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SCOTS MAGAZINE,

ᎪNᎠ .

Edinburgh Literary Miscellany,

FOR DECEMBER 1806:

With a View of BROUGHTY CASTLE.

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THE

Scots Magazine,

AND

EDINBURGH LITERARY MISCELLANY,

FOR DECEMBER 1806.

Description of the VIEW.

BROUGHTY Castle is situated

on the Southern extremity of the county of Forfar, on a peninsula projecting a great way into the river Tay, at less than a mile's distance from the opposite coast of Fife; and it forms one of the most singular and beautiful vistas with which we are acquainted any where in Scotland. It lies in the parish of Monifieth, (though this matter is dis. puted by several other parishes,) a bout three miles to the eastward of the town of Dundee.

The earliest mention we find of Broughty Castle is by Boece, who in his usual fabulous manner, perkaps in the view of giving it greater eclat, makes it the scene of a prodigy. The principal era in its genuine history, however, is from the year 1547 to 1550, when it was the scene of important historical events.

The following well-written account of it is from that truly valuable national work, The Statistical Account of Scotland, which it would be doing injustice to the ingenious compiler of the description of the Parish of Monifieth, not to transcribe in his own words.

On the death of James V. of Scotland, Henry VIII. of England, to save that blood and treasure which

were expended in defence of either nation, sought to unite the two neighbouring kingdoms, by the mar riage of his young son Edward, to Mary, the infant Queen of Scots.To this measure all that nation had sworn agreement: But, incited by Cardinal Beaton and the Queen Dowager, who dreaded the downfall of the Popish religion, by an union with a heretical nation, they were prevailed on basely to break their oath. To enforce acquiescence, Henry arose in his might, and at his death the cause was espoused by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who was elected Protector of the kingdom during the minority of Edward his nephew. Moving along the eastern coast of Scotland with a numerous army, which was seconded by a powerful fleet, on Saturday, September 10. 1547, he met the 30,000 Scots under the conduct of the Earl of Arran, Regent of the kingdom, on the west of the river Esk, near Musselburgh, and discomfited them with great slaughter; but was soon after, by reason of the advanced season of the year, and intelligence he received of designs forming against him in England, forced to return thither, without completely prosecuting his victory. Imme

diately

diately on this his fleet, besides the fortresses on the isles in the estuary of the Forth, seized this of Broughty, and filled it with an English force.

As the Duke of Somerset depart ed with his army by the east of Scotland, the Earl of Lennox, who had received a disgust in the court of that kingdom, and had been honoured with the alliance of Henry VIII. entered by the west, His presence spread terror and dismay, and none met him but to do him homage. The heart of Arran, the regent, which was never intrepid, now shrunk within him. To conceal his fear, however, he collected the scattered remains of his enfeebled host, and from the western parts of Scotland, where he had taken refuge after the unfortunate action at Musselburgh, marched by Perth and Dundee to blockade the castle of Broughty. After having lain before it from the 1st of October 1547 to the 1st of January 1548, he departed from the siege with the loss of one of his best generals, and with that of all his ordnance, lamenting his doom to perpetual misfortune. Inspirited with this success, the English fortified the hill of Balgillo, about half a mile northward, and, notwithstanding the active exertions of James Haliburton, provost of Dundee, with a hundred horse, and of Sir Robert Maule, in his castle of Panmure, about six miles north-eastward, and about half a mile east from the present beautiful seat of that family, in the parish of Panbride, laid waste Dundee, and most

of the county of Angus. With rage the Earl of Argyll heard the report. He collected his valiant clans, and, in dignant, marched to Broughty; but felt the mortification of repulse. Not long after, a similar fate await ed three regiments of the French commanded by D'Esse, and as many regiments of Germans, commanded by one of their own princes. At

last, dissentions at home, and war with the French abroad, engaged the whole attention of the English. Provisions, arms, and ammunition, ceased to be regularly sent to their gar. risons in Broughty, and the fort of Balgillo; and thus, on Feburary 20. 1550, they fell an easy prey into the hands of the allied army of Scots, Germans, and French, commanded by Des Thermes, the successor of D'Esse. Both fortresses were then dismantled; and though they have been more than once repaired and fortified, yet history describes them as the scene of no action which me rits record. At present, there are only a few vestiges of fortification to be seen on the hill of Balgillo; and Broughty castle is fast wasting down to ruin.

In the following number of our Magazine we will give our readers a very minute and curious account of the two attacks made on Broughty Castle, by the Earl of Argyle and Mons. de Dessé, extracted from a very rare work, Beague's account of the Campaigns 1548 and 1549, originally published at Paris in 1556, and afterwards translated and republished at Edinburgh in 1706 by Abercromby, author of the martial atchievements of the Scots nation;a fact, by the way. not generally known, as his name does not appear in the translation.

Memoirs of Mr FRANCIS MASSON, the

celebrated BOTANIST.

Trica, some months ago, aged HIS gentleman died in, Amed about seventy. He was a native of Aberdeenshire, and although sprung from an humble stock, and rather of a limited education, raised himself to much honour and celebrity in the annals of botany. In the early part of his life he left his home, and went. to England to follow the employment

of a gardener; this profession naturally led him to the study of botany, to which he applied with great assiduity and success. That, however, was not his only pursuit in natural history, for in all the branches of that science he acquired a general, although not a minute knowledge. The fields were the scenes which he took for his observations on the economy of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, in place of books and the closet, from whence too many of our modern naturalists derive and deal out their studies of nature.

His great curiosity, and unbounded desire of viewing the works of God, stimulated him to a love of foreign. voyages and travels. He visited most, if not all the islands in the Atlantic, the West Indies, Africa, and North America, but never mentioned his being in the interior of Asia, as reported in some of our news-papers. He embarked in the same ship with Captain Cook, when on his voyage towards the south pole, and round the world. Forster and Sparrman, both naturalists, proceeded with this celebrated navigator, but they left Mr Masson at the Cape of Good Hope, it being the intention of his Majesty that he should explore that coast, and the interior of Africa, for the discovery of unknown plants.

After he had made his first journey, we find him, on the 11th of Sept. 1773, prepared for another, and joined by the indefatigable Professor Thunberg, who in the 2d vol. of his travels thus mentions their outset : "At this time I met with Mr Masson; he was well equipped with a large and strong waggon, tilt ed with sail-cloth, which was driven by an European servant, upon whom he could depend. We had each of ús a saddle horse, and for our wag gon we had several pair of oxen.

Thus we formed a society, consisting of three Europeans and four Hottentots, who for the space of se

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veral months were to penetrate inte the country together, put up with whatever we should find, whether good or bad, and frequently seclude ourselves from almost all the rest of the world and of the human race."

Mr Masson, in a letter to Sir John Pringle, then President of the Royal Society, has given an account of this and other two journies into the interior of Africa; they are inserted in the LXVI. vol. of the Philosophical Transactions.

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About the same time he became acquainted with Lady Ann Monson, who, although somewhat declined into the vale of years," accompanied her husband to India; not only as a duty to him, but in order to indulge a fondness, which she had contracted for the pursuits of natural history. She often attended Mr Masson in his excursions round the Cape. le compliment to her, or perhaps from her own discovery, he has named one of his beautiful heaths, Erica Monsoniana.-He was in all about thir teen years in this country, making the Cape his head quarters, and from theace sending to England, as oppor. tunities offered, that fine collection of African plants which now enriches the gardens of Kew. The most nu merous, and perhaps the most conspicuous, are his Stapelia and Erice. These he published in two folio vols. of elegant coloured plates. After his return home from Africa, he was solicited by the King to undertake a voyage to N. America, on purpose to make botanical researches on the other side of the Allegany or Apalachian mountains, a field little known, and scarcely ever before trod by the foot of a botanist. With some te luctance he consented, well knowing how hard the extremes of the heat and cold of that climate would bear upon his age, even although possessed of an uncommonly vigo rous constitution. Unluckily in his passage he was taken by a French

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