"To the Honourable the Lord Provost, or in his absence the Acting Chief Magistrate of the City of Glasgow.

"MY LORD,-We request that your Lordship will call a meeting of the merchants, bankers, manufacturers, and other inhabitants, to be held upon as early a day as is convenient, for the purpose of considering of the propriety of voting a loyal and dutiful Address to his Majesty, and representing the unconstitutional and pernicious measures adopted by Ministers, especially in the proceedings against the Queen, and the sudden prorogation of Parliament; and praying his Majesty to dismiss his Ministers, and to re-assemble Parliament without delay, that their advice may be taken as to the measures to be pursued for allaying the present discontent."

"NOTICE.

"GLASGOW, 15th December, 1820. "The above requisition was this day delivered to Archibald Lawson, Esq., the Acting Chief Magistrate of this city, in absence of the Lord Provost, but as he has declined to call the meeting therein required, notice is hereby given, that such meeting will be held within John Street Church, on Friday the 22d day, of December current, at 12 o'clock, for the purpose mentioned in the said requisition.”

As the day approached for holding the meeting, the city became perfectly agitated from one end of it to the other. It transpired that the Magistrates had ordered the Infantry and Dragoons to be ready at a moment's notice; and further, that they had secured the services of two well-known scribes in the city, (Sinclair and Todd,) who were to appear and move resolutions against the Queen, and in favour of the King and his Ministers. Long before the hour of meeting, the capacious church was crowded to excess, and hundreds after hundreds had to go away. Whether owing to the perfect enthusiasm of the meeting or not, we shall not say, but undoubtedly the two gentlemen alluded to, whom we saw on the platform, did not rise to make any counter address; but we

distinctly saw Mr. Hugh Kerr, the then auxiliary SheriffSubstitute, and Alexander Calder, the Sheriff-officer, and old John M'Callum, the Town-officer and Messenger-atArms, taking notes to detect anything which seemed to them to be seditious or treasonable; and we shall give an amusing specimen of their handy-work in that way, which fairly nonplussed the Lords of Justiciary, on another

occasion.

We need not, however, occupy the attention of our readers with the speeches or resolutions of that remarkable meeting. James Oswald of Shieldhall, occupied the chair. Suffice it here to say, that the resolutions of the most spirited kind, were summed up in a petition to the King, condemnatory of the unconstitutional proceedings against her Majesty, and praying his Majesty to dismiss from his counsels and presence, his then advisers and Ministers:

"Upon the motion of Mr. Thomas Lancaster, it was resolved—

"That His Grace the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl Grey, the Earl of Rosslyn, Lord Erskine, and Lord Archibald Hamilton, or any of these noblemen who may be in London when the petition reaches it, be requested to present the petition to his Majesty; and

"That Messrs. Robert Thomson, Robert Orr, James Dunlop, junior, Dr. James Monteith, Messrs. Charles Tennant, Wm. Mills, Samuel Coleman, Hugh Tennent, David Todd, John Monteith, James Carrick, Thos. Muir, Peter Hutcheson, Hugh Smith, William Watson, Jaines Hamilton, Walter Brock, junior, and Dr. John Baird, be appointed as a committee for taking the necessary steps for getting the petition subscribed in a proper manner, and transmitted to London.

"Upon the motion of Dr. Richard Miller, it was unanimously resolved

"That the thanks of the meeting be given to Mr. Oswald, for his very able and impartial conduct in the chair.

"It was further resolved, upon the motion of Mr. Geo. Craufurd,

U

that the thanks of the meeting were justly due to the gentlemen of the committee who had taken the trouble of making the preparatory arrangements for bringing them together.

"And, finally, it was, upon the motion of Mr. Cabbell, banker, resolved

"That the proprietors and managers of this church are justly entitled to the thanks and gratitude of the meeting, for the accommodation with which they had been so liberally afforded.

Copies of the Petition lie for Signature at the following places :The Bar of the Tontine Coffee Room; John Street Church Session House; Messrs. Charles Tennant & Co., Moodie's Court; Mr. William Shirly's, Ironmonger, Trongate; Messra. Weir & Kennedy, Argyle Street; Messrs. Slater & Geddes, Candleriggs; Mr. John Gardner, Hosier, 4 High Street; Mr. M. Spreul, Hutcheson Street; Mr. Wm. Rae, Gallowgate; Mr. James Wallace, High Street; Mr. James Duncan, Saltmarket.

This address had its effect not then, but afterwards, as we shall show. We pass on to other matter.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD SHIP BANK OF GLASGOW-ROBIN CARRICK -THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE PRESENT RIGHT HON. LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION IN GLASGOW-HIS CLIENT EXECUTED FOR FORGERY, &c.

FROM political events, occupying so many pages of these first Reminiscences, we pass on to lighter and more varied events, occurring within the compass of our own recollection, and in some of which we strutted or played, our own little part at the time.

Next to the respected Mr. James Dennistoun, the oldest banker of any note in Glasgow, was Mr. Michael Rowand, of the Ship Bank, who departed this life about eight or ten years ago, in the 86th year He was for many of age. years Manager and Cashier, and ultimately partner of the renowned "Ship Bank of Glasgow," under the celebrated Robin or Robert Carrick. This Mr. Carrick was the son, we think, of a clergyman in Renfrewshire, "passing rich on £80 a-year." He came into Glasgow a comparatively poor boy in early life, but he established, or at all events he became the chief or leading partner of, the old Ship Bank of Glasgow, now merged as other Banks have been, with the present "Union Bank of Scotland."

Robin Carrick, for that was the name he was always called in our recollection, amassed an immense fortune, nearly a million sterling; but he was one of the greatest scrubs or misers in relation to money matters, that Glasgow ever saw. He died, a grim old batchelor forty years ago, without leaving one plack or penny to any of the charitable institutions of the city, in which city he had derived the greater part of his enormous wealth. But let him pass. "The beggar died;" and beggars sometimes die much happier than richer men, as the story of Lazarus implies. Mr. Carrick's housekeeper, viz., Miss Paisley, an elderly damsel, was also his favourite niece. They lived in the upper flat of the Bank premises, then at the corner of Glassford Street, whereon some spacious modern premises are now reared. The Bank itself was a dark dingy place; but a grand establishment of its kind in Glasgow sixty years ago; and while Mr. Carrick was famed for his vast banking transactions in the flat below, Miss Paisley was notorious throughout the city for the most niggardly management of his household in the flat above. She would prig, or higgle, or banter with the shopkeepers in King Street, then the chief provision place in the city, but now so deplorably deserted; she would try to beat them down to the value of a farthing about the price of beef, mutton, or veal. We have frequently seen her hurrying from the markets in King Street, with a sheep'shead and trotters in her basket, and a string of flounders or caller herring in her hands; and when she went to the higher station of markets in the Candleriggs, she invariably stipulated with the green-grocers in that place, that if any apples or pears should be left over at the contemplated dinner dessert of Mr. Carrick's table, they would just be taken back on the following morning to the place from