The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campell

CHAPTER IV.

YOUNG DUNCAN CAMPBELL RETURNS WITH HIS MOTHER TO EDINBURGH. THE EARL OF ARGYLE'S OVERTHROW. THE RUIN OF MR. ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL AND HIS DEATH. YOUNG DUNCAN'S PRACTICE IN PREDICTION AT EDINBURGH WHILE YET A BOY

Our young boy, now between six and seven years of age, half a Highlander and half a Laplander, delighted in wearing a little bonnet and plaid, thinking it looked very manly in his countrymen, and his father, as soon as he was out of his hanging sleeves, and left off his boy's vest, indulged him with that kind of dress, which is truly antique and heroic. In this early part of his nonage he was brought to Edinburgh by his mother-in-law, where I myself grew afresh acquainted with her, his father being then but lately dead, just after the civil commotion, and off and on, I have known him ever since, and conversed with him very frequently during that space of time, which is now about three or four and thirty years, so that whatever I say concerning him in the future pages I shall relate to the reader from my own certain knowledge, which, as I resolved to continue anonymous, may, perhaps, not have so much weight and authority as if I had prefixed my name to the account. Be that as it will, there are hundreds of living witnesses that will justify each action I relate, and his own future actions while he lives will procure belief and credit to the precedent ones, which I am going to record; so that if many do remain infidels to my relations, and will not allow them exact (the fate of many as credible and more important historians than myself), I can however venture to flatter myself that greater will be the number of those who will have a faith in my writings than of those who will reject my accounts as incredible.

Having just spoke of the decease of Mr. Archibald Campbell, the father of our young Duncan Campbell, it will not be amiss here to observe how true the predictions of his Lapland mother were, which arose from second-sight, according to the notices given by the child's father, to his grandfather, in his letter from Lapland, even before it was born, which shows that the infant held this second-sighted power, or occult faculty of divination, even by inheritance.

In the year 1685, the Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle sailed out of the ports of Holland without any obstruction, the Earl of Argyle in May; with three ships for Scotland, and Monmouth in June, with the same number for England.

The Earl setting out first, was also the first at landing. Argyle having attempted to land in the north of Scotland, and being disappointed by the vigilance of the Bishop of the Orcades, landed in the west, and encamped at Dunstaffnage Castle, in the province of Lorn, which had belonged to him. He omitted nothing that might draw over to him all the malcontents in the kingdom, whom he thought more numerous than they afterwards appeared to be. He dispersed about his declarations, wherein, after protesting that he had taken up arms only in defence of religion and the laws, against an unjust usurper (so he styled James the Second), he invited all good Protestants, and such Scotch as would assert their liberty, to join him against a prince, he said, who was got into the throne to ruin the Reformation, and to bring in Popery and arbitrary power. Next he sent letters to those he thought his friends, among whom was Mr. Archibald Campbell, who, according to the vast deference payed by the Scots to their chief, joined him, though in his heart of quite a different principle, to call them to his assistance. He detached two of his sons to make inroads in the neighbourhood, and compel some by threats, others by mighty promises, to join him. All his contrivances could not raise him above three thousand men, with whom he encamped in the Isle of Bute, where he was soon, in a manner besieged by the Earl of Dumbarton, with the king's forces, and several other bodies, commanded by the Duke of Gordon, the Marquis of Athol, the Earl of Arran, and other great men, who came from all parts to quench the fire before it grew to a head.

The Earl of Argyle being obliged to quit a post he could not make good, went over into a part of the country of his own name, where, having hastily fortified a castle called Ellingrey, he put into it the arms and ammunition taken out of his ships, which lay at anchor under the cannon of a fort he erected near that place. There his rout began; for going out from the castle with his forces to make an incursion, one of his parties was defeated by the Marquis of Athol, who slew four hundred of his men; and Captain Hamilton, who attacked his ships with some of the king's, and took them without any resistance.

The Earl of Dumbarton advancing towards him, at the same time, by long marches, while he endeavoured to secure himself by rivers, surprised him passing the Clyde in the village of Killern, as he was marching towards Lenox. Dumbarton coming upon them at night, would have stayed till the next day to attack the rebels, but they gave him not so much time, for they passed the river in the night, in such confusion, that being overcome by fear, they dispersed as soon as over. Argyle could scarce rally so many as would make him a small guard, which was soon scattered again; Dumbarton having passed the river, and divided his forces to pursue those that fled. Argyle had taken guides to conduct him to Galloway; but they mistaking the way, and leading him into a bog, most of those that still followed him quitted their horses, every man shifting for himself.

Argyle himself was making back alone towards the Clyde, when two resolute servants, belonging to an officer in the king's army meeting him, though they knew him not, bid him surrender. He fired at and missed them; but they took better aim, and wounded him with a pistol ball. Then the earl drawing his two pistols out of the holsters, quitted his horse, that was quite tired, and took the river. A country fellow, who came with those two, that had first assaulted him, pursued him with a pistol in his hand; the earl would have fired one of his, but the flint failing he was dangerously wounded in the head by the peasant. He discovered himself as he fell senseless, crying out. Unfortunate Argyle. This nobleman, how far soever he may be thought misled in principle, was certainly in his person a very brave and a very gallant hero. They made haste to draw him out and bring him to himself; after which, being delivered up to the officers, the erring, unfortunate great man, was conducted to Edinburgh and there beheaded.

Many gentlemen that followed the fortunes of this great man, though not in his death, they shared in all the other calamities attending his overthrow. They most of them fled into the remotest isles and the obscurest corners of all Scotland; contented with the saving of their lives; they grew exiles and banished men of their own making, and abdicated their estates before they were known to be forfeited, because, for fear of being informed against by the common fellows they commanded, they durst not appear to lay their claims. Of this number was Mr. Archibald Campbell, and this new disaster wounded him deep into the very heart, after so many late misadventures, and sent him untimely to the grave. He perfectly pined away and wasted; he was six months dying inch by inch, and the difference between his last breath and his way of breathing during all that time, was only, that he expired with a greater sigh than he ordinarily fetched every time when he drew his breath.

Everything the Lapland lady had predicted so long before, being thus come to pass, we may the less admire at the wonders performed by her son, when we consider this faculty of divination to be so derived to him from her, and grown as it were hereditary.

Our young prophet, who had taught most of his little companions to converse with him by finger, was the head at every little pastime and game they played at. Marbles, which he used to call children's playing at bowls, yielded him mighty diversion; and he was so dexterous an artist at shooting that little alabaster globe from between the end of his forefinger and the knuckle of his thumb, that he seldom missed hitting plum, as the boys call it, the marble he aimed at, though at the distance of two or three yards. The boys always when they played coveted to have him on their side, and by hearing that he foretold other things, used to consult him, when they made their little matches, which were things of great importance in their thoughts, who should get the victory. He used commonly to leave these trifles undecided, but if ever he gave his opinion in these trivial affairs, the persons fared well by their consultation, for his judgment about them was like a petty oracle, and the end always answered his prediction. But I would have my reader imagine, that though our Duncan Campbell was himself but a boy, he was not consulted only by boys; his penetration and insight into things of a high nature, got air, and being attested by credible witnesses won him the esteem of persons of mature years and discretion.

If a beautiful young virgin languished for a husband, or a widow's mind was in labour to have a second venture of infants by another spouse; if a housekeeper had lost anything belonging to her master, still little Duncan Campbell was at hand; he was the oracle to be applied to, and the little chalked circle, where he was diverting himself with his play-fellows near the cross at Edinburgh, was frequented with as much solicitation, and as much credit, as the tripos of Apollo was at Delphos in ancient times.

It was highly entertaining to see a young blooming beauty come and slily pick up the boy from his company, carry him home with as much eagerness as she would her gallant, because she knew she should get the name of her gallant out of him before he went, and bribe him with a sugarplum to write down the name of a young Scotch peer in a green ribbon that her mouth watered after.

How often after he has been wallowing in the dust, have I myself seen nice squeamish widows help him up in their gilded chariots, and give him a pleasant ride with them, that he might tell them they should not long lie alone; little Duncan Campbell had as much business upon his hands as the parsons of all the parishes in Edinburgh. He commonly was consulted, and named the couples before the minister joined them; thus he grew a rare customer to the toyshop, from whence he most usually received fees and rewards for his advice. If Lady Betty Such a one was foretold that she should certainly have Beau Such a one in marriage, then little Duncan was sure to have a hobby-horse from the toyshop, as a reward for the promised fop. If such a widow, that was ugly, but very rich, was to be pushed hard for as she pretended, though in reality easily won, little Duncan, upon insuring her such a captain, or such a lieutenant-colonel, was sure to be presented from the same child's warehouse, with a very handsome drum, and a silvered trumpet.

If a sempstress had an itching desire for a parson, she would, upon the first assurance of him, give the little Apollo a pasteboard temple, or church, finely painted, and a ring of bells into the bargain, from the same toy-office.

If a housekeeper lost any plate, the thief was certain to be catched, provided she took little master into the store room, and asked him the question, after she had given him his bellyful of sweetmeats.

Neither were the women only his consulters; the grave merchants, who were anxious for many ventures at sea, applied to the boy for his opinion of their security, and they looked upon his opinion to be as safe as the insurance office for ships. If he but told them, though the ship was just set sail, and a tempest rose just after on the ocean, that it would have a successful voyage, gain the port designed, and return home safe laden with the exchange of traffic and merchandize, they dismissed all their fears, banished all their cares, set their hearts at ease, and, safe in his opinion, enjoyed a calm of mind amidst a storm of weather.

I myself knew one Count Cog, an eminent gamester, who was a person so far from being of a credulous disposition, that he was an unbeliever in several points of religion, and the next door to an infidel; yet, as much as he was a stranger to faith, he was mastered and overpowered so far in his incredulity by the strange events which he had seen come frequently to pass from the predictions of this child, that he had commonly daily access to this boy to learn his more adverse and more prosperous hours of gaming. At first indeed he would try, when the child foretold him his ill fortune, whether it would prove true, and relying upon the mere hazard and turn of the die, he had always, as he observed, a run of ill luck on those forbidden days, as he never failed of good if he chose the fortunate hours directed by the boy. One time above all the rest, just before he was departing from Edinburgh, and when the season of gaming was almost over – most persons of wealth and distinction withdrawing for pleasure to their seats in the country – he came to young Duncan Campbell to consult, and was extremely solicitous to know how happily or unluckily he should end that term, as we may call it, of the gamester's weighty business, viz., play, there being a long vacation likely to ensue, when the gaming table would be empty, and the box and dice lie idle and cease to rattle. The boy encouraged him so well with his predictions on this occasion, that Count Cog went to the toyshop, brought him from thence a very fine ivory T totum, as children call it, a pretty set of painted and gilded little ninepins and a bowl, and a large bag of marbles and alloys; and what do you think the gamester got by this little present and the prediction of the boy? why, without telling the least tittle of falsehood, within the space of the last week's play, the gains of Count Cog really amounted to no less than 20,000l. sterling neat money.

Having mentioned these persons of so many different professions by borrowed names, and perhaps in a manner seemingly ludicrous, I would not have my reader from hence take occasion of looking on my account as fabulous. If I was not to make use of borrowed names, but to tell the real characters and names of the persons, I should do injury to those old friends of his who first gave credit to our young seer, while I am endeavouring to gain him the credit and esteem of new ones, in whose way it has not yet happened to consult him. For many persons are very willing to ask such questions as the foregoing ones; but few or none willing to have the public told they asked them; though they succeeded in their wish, and were amply satisfied in their curiosity. I have represented them perhaps in a ludicrous manner, because though they are mysterious actions they are still the actions of a boy, and as the rewards he received for his advices did really and truly consist of such toys as I mentioned, so could they not be treated of in a more serious manner, without the author's incurring a magisterial air of pedantry, and showing a mind, as it were, of being mighty grave and sententious about trifles. There are, however, some things of greater weight and importance done by him in a more advanced stage of life, which will be delivered to the public with that exactitude and gravity which becomes them; and in some of those relations the names of some persons that are concerned shall be printed, because it will not at all be injurious to them, or because I have their leave, and they are still living to testify what I shall relate.

In the mean time, as the greatest part of his nonage was spent in predicting almost innumerable things, which are all, however, reducible to the general heads above mentioned, I will not tire the reader with any particulars; but instead of doing that, before I come to show his power of divination, in the more active parts of his life, and when after removing from Edinburgh to London, he at last made it his public profession; I shall account how such divinations may be made, and divert the reader with many rare examples, taken from several faithful and undoubted historians, of persons who have done the like before him, some in one way, and some in another; though in this he seems to be peculiar, and to be, if I may be allowed the expression, a species by himself, alone in the talent of prediction; that he has collected within his own individual capacity all the methods which others severally used, and with which they were differently and singly gifted in their several ways of foreseeing and foretelling.

This art of prediction is not attainable any otherwise, than by these three ways; first, it is done by the company of familiar spirits and genii, which are of two sorts; some good and some bad; who tell the gifted person the things of which he informs other people. Secondly, it is performed by the second-sight, which is very various, and differs in most of the possessors, it being but a very little in some, very extensive and constant in others; beginning with some in their infancy, and leaving them before they come to years; happening to others in a middle age, to others again in an old age, that never had it before, and lasting only for a term of years, and now and then for a very short period of time; and in some, intermitting, like fits as it were, of vision, that leave them for a time, and then return to be as strong in them as ever, and it being in a manner hereditary to some families, whose children have it from their infancy, without intermission, to a great old age, and even to the time of their death, which they often foretell before it comes to pass, to a day, nay, even to an hour. Thirdly, it is attained by the diligent study of the lawful part of the art of magic.

Before I give the reader an account, as I shall do in three distinct discourses, first, concerning the intercourse which familiar spirits, viz., the good and bad genii, have had and continue to have to a great degree with some select parts of mankind; secondly, concerning the wonderful and almost miraculous power of a second-sight, with which many, beyond all controversy, have been extraordinarily but visibly gifted; and, thirdly, concerning the pitch of perfection to which the magic science has been carried and promoted by some adepts in that mysterious art; I will premise a few particulars about the genii which attended our little Duncan Campbell, and about the second-sight which he had when yet a child, and when we may much more easily believe that the wonders he performed and wrote of, must have been rather brought about by the intervention of such genii and the mediation of such a sight, than that he could have invented such fables concerning them, and compassed such predictions as seem to want their assistance, by the mere dint of a child's capacity.