Note 382 — MEMOIRS OF THE REBELLION IN 1745 AND 1746, SO FAR AS IT CONCERNED THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN AND BANFF

William Thornton, of Thornville, near Knaresborough, raised and equipped a company, known as the ‘Yorkshire Blues,’ at his own expense in October 1745. He joined Wade’s army at Newcastle, and his company was attached to Pulteney’s regiment (13th, now Prince Albert’s Own Somersetshire Light Infantry), which was below strength. His henchman and servant was John Metcalf, better known as ‘Blind Jack of Knaresborough,’ afterwards celebrated as a civil engineer and maker of roads, but at this time a horse-coper and itinerant musician. At Falkirk the company served as escort to the artillery which covered itself with disgrace. Blind Jack fought at the battle in which his master and Lieutenant Crofts were taken prisoners. After the battle Blind Jack retreated to Edinburgh along with the remains of the company, now reduced to forty-eight from an original strength of sixty-four. In a quaint little book, The Life of John Metcalf (3rd edition, Leeds, 1802), there is a long and graphic account of how this blind man succeeded in rescuing his master. Donning a ‘plaid waist-coat,’ the Jacobite uniform, he made his way from Edinburgh to the battle field, where among the marauders hunting for plunder he found the wife of Lord George Murray’s cook, who gave him ‘a token’ for her husband. Giving out that he wished to be employed as a musician to Prince Charles, he made his way to Lord George Murray’s quarters at Falkirk, where that General gave him a glass of wine, and he had a conversation with several of the Jacobite leaders. Confined on suspicion for some days, he was acquitted by a court-martial. Finding his captain, he had him disguised as a Highlander and managed to escape with him. How Crofts and Simson escaped I do not know. The rev. ensign was Patrick Simson, minister of Fala, near Dalkeith (b. 1713; ord. 1743; transferred to Clunie, Dunkeld, 1759; d. 1771). How he joined Thornton’s ‘Blues’ I do not know; one would rather have expected to find him in the Glasgow regiment (see post, p. 198). The original ensign of the company had died at Newcastle, and Thornton may have appointed Simson when in Edinburgh. Simson had the reputation of being a sportsman, particularly an angler. (Scott, Fasti.) The Dict. of Nat. Biog. says that Blind Jack fought at Culloden, but it is not so stated in the life quoted above, and if this passage is correct it precludes the possibility. There is no mention in the Life of this incident at Ellon, nor any account of the company leaving the army.