Sir John Sinclair; Thurso Castle; Stoke Newington

O SATISFT tIS EAELT WITH THT MEECT; THAT WE MAT BEJOICE AND BE GLAD AXI. OUR DATS. PSAXM XC. 14.

I do remember them, their pleasant brows

So mark’d with pure affections, and the glance

Of their mild eyes, when, in the house of God,

They gather’d up

the

manna

that did fall

Like dew around.

MRS.

SIGOTJENET.

To few of her sons is Scotland more indebted than to the late Sir John Sinclair, of Ulbster. Entering into active Kfe at an early age, for sixty busy years he was constantly spending in the service of his neighbours and his country excellent talents and a good estate. Whilst yet a lad at college he gave earnest of that passion for improvement, and that dauntless enterprise, which distinguished him through life. Among its many wants, his native Caithness wanted roads, and it was in vain that Mr. Sinclair urged his brother landovraers to supply the deficiency. There was a steep hill, called Ben Cheilt, which ran right through the county, and as an objection to the turnpike, at once witty and fatal, it was always asked, “When will you show us a road over Ben Cheilt?” But one summer morning, having beforehand provided great store of implements, the young laird mustered on the spot 1200 labourers, and ere nightfall a good carriage-way was thrown over this terrible mountain.

B 2

And much of his subsequent career was the same exploit repeated. In every undertaking he knew that he must look for a Ben Cheilt, — a Hill Difficulty, on which all the timid and all the lazy would take their stand; and he always sought to surmount it by some brilhant and conclusive operation. And by dint of his ovim heroic exertions, and by the aid of those friends whom his reputation and his systematic obhgingness were perpetually acquiring, he accomplished many works of enormous labor and of more than national utility. Encouraged by the success of his schemes for improving the husbandry of his own ungenial realms, he founded that Board of Agriculture which has introduced a new era in the tdlage of the empire, whilst his untiring labors have left his name associated with the productive fisheries and thriving sheep-farms of Scotland. The hst of his publications fills thirty pages of print; and if the themes be too various, and if fresh projects succeed one another too rapidly, they show the industry of the student who could impart information on subjects so diverse, and the benevolence of the statesman whose only concern was to make other people rich and contented. His “Statistical Account of Scotland” * is a trophy of his unconquerable energy and unwearied good-humor. It was a * In twenty-one volumes, octavo.

task for which, saving the engineer of Ben Cheilt, fewwould have had faith or perseverance sufficient. In order to compile it, he required answers to one hundred and sixty queries from nearly a thousand ministers. To many of his correspondents, such topics were strange or distasteful, and all of them encountered difficulties in the shiness, and sometimes in the superstition, of. then’ natiu“al informants. Tenants would not teU the produce of their farms for fear that their rents should be raised, and Highland shepherds would not count their flocks, lest their vain curiosity should entail a judgment on the fleecy people. But, by a judicious admixture of coaxing and objurgation, the sanguine Baronet quickened the diligence of the ministers, and by patience and adroitness, the ministers ehcited the essential facts from their over-cautious parishioners. One laid aside his Cicero and another his “Poli Synopsis” tUl he should complete his census of pigs, poultry, and milch-kine. Professor Cooper grew archaeological over the “Auld Wives’ Lift” and Dr. Gibb waxed curious in acoustics:* in stately periods,

Witness the clever and well-bred echo at Mugdock Castle: “Opposite to this tower is heard a very extraordinary echo. It repeats any sentence of six syllables, in the exact tone, and with the very accent, in which it is uttered; waiting deliberately till the sentence is finished before it begins.” — Stat. Acct. xviii. 579. worthy of a Scottish Johnson, Mr. Sheriff told how many pounds of clover, and how many firlots of ryegrass were sown, in order to procme a hundred stones of hay; whilst the mellifluous cadence of Dr. Mackinlay lent new charms to printed calicoes, duffles, serges, and mancoes, and all fabrics which owed their glory to Kilmarnock and to “creelman’s composition.” When the mighty work was completed, no country possessed a survey of its internal resources so comprehensive, or local histories so minute, as were contained in its elaborate pages. It greatly helped to create the science of statistics, and to the Scottish antiquarian it is a record of ever-growing value. — When to such literary and economic toils, we add that in mellow age he could reckon two hundred of his countrymen who owed their worldly advancement to his friendly offices, and that he numbered among his friends and correspondents half the renovmed names of Europe, we shall convey some idea of his wide acquaintance with his cotemporaries, as well as a specimen of his ceaseless and kind-hearted activity.*

* For interesting memorials of Sir John Sinclair we are indebted to the filial affection of both a son and a daughter. See Miss Catherine Sinclair’s “Shetland and the Shetlanders;” and “Memoirs of the late Eight Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart.,” by Archdeacon Sinclair.

When the heir of Ulbster was still young, full of the chivalry which through his strong-minded mother, Lady Janet,* he had derived from the ancient house of Sutherland, and exulting in all the possibilities of an existence which he meant to fill with noble deeds, at the residence of Mr. Maitland, at Stoke Newington, he saw a young lady, whose rare attractions drew many admirers round her. Of these none could be more ardent than Mr. Sinclair, and he soon won the affections of a congenial mind. But Miss Maitland was an only child and an heiress, and her mother grudged that her future home shovdd be so far away. However, the same love which would fain have kept her daughter near her, could not long gainsay that daughter’s dehberate choice; and ere long the sanction of either parent gave to the happy suitor his lovely bride. Nine years passed prosperously. Mr. Sinclair was in Parhament; his knowledge of finance made him an authority on that great question of the day, and gained him the special favour of the Premier.

* Lady Janet was daughter of William Lord Strathnaver, who, had he survived his father, would have been seventeenth Earl of Sutherland. Her sister, Lady Helen Sutherland, married Sir James Colquhoun, of Luss, grandfather of that Sir James who became the husband of Miss Janet Sinclair. Consequently, Lady Colquhoun and her husband were

He had received the promise of a Baronetcy,* and was daily rising into higher pohtical influence and public celebrity, when his flattering prospects were shrouded in sudden gloom by the removal of his much-loved partner. Along with the memory of her feminine graces and endearing gentleness, Mrs. Sinclair left her representatives in two little girls, almost too yoimg to miss her, but stfll so like her, that, in the daughters, there was a promise that the mother would appear again. Hannah, the oldest, was five years of age, and Janet, of whom we are now to vmte, was only four. She was born in London on the 17th of April, 1781, and during her infancy her parents resided at Westminster and Whitehall.

The first home of these motherless children was then- ancestral seat, Thurso Castle. That stormy mansion looked more like a nursery for a lord of the isles, or like, what it was at first, the ocean-nest of the amphibious Caithness earls, than a retreat for tender orphans, cradled beneath a southern sun. But in that grim old castle the Orphans’ Guardian had provided for them all but a mother’s care. Not only

* After his wife’s death, as Mr. Sinclair had no son, by a very unusual concession to the feelings of his friend, Mr. Pitt made out the patent of Baronetcy in favour of Sir John, with remainder to his daughters and their heirs male.

was it the frequent resort of their fond surviving parent, but it was the permanent abode of their paternal grandmother, a Scottish gentlewoman of the olden school, shrewd, energetic, notable, proud of her ancient hneage, and, as became the descendant of that venerable peer who first affixed his tremulous autograph to Scotland’s Covenant, a firm adherent to the Presbyterian pohty; one who looked well to the ways of her household, and indited hortatory epistles to youthful clergymen; but also one who, amidst all the strictness of a manager, and all the stateliness of a high-bom dame, carried about that constitutional kindhness, and those profound affections, which — like a deep well, fenced with rustic masonry — the old mothers of Scotland sometimes hid within a dry or stoic manner. Lady Janet now lived for the daughters of her son, and though perhaps imperfectly acquainted vidth the distinguishing truths of the Gospel, it was her anxiety to bring up her youthful charge reKgiously. She constantly took them to the parish church, and then examined them on the sermons they had heard, and required them every Sabbath to repeat to her a Psahn and the Shorter Catechism. At the Castle also resided their father’s sister, a kind lady who, throughout her long life, never ceased to be much loved by her nieces.* And there, too, sojourned a judicious and affectionate servant — the English nurse, Morris — to whose warm-hearted counsels and simple Bible lessons her youthful charge were at that period more indebted than to any human influence. Herself a guileless and God-fearing Christian, this faithful attendant imbued the minds of her young mistresses with much of her own truthfulness and reverence for sacred things. One Sabbath Miss Jessie came in with a lapful of live shell-fish, which she had gathered on the shore at a great distance from the Castle. “I think, my dear,” said Morris, “you should not have gathered them on the Sabbath-day; you had better put them again where you got them.” Miss Jessie disappeared, and was late of returning. She had scrambled back the whole way along that rocky coast, till she came as nearly as she could judge to the spot where she had found the periwinkles, and then put them carefully back again. To her latest day she retained the simphcity and ingenuousness, as well as the respect for the Sabbath, which she learned thus early; and to her latest day. Nurse Morris experienced the gratitude of the Misses Sinclair, who provided her

* She afterwards became Mrs. Baillie, by ber marriage to Lord Polkemmet, one of the Senators of the College of Justice.

with an ample annuity, and were careful that in health, as in sickness, she should want no comfort which money could procure.

From Thurso Castle it was a grand sight to view the Pentland Frith in its winter’s fury — and the sisters often viewed it. On the short December days — in Caithness extremely short — they would stand and watch as one long wave after another swung home, and exploded beneath them; till at last some monster billow, with skirmishers streaming before him, rolled up to the charge, and as he burst on the basement, the windows were washed with brine, and the old tower shook like a lighthouse. To gaze on that stormy ocean, and listen to its noisy anthem, were great lessons; and even in these our days of infant training, it might be well if more provision were made for such bookless education, and the young mind were permitted to commime more freely with nature in her wild and gentle moods. The subject of this memoir often reverted to the solemn and awe-struck emotions with which she used to survey the many waves of that mighty sea. To her it lived. In its gambols it was a familiar and a play-feUow; in its turmoil it was a preacher of Jehovah’s majesty; and when formal instructions had nearly faded from remembrance, she was stiQ conscious of lofty thoughts.

and grave impressions, derived from this august but kindly tutor.

Erom Thurso Castle Lady Janet brought her granddaughters to Edinburgh. There, for three years they dwelt in the ancient Canongate, whose quaint houses were stiQ occupied by such of the aristocracy as had not migrated to the New Town; and then, to complete their education, they were sent to the school at Stoke Newington, where their own mother had spent her youthful days. Mrs. Crisp, by whom this school was conducted, received the children of her former pupil with a very warm affection, and, in her well-ordered estabUshment, the business of learning went briskly forward. The different branches were taught by the best teachers; the Miss Sinclairs enjoyed good health, and were endowed with excellent abilities; they had already acquired the most essential elements of knowledge before coming to London, and they had every incentive to study which the affection of their governess and the good-will of their companions could supply. Accordingly, they made signal proficiency, and when, at the respective ages of fifteen and sixteen, they retm-ned to Edinburgh, in person and acquirements advanced beyond their years, they found a ready welcome into that brilliant society to which their birth was a passport, and into which their kind mother-in-law, Lady Sinclair,* rejoiced to introduce them.

However, it was the great happiness of the sisters that even then they had no love of fashion and no turn for gaiety. And it was their other great happiness that they had an ardent love for one another. Hannah was a student. Even during her childish days at Thurso, she had nearly. as many friends as there were books in her father’s hbrary. She knew the haunt of each, and climbing on a chair got hold of her favourite poet or divine, and sat demurely reading whilst the summer tempted her to play. To her it was the great event, not when the carrier brought a package of new toys, but a parcel of new volumes; and when ministers and learned people visited the Castle, she posed them with hard questions. At school the same tendency bewrayed itself. Her turn was still for thought and knowledge. She was fond of languages; she was an adept in grammar, history, geography, arithmetic; she could

* The second wife of Sir John Sinclair was the only daughter of Lord Macdonald. She was not more eminent for beauty and accomplishments, than for benevolence and sweetness of disposition. The attachment of the Misses Sinclair towards her was warm and well deserved, for she was always a kind mother and a faithful friend to them. She survived her husband ten years, and died in 1 845.

calculate an eclipse, or analyse “Reid’s Inquiry.” And, as might be expected, she was sedate and speculative, and often silent. From extreme modesty, reserved, she was still more self-contained, because amongst companions of her own sex she seldom found much sympathy in her intellectual pursuits. But Jessie was more lively. Dutiful and diligent, and considerate of each one’s feelings, she was full of merry life and social glee. There was health in her nimble step and a prepossession in her fair and open features, and a peculiar charm in her tuneful voice. To her sister’s turn for music she added a remarkable command of the pencil; and whilst her sister pored over problems and deep authors, Jessie read for information. Her sister pondered and reasoned, and carried with her a mind full of queries and surmises; but Jessie seemed to have an innate affinity for things “honest, lovely, and of good report,” almost akin to Christian faith. At first sight contrasts, their characters were really the complement of one another. Their diversity increased their fondness, and enabled the one to supply what the other lacked. Por her erudite and thoughtful sister the younger felt an admiring and up-looking deference; whilst the limpid perceptions and true instincts of that younger mind often proved lights in dark places to the more abstract inquirer.

At that period Dr. Walter Buchanan was one of the ministers of Canongate. His warm and affectionate nature had been cast in the movdd of the Gospel, and as it shone from his happy countenance and breathed in his gracious words, holiness was very beautiful.*

* Dr. Walter Buchanan was born in 1755. After he was licensed he received an invitation to become the minister of the Scotch Church at Rotterdam, and was also called to the chapel of South Leith, of which Dr. Colquhoun was for so many years the eminent pastor. But instead of either charge he accepted the office of assistant to Mr. Randall, of Stirling, whom he succeeded in 1780. In 1789 he was translated to the collegiate Church and parish of Canongate, where he remained until his death in 1832. He was a beautiful specimen of Christian urbanity and warm-heartedness, and his house was the natural resort of the pious Churchmen and Dissenters who in those days, — the days of Simeon, Rowland HiU, and George Burder, — came to Edinburgh, and who, until the year 1799, were allowed to occupy indiscriminately the pulpits of the Scottish Establishment. Along with Dr. Davidson he was noted for his liberal encouragement of pious students of Theology, and by the books which he lent them, the friendly advice which he gave them, and the many substantial services which he rendered them, finding a tutorship for one, and the office of schoolmaster or assistant minister for another, and frequently giving goodly sums to those in straitened circumstances, he became a general patron to all probationers of Evangelical sentiments in Edinburgh. For many years he edited a periodical which supplied the godly families in Scotland with missionary intelligence and instructive Sabbath-reading, — “The Religious Monitor.” With that con-The sisters looked at him with revereBce. They had been told a great deal about religion, and they thought of it as something strict and precise; but they had never met anything so fascinating as they saw in their saintly pastor. They were quite arrested. Even amidst gay parties and volatile companions there followed them many a reminiscence of those fervent intercessions and persuasive counsels to which they had hearkened on the previous Sabbath. At last one day Miss Sinclair said to her sister, “If to obtain eternal life, we have only to practise goodness; if we have only to do what is right in the sight of God and avoid what is evil, I am sure it would be folly not to make the attempt.” And the proposal was made to one who had already been pondering the matter in her own mind, and who was beginning to be much impressed with the value of her soul and the imcerstancy which was one of her loveliest characteristics, Lady Colquhoun never abated for one hour in the grateful and venerating affection with which she regarded this earthly guide of her youth; and when, long afterwards, her own daughter was married, she felt it a hallowing and auspicious circumstance that the rite was solemnized by her own spiritual father. And in his widow, who survived for fifteen years, she found one of her most esteemed and congenial friends. The house of Mrs. Buchanan was the last to which Lady C. paid a visit.

tainty of life. The two resolved to become religious. They often retired and read the Bible together, and became very exact in devotional exercises. But still they were not satisfied. They saw that their pastor and Christians like him, “had bread to eat which they knew not of,” and they longed for this hidden manna. At this time they found on their father’s table a Theological Treatise, newly published and inscribed, “From the author.” It was “A Practical View of the Religious System of Professed Christians in the Pligher and Middle Classes, by William WOberforce, M.P.” It seemed the very book they wanted. They carried it off’ to their oviTi apartments and perused it with avidity. They could easUy recognise in it the same system of Evangelical doctrine which their minister preached, and, as one truth after another unfolded in the bland and eloquent expositions of the gifted author, they were transported with delight. In the precision of a printed book, and in the free, inartificial language of a layman, they understood the Gospel. In Christ believed they found their peace with God; in Christ loved they learned a new morality. It was Dr. Buchanan’s scriptural preaching and elevated walk which first prepossessed them in favour of vital godliness, and which long continued to be the chief means of building them up in faith and holiness; but it was the “Practical View” which first corrected their self-righteous errors and first taught them God’s OTvn method, — the religion of receiving and relying.

After this the Canongate Church was dearer than ever. With sacred delight they hailed the return of the Sabbath, and to them the most hallowed spots in the world were the dusky pulpit in which re-appeared that man of God, and their own family pew vnth its faded lining of green baize. With its brown light, its heavy pillars, and clumsy sounding-board, and with an audience becoming rapidly more and more plebeian, that sanctuary had charms which more classical structures and more fashionable resorts could never countervail. It was the Bethel where God first met them, and during each sojourn in Edinburgh, the youngest sister used always to revisit it, tiU shortly before the time when she arrived at “her Father’s house in peace.”

Now, also, was found the benefit of “two walking together.” Miss Sinclair’s seriousness and reflectiveness at an earlier period had proved of essential service to Miss Janet; and now that service was requited, for, indulging the metaphysical propensity of her mind, Miss Sinclair was soon involved in perplexity as to the primary truths of revelation.* The doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, the eternity of future punishment, the Divine sovereignty, all in succession proved stumbling-blocks; and though much distressed at her own reluctant doubts, she had not within her own resources the means of removing them. In spiritual matters her only confidant was her younger sister; but a mind like hers could not have sought a better counsellor. To Miss Janet the Gospel had always been its own witness. She cared not to reason about “fate, free-wiU, foreknowledge, knowledge absolute;” but she saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. To her the religion of the Bible was beautiful. To her, in His revealed character, God was light, and she perceived no darkness at all. To her the Bible was truth, and the Gospel was the vdsdom of God. And instead of debating with her sister, she directed her mind to the same objects which had assured herself. That which she had seen of the Word of Life she declared to her disquieted friend; and by dwelling on the fitness of the Gospel, and the loveliness of the Saviour’s character, and by urging her to pray, she sought to bring

* We here anticipate the narrative by a few years. It was not till Miss S. had reached her 21st year that she felt the doubts described above.

c 2 that friend to “fellowship with the Pather, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” And she succeeded. By means of the more prominent and practical truths of Christianity, she conjured away her sister’s abstruser doubts and intellectual difficulties, and had the happiness to see that dearest of her kindred a sharer of her own ingenuous and healthful piety. Our language contains few summaries of Evangelical Christianity more simple and comprehensive than Hannah Sinclair’s “Letter on the Principles of the Christian Paith;” and in reading it we feel our interest deepened by remembering that this labor of sisterly love is in good measure the result of sisterly prudence and piety; for under the blessing of God the Spirit it was her younger sister’s meekness of wisdom and simplicity in Christ which mainly contributed to establish Hannah Sinclair in the “Christian Faith.”

But an event had now occurred which, whilst it left them attached as ever, interrupted their daily communings. On the 13th of June, 1799, and in the nineteenth year of her age. Miss Janet Sinclair was united in marriage to James, eldest son of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, Baronet.