Edinburgh. This threw the citizens into the utmost consternation, and an express was sent off directly to Stirling for troops to protect the city. Two hundred infantry mounted upon country horses and three hundred cavalry arrived the same evening; but had Borlum persisted in his original design, they had certainly come too late. On his arriving, however, within a mile of the city, and meeting with none of the citizens, a deputation of whom he had expected to invoke his aid, and perhaps secretly dreading the movements of Argyle, Borlum turned aside to Leith, which he entered, as he would in all probability have entered Edinburgh, without the smallest opposition. Here the insurgents found and liberated their forty companions who had been taken the previous day in crossing the Firth. They also seized upon the Custom-house, where they found considerable quantities of meal, beef, and brandy, which they at once appropriated to their own use, and possessing themselves of the citadel, with such materials as they found hi the harbour, they fortified it in the best manner they could for their security through the night. Next morning Argyle, with his three hundred cavalry, two hundred infantry, and a few militia, marched against Borlum, accompanied by generals Evans and Wightman, giving him a summons under pain of
treason to surrender, adding that if he waited for an attack, he should have no quarter. The laird of Kyimachin, who was spokesman for the rebels, haughtily replied, that the word surrender they did not understand, quarter they would neither take nor give, and his grace was welcome to force their position if he could. Sensible that without artillery no attack could be made upon the placa, barricaded as it was, with any prospect of success, the duke withdrew to prepare the means of more efficient warfare, and Borlum, disappointed in his views upon Edinburgh, and perhaps not at all anxious for a second interview with the king's troops, took the advantage of an ebb tide and a very dark night, to abandon his position, marching round the pier by the sands for Seaton house, the seat of the earl of Winton, who was in the south with Kenmure and his associated rebels. This place, after sundry accidents, they reached in safety about two o'clock in the morning. Here they were joined by a number of their companions, who having crossed the Firth farther down were unable to come up with them on the preceding day. Forty of their men, who had made too free with the custom-house brandy, some stragglers who had fallen behind on the march, with a small quantity of baggage and ammunition, fell into the hands of a detachment of the king's troops. Argyle, in the meantime, aware of the strength of Seaton housp, sent off an express to Stirling for cannon to dislodge its new possessors, when he was informed that Mar was on his march to force the passage of the Forth. This compelled him to hasten to Stirling, where he found that Mar had actually commenced his march, and had himself come as far south as Dunblane, whence hearing of the arrival of the duke, he returned to Perth, having attained his object, which was only a safe retreat for his friends from Seaton house.
On his sudden departure for Stirling, Argyle left the city of Edinburgh and Seaton house to the care of general Wightman and colonel Ker, with a few regular troops and the neighbouring militia. Finding Seaton impregnable to any force they could bring against it, they retired from it, to save themselves the disgrace of making an unsuccessful attack. Borlum finding himself unmolested, and in a country where he could command with ease all kinds of provision, proposed nothing less than to establish there a general magazine for the pretender, and to enlist an army from among the Jacobites of Edinburgh and the adjacent country; but before lie left the citadel of Leith, he despatched a boat with intelligence to Mar; and, firing after her, the king's ships took her for one of their own boats, and allowed her to pass without molestation. In
