human comprehension to be the merest
chance. By one of the Montgomeries, the Tower of Greenock was invaded
and taken, and the Laird of Schaw and four or five of his sons were put
to death. One child, then in his cradle, alone escaped, and grew up to
manhood, with the resolution to avenge his father and his brothers
rankling at his heart. Accordingly, he collected his friends and
dependants, and invested, during a period of repose and security, the
house of his enemy. Montgomery, finding his castle attacked, stood forth
on the battlements, and, after demanding a parley with the besieger,
"Are you not," he cried out, "an ungrateful man to come hither with bow
and brand to take the life of the man who made you young laird and auld
laird in the same day?" Young Schaw, struck by the argument, drew off
his forces, and left the castle of Skellmorlie standing, and its inmates
uninjured.

The family of Schaw were zealous Whigs, the father of the two young
officers in Preston's regiment having raised a regiment at the time of
the Revolution, without any other expense to the Government than that of
sergeants and drummers.

The eldest brother, Sir John Schaw, had been an active promoter of the
Union; and, upon a threatened invasion of the French, and a consequent
alarm of the Jacobites, Sir John had offered to join the army with five
or six hundred of his followers. This decided political bias may,
perhaps, in some measure, account for the disposition to affront on the
side of Sinclair, and the quickness to resent on the other hand, which
was shown between the parties.

During the battle of Wynendale, in the midst of the fire, it appeared,
in evidence afterwards taken, that Ensign Hugh Schaw, the first of the
victims to the Master of Sinclair's wrath, was heard to call out to the
Master "to stand upright;" it was afterwards publicly stated by Ensign
Hugh Schaw, that he had done so upon seeing Sinclair bow himself down to
the ground for a considerable time. This alleged act of cowardice on the
part of Sinclair appears, however, not to have really taken place; but
it was made the groundwork of a calumnious imputation. It must, however,
be acknowledged, that there was nothing in the subsequent conduct of the
Master of Sinclair, as far as the battle of Sherriff Muir was concerned,
to raise his character as a man of personal bravery.

Upon hearing of this injurious report, Sinclair sent a challenge to
Ensign Schaw. It was dispatche