Michael Forbes Tweedie. Published 1902.
CHAPTER VI
The year 1800 brought but few changes in Tweeddale, at all events so far as the family of Tweedie was concerned. Thomas Tweedie was in possession of Oliver; Alexander Tweedie of Quarter; Thomas Tweedie at Patervan; one Alexander Tweedie was at Nether Menzion, and another Alexander Tweedie at Dreva, and others of the family name were in various parts of the district.
There were also Tweedies settled in London (Walter Tweedie, "in London" was served heir to his father William Tweedie in Edinburgh, on 6th November 1801), at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool; the family of Tweedy of Essex now settled at Bromley Kent; the family of Tweedy in Cornwall; and the family of Tweedy in Ireland.
In 1801 we find George "Tweedy or Tweedie as he is called in the India Office records, Ensign in the 4th Regiment Bombay Infantry, from which he rose by regular steps, including service as Political Agent, till he retired in 1830 as a Colonel and died in 1860. He was a representative of the Essex family of Tweedy above mentioned.
Early in this century a family of Tweedies appears to have been resident in Whitehaven, for Ann Tweedie, wife of Henry Jefferson, is on 5th December 1804, served heiress to her father Robert Tweedie of that place, and the same for another sister, Jean, wife of Robert Farquhar in London.
Ann, the third daughter of Thomas Tweedie of Quarter, in 1766 married the Rev. Charles Nisbet of Montrose. They emigrated to Pennsylvania, and settled at Carlisle, becoming naturalised citizens of the United States. Alexander Tweedie of Quarter appears to have kept up a regular correspondence with his brother-in-law until his own death in 1804, exchanging letters about once a year, or even less frequently, as the fashion then was. Some of Charles Nisbet's letters have been preserved, and are written in a small clear hand, one line sometimes comprising as many as twenty words, and a page of paper as many as fifty-three lines. He was evidently a man of culture and observation, but like many an emigrant was not in sympathy with the order of things in his adopted country, and remained at heart a Scotchman and a Monarchist. The letters refer to many topics of interest, particularly to our American cousins, who must, however, make allowance for his evident bias; and his views of the future of the country read curiously in the light of the present day, as the following extracts shew.
"I do not think that the inhabitants of this country increase as some endeavour to make you believe, in Europe. There are as many unproductive marriages as with you, as few large families, and as many children who die in their infancy, though most of our people marry. We have not so many old batchelors and old maids as you have with you. Although our people marry young and give themselves no trouble about the expenses of a family, yet these marriages produce but few children, and married persons often part from each other from poverty, but oftener from looseness of manners. There are but few trades or professions in this country, which renders many people much at a loss in the disposing of their children, and is in some measure a discouragement to matrimony. We have few tradesmen, and these commonly very drunken and idle, and too many shopkeepers and innkeepers, which compose the greatest part of the population of most of our towns. About ten or twelve thousand emigrants arrive here annually from Ireland and some hundreds from Germany, but these make no possible addition to our numbers as they spread towards the frontiers. The general want of frugality among our people is a great hindrance to their increase, as the most of them expend all that they gain and lay up nothing for their posterity, to whom they leave all the world for the winning. Every man here has his fortune to make, but few seem to have made it to any purpose. There are very few ways of laying out money to advantage in this country, if one had it to lay out, for, although the legal interest is six per cent., yet as there are so few that can be trusted, a man who should put out his money to interest here, could scarcely expect ever to see it again; and let him take what securities he pleases, the law would often give him little or no relief, and with respect to laying out money on land, although a man may buy a great deal of it for little money, yet he can expect no returns from it, unless he labours it himself, as tenants cannot be found in this country. Yet some men are foolish enough to buy vast quantities of waste land, in the view of selling it again in parcels, if they can find purchasers, and when emigrants happen to choose these lands, the purchasers make great profits, but unless this is the case, the lands are subject to a tax and produce nothing to the owners. We have no manufactories, in which money might be placed out to advantage, and merchants have such encouragement to break, by the bankrupt laws of this country, that it would be folly to trust them with money. We have now sundry banks which lend money to merchants for a short time, and keep money payable on demand, but they give no interest for what they take in, though they require interest for what they give out; and I am afraid that they will not be of long continuance, as our people are so much addicted to cheating, gambling and speculation. From this you may guess that we have not many men of great fortunes, though some are said to have great estates in the public funds, from which they draw forty-eight per cent. annually, as they generally purchased their certificates for half-a-crown a pound, and now draw six per cent. as their nominal value. But these rich men are of no more consequence to this country than if they lived in Turkey, as all of them live in the great towns, where they spend their time in gaming, duelling, drunkenness and debauchery, or in making laws, such as may be expected from men of these characters. . . . But the common practice of frequent removing of our farmers is hurtful to the country in general, as well as to themselves and their families. The neglect of religion and morality is the true cause of the misfortunes and disorders of this country, but our people imagine that they are most happy when they may do whatever they please, without being called to any account for it......... This country must undergo a great revolution before it can be called a nation, or have any kind of union within itself. Everybody minds only himself and his own gain, but nobody cares anything for the public, and those in public offices least of all, as they are only anxious for their own continuance in power, which is easily obtained by telling lies to the people and promising to maintain their liberty, and independency, which are their favourite idols, though few of them know anything of the meaning of these words that they use so frequently."
"This country would rise gradually into importance in proportion as it filled with people, if these people were honest and industrious; but the most part of our people are neither active in acquiring property nor frugal enough to preserve it, as they generally spend it faster than they win it, and all of them choose to live in Luxury without ever thinking of paying their debts or providing for their families"
The troubles with the Indians and the advantage taken of them by England show the unsettled state of the United States at the time, and so far as England's action is concerned Charles Nisbet, at all events, proves himself a patriotic American citizen.
"We are in a state of war with the Indians, but our Government can raise but very few men, and these so exceeding bad, that they desert daily by dozens, and the officers dare not venture their lives among, them in the neighbourhood of Indians, as there have reason to believe that most of them would desert to the enemy, being mostly men of no principle or sense of honour, and for this reason our people are obliged to keep merely on the defensive.
Indians bordering on the Southern States are harassing the frontiers with rapines and murders, tho' the United States made a treaty with them last year, and gave them a great sum in money, goods, arms and ammunition, by which means they are put into a condition to make war on us with advantage, while our own people are left destitute of defence, arms and ammunition. The Indians that border on the middle states have defeated our paltry armies in two successive campaigns, and we are at this moment begging peace of them thro' the mediation of England. Our Commissioners are obliged to go to the place of treaty under the protection of English troops, and to make their proposals by the medium of the Governor of Upper Canada, as the Indians had killed the Commissioners that were sent last year, and refused to treat with them. The Governor likewise receives the money and goods that are intended as presents to the Indians, and may give them as much or as little as he pleases. He undertakes on behalf of the Indians that they shall keep the peace, and he gives his security to the Indians that they shall not be molested by our people. So very low is the reputation of our Government that the Indians will neither trust them nor even treat with them without a cautioner! But the worst of the matter is that when this Treaty shall be broke, and most of them are broken in a few weeks, the English will then have a pretence for going to war with us in defence of their allies the Indians, tho' these allies of theirs, as well as the English garrisons of Detroit and Niagara, are actually within the territory of the United States, which was ceded to them by the treaty of peace. The English, who are greedy of land, tho' they have a country here already which is eight times as large as the kingdom of France, besides their settlements on the western coast of this continent, have retained in their hands the forts of Detroit and Niagara, contrary to treaty, by which means they retain the trade with our Indians and have such influence over them that they can turn them out on our frontier inhabitants whenever they please. And it now seems to be their design to seize all the country betwixt the Ohio and the Lakes, and to retain possession of it by the Indians, though the middle of the lakes was declared to be the boundary betwixt them and us by the treaty of peace, although they have not people enough to settle the hundredth part of the land which they possess already.
But the weakness and insufficiency of our Government seems to be that which has suggested this design to them. They know that we cannot resist them, that our Congress will never suffer us to have an army that is worth mentioning, and that although they should, the people would not pay taxes for its support. This makes them rise in their demands and scorn to fulfil the treaty, as they know that we cannot force them to it. And if their ambition is gratified by the conquest of all the French West India Islands, which will probably fall into their hands, I wish they may not renew their claims on this country, or demand the money that we owe to their merchants with an armed Fleet, and threaten to bombard our seaport towns in case of a refusal."
In addition to other troubles, Pennsylvania was, to use the writer's own words, "threatened with famine, war, and pestilence," and his story of the epidemic of yellow fever reads like an extract from Defoe's History of the Great Plague of London.
"While we were labouring under our own distresses we were in terror, of a much more fatal one, as the yellow fever was brought from the West Indies by the French Aristocrates who escaped the massacre at Cape Francois. Our people were informed of this disease raging in the West Indies three months before the massacre, but they were so eager to receive the French that they took no care to prevent the importation of this fatal and infectious disease. The Physician of the Port, who soon after died of the disorder, is said to have had great remorse on his death bed for his having published a false account of the matter, pretending that the disease was not imported, but had originated in Philadelphia, and it is even alleged that he confessed having received a fee from the passengers of a French ship which had six or seven dead bodies on board to take no notice of the matter, but to permit them to land. From the 3rd of August to the 1st November about seven thousand of the inhabitants of Philadelphia were cut off by this awful disease, which spread rapidly, as no care was taken to prevent it from spreading, and the right of communicating infection and death is reckoned to be one of the rights of man in this country. But altho' everybody was in terror of this infection, it pleased God that it was never communicated without the limits of the city and suburbs, which may be reckoned almost a miracle, as we are told that in the West Indies it goes over the whole country. Another remarkable circumstance was that the negroes were not infected with this disease, by which means they were enabled without fear to attend the sick and to bury the dead. Thirty thousand people left the city on the first appearance of the infection, and many afterwards endeavoured to escape after they had caught it, and although all these died soon after, at the places where they first stopped in the country, yet they did not communicate the infection to any others. Very few cures were made, as the disease was new to the physicians, sundry of whom died of it, and when the infection had spread a little all medicines became useless. Sundry physicians died of the disorder, others fled out of the city, and all of them left off practising. The burials sometimes amounted to 229 in a day. Those who remained in the city suffered immense hardships, as whenever a person was infected he was forsaken by his servants, and negroes asked four dollars a day for attendance. Many poor people died for want of food. The market was kept two miles out of town, and although a hospital was erected out of the city for the poor, who were conveyed to it in carts as soon as they were observed to be infected, yet little could be done for them except to see them die and to bury them. More than 700 young children were found wandering in the streets, and could give no account of their parents. They were lodged in the city library and supported by charitable collections.
At first the dead were buried in coffins which were laid on carts and conducted by negroes without any other attendants, but when the disease increased many coffins were put on the same cart and tumbled in to the earth together. Afterwards a few rough deals put together in haste served for coffins. At last no coffins were to be got, and the dead were laid on carts wrapped in blankets or pieces of canvas daubed with tar. Great holes were dug in the earth to a considerable depth, and as many bodies were thrown in as covered the bottom. A little earth was thrown upon them and then another layer of dead bodies, and so on till the hole was filled up, as was done during the great plague in London. The cold weather put an end to the infection in the beginning of last month and the citizens who had fled are returned to their homes, but there is some danger that the disorder may return in the Spring. We are likewise apprehensive that the infection may be conveyed by goods, though it could not be communicated without the city by living bodies, as it is said that sundry shopkeepers at great distances from Philadelphia took the fever and died after having received goods from the city. In short, this disease has been one of the greatest judgments that America has suffered for a long time, though it pleased God to confine the infection to one place. But we are not without other plagues. The Hessian fly has almost totally destroyed the wheat crops this year in the State of Delaware and in the lower counties in this State, and in many places both in this State and in Virginia the wheat has been destroyed by mildew. None of these plagues reached this neighbourhood, only some of the wheat was spoiled by the rain in the middle of June, being then newly cut down, before it could be got in. We have a war with the Indians, who have beat us twice in the field. And as our wise rulers thought proper to spend all the summer in fruitless negotiations for peace, our little army could not move till the enemy were prepared and the time of action lost, so that we are in daily apprehension of hearing that they have been defeated. Thus you see this poor country has been threatened with Famine, War and Pestilence."
The servant question seems to have been as great a problem then as now with our American cousins, judging from the following extract from Charles Nisbet's correspondence:-
"But what would you think of giving eight dollars a month to a man servant and victuals as good as you have to yourselves? Or what would you think of giving two or three dollars a month to a woman servant for working one half of the day and being idle the other? But this is not the worst. What would you think if this woman servant should break your glasses, china and earthenware out of pure spite, and cut holes in women's clothes, shirts, towels, sheets and curtains, merely because she had not as good herself? You complain of the dearness and naughtiness of your servants just now, but you would have much more reason to complain if you had servants who never went near a church or had the least impression of religion, as is the case here. And if you pull down your churches and abolish the small parishes, you may soon expect to have servants very like our Irish servants in this country. Your Heritors are very bad politicians if they imagine that their woollen manufacturers would be of any use to them if they suffer the people to grow up in ignorance and to lose all habits of industry, subordination, honesty and obedience to their superiors. If any of your Heritors would make a voyage to America they would see that their churches are of ten times more consequence to their estates than all the salary that they pay to ministers and schoolmasters."
In one of the letters the price of wheat is referred to:-
"I observe that wheat is selling in London at sixteen shillings sterling a bushel. I am sure that your merchants who can buy it in any port of America at six shillings sterling a bushel must make an exorbitant profit, and if they had agents in this country they could buy it in the Back Settlements at two shillings and three-pence sterling a bushel, though it would cost something more to convey it to a seaport."
But throughout all the letters it is evident that the paramount questions of the day were ever in the writer's mind. The French Revolution, the rise of Buonaparte, and the Wars in Europe, the intrigues of the French in the United States in the endeavour which ultimately succeeded to embroil America in a war with England, and the much talked of Invasion of England by the French. It is also curious to note evidence of the existence of a strong stop-the-war party in England itself, for notwithstanding the urgency of the crisis, it seems that there were then, as at other times, politicians sufficiently unpatriotic to be ready to sacrifice their country rather than their personal views and ideas should not be fulfilled. The letters deal with this at such length that it is impossible to do more than give short extracts, but the following may serve as examples:-
Our people are greatly concerned for the affairs of France, being great admirers of the French Revolution. . . . The French Ambassador was allowed to arm three privateers at Charlestown, and to man them with American seamen, and as these privateers have taken sundry English and Scotch vessels on the coast, the English have a right to make reprisals on our vessels, or even to look on this unfair conduct as a Declaration of War, if they please . . . . Our seaport towns are swarming with thousands of Frenchmen, both from the West Indies and from Old France. It seems to be a strange sort of liberty that obliges so many to run away from it, and provides nothing but famine and slaughter for those that remain at home. They (the French) offer one half of all their prizes to the crew of the captured vessels in order to entice seamen to turn rogues to their owners and to deliver their ships and goods into the hands of the enemy in hopes of sharing in the plunder. But as British seamen are generally honest, and very far from being covetous, I hope that they will reject this temptation that is held out to them."
"Your people were never so rich as when they began to murmur, and all the inconveniences that they have experienced since have been owing entirely to themselves, and to their tampering with the French Mob.
I wonder at the impudence of these people in addressing the King, to desist from the War, that they may have an opportunity of accomplishing their purposes. . . should think that his Majesty's madness had returned if he should be weak enough to listen to such Addresses. It is hard, indeed, to support a bloody and expensive war abroad, but it would be much harder to have the enemy in the heart of your country. . . . If your people are discontented with the Government, or wish to live in a Republic, they ought to come over to America, where they will get one ready made, and as much liberty as their bellies will hold, or they might go over to France, and take a trial of the blessings of Liberty and Equality, which many that have tasted have been seized with a surfeit. Multitudes who have been active in the French Revolution have emigrated to this country, being already sick of Liberty and Equality. . . . Those who have come as friends into this country endeavour to divide the people, to make them discontented with their Government, and to desire to have their constitution altered, according to the French mode. Their Ambassador, as soon as he landed, became a member of a political club, in imitation of the Jacobin Club in France, and is at the head of a party who wish to plunge this country into a war with England, and consequently into ruin. The French wish likewise to introduce massacres and the practice of hanging people without trial into this country, but the people, though foolish enough in all conscience, were not yet ripe for those things. . . ."
"This country is still in a divided state on account of the French Agents who abound among us, and what is extraordinary, the extinction of the French Republic by Buonaparte has increased instead of diminishing the numbers of the French Party among us. Many of our citizens seem . . . . . even desirous of subjecting this country to their tyranny. We are plagued with shoals of United Irishmen, who come here to escape the gallows in their own country, and become rebels here, as they were at home, and entirely devoted to the French interest . . . . There is reason to believe that Buonaparte has not spared his money . . . . And as the Treaty with Great Britain has not been executed, by liquidating and paying our British debts, we have reason to dread a rupture with that nation, which our Jacobin rulers will risk, in reliance on the assistance of their friends, the French. . . . We may now be considered as the subjects of Buonaparte, but as his friends are already begun to conspire against him, all our hopes of Liberty and Independency must rest on his being taken out of the Way. . . . Your hopes of Peace in Europe must rest on the same foundation, because as long as Buonaparte continues in absolute power the War will be continued. . . . The French Agents, who abound in every part of this country, are endeavouring to erect an Independent Republic on the Mississippi, in order to divide and subdue this country by a part of its own Inhabitants. . . . Never, perhaps, was a nation so completely infatuated, though I hear that some among yourselves are no wiser . . . ."
"The political state of this country is daily more and more critical.. . .America may almost be reckoned a Province of Buonaparte's Empire. All offices are now filled with the friends of France, and a war with England, to prevent the payment of British debts, is eagerly desired by the prevailing party, not that they hope to conquer England, which they think the French will do for them, but merely to get rid of their debts.
The Southern and Western States would then compose a Republic by themselves, in alliance with France, a design which the French have been pursuing for many years past, by their numerous Agents among us, and which they would soon accomplish if they were masters of Louisiana. . . . We hear just now that the Spaniards have ceded Florida to the French, as they must soon cede all their Dominions to them. It will be most unfortunate for the United States to have the French for their neighbours, as they would immediately endeavour to become our masters."
"We are anxious to hear the issue of the intended invasion of Great Britain by the French, and hope that they be totally defeated, tho' even in that case, it must occasion no little damage, and a great expense to Government. I hope you are not afraid of your malcontents at home, and that the fear of the gallows or Botany Bay will refrain them from stirring. The Party of the United Irish Rebels must be much weakened, as no fewer than thirteen thousand of them are said to have arrived in this country this last summer, and more are daily arriving. I fear they will prove great plagues to us, and join the French when they shall think proper to invade this country. Remember us kindly to Mrs. Tweedie and all friends with you."
In 1804 Henry Tweedy received a commission in the 7th or Princess Royal's Regiment of Dragoon Guards, in which he remained till 1813, when he had reached the rank of Captain, and afterwards entered Holy Orders.
He was the son of Thomas Tweedy, the Alderman and High Sheriff of Dublin, and one of the family now represented by Henry Colpoys Tweedy of Crusheen, Co Clare, and Cloonamahon, co Sligo, in Ireland.
Thomas Tweedie of Oliver died in 1803 and his son Captain Adam Ewart Tweedie, having been killed in the West Indies as we have seen, he was succeeded in Oliver by his only remaining son, Lawrence Tweedie, who was served heir to his father, Thomas Tweedie in 1803, and lived on at Oliver a bachelor to the end of his days in 1837, when the male representation of the family passed to Thomas Stevenson Tweedie of Quarter. The Oliver property went under the will of Lawrence Tweedie to his nephew, George Tweedie-Stodart, the son of his youngest sister Anne, who had married her cousin, Thomas Stodart of Cardrona, who was also first cousin to the Tweedies of Quarter, and it is from this George Tweedie-Stodart, who took the surname of Tweedie in addition to his own and quartered the arms, that the present family of Tweedie-Stodart of Oliver descends.
Early in the year 1803, Alexander Tweedie of Quarter died, leaving his widow Anne, with a large family to look after. She was the eldest daughter of Michael Carmichael of Eastend, Lanarkshire, and seems to have been a true type of Scottish gentlewoman, and mother of the day, as is seen from her letters to her sons away on service in the Peninsula of Spain, in India and elsewhere, of which a quaint extract from one, written to Lieutenant Michael Tweedie R. A., dated "Quarter, 20th November 1823," will serve as an example.
"My Dear Michael - We had your looked for and obliging letter last Sunday in our way from church. I wish you had been of the party coming to Leith fort; nothing could possibly have been so acceptable to me.... I need not tell you how very sorry I am on poor Mrs Lane's account, yet I am far from being void of hope. I have known a severe attack have that effect, and as the cause removed, so did that wandering of the mind subside ... Some very soft Scotch airs play'd on the harp or simple stringed instrument, and as if by chance, or if awake early in the morning to be heard at a distance, I think that would quiete my mind, and call it to silent thought... Oh what a shocking paper you sent us, they always exaggerate, but as good often is produced by evil, I hope it will extirpate all these haunts of vice which draw many a one to ruin .... I thank you, my dear, for your kind offer to send me what I would wish; indeed, I have no wish for anything; my wishes are for Peace and health and the enjoyment of all our dear, dear friends in their own native land .... How different your days must be from the Wild Hill sameness of Quarter; this suits me, for the roar of cannon would roar me stupid. Yet yours is a rational life .... Your letters are always an exquisite treat to us, and the purport of this is to induce you to write soon .... I commend you to God, my dear Michael, and remain your Dutiful Mother, Anne Tweedie"
The eldest of the sons, Thomas Stevenson Tweedie, had a distinguished career in the HEIC service, in which he received a commission as surgeon on the 19th March 1805. Serving with various Cavalry regiments he saw considerable service in India, made the Burmah campaign in 1824, was at the Cape of Good Hope for two years 1842-1843, and eventually retired from the HEIC service in 1844 with the rank of Physician-General. He added largely to the Quarter estate by purchasing much property, mostly ancient possessions of the family, and also Rachan, which he developed into one of the most beautiful places in the South of Scotland. There he lived until his death, and was succeeded by his eldest son, James Tweedie of Quarter and Rachan, from whom descends a large family.
The second surviving son Maurice, received a commission as Lieutenant in the 2nd N.I. HEIC service on the 17th July 1805. He served with this regiment, on the staff, and with the 20th, 4th, 27th, 25th, 45th and 43rd Regiments through various grades, during which time he filled the office of Resident at Tanjore, served through the Coorg Campaign and other fighting, commanded the troops at Penang, Singapore, and Malacca and finally retired from the service with the rank of Major-General. His eldest son Alexander Lawrence Tweedie entered the 1st Regiment NI as an Ensign on the 11th June 1838, served through the Chinese war in 1841 and the operations on the Yeang-tse Keang river in 1842, with the 36th Regiment NI; was employed in the P.W. Department in 1852 as Second Assistant Civil Engineer, appointed 1st Assistant Civil Engineer later on, and died on the 19th November 1858, at sea from fever originally contracted during the campaign in China.
Alexander Tweedie the fourth son received a commission as Ensign on 19th August 1808, in the 6th Regiment Madras NI, and died as a Lieutenant during the Mahratta War in the camp near Ellichpoor.
The fifth son, Michael Tweedie, obtained a commission in the Royal Artillery on the 1st May 1809, and saw much service during the wars with France. He served in Sicily and in Italy during 1810-1812, being present in the batteries of the Pharo under Sir James Stewart, and was also employed to organise the Italian Field Artillery. In 1813 he was ordered to Spain, and was present at the siege and the terrible assault of San Sebastian, in which he took part as a volunteer, and afterwards went through the subsequent operations against Marshal Soult over the historic ground of Roncesvalles, in the Valley of Bastan, the blockade of Pampeluna, at the passage of Bidassoa, the taking of St Jean de Luz, the Campaign in the South of France, the siege of Bayonne, and the passage of the Garonne, and the battle of Toulouse. Immediately before the battle of Toulouse, a great difficulty was found in bridging the river Garonne, which was then in heavy flood, and the Engineering Office expressed to Wellington his doubt of the possibility of doing it at all, whereupon Michael Tweedie (then a Lieutenant) was ordered to undertake the work. This he successfully accomplished, and it was by this bridge that the British troops crossed the river, thereby assuring the issue of the Battle of Toulouse. This incident is referred to by Sir W. Fraser in his Words on Wellington, where he says
"The following was given to me by the late Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson of the Guards: - The Duke on one occasion wished a bridge to be constructed or something of a similar kind, the work of the Royal Engineers. The officer, after examination, reported to the Duke that it could not be done. The Duke was displeased and sent for another officer, a young man attached to another division of his army. This officer performed what the Duke desired. The Duke put the following in orders: He who in war fails to do what he undertakes may always plead the accidents which invariably attend military affairs, but he who declares a thing impossible which is subsequently accomplished registers his own incapacity".
Michael Tweedie was sent to Marseilles in 1815 with the troops despatched under Sir Hudson Lowe to intercept Buonaparte on his escape from Elba. In this they failed, but the successes of the Waterloo campaign in Belgium brought about a general surrender of the French troops in the South without any serious operations, and in October of that year Michael Tweedie was ordered to Genoa; then in March 1816 to Malta, and thence to the Ionian Islands till 1822. Unfortunately his letters home during the war are somehow gone astray. In December 1833, he was invalided on account of ill-health, due to his horse having fallen with him at some time or other during his service On the death of his father-in-law shortly after, he settled down on the estate of Rawlinson at Rolvenden in Kent, to the life of an ordinary country gentleman and Justice of the Peace, until his death forty years after, only broken by his volunteering again at the age of 60 for active service at the time of the Crimean war, when however his services were not called into requisition. At Rawlinson, in the long evenings, he entertained the writer, then a boy, with stories of his experiences, such as how, during the Peninsular War, he found in a yard of a house a number of muskets which had been surrendered by the French, and used three of the barrels as bars for a fireplace, when three explosions in rapid succession blew the beef up the chimney, and it turned out that the French on giving up their muskets had loaded each with several charges in the hope of doing damage; and again how when his battery was once in action one of his men asked leave to go to the rear; he explained on his return that it was only to secure a clean shirt which a dead comrade had said he might have if he were killed, and no sooner had the man said so than he was killed himself in the clean shirt which he had just put on. There was also the anecdote of the Major who was so much taken with a certain coffin that he bought it, set it up on end in his quarters, and was killed the next day in the room by a round shot and duly buried in the coffin. These stories and others of which the memory is gone were more than delightful. This old officer of Wellington died in 1874, he was succeeded in Rawlinson by his son Alexander Forbes Tweedie and was also survived by his other sons Richard Walter Tweedie, Major-General Michael Tweedie R A, Colonel Maurice Tweedie and Colonel John Lannoy Tweedie DSO.
John Tweedie, the youngest son of Alexander Tweedie of Quarter went to sea, but left it at an early age, went to India, and afterwards married and settled down in Peebleshire at Rachan Cottage, now known as Merlindale, and afterwards at Patervan, and died in 1864. He was twice married, and his family went out to the Cape of Good Hope and settled there. He was said to be a man of such a cool temperament that he could take a pinch of snuff between the flash of the priming in the pan of his fowling piece and the explosion of the charge, which will be understood by those who have used a flint lock gun and have "held on" after pulling the trigger.
Of the two daughters Mary Hay and Anne, the former refused offers of marriage from both the Earl of Hyndford and the Earl of Traquhair, and died unmarried herself, leaving each of them to do the same, whereby the two Earldoms both became extinct. The youngest sister Anne married Robert Newbigging from whom descends the family of Newbigging of Dumfries.
James Tweedie entered the 94th Regiment as an Ensign in 1808 and what that Regiment did not know of fighting during the next few years was not worth knowing even in those days. It went through to the end of the Peninsular War, taking part in the Battle of Cuidad Rodrigo, the Storm of Badajos, the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, Nivelles, Orthes and Toulouse, and all the incidental fighting that went on continuously during that period. He appears to have exchanged into the 7th Regiment in 1816, went on half pay, and eventually disappears from the Army List in 1846, and perhaps at some future date it may be possible to ascertain more of him.
An Isobel Tweedie was the wife of one Hastie in 1810 and died in that year in Edinburgh.
Amongst the original portraits of memorable citizens of Edinburgh drawn by Benjamin W. Combie, 1837-1844, with notes by William Scott Douglas is to be found a plate in caricature of Robert Tweedie and John Tweedie WS. They were of the Dreva and Minzon family, which later on settled at Coats, and were called "the two Dromios". A note is added describing them; Robert is a very stout man and John very thin, and they were evidently well-known characters in Edinburgh during the years 1795 to 1847 or thereabouts.
In the year 1840 William Tweedie, the publisher, the great advocate of temperance, first began to make felt those great powers which he exercised in its cause with so much energy and success till his death in 1874. Of him it was written that his loss was a national calamity, and there is no doubt but that he was a great and good man. He came of parents who lived near Dunbar, but unfortunately all records have been burnt; his father's name was William, and he used the family coat of arms with a difference of three golden crowns in the chief, and a palm branch and olive branch crossed as the crest, but beyond this it has not been possible to ascertain much.
A Thomas Tweedie was resident in Edinburgh in 1843, his wife Elizabeth appearing in the service of heirs for that year. David Tweedie was a merchant in Glasgow at the same time, and was served heir to his brother Nicol Tweedie "writer there", on the 18th October of that year. In the next year Jean Braidwood in Lanark is served heir to her mother Jean Tweedie of Braidwood, and in 1849 Robert Tweedie in Edinburgh "once tenant in Laughlaugh" is served heir to Alison Tweedie on the 24th December.
Little more remains to bring us down to the middle of the 19th century. At that time so far as Tweeddale was concerned Thomas Stevenson Tweedie, the Physician-General HEICS was at Quarter and Rachan, George Tweedie-Stodart at Oliver, John Tweedie in Rachan cottage, Thomas Tweedie at Patervan, Alexander Gladstone Tweedie in Hairstanes, James Tweedie of Dreva and Coats was recently dead and succeeded by his son Alexander Tweedie of Coats; and others were in various other parts of Scotland; whilst in England there were Captain Michael Tweedie at Rawlinson, Rolvenden Kent; the representatives of the ancient family of Tweedy of Essex, and the well-known family of Tweedy of Cornwall; Henry Tweedy was at Crusheen in County Clare, in Ireland; and Tweedies were to be found in New Brunswick in Canada.
At this date 1850, it is our purpose to let the story stop for the present, and pass on to consider the armorial bearings and residence of the family in life and their resting places after death.
With the kind permission of his descendants, this information is reproduced from the book privately published in 1902 by Michael Forbes Tweedie. This highly regarded book includes many references to the original sources of the information, extracts from parish registers and some detailed family trees.
Copies of the book are known to be in the British Library, Edinburgh Central Library and the New York Public Library.
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