Blackader commands the Glasgow Regiment... Rebels seize Leith Fort...Battle of Sheriff-muir...Flight of the Pretender, MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.-1716—1721.—Colonel Blackader's private pursuits...His Speeches in the General Assembly... Is appointed Deputy Governor of Stirling Castle... His observa- tions on Legal and Evangelical Preaching... Speech at the CONCLUSION, 1722-1729.-Remarks on the last years of the Colonel's Life...Death of particular friends, his Brother, Lord Rothes, &c.... His opinions on Preachers and Professors of Religion...His endeavours to get crimes punished and sup- pressed...Death of his Father-in-law... Close of the Diary...His LIFE Or COLONEL BLACKADER, &c. CHAPTER I. GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL REMARKS. Family of Blackader Notices of the Colonel's early life-He studies at Edinburgh-Enters the Army-Anecdotes of Dr. William Blackader. LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN BLACKADER was, a native of Dumfries-shire. He was born in the parish of Glencairn, on the 14th of September, 1664. His father, the Rev. John Blackader, was minister of Troqueer in the presbytery of Dumfries; and expelled at the restoration of Charles II. for refusing to comply with Episcopacy, which the government had imprudently introduced in opposition to the wishes of the church and the nation. Of his early life, very little is known beyond a few incidental notices, until he entered the army in his 25th year. It is then, chiefly, that our acquaintance with him must commence : But as there is, in general, a curiosity to know more of the history of a distinguished individual than his personal adventures, some preliminary notices of his family will not, I am persuaded, be unacceptable to the reader. Genealogical detail is not our purpose, and has been given elsewhere; yet on this subject, a few observations may be premised, without overstepping the restrictions of Biography. Colonel Blackader's parentage was highly respectable. He had the honour to be connected, by propinquity of blood and hereditary descent, with the ancient baronage of Scotland. The original family was Blackader of that Ilk in Berwickshire, who had acquired considerable renown for their military achievements in the Border feuds, so early as the minority of James II. towards the middle of the fifteenth century. The lands from which they derived their name were the gift of that prince, conferred as a reward for their patriotic and enterprising activity in defending the eastern frontier, against the frequent and often sanguinary depredations of the English. An extensive addition was afterwards made to their property, by a marriage with the heiress of Tulliallan, an estate in Perthshire. This became afterwards the seat of the family, when the avaricious pretensions of a rival clan, the Homes of Wedderburn, had violently dispossessed them of their patrimonial estate in the Merse. The castle, now in ruins, stands on the northern bank of the Forth, near Kincardine. It belonged to the late Lord Keith, and was for several generations, the residence of the Blackaders, Barons of Tulliallan. The House of Blackader formed at various times matrimonial connexions of the first respectability. They were allied, by intermarriage, to the noble family of Douglas of Angus, Graham Earls of Monteith, and Bruce of Clackmannan, whose line still survives in the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine. Living in the days of war and chivalry, they seem to have imbibed, in no inconsiderable proportion, the martial spirit of those heroic ages. Stimulated by the maxims of a perverse errantry, which made it fashionable to court danger for the love of fame,—to seek military glory in every perilous enterprise, their romantic courage led them to wander in search of honourable adventures under the standard of foreign. princes. A small body of them volunteered for the cause of Henry VII. in the wars of York and Lancaster. They were present at the battle of Bosworth, the field that terminated the life and reign of the ambitious Richard, and restored the Red Rose to its ancient ascendancy. The heir of Blackader followedthe banner of the Douglases at Flodden, and perished, with many of his kinsmen, in that disastrous contest. They espoused the part of the unfortunate Mary, and sided with the Cavaliers in the parliamentary wars of Charles I. There was a cadet of this family in the Spanish service, under Ludovic, Earl of Crawford; and another served with Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, in his campaigns for relief of the distressed Protestants in Germany. One of their last lineal representatives, raised a body of troops, and joined the Earl of Glencairn, who, with some of the Highland chiefs in 1653, assembled a considerable force in the North to repel the usurpations of Cromwell-the last effort that was made to retrieve the departing liberties, and preserve the ancient independence of Scotland. The Blackaders made some figure in the ecclesiastical, as well as in the military annals of their country. Prior to the Reformation, they possessed official jurisdiction and monkish dignities in various churches and monasteries. In those days, the rich patrimony of the church offered a prize worthy of competition. Spiritual titles and monastic revenues were contested with the same eagerness as earthly crowns, and often with the same arms. The lucrative endowments of religious foundations were either monopolized by the nobles, or seized by those who could back their pious claims with force, and by casting the sword into the scale, make the balance of justice turn in their favour. The Priory of Coldingham was filled repeatedly by members of the Blackader family, one of whom was murdered, with six of his domestics, to make way for William Douglas, brother to the Earl of Angus. Another of them was Dean of Dunblane, and suffered the same fate; another, Archdeacon of Glasgow, who fell in a skirmish at Edinburgh with the rival faction of the Homes; and another, Abbot of Dundrennan in Galloway. Of this House also was Robert, Bishop of Aberdeen, who was afterwards translated to Glasgow, and became the first Metropolitan of that See. It was during his incumbency, and chiefly through his interest with Pope Sextus IV. and his successor, Innocent VIII. that this new Archbishopric was erected, a measure, resented with jealous indignation by his Grace of St. Andrews, and like to have occasioned a dangerous schism in this remote province of the Catholic dominions. The last Baron of Tulliallan, Sir John, was, in 1626, created by Charles I. one of the Knights Baronets of Nova Scotia,-a dignity which none of his posterity ever enjoyed. Being of a wasteful and extravagant turn, he impoverished his estate, and retired to the continent. He bore a commission for some time in |