligharten, though only a minor cadet, had enough pride in his name to have a rough tombstone - the earliest now readable in the old churchyard at Kilvickewen - carved to mark 'John McGuaries Burying Place of Balligharten' and dated 1765 (he survived for another eight years).14 The only cadet branch which seems to have disappeared entirely by the early 18th century is that of Laggan on the Mull side of the Sound of Ulva. These lands were held in wadset by Allan of Culinish (the former tutor) , and they were bought by Maclean of Torloisk in 1762 after an unseemly wrangle between uncle and nephew. Lachlan wished to redeem the wadset, and after process raised in the Court of Session in 1745, and reference to legal arbiters in 1751, Allan's claims against his nephew were found to be 'entirely sopite [=settled] and extinguished', and he was ordered to remove from the lands and cede possession of them to the Chief at Whitsunday 1753 - with a cash payment thrown in as he was 'not in opulent circumstances'. Allan withdrew in high dudgeon to Aberdeen with his family, but continued to bombard the Duke of Argyll through his manager Lord Milton and his agents, alleging that the loss of all his property and possessions was in revenge for 'discovering' to the duke that MacQuarrie and his predecessors had been due to pay feu-duties of 700 merks yearly to their superior since the time of the Macleans of Duart, but had failed to do so since 1690! After having the Inveraray archives and the national records searched back to the retour of 1630, the duke's advisers felt unimpressed by the evidence Allan produced in support of his discovery, and put it down to his grievance in being turned out of his possessions by his nephew; so Allan had a public 'advertisement' printed in 1755 warning any prospective purchaser of the Ulva estate - which he declared MacQuarrie 'is now endeavouring to dispose of - that it could not be sold without the consent of the superior, which 'at present is not very practicable' as MacQuarrie was debtor to the duke for more that its value. 15

                Besides this little group of cadets, loyal and disloyal, the chief had by this time quite a family of his own. His first wife was Alice or Alicia Maclean, 7th child of Donald, laird of Torloisk, whose wife was a daughter of Archibald Campbell of Sunderland in Islay. Donald, who had been 'out' in 1715, lived until 1748, and the marriage probably took place in his lifetime (the exact date is not known, as the old parish registers for Kilninian and Kilmore survive only from 1766). Alice is remembered as 'a woman of ability and evidently a real poetess'; one of her sisters was married to the parish minister, and MacQuarrie acquired a batch of stalwart brothers-in-law; Hector, the eldest, who had a legal training and succeeded to Torloisk; Lachlan, who followed him as laird, and knew the world as a ship's captain, but remained immensely proud of the humble house in which he was born; and Allan, who was already laying the foundations of a military career on the Continent, with the Scots brigade in the service of the Netherlands.lb Allan was later severely critical of MacQuarrie's treatment of his sister; and in the marriage itself tradition says that trickery played a part in winning the bride. The story goes that Alice had been courted by a Campbell cousin, but MacQuarrie sent her a letter purporting to be from her sweetheart and saying that the writer was about to leave for Edinburgh to marry someone else. MacQuarrie himself then proposed and was accepted, and Alice is said to have found out her mistake too late, and composed a song (still remembered in Mull) telling how, although her husband was a Mullman, her heart really belonged to the Islay man -'Ged 's e 'm Muileach a 's ni domh, /'S e an t'Ileach mo leannan'.17

                There was no happiness in the marriage, it is said, but the couple had four sons and four daughters. The eldest daughter seems to have been born in 1747 or 1748; two of the sons joined the Army when the employment of Highland soldiers was resumed after the scare of Jacobitism had subsided.18 During the Seven Years War of 1756-63 (otherwise know as the French and Indian War), two new Highland regiments of foot were raised for service in America - the 77th (Montgomerie's) and 78th (Fraser's), for which some officers came from Mull. One of these was Captain Allan Maclean of Brolass (now successor to the Duart baronetcy and chiefship), in whose company there was at least one MacQuarrie. The 'year of victories' in 1759 added to the Highlanders' reputation as fighting men, and led to a demand for more, and for officers to raise them. Another Allan Maclean (Torloisk), MacQuarrie's brother-in-law, who had left the Dutch service and served with the British forces in America, was commissioned in 1761 to form the Royal Highland Volunteers, numbered the 114th Foot; he brought in several Maclean officers, and among the Lieutenants were Murdoch Maclaine, then a merchant in Edinburgh, a cousin of the Laird of Lochbuie, and Major Allan's nephew John MacQuarrie, the chiefs eldest son and heir, whose commission was dated 27 October 1761. In July following, the chiefs next son, Donald MacQuarrie, was commissioned as one of the junior Ensigns in the Fencible Men of Argyllshire - a largely Campbell-officered regiment, one of two raised in the Highlands for home defence by the Duke of Argyll and the Earl of Sutherland respectively, as an experiment authorized by the Government for Scotland in 1759 in place of the English system of balloting for militia service.19

These two MacQuarries, John and Donald, were the first of the clan to figure in the British Army List, but by no means the last. They almost certainly 'recruited for rank', but in the absence of muster rolls or pay lists of either unit, it is impossible to tell how far they were joined by clansmen in the ranks or as non-commissioned officers. Both the 114th and the Fencibles were reduced at the peace of 1763, so they had little time to make their mark in wartime; the former never went on active service, but furnished a good supply of recruits to Highland regiments in Germany and America (according to Stewart of Garth); while the latter were quartered in different parts of Scotland. At the end of the war when Mull was reckoned to have over 5800 inhabitants, of 350 men who went to the army only 50 are said to have returned; a great many were killed in America, others remained in service, and some probably stayed and settled down on lands offered to them. John drew half pay after his regiment was dis-banded, but ten years later his uncle Allan kitted him out for India as a cadet on the Bengal establishment, he saw active service in the Rohilla campaign of 1774 as Ensign in the 20th Bn. Bengal Sepoys, and after being discharged in India a year later his condition became distressed and he seems to have died there unmarried; of Donald more will be said later. Both the chiefs other sons are also believed to have died abroad without issue, Allan ap-parently also being an officer in the Army; two of the daughters were married to Macleans (of the Lochbuie and Torloisk families respectively), and the other two were unmarried (the younger was abandoned by her father and penniless, according to her uncle Allan).20

MacQuarrie cannot escape some blame for his neglect of the 'promising family' which he had by Alice Maclean of Torloisk, just as his brother-in-law's active concern for them should not be forgotten. MacQuarrie's immorality brought him into collision with the Presbytery of Mull and his own kirk session, and it was Allan's belief that he broke the heart of as good a woman as ever lived, by his wicked vicious conduct'.21 On his own ad­mission, the Chief had three children by his maid at Ulva, besides one by another woman; he was eventually persuaded to marry the mother of three, and a tradition survives regarding her. While his first wife was alive, according to one version, the girls of Ulva were merry-making on Hallowe'en, except the maid who remained in the house helping her mistress; the Chief had left some time before. The lady of Ulva, Mrs. MacQuarrie, urged her maid to go outside and try one of the old customs by which a girl's future husband would be revealed to her on Hallowe'en - throwing her keys over her shoulder or winnowing corn anti-sunwise, perhaps, and seeing who appeared. The girl was pale as a ghost when she came back, and to her mistress's anxious enquiry, she replied 'I saw Mac-Quarrie riding on his brown pony.' 'But he is not to be back to-day', said the mistress; adding in dismay, as she realized the omen, 'God knows what's to come of it.'

The church records prove that the Chiefs second wife, Ann MacQuarrie, was his maid at Ulva. Kilninian and Kilmore, the parish of which Ulva was a part, had a new minister, Archibald MacArthur, presented by the Duke of Argyll and admitted in 1766, and both the Presbytery of Mull and the local kirk session were soon taking action. The chief having given repeated promises to turn Ann out of his house and yet having failed to do so, they were both summoned to appear before the Presbytery of Mull at its November meeting. They did not attend, but in the following February MacQuarrie himself 'compeared voluntarily' before the kirk session, stating that his maid had some time ago had a child of which he was the father, and that this was their third; he came as a suppliant, professing repentance for his guilt, promising to submit to the discipline of the church, and craving the privilege of baptism for the child. MacQuarrie being already in process before the Presbytery, the Session judged it incompetent 'to do more or less in his affeir', but agreed to allow the baptism if suitable fines were paid by both parties.

The Presbytery, to whom they were referred for censure, found the couple quite incorrigible, and their minister, having obtained the consent of both, 'summarily married them before witnesses.' That was in February 1767, and one can still read in the parish registers that on the 16th of that month 'Lachlan M'Quarie of Ulva Esqr, and Ann M'Quarie his spouse had their lawful daughter Sybla (Sibilla) baptized': other entries follow over the next ten years, adding three sons and five daughters to the chiefs family. Another sequel is recorded, for MacQuarrie had to pay £6 sterling to the session, who decided with this and another fine 'to cause a wright make a communion table with a seal on each side of it in the Kirk of Kilmore.' (Whether one of the seals was to be MacQuarrie's is not stipulated.)22

This second family was just about as unlucky as the first, as it turned out, and the Chief himself has again been blamed. But MacQuarrie had at least one failing which 'leaned to Virtue's side' - an open-handed hospitality, of which the extravagance was no doubt partly the cause of his being remembered as the last of his race, the Chief who let the lands of his forefathers slip through his fingers. The public records are witness to how he borrowed from his neighbours, pledging his lands in security to the lairds of Torloisk, Coll and others; and yet we know that by 1762 he was enrolled among the Commissioners of Supply for Argyll (even though he was a vassal of the duke's), along with Hector MacQuarrie of Ormaig and other Mull landowners, whose duty it was to ensure the allocation and collection of the land tax and some of the other levies imposed to pay for a greatly increased national expenditure. He was even able to afford jaunts to Edinburgh, like the one when he was initiated into Lodge St. David Edinburgh no. 36, along with his cousin Hector of Ormaig.23

 

Banks, Johnson and Boswell

In his own little territory, too, MacQuarrie was host to some notable visitors, including one who left the briefest of allusions to the laird, but made his Isle of Staffa world­famous, and a pair whose comments add zest to two of the best and earliest journals of travel in the Hebrides. These were unexpected guests, in 1772 and 1773 - the first being Sir Joseph Banks, and the others Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. From a later letter we know that Banks 'shared cups' with the Chief after learning from a passing English visi-tor, whom he met casually at Drimnin on the Sound of Mull, something of the geological wonders of Staffa. He went out of his way, on a voyage to Iceland, to examine the island and its caves with a scientist's attention to detail, and gave the first full account of it for publication to his friend Thomas Pennant - who added in a footnote that 'this island is the property of Mr. Lauchlan MacQuarie, of Ulva, and is now to be disposed of. Staffa's sudden rise to fame might be likely to have commercial implications for the Ormaig estate, which 'old, young and midle-aged (sic) Ormaigs' (Donald, his grandson John, and Hector) had been reconciled to parting with as early as 1769; now young John, 'bred to physic' and planning to go to Jamaica, wrote an account of Staffa based on Sir Joseph's description 'in the News Papers' for his cousin Murdoch Maclaine, the Edinburgh

merchant.24

Banks the navigator had appropriately come by sea, but the next two visitors came overland, by the moorland track from Tobermory. It was a wild night in mid-October 1773, and MacQuarrie already had one unexpected guest, Captain M'Lure, master of the Bonetta of Londonderry. The captain had just returned from seeing that his ship was safely sheltered while at anchor, when suddenly, past seven o'clock, there was a commotion outside and more visitors were announced. Young Donald Maclean, son of the Laird of Coll, he knew, but who were the two strangers - the peevish old gentleman and his solicitous companion? When Young Coll made the introductions -'Mr. Johnson' and 'Mr. Boswell' - was MacQuarrie any the wiser? If not, he soon made up for his ignorance, and welcomed his guests with all the generosity at his command. 'M'Quarrie's house was mean,' wrote Boswell in his journal; 'but we were agreeably surprised by the appearance of the master, whom we found to be intelligent, polite, and much a man of the world '25

Gradually, as the weary pair thawed under the influence of their host's geniality (and no doubt his cellar), MacQuarrie heard their story. They had left Tobermory that forenoon, and the way had been rough as they rode across country. Johnson, though by now inured to such hardships, had not been in too good a humour: he had lost the oak walking-stick which he had brought from London, and was convinced that it had been stolen when he thought of the value of 'such a piece of timber' in so treeless an island as Mull must then have been. Abandoning all hope of reaching Inchkenneth, their objective, Young Coll decided that they should make for Ulva. The night was dark when they reached the narrow strait which separates the island from Mull, and the wind, which was contrary, so high that the ferryman (who was on the Ulva side) could not hear their attendant's call. The travellers had visions of being compelled to spend the night out of doors - no joke, certainly in a Hebridean October - when a boat put off from the Bonnetta and carried them across the dark and stormy water to the Isle of Ulva.

The Laird entertained them liberally, as Johnson has recorded, telling them tales of second sight and explaining the old custom of Mercheta Mulierum, which survived on Ulva in a modified form. On the marriage of any of his tenants, he told them, a sheep was due to him, but ('by that inattention to the uncertain proportion between the value and the denomination of money which has brought such disorder into Europe', as Johnson noted) he took five shillings instead.

His visitors were impressed with the antiquity of the MacQuarrie family, which - according to the Chief - had owned the island for nine hundred years. No doubt he described how his ancestors had supported Alexander II in his attempt to throw off the Norwegian yoke from the Western Isles, fought with his successor at Largs and with Bruce at Bannockburn, and died for Charles at Inverkeithing. This the MacQuarries claim to be the record of their Clan, and possibly the Chief also admitted that they had been known to aid the King's enemies more than once. A MacQuarrie of Ulva was one of those chiefs denounced for carrying on treasonable correspondence with the King of England, to whom they proposed to transfer their allegiance. Johnson would also have delighted in the curious tenure by which MacQuarrie held his territory in Mull - on the payment of one penny Scots to the Duke of Argyll, 'if asked'.26

Hearing of the long association of the family with Ulva, the visitors received all the greater shock when the Laird told them that he must soon part with his lands to pay his debts. They talked sadly of the sale of the estate of an ancient family, although Johnson formed the opinion that it was MacQuarrie's own negligence and folly that forced him from a home he loved so dear. 'Since money has been brought amongst them', he later wrote of the Highlanders, 'they have found, like others, the art of spending more than they receive; and I saw with grief the chief of a very ancient clan, whose Island was condemned by law to be sold for the satisfaction of his creditors.'27

MacQuarrie interested his guests with a strong instance of the 'second sight', which he assured them was true. He had gone to Edinburgh, he told them, and taken a manservant along with him. An old woman, who was in the house, said one day, 'MacQuarrie will be at home tomorrow, and will bring two gentleman with him', and she said, she saw his servant returned in red and green. He did come home next day; he had two gentlemen with him; and his servant had a new red and green livery, which MacQuarrie had bought for him at Edinburgh, upon a sudden thought, not having the least intention when he left home to put his servant in livery; so that the old woman could not have heard any previous mention of it. Boswell thought this worth recording in his journal, and Johnson quoted it in his examination of the 'second sight'; but the fact that the MacQuarrie tartan (or livery) is red and green may rob the tale of some of its mystery.28

The Isle of Staffa, a part of the MacQuarrie's dominions already becoming widely known, was another topic of conversation. It used to be held blench of the Ulva family - that is, on payment of a nominal yearly duty - by the MacQuarries of Ormaig, and the Chief had been familiar with it all his life. 'When the Islanders were reproached,' wrote Johnson, 'with their ignorance, or insensibility of the wonders of Staffa, they had not much to reply. They had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder, otherwise than by novelty.' Ulva was later to have a great influx of visitors due to the nearness of Staffa, to which it formed so convenient a stepping-stone before the steamers came; the island's value was no doubt enhanced by its famous neighbour.

When eventually, after a very liberal supper, the visitors retired for the night, they were pleased to find an elegant bed of Indian cotton, spread with fine sheets, ready for each in the same humble room. Less agreeable was the fact that the beds stood upon the bare earth, which, as the windows were broken, a long course of rain had softened to a puddle. Boswell had contracted a cold by his soaking, but it had been cured in less than an hour by a prescription of Young Coll's. They made light of the situation after the discomforts of the day, however, and Boswell, feeling warmly towards their host, remarked, 'aspectum generosum habet,' to which Johnson added, 'et generosum animum.'1

Next morning - it was a Sunday - the travellers felt disinclined to explore. Ulva is a fascinating island, but Boswell says he learnt that it contained nothing worthy of observation. Had they but known it, there may have lived nearby in a little cottage by the sea, a simple crofter whose grandson's work in Africa was to make the name of Livingstone famous, while a boy of twelve years old (whose name was the same as the Laird's) would leave his mark on the history of Australia.29

MacQuarrie accompanied his visitors by boat to Inchkenneth, where they met one of his daughters and spent a few delightful days as the guests of Sir Allan Maclean of Brolass - the soldier Chief who later was their guide among the ruins of Iona, introduced them to the bluff Laird of Lochbuie, and was with them until they left the Islands. MacQuarrie was to have been one of the party as far as Iona, but the plan came to nothing and he returned to Ulva.

For the Chief, tragedy marred the year which followed Johnson's visit. That autumn Lochbuie, Young Coll, and several others were crossing from Ulva to Mull when their boat swamped - 'by the intoxication of the sailors,' says Sir Walter Scott (without giving any authority for his statement), 'who had partaken too largely of MacQuarrie's wonted hospitality.' Another traveller's account, attributing the accident to a sudden squall of wind, which, in the midst of a total calm, overset the boat, seems to exhonerate MacQuarrie; indeed, a local tradition says that the party were never on Ulva at all, but had come over the hills from Tobermory. Whatever the cause, nine of the occupants (including Coll) were drowned, and Lochbuie himself was only rescued with three of the others after having been in the water for 3/4 of an hour. It is said that someone - perhaps one of the boatmen - was warned by a half-wit on Ulva not to attempt the passage.30

Johnson and Boswell continued to take a lively interest in MacQuarrie's fortunes and misfortunes, as they did in those of their other Hebridean hosts. Proof is to be found in the letters they exchanged. 'What is become of poor Macquarry?' the Doctor would ask, and Boswell did his best to keep him informed. Some years after the tour MacQuarries's hospitality was returned; he pledged Johnson's health at Boswell's board in Edinburgh, along with Lachlan Maclean of Torloisk and young Coll's brother, Alexander.31

But nothing could save MacQuarrie's estates, and the law took its course. They were put up for sale by public roup at Edinburgh in July 1777, along with those of Hector MacQuarrie of Ormaig, whose aged father had died only a few months before. The two cannot be claimed as outstanding agriculturists, for both estates were described as 'almost in the state of nature, though capable of much improvement.

One future source of Ulva's prosperity had not yet been tapped, if we may judge by the bald statement in the advertisement: 'The shores are remarkably good for kelp, whereof a great quantity may be yearly manufactured, if properly cut.'26 The rental of Ulva was then about £196, and of Ormaig £105, divided between the different parts of each

property.32 See Fig. 3.

Immediately the MacQuarrie lands were sold, Boswell wrote to tell his friend. 'I fear he will have little or nothing left out of the purchase money,' he added, although it appears that this was far from what the Chief had expected. The purchaser was Dugald Campbell of Achnaba, a young Lieutenant in Fraser's Highlanders (71 st Regt.) soon to be a Captain in the 87th Foot, who held the island only for a little more that two years before being succeeded by another Campbell owner. The news of the sale drew from Dr. Johnson a sigh of regret for the passing of the old patriarchal authority, in which he saw something venerable and pleasing. 'Every eye,' he wrote, must look with pain on Campbell turning the Macquarries at will out of their sedes avitae, their hereditary island.'33

 

Figure 3

Rental of Ulva and Ormaig in 1775

Ardealam

£34

   0s

 0d

Ferninardry

13

  0

0

Soriby

14

  0

0

Cove

21

  0

0

Abose

14

  0

0

Culinish

20

  0

0

Bernish

8

  0

0

Baligartane

10

  0

0

Glacknagallon

14

  0

0

Ferry & Change House

5

  0

0

Ardnachalich & Colinsay

30

  0

0

Lagan Ulva

13

13

4

Ormaig

43

  0

0

Cragag

24

  0

0

Mill of Ditto

2

  2

0

Kilvickoans

11

11

22/3

Olasary

16

  0

0

Staffa

9

  0

0

 

 

Johnson called for further information and was told how the property had been sold in two lots, which fetched a total of £9080, considerably more than the upset price. Ulva sold for £5540 and Ormaig for £3540, both well above the £4069 and £2178 named. Boswell also mentioned that the Laird of Coll, who owned extensive estates in Mull, had wished to purchase Ulva, but thought the price too high. Boswell himself doubted if the bargain would be profitable to the buyer, but suggested to Johnson a scheme similar to one they had discussed in connection with Scalpay, off the coast of Skye - that the Doctor might purchase Little Colonsay, the island between Ulva and Staffa, and endow a school or college there, the master to be a clergyman of the Church of England. 'How venerable,' adds the doting Boswell, 'would such an institution make the name of Dr. Samuel Johnson in the Hebrides!'34

 

The call to arms

By the time the Chief became landless at the age of over 60, the American colonies were in full revolt against the mother country. The first shots fired at Lexington in April 1775 had indeed echoed round the world and the formation of new regiments gave a fillip to recruiting in the Highlands and elsewhere. In Mull, Allan Maclean (Torloisk) was once again to the fore, and Campbell officers on the duke's Highland estates were not far behind. In June 1775 Allan was commissioned as Lieut.-Colonel commandant of a new corps of Royal Highland Emigrants, to be raised from discharged Highland soldiers and their families who had settled in North America at the close of the previous war; it was to have two battalions, each over 700 strong, one being raised by Allan himself and the other by Major John Small. Among the Maclean officers from Mull, there were two of the Lochbuie family - Archibald, son and heir of the old chief whom Johnson and Boswell met after visiting Iona, was one of the senior Lieutenants in the 1st Battalion; and his cousin Murdoch in Edinburgh (who'd been a subaltern in the old 114th), was a Captain in the 2nd Battalion; both commissions dated 14 June 1775.35 Murdoch was cousin also to the MacQuarrie chief; his sister had married another of this clan, some connection of the Ormaig family, and three of their sons crossed the Atlantic to join the Royal Highland Emigrants, probably as volunteers. Donald and Hector had the misfortune to be taken prisoner, one by the French and the other by the Americans, but Lachlan Macquarie, the youngest - a lad of 15 when he sailed from Leith with his uncle Captain Murdoch in August 1776 - soon got his commission as junior ensign, which set his foot on the ladder that was to lead him to General's rank and the government of New South Wales.36

Meantime his Chief and namesake, with no land to manage or borrow money on, and no income from rents to spend, was caught up in the rush for commissions. No favourite with Colonel Allan Maclean, he found a place instead in the 74th Regiment of Foot, or Argyle Highlanders, also destined for active service in America. Its commandant was Lieut.-Colonel John Campbell of Barbreck, and including him all three field officers were Campbells, as were six out of the eight captains, and 14 of the 29 subalterns.37 MacQuarrie was fifth in seniority among the Lieutenants, his commission dated 23 December 1777; he probably had to raise a quota of men to earn his rank, but his own clan - 'to whom he had been, in the days of his prosperity, a most kind and generous master', his young namesake was to declare a decade later - does not seem to have proved a very fruitful recruiting ground. In fact, although all but four of the officers were Highlanders, only 590 of the 960 rank and file were from the actual Highlands, the rest being from Glasgow and the western districts of Scotland, where of course many men of Highland birth or descent had by this time found their way in search of employment.38

The 74th embarked at Greenock in August 1778, and eventually MacQuarrie set foot in the New World at Halifax, in Nova Scotia. There the regiment were garrisoned with the 80th, or Edinburgh, and the 82nd, or Duke of Hamilton's Regiments. In spring 1779, the flank companies were ordered to New York, the grenadier company of the 74th being commanded by Captain Ludovick Colquhoun of the Luss family, and the light company by Captain Campbell of Ballinaby; they joined the British army under Sir Henry Clinton immediately before the siege of Charlestown, which led to the surrender of the American forces there. Meantime the battalion companies of the 74th, with a detachment of the 82nd, left Halifax to establish a fort on Penobscot Bay (now Castine, Maine). The defences there were not completed, however, when a hostile fleet arrived from Boston and began to attack the British position on 25 July. Fighting continued afloat and ashore for some 19 days, when a superior British naval squadron arrived and put the attackers to flight. The conduct of the British troops (under the command of an Argyll man, Brigadier-General Francis Maclean) met with high praise. This was the occasion when Sir John Moore, then a young subaltern in the 82nd Regiment, had his baptism of fire; it would be nice to think that MacQuarrie took some part in these exciting operations, but all we know of his military prowess is General David Stewart's assertion, in his notice of the 74th Regiment, that 'this gentleman, although 62 years of age when he entered the Army, was healthy, active, and perfectly capable of executing any duty of his new profession'.39

General Maclean, with the detachment of the 82nd, returned to Halifax, leaving the 74th under Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Campbell of Monzie at Penobscot, where they remained till the peace by which Britain gave up her claims to the American Colonies in 1783. They then embarked for England, and, landing at Portsmouth, marched to Stirling, where they were disbanded. One of the final muster rolls, dated at Stirling on 12 May 1784, shows Lachlan MacQuarrie as senior Lieutenant in the company commanded by Major Archibald Campbell, with another Archibald Campbell as junior Lieutenant. Lieut. MacQuarrie was 'absent with Colonel Campbell's leave' when the roll was made up, but among the 22 'effective private men' in the company were two of his own clan (John and Archibald), as well as some other soldiers with familiar Mull names. On 24 May following, the Chief was placed on half-pay, which he was to draw for more than 30 years 40.

But the half-pay of a Lieutenant at £40 a year was no princely provision, and a packet of letters from him to his cousin Murdoch Maclaine of Lochbuie, carefully docketed and preserved, confirm that MacQuarrie's later years were spent in a state always bordering on penury 41.When he returned from the wars, Ulva belonged to Colonel Charles Campbell of Barbreck (no near relation of his commanding officer in the 74th, in spite of the designation), who had retired some years before from the East India Company's service in Madras. Barbreck already had a considerable estate in Argyllshire, and he bought Ulva (including the Ormaig part of the estate) in 1780 from young Achnaba, who was off on foreign service. The purchaser was given a 'new charter' from Argyll, paying a feu-duty in place of the old personal services, but in fact his ownership lasted only some five years before the estate changed hands again.42

In 1785 the old chiefs lands were sold to Colin Macdonald of Boisdale, of the Clanranald family, who associated his eight-year-old son Reginald or Ranald in the trans­action as his heir. Their management of the estate, and hospitality to visitors to Staffa and Iona before the steamers came, deserves a chapter to itself (Chap. 4), but meantime we must follow the fortunes of the displaced laird, who was suffered to live - and lived to suffer - on an isolated portion of his former property, for which it seems his friend Lochbuie (only just become a landed proprietor himself) guaranteed payment of the rent.43

Lying between Ulva and Staffa, among that cluster of isles off the western shores of Mull, Little Colonsay is an island of some 200 acres, and it has been known to carry a population of 33.44 In summer it can be a peaceful retreat, a little kingdom of slopes and terraces and hollows not unlike Ulva in miniature; but when the seaward cliffs echo the thunder of the waves driven in from the Atlantic by winter storms it must have a very different appearance, and is frequently inaccessible. MacQuarrie, a prisoner within this little kingdom, and without hope of any visitor, must often have sat in his 'little hut' wrapped in contemplation of the past, calling to mind the days when he was Chief in fact as well as name. But he had time on his hands, and a supply of writing paper, and if what he wrote on the big double sheets in his large, confident, but slightly spidery hand were often little more than begging letters, they were marked by a verve and variety of style which can reward anyone who traces the fading ink of those which have survived.45

The isolation of his residence, and the infirmities of old age, inevitably had a depressing effect, and were later to make him ready to think of settling anywhere rather than in Little Colonsay. It was not long before he was urging his friend to let him a farm on the Lochbuie estate which would enable him to make a move. In one letter, having 'reason to think that I must attend the Faculty of Phisitians (sic) before I recover the use of my Lege', he lamented in 1796: 'Life is now a burden, as I am reduced to that state, that I can't see the friends who wou'd make me welcome to their Board'; and again, 'The weather is so tempestuous here that there is no crossing', and he hopes that it is not ill-health which prevents Lochbuie paying him an intended visit. His own visits to Moy, where his friend had built a new mansion to replace the smaller house near his old castle, were not limited only by contrary winds, 'as I am not able to walk, and Cavalry is not to be gote for love or favor'; anyhow he feels that his riding days are over, and he would need assistance; 'to transport me over the Mull Alps'. By 1796 'boat is the only sure method for me to journey with', and when that was wanting (near the end of his stay on Colonsay) he regretted his inability to be at Rossal market near Loch Scridain with a few cows'.46

For the old chief still had some stock to attend to, and crops to gather by land and sea. An annual Colonsay return for 1800 and preceding years mentions wintering 50 cows; in one bad season the want of grass made him think of rouping off the rest of his beasts, 'when there is no price for cattle'; though reputedly less fertile than Ulva or Gometra, the soil was good enough to grow barley and potatoes, and once he asks for flax seed. There is no word of catching fish, even for domestic consumption, although Lochbuie had been kind enough to purchase 'some fishing outtenselles' (they must surely have been put to use) - and there is no sign of any interest in lobsters or shell-fish. Round the shores of Colonsay there were 4 to 6 tons of kelp a year to be won, which he reckoned would fetch £10 1Os per ton, and even after paying some of Lochbuie's Ardmeanach tenants there would be some cash in it for him.47

Following the 'discovery' of Staffa by Sir Joseph Banks, and his description of it published in Thomas Pennant's Voyage to the Hebrides, other scientists came to see the island, and Dr. Johnson's and Boswell's accounts of their voyage brought many travellers to the area from the 1780s onward. One of the flow of books which resulted gives us a short but vivid glimpse of MacQuarrie's continued eagerness to entertain strangers. A young English lawyer, John Stoddart, after exploring Staffa, paid a passing visit in 1799 which he described as follows:

 

In returning merrily to Ulva [he wrote] we learnt that an old Highland chieftain, MacQuarry of MacQuarry, resided on the small island of Colonsa. His fortune, indeed, was decayed; he had parted with Ulva, Staffa, and a very extensive property, and was reduced to this little domain; but still he retained the old Highland spirit of hospitality, and would have been hurt at our passing his shore without a visit. The welcome which he gave us to his little hut, was of the warmest kind. Whiskey, his own recipe for long life, he recommended without limitation to his friends, and would not suffer us to depart, without going through all the ceremonies of the parting cup.'48

 

Apparently Sir John (for Stoddart, who was brother-in-law to Hazlitt and the friend of Scott and Wordsworth, was later knighted) did not realise that his host was the very man who had entertained Johnson and Boswell so generously at Ulva a quarter of a century before. The failure is as sad as it is surprising, for had he done so we might have had MacQuarrie's opinion of his famous visitors to compare with their accounts of him. It is a misfortune, too, that Sir Walter Scott, who had seen 'the late venerable Laird of MacQuarrie' (as he later called him) and knew his reputation for hospitality, seems to have left no description of the Chief nor any account of their meeting.49

MacQuarrie's needs were simple, and there was not much scope for luxuries. While on Colonsay he described himself as 'quit destitute for want of shoes and boots', and once asked if Mrs. Maclaine could send him some pecks of salt, 'as I have not' , he adds, 'what will season an Egg'. Having some appreciation of good writing and style (as he showed in a comment on his son Hector), he made quite a story of one December foray - how he boated to Ulva in quest of 'oyle', saw 'Mr. Lachlan McQuarie' (unidentified), went as far as the ground-officer's house, and could get none on the south side; whether the lamps burned more dimly on Colonsay that winter he does not tell. From time to time he acknowledged his own shortcomings, and accepted his infirmities and the 'vicissitudes of life and sorrow' with resignation to the will of God. Perhaps his early brush with the Rev. Mr. McArthur had made some impression, and he did not neglect his ministrations; the old church at Kilvicewen had long been a ruin, but M'Arthur preached in Ulva at least twice a year, and there are passing references in two of MacQuarrie's letters to having been 'at sermon'. His exile on Colonsay had it relaxations too, as his requests for tobacco, and a pack of cards indicate, and that he did not ignore appearances is shown when he asks Lochbuie 'to order by post from Oban a good Hatt for me of the size of your own'. Above all, he enjoyed getting news of his relations, friends, neighbours, and the wider world beyond - 'Send me the last News papers' is a constant refrain in his correspondence. 50

Iniquities of the father

Wars, and their effect on those engaged in various parts of the world, were the background to many news items for the Chief. The campaign in India against the Rohillas, in which his eldest son John had taken part, led to substantial claims for prize money for the Bengal Army involved; negotiations were so protracted that payment was not officially authorised to claimants or their legal representatives until 1786. Even then it was not till five years later that John's father learnt that he was entitled to between £400 and £500.

            The late Ensign's name appeared in a Bengal paper in a list of officers entitled to Rohilla prize money, and when Captain Lachlan spotted it he wrote to the appropriate authority and was told that the necessary legal steps had been taken to recover the money, which would then be remitted to MacQuarrie. In giving his uncle Lochbuie this news, he added:

 

'I sincerely rejoice that my old friend is for once so lucky, but I hope he will make a proper use of it, and not squander it away as he has formerly done many greater sums. The best and only use he should make of it is to educate the younger part of his family and to fit out the older part of them in different lines of life so as to be able to provide for themselves and not remain a constant burden on his £40 a year.' 51

 

Colonel Allan Maclean, who had sent his 'late very unfortunate nephew' John to India, and been at considerable expense in fitting him out, was less tolerant. He blamed Lochbuie for having pressed for payment to be made to MacQuarrie himself without first insisting on his family responsibilities being met:

 

'I am very sorry for Macquarie's situation [he wrote in 1792], but he truely [is] not an Object of Compassion, if it be considered, that he not only brought his own misfortunes, but that he ruined a family of fine promising children, and besides brooke [sic] the heart of as good a woman as ever lived, by his vicious wicked conduct. ... It is really surprising that all the male children of old Macquarie that we ever heard of should prove worthless, but the misfortune was that the unreasonable example they had before them in the conduct of the father helped to ruin the children.'52

 

Such strictures from a near contemporary, and the advice of his young namesake, make a knowledge of what became of the Chief s two families of more than purely genealogical interest. Of the older sons (by Col. Allan's sister), John had been found in 'great distress in India' after leaving the Bengal army, and little is known of the two younger, Lachlan and Allan, except that they too died abroad; but Donald had gone into the 'seafaring business', and according to his father had taken a fine house in Liverpool by 1794 and "offers me a welcome for life'.53 The eldest of the four daughters, Mary or Marie, had married Gillean Maclaine of Scallastle (of the Lochbuie family, and bred to the law); he died in 1788, when her father helped to settle the affairs of a young family whose military record was to earn her the title 'Mother of Heroes'; her sister married John McLean of the Torloisk family, who was a tacksman of Laggan Ulva; two others were unmarried and their uncle Allan complained that Jane had been 'abandoned for years' by their father.54

Of his second family, though his ability to help them was small, MacQuarrie's letters show that he was not unmindful of their interests. (Their mother disappears from view after giving him another son a few months before he sailed for America.) If he were to leave Colonsay, the father told Lochbuie in 1789, he would want to be near a school 'for the benefit of my young family', the youngest being then in his 12th year. He even thought of living near some town in the Lowlands 'for the benefit of my Boys who are lost in this place'. As the youngsters got older, he became concerned to do more for his 'poor family'. Lochbuie, when he was made Major of a new regiment of Argyll Fencibles in 1793, got the chiefs son Hector a first step in the army, and MacQuarrie scanned the Almanack closely as he rose to Captain at 18, and transferred to the 73rd and then the 33rd Regiments in India. He thought the youngest boy, Lachlan, would be better at school till he was 16, as there was then 'a very good teacher' in Ulva; 'though my situation would require Lachlan to be about me', he wrote when the lad was just short of 18, 'I think it sinfull to sacrifice his futur temporall interest by detaining him from improving himself, and thought he too might join one of the Fencible regiments (Major Lachlan got him a commission in the 86th Foot in India before the century ended).55 Little is known of the five daughters of the second marriage, except that Margaret died at Ulva in 1773, Amelia was for some time in Glasgow, and Ann or Annie was with her father right to the end. Of the two families, Donald was married and had a daughter, and still figured in the Liverpool Directory in the year of his father's death in 1818, the Chiefs eldest daughter Marie Maclean seems to have survived them all, dying at home in Edinburgh of 'decline of life' in 1846, aged 98, and buried below a handsome monument in Warriston Cemetery recording the martial deed of her sons, unlike the simple stone at Pennygown in Mull which commemorates the husband of 'Marie daughter of Lachlan McQuarie of McQuarie'.56

But to return from this family digression to the lonely father on Little Colonsay, it is not difficult to see why some writers have said that the old man died without male issue, though it would not be so easy to prove that he left no descendants in the male line. Nor is the fate of the immediate cadet branches always easy to trace with certainty. Hector of Ormaig died in 1794 (another suppliant for Lochbuie's charity, though in debt to his own Chief in the latter's opinion), and his two sons by a daughter of the Jacobite Chief of Duart disappear in the West and East Indies. One of his daughters married Allan MacQuarrie of the Ballighartan family (whose senior member had left the Highlands and followed a variety of occupations); he incurred his Chief's wrath by harbouring 'visions of intromission with Ormaig's effects', and his son John was (the Chief believed) being put forward by Boisdale as his grandfather's heir to give him a claim on Ormaig's property (which had included one-third part of Little Colonsay), probably with a view to establishing a legal right to its disposal. The lands once held by the Laggan family line had by this time long been in the hands of the Torloisk family.57

Of all his clan, the old Chief found 'our Oskamull friends' the most promising - Lachlan and Charles, whose mother was Lochbuie's sister and a cousin of the Ulva chief, and their father a distant relative (perhaps though the Ormaig branch). During a 'very aareeable' New Year visit to Lagganulva in 1794, when he found Mrs. Macquarie saddened only by the absence of her soldier sons, MacQuarrie wrote of Lachlan that 'if he has days he will be an honor to me', and of the pair of brothers as 'the only hopes I have of the worn-out Clan McQ:' (The chief may have had the second sight, as he claimed, but he little imagined that on that same New Year's Day Lachlan was writing a letter in Bombay to inform his uncle of his recent courtship and marriage.)58 Of his own clansmen and erstwhile tenants in Ulva the Chief could only express deep disappointment. When Lochbuie was recruiting for the Argyll Fencibles later the same year, he received a warning that he need not expect any military assistance from his Ulva friend, as 'my weight and interest is so fare gone in the land of my Nativity'. MacQuarrie had hoped to get some recruits for his son Hector, but 'I have so frequently and [word unclear] the unnaturality of my ungratful [sic] clan, that I have very little dependence on them. The D...11 has left them blind to their own interests, besides taken from them all the Martiall spirit of their predecessors'. Perhaps Lochbuie did not take this entirely at its face value, for in his own company roll there was a senior Sergeant Lachlan of the clan, and two private soldiers named John McQuarrie (1st and 2nd).59 The same year saw three of the Chiefs Maclaine (Scallastle) grandsons - Archibald, Murdoch and John - commissioned in the Army and embarking on the careers which made one a General and K.C.B., and brought death in the battle to one at Maida and the other of wounds after Waterloo. The Chief himself was even ready to remind the Secretary at War of his own American war service, and to offer himself for garrison duty in any part of Great Britain or Ireland, while admitting that through age (above 70) and infirmity he was unfit for active service.60

But an unlucky accident which rendered him likely to be incapable of future service led MacQuarrie to think of raising cash by the sale of his Army commission. Local advice suggested £900 as the price for his rank, or more if he could first buy a captaincy; but Lochbuie found out from a London agent that an officer on half-pay could not sell his commission, although 'if Lieut. Mcquarie has good Interest his friends might get him on full pay and afterwards sell his commission', which after a payment of about £50 might bring in £400 to £450, while a further £525 or so might secure a company for 'a Lieutenant of so long standing' and, 'if Interest was used', such a captaincy might be sold to much greater advantage. Puzzled and disappointed, MacQuarrie was at a loss to know what to do, and left any decision to Lochbuie's 'superior knowledge'; he lamented his inability 'to serve my King, Country or myself - not to mention his 'poor family' - and in a fit of petulance, on hearing that Lochbuie had become a Lieut.-Colonel and wishing him joy of it, he ended his letter: 'Damn such Rapid promotions to every one, but me, I shall command you all, when we cross the line'.61

A flicker of the old martial spirit was aroused in 1800, when Lochbuie (apparently in all seriousness) offered the old Chief the command of a company of local Volunteers. He accepted this 'great and seasonable Feather in my Cape' with pleasure, and assured his cousin that it will 'bring me to Life again', promising eagerly to try to please officers and men 'as far as it does not interfere with the good of the Service'. Volunteers were being raised in Mull, as elsewhere in Scotland, but alas! nothing more is heard of the Ulva company, to the financial loss of its commander-designate and other needy friends, who saw it bringing money to the island as well as contributing to his own health and interest.62

In his simple solitude the old man retained one emblem of his status - most of his letters are sealed with a wax impression of his coat of arms as MacQuarrie of Ulva, with 'supporters' denoting his chiefship of the name. The impression is minute but clear: a shield parted per fess (i.e. divided horizontally) and the upper part per pale (vertically), and the three compartments bear - (1) three cross crosslets fitchee; (2) three towers embattled; and (3) a lymphad in chief and a salmon naiant in base. The crest is an arm in armour embowed, issuing out of a crown and grasping a dagger; the supporters are two greyhounds; and the motto, TURRIS FORTIS MIHI DEUS, is equally divided on two scrolls, above and below the arms.63 When his young cousin Lachlan, in Bombay, newly married and promoted, commissioned a carriage and some articles of plate, he proposed to adorn them with 'my family coat of arms'; in carrying out this unheraldic notion (for arms are personal and not family property) he asked Lochbuie to get from his Chief 'as good an impression as possible from his seal on wax', or even to allow the seal itself to be sent to General Maclean in London as the surest and best way of having 'our arms' properly executed by the engraver and painter. For the full blazon and colouring the Chief referred Lochbuie to a copy (which he'd seen frequently at Scallastle, his daughter Mary would know where it was) of the arms used by the Inniskillen family and Lord Maguire in Ireland, adding that 'the motto I assumed for the Lyon Office is Turris Fortis Mihi Deus', in English 'God is my strong tower', and not Lord Maguire's motto. (The arms do not appear in the Lyon Register established in 1672, but it has been accepted that members of the family used 'ensigns armorial' prior to that date). And so they appear (without the chief's supporters) on General Lachlan Macquarie's tomb at Gruline in Mull.64

Some years before the surviving correspondence begins in 1788, MacQuarrie had signified his 'inclination' to move from Little Colonsay and he raised the matter again when Lochbuie was planning the sett of his estate in 1789. 'I wou'd be happie to become your Tenant in any part you wou'd pick out for me, on the coast or anywhere ell's you saw proper', he wrote, and within a few years they came the length of naming a farm that might be suitable. But as his family grew older he was torn between that and another plan, to settle 'near some Town in the Low country', such as Glasgow, as 'my infirm state of health, with the high rents of farms in this country, is against my applying for any place in the Highlands', if Lochbuie could not accommodate him. Disappointed at not getting possession of 'the place we was talking off, he told Lochbuie that another farm which he offered 'will not answer'. Any tack in the Ardmeanach portion of Lochbuie's estate would suit him - he mentioned Scobull on Loch Scridain more than once in his letters - 'as my Boat would carry me where my horse wou'd bring me to your Hospitable Family'. 'Longer here I will not stay', he wrote in 1794, but stay he did nevertheless; when Lachlan Maclean of Torloisk (the 'old fellow') died in July 1799, and Colin Macdonald of Boisdale in July 1800, some changes were only to be expected. MacQuarrie was convinced that 'Boistle' had been planning ('under a maske') to have Little Colonsay sold; and although Torloisk's daughter, Mrs. Clephane, who inherited her father's lands and his position as one of MacQuarrie's chief creditors, appeared to be 'friendly disposed' to him, and wrote 'in a very kind stile', the old Chief received a summons of removal from Colonsay, and a threat from his creditors' factor (Hector Maclean of Ensay) to carry off his cattle as payment for last year's rent. Appealed to by MacQuarrie, Lochbuie sternly reminded the factor that he had already given an obligation for payment of MacQuarrie's rent, and would provide a new one if required. MacQuarrie's last letters from Colonsay were written in December 1801, when the 'bad weather frustratred any communication between the Island and Ulva for many daies, and even that very dangerous'. But even if his cattle were not uplifted as part of the legal process, their owner was soon ousted from his island tenancy: he cannot have been entirely sorry to see the end of his stay there.65

Not long after the Ensay incident, which occurred in 1801, MacQuarrie moved across Loch na Keal to a farm at Gribun. This little triangle of level land scooped out of a line of frowning cliffs was then even more isolated than it is today, for access could be had to it only by sea, or by a rough mountain road leading over the hills to Kilfinichen on Loch Scridain. Cliff and plain are the predominating features, but one is never complete without the other. In winter it is a wild place of lashing rain, pounding breakers and whirling mists - MacQuarrie grimly headed an April letter to Lochbuie 'Cold Griban' - but the island-studded sea which stretches before the cottage doors in summer is some compensation. MacQuarrie must often have gazed wistfully at the scene which he knew from so many different angles:- green Inchkenneth with its oyster-beds lying off the shore; terraced Colonsay of which he had dismal memories ('I may look for a settlement in any part than think on that Island'); irregular Staffa, revealing at this distance little of its wonders; beyond again, the row of Treshnish Isles, including the strange Dutchman's Cap, with Coll and Tiree fainter but still distinct behind; and finally, away on the left, Iona lying at the end of the Ross of Mull, her sands sparkling in the sunshine.66

While Gribun was at least 'far preferable' to Colonsay, his situation there was dreary enough. 'If you can send me any money pray do', he wrote to Lochbuie, 'as I want meal and corn, for tho you could spare me the latter, I have no way to carry it here: Griban will finish me totally'. His infirmities continued, with occasional improvements when he could report that 'the Litches (leeches, doctors) has done well for me'. His son Lachlan had now gone for a soldier, but he employed a servant at £3, whose brother was a sergeant, and he recommended them to Lochbuie as 'good honest people'. His greatest outpouring of grief, however, came on learning of the death of his son Hector, who had stayed in India by exchanging to the 33rd Foot as Lieutenant in 1799, and died at Vellore in the recently annexed Carnatic in October 1801; in a shaky letter to Lochbuie, who had got the young man his first step in the Fencibles in 1793, he wrote: 'Language cant afford (?) words to Express my situation on this great loss of promising son, whom I never had seen since I delivered to you, at Lochow, but 3 Nights, and I sincerely Pray that you, and yours, may be rewarded by the great Rewarder of good, & Charitable Deeds, for the Paternal Care you took of him while he was with you. ... May you, or yours, never feel the anguish, the pain of my very soul. ... I hope God will enable me to be resigned to his will.So help me God. ...'67 Young Major Lachlan, who saw his Chief as 'himself the primary cause of all his Family taking a wrong turn to all kinds of folly and extravagance', had earlier confided to his uncle Lochbuie that Hector, 'tho he has not all the vices of some of his Brothers, he has all the extravagance, folly and vanity of his unfortunate family'; earning 'handsome' prize money from his regiment's part in the capture of Seringa-patam, he had speculated with some of the captured treasures, 'losing both jewels and money', and was so involved in debt as to be unable to give his old father 'any pecuniary assistance'; the Major hoped Hector's brother Lachlan (now a Lieutenant in Major Lachlan's 86th) might prove to be 'a greater economist', and prided himself on having 'done all in my power to raise this infatuated Family from obscurity and want into respectable and eligible situations in Life that might enable them to thrive and do themselves credit in - were they so disposed'.68

Yet all the Chiefs letters are not doleful. 'Your news papers with thanks returned, send me by the first opportunity an other parcell of them and oblige', he writes. When war resumed after the uneasy peace of Amiens, and Napoleon threatened invasion, he wrote urgently to Lochbuie: 'In case there are Volunteers to be Rised - mind me, and late me know if I shou'd write Argyle, As L-d Liet of the County.' Later, when a French fleet was blockaded at Toulon, he remarks obscurely: 'I expect great news, by the next papers, of my acquaintance, Lord Nielson &c &c.' But always the gossip of the countryside was of absorbing interest, and they never lacked for topics in Mull: 'Whats come of MacTavish and the Black Bull', he asks curiously in a postscript. He is anxious how to get seed corn and potatoes for his farm, and frequently refers to the cattle trade. At one time he is plagued with drovers offering money for cattle of all ages and sizes ('I stood the temptation till the Rossall Marcate'), at another he complains that they won't advance money for cows just when he needs it. He asks if Mrs. Maclaine could spare him half a stone of butter and a stone of cheese, so evidently his farm could not always keep his household supplied. When Lochbuie arranged for his Ardmeanach tenants to send him peats, he sends a list of them, as promised; and with oyster-beds offshore he is able to reciprocate with a delicacy appreciated at Moy: 'My daughter was for boiling them, but I would not agree to that plan. If the Ladie wou'd send me direction for curg I shall have plenty next Tides.'69

Gribun was not a place which attracted visitors, except for geologists, but it was the southern terminal of a ferry from near Oskamull across the mouth of Loch na Keal which saved a 15 mile land journey. 'I wou'd be happie to see you here,' he wrote to Lochbuie, 'as then you could be judge of my exyled sitn. No sinner ever suffered more'. When invited to Moy (Dec 1802), 'willingly wou'd I accept of your friendly invitn, but my dear friend, the infirmities of old age are coming on a fair pace - besides I want a Taylor, and Mam Trotannich are very frieghtfull obstickles to me in my advanced age, which I feel now more than ever.' Ormaig's debts and 'the Scalastle affair' continue to trouble him, and he feels ill done by. Gribun and Inchkenneth were now in Staffa's hands, as well as Little Colonsay, and the newspapers brought him word that the young proprietor had plans to rearrange his property in Mull and Ulva.70

'I know I will be dispossessed, for an additional penny rent, tho' I could stay here, I am greatly in arrears as it is', he writes (April 1803). But to add to his distresses, he was harassed by Staffa's Gribun tenants, of whom he complained to the laird - 'the people not only threaten my servant but my own Person, I can't bear any longer such useage', he declares. A year later he is still in Gribun, but expecting to have to give way to the highest bidder, and he blames Staffa for having failed to keep any of his promises: 'I am resolved to be clear of him, never to be his Tenant again'. By the spring of 1804 he is looking forward to his Oskamull friends, Lochbuie's two [MacQuarrie] nephews, coming home to enjoy their new acquisitions as Mull lairds. After meeting in Egypt at the siege of Alexandria - one in Abercromby's army from Britain and the other in Baird's from India - the brothers had bought two blocks of their uncle's estate, amounting to more than 10,000 acres, between the sound of Mull and Loch na Keal: Charles had Glenforsa, and Lachlan took Gruline (which he renamed Jarvisfield). Lochbuie, himself burdened by debt, was not sorry to find such purchasers, and while MacQuarrie was pleased for his friends' sake, he assured Lochbuie that he would much rather 'it was in the old channel' -'But there is no duration to be expected in this troublesome world'. For all his faults, the two brothers were still inclined to be of service to their old Chief, and there seems to have been some suggestion already that he might become a tenant on Charles's estate.71

 

Friends in need

But the three were to meet under sadder circumstances earlier than they expected. Lochbuie did not long survive the sale of part of his estate, and in July 1804 MacQuarrie and his two most prominent clansmen walked sadly in the funeral procession to the family mausoleum at Laggan near Moy Castle. 'I cannot express how gratfull I am to you for the repeated instances I have daily received of your attention to my interest, and the trouble you take in making the Close of my Life comfortable to me', MacQuarrie had written nearly four years before. Lochbuie had been his adviser and chief provider, and possibly the administrator of his £40 half-pay allowance; he met his debts, answered begging letters with ready cash, and chided him when he spent too much on visits to the South. MacQuarrie enjoyed visiting Moy 'to peruse the newspapers all the season if you keep up your Brow's, but whenever I see them fall I will march,' he added. Increasingly friendless, the old Chief had a pathetic way of ending his letters, 'I am, Dr Cusine, Yours or no bodies, LACH: MacQUARIE'. And in what turned out to be almost the last letter of the correspondence, he wrote: 'You have often fought my Battles, for which and all other favours may Higher powers thank you, and yours, when I am no more.'72

MacQuarrie had never expected to survive his kind friend and benefactor, and with the end of the steady flow of cousinly letters the story of his remaining years cannot be told in the same detail. He was present at a happier event a month later, when he attended the 'Christening' of Jarvisfield, the home which Colonel Lachlan Macquarie had chosen and named after his 'late angelic and excellent wife'. There was a grand dinner in the old castle of Moy at Lochbuie, with speeches and toasts from all and sundry, and enough whisky to satisfy even the old Chief himself, who was in the chair to honour the occasion.73 His clansman was determined to make as good a show as a Mull laird as he had made as a soldier.

As time passed, and friends of other days slipped away, MacQuarrie was left more and more alone. Of his younger family, we hear nothing of his eldest, Archibald; Hector had died with the army in the Carnatic, in South India; and now Lachlan, Captain in the 86th regiment and recently married in Bombay, died at Goa in March 1807.74 In what may have been his centenary year (1815), however, MacQuarrie was invited to end his days under a clansman's hospitable roof. Colonel Lachlan's brother Charles, now retired from the Army and living on the estate which he had bought from Lochbuie, took pity on the old man. At the cost of some trouble to himself, he found accommodation for him at Pennygown, which lies at the lower end of Glenforsa and commands a magnificent view of the Sound of Mull. The Colonel, now the most famous and influential member of the clan, was in his fifth year as Governor of New South Wales, but his duties in that growing colony did not make him forget his early haunts and friends. 'I am glad', he wrote to his brother from Sydney, 'you have afforded an asylum to our poor old Chief in his latter Days, altho' no doubt very inconvenient to you to have him at Pennygown; but, I shall willingly pay at least half the expense of any loss you may eventually sustain by his residence there during the remainder of his declining years.75

All that remains is told in a few letters written from Pennygown in a firm, round hand obviously different from those of an earlier date. They were perhaps written at MacQuarrie's dictation by his daughter, whose claim against Lochbuie's son and successor they largely concern. 'My state of health is for some days past', the chief reports in August 1817 - the last letter written in his own name - 'rather on the decline; - but why should I complain, it is but what must naturally be expected.' He concludes by sending the new Lochbuie and his family 'the blessings of an Old man', and the letter is signed (in another's hand) 'MACQUARIE'. On the 7th November his daughter Anna writes to Lochbuie from Pennygown, saying that her father 'Is now quite reduced and very weak. ... We daily look for his death. ... We are much in want of cash. ...'76 

For two months more the old man lingered on, until the end came at last on the 14th of January 1818. The Edinburgh Advertiser, in recording his death, mentioned that 'The venerable hospitable Chieftain was seldom confined by any sickness till the time of his death, and he died at the age of 103.'77

They proposed to honour MacQuarrie with burial at Iona, where a carved effigy still remains to show that others of his ancient line were buried in the island.78 Accordingly, the body was taken from Glenforsa across the isthmus to Tigh-an-Loin at Killiechronan, at the head of Loch na Keal, where a Hugh MacQuarrie kept an inn.79 The following day they set out by the old pilgrim route to Iona, but a gale sprang up as they were leaving the shelter of the loch, and they had to take refuge. Perhaps the boatmen had in mind the fate of Young Coll and his party thirty years before at this spot. The gale continued, and the mourners decided to bury the last landed Chief of the MacQuarries at Inchkenneth, where his father had rested for nearly fourscore years. Ulva, Colonsay, Mull, Inchkenneth - MacQuarrie was a true son of the Isles: there he lived; there he died; and there he sleeps on, with no stone to mark his grave.80

It would be a pity if the memory of the man of whom this chapter tells were lost. To have been mentioned by Dr. Johnson was in itself a distinction, and to have been mentioned with approval by one so careful of his praise was an honour. MacQuarrie lived through a most critical period of Scottish history - the time when the old Chiefs, stripped of their hereditary consequence and as yet unadjusted to new conditions, were losing the power their ancestors had wielded. It was an era of change in everything that had to do with the Highlands and the Isles, and MacQuarrie was among the first to succumb. He had not the strength of character to save his family fortunes; but if much of the fault was his own, he can also be seen as the victim of circumstances beyond his control. Dr. Johnson himself put his finger on the cause of the tragedy; 'The admission of money into the Highlands,' he wrote in connection with the sale of Ulva, 40 years before, 'will soon put an end to the feudal modes of life, by making those men landlords who were not chiefs.'81 Nowhere has the change been so marked as in the island whose story is so closely linked with the fate of the Clan MacQuarrie.

 

Notes and references - Chapter 3, The Last Chief

 

1. J.Boswell, A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, (1936 edn, 312).

2. Sir Jame Fergusson, in Common Errors in Scot. Hist., ed. G.Donaldson, (1956), 20-2.

3. Argyll Estate Instructions, E.R.Cregeen (1964), intro xv, xvii, xxii.

4. John Mackay, Celtic Monthly xii 97, xii 97; W.Buchanan of Auchmar, Ancient Scotish Surnames, 71, in Miscellanea Scotica, iv (1820).

5. Chronicles of Atholl & Tullibardine Families, ed John 7th Duke of Atholl (1908), iii, addenda xvii-viii; T.L.K.Oliphant, Jacobit Laird of Gask (1870), 146.

6. J.P.MacLean, Hist. of Clan MacLean (Cincinnati, 1889), ii 229; Prisoners of the '45, ed Sir Bruce Seton & J.G.Arnot, iii (1929) 178-81. Chap. 7, note 20. Sir J.Fergusson, Argyll in the 'Forty-Five (1951), says Capt. John Fergussone of H.M.S. Furnace landed on Eigg in May 1746, &'the inhabitants being all rebells' he took 32 prisoners & 50 stand of arms; one prisoner is said to have been a son of Donald MacQuarrie, a famous piper, whose father Lachlan lived on the Isle of Rum, but when that Island was sold by Clanranald he settled with his family at Gruline in Eigg (Donald Nicholas, 'The Legends of Eigg' in Oban Times, 7 Jan 1950, & infn from A.Macdonald, Swadlincote, Burton-on-Trent, Staffs.

7. In his surviving letters, written during his later years, this chief consistently spelled his name MacQuarie, capital 'Q' & single 'r', but some documents & sources used various spellings. The standard spelling MacQuarrie is used in this book, except in quotations.

8. 'Praeceptum de Clare Constant, in favorem Lauchlane M'Quorie', quoted from Argyll papers at Inveraray, Cart. vi p119, in Session Papers (Signet Library), Allan M'Lean of Drimmin v. John Duke of Argyll, memorial for Argyll 26 Apr 1777, pp 124-5, & app. iv 13-6. Lachlan is usually said to have been born in 1715, & to have been 103 when he died in Jan 1818; but his cousin Major Lachlan Macquarie put his age at 82 in Oct 1804 (ltr quoted in Ellis 125 & chap xi note 125 for date) when suggesting his being put on full pay in one of the Royal Veteran battatlions, with leave to remain always absent. SRO, Particular Reg. of Sasines, Argyll, Dunbarton, Bute, Arran & Tarbert, vol 7, fol 289, recorded at Dumbarton 27 Oct 1739 following compearance of Lachlan's uncle Allan of Culinish as his Tutor on 12 Sep with the Duke of Argyll's precept cited above.

9. Sir D.Campbell, Clan Campbell, iii 59 (from Argyll Sheriff court books, 14 Mar 1744). Other bonds recorded in 1754, 63, 4, 5, cited in Argyll Sasines, viii