Today I want to tell you about the greatest hero in Scottish history...
because most Scots probably don t even know his name...
and they certainly don t expect him to be... a solicitor from Bishopbriggs.
So if you re interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen, and click the notification
bell to find out when I upload videos. In the meantime, let me tell you his story.
I m telling you this story in Sydney, Australia, but our tale takes us to England, France, Mexico,
Cuba, Spain, USA, Canada, Ireland... and of course here.
It starts on 24 August 1765, as Jacobite flame was flickering
to darkness in Britain... and with the birth of a soul
who s own flame would go out just 33 years later.
So he lived in the same era, but an even shorter life
than our national bard, Robert Burns. One of them is known all over the world and was
voted by his people as the Greatest Ever Scot, yet most won t even know today s hero s name.
When Robert Burns was writing A Man s a Mam for a That...
Thomas Muir of Huntershall sacrificed a comfortable life and risked his own skin
to make that claim a reality...
There s so much to cover in his life that we need to summarise.
He was born into an aspirational merchant family in Glasgow.
It was at Glasgow University that this diligent, gifted
and pious Presbyterian student met an inspirational professor.
His path changed from aspiring minister
to revolutionary. There may be trouble ahead
When he and some other students showed their support for another lecturer...,
...who would later inspire Strathclyde University...
University authorities planned disciplinary proceedings;
Thomas Muir told them that he was expelling himself as a matter of principle.
Fortunately the inspirational lecturer we discussed earlier
got Thomas a place at Edinburgh University. So in 1878, having passed his bar exams,
Thomas was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates, as a twenty two year old.
By his mid-twenties Muir was a solicitor,
an elder of the kirk and an upstanding fellow... if a little bit too concerned with
the common people for his own good. When you get a reputation as an able and outspoken
man of principle you acquire the nickname of The Chancellor ... and the
high heidyins think...... We better keep an eye on him...
You see in both the new and old world there was revolution in the air.
In France and America revolts had replaced monarchs with people s assemblies.
Here in Scotland, since 1789, supportive clubs and societies had
sprung up in villages and towns and they corresponded with
likeminded people in London That s right some of them are our pals
In France there was talk of chopping off the king s head.
That ll put the cat amongst the pigeons
How do you persuade the British establishment to cede power to ordinary people if
when it happens in France kings get decapitated. Muir headed to London where the Friends of the
People agreed he should go to France to try to stop the cat
cutting the pigeon s head off. Let the king live and help our common cause.
By the end of August he was back, touring and setting up new reform societies
across central Scotland. By 21 November 1792,
Muir, had been elected vice-president of the movement
and called for a General Convention of the popular reform societies to be held in December.
Two things to think about here: the speed of events at a time
before modern communications... and the breadth of the movement...
across France and throughout the British Isles... as well as the United States.
This breath was a blessing and a curse you see a document arrived at Muir's
lodgings in Carrubers Close in Edinburgh. As you walk up it today you can imagine
the hustle and bustle as in these buildings
momentous events were taking place. The document had come from the United Irishmen
appealing to the republican and independent spirit of the Scottish people.
Dangerous stuff Some saw it as. 'intemperate
and dangerous nationalistic language' Lord Daer opposed its reading as treason
against the Union with England Muir declared
We do not, we cannot, consider ourselves as mowed and melted down into another country.
Have we not distinct Courts, Judges, Juries, Laws? .
Another delegate protested that Scotland and England were but one people
The debate rages on The Convention supported Muir s reading...
but it sowed the seeds of a beanstalk of destruction
After the Convention Muir was getting ready to defend a guy called James Tytler,
who in in 1776 had edited the second edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica
and in 1784 had been the first person to make a
manned balloon flight on British soil... But last month was arrested on
a charge of sedition. His crime was to think that:
Not money, but honest and upright behaviour should qualify a man for being an elector...
and he wrote it down. ... but Muir was now a much
bigger fish than Tytler The Lord Advocate had
been keeping an eye on Muir..., His spies had told all about The Irish Address,
and on his way to Tytler's trial in Edinburgh Muir, himself, was arrested for sedition.
After refusing to answer questions, he was released on bail.
He headed straight for London to update the Reformers there on recent events.
That s when he found out there was a guillotine waiting for the French Pidgeon.
Off he went again to try to persuade the French of the need for moderation.
With Muir away, and unable to defend himself, a meeting of the Faculty of Advocates was convened
and he was struck from the register. But it was worse than that...
The slippery Lord Advocate also knew he was in France,
and so brought forward Muir s trial to an impossible date,
and used his absence to declare him an outlaw. Muir could have, maybe should have
stayed in France. Finding a route back wasn
t easy in these troubled times... but he managed it via Ireland.
The Encyclopedia writing balloonist, who s defense he d been preparing
would later escape via Ireland to the USA. Muir could have, maybe should have done the same.
But he came home and faced trial... with his time in Ireland only
proving his complicity in seditious, nationalistic, republican intrigues.
His sentence of 14 years transportation is why we re here.
Others in the Scottish leadership were rounded up and three Englishmen,
Maurice Margarot, William Godwin and Matthew Campbell Browne, stepped into the breech...
I need to shorten an extremely long story, so suffice to say that on the first of May 1794,
a convict ship, sailed for Sydney with Thomas Muir, Thomas Palmer, William Skirving,
and Maurice Margarot on board... This is MacQuarrie St.
Named after the Scotsman Lachlan MacQuarrie, who arrived as Governor fifteen years later
and become known as the father of Australia... Nowadays you can see The Opera House and Sydney
Harbour Bridge, but these were different times.
It was around this area that these men were detained, and the original
settlement of Sydney took place. Now our heroes were lucky.
They were educated professionals AND supporters had raised money for them before they set sail.
Unlike other convicts they could buy land. Thomas Muir bought a piece of land and a
hut across the other side of the bay in what s now Jeffreys St.
Come with... As I cross the
water let me remind you that I m touring my live show all over Scotland in autumn in
Perth, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dumfries, Gala, Portree,
Motherwell, Dunoon, Greenock, Giffnock, Dunfermline and more.
Click the tab top right for tickets or find the link in the description below.
The street behind me is Jeffreys St... It s where this street now
stands that Muir had his land. That is the other side of the Harbour Bridge.
Having land over here, meant that you re out of sight of
the prying eyes of the guards... AND you had reason to have a rowing
boat to get back and forth A rowing boat in which,
on the evening of 17 February 1796, Thomas Muir and two helpers
rowed through the dark of night along the coast, avoiding the view of a watchful frigate
to a rendezvous with an American ship called The Otter.
Behind him Muir left a letter thanking the Governor for his tolerance,
saying he was off to practice law at the American Bar.
All that was needed now was a four-month journey across the poorly charted Pacific Ocean
and drop anchor off Vancouver Island, where nobody knew him...
...but when he got there HMS Providence, which had left the colony
just before he escaped, was sailing in the same waters with crew
that would know him only too well. Dammit!
Capture would mean immediate execution. Now, as a student in Glasgow,
he d become fluent in Spanish and he managed to persuade a
Spanish captain to take him down the coast to Monterey, California...
at that time still Spanish remember. Phew...
The Governor, was impressed by Muir and gave him accommodation with his own family in the fort.
Another narrow escape... ...until
the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico City found out. Spain and Britain were at war.
The Viceroy, ordered the Governor to be disciplined for violating orders.
Muir was at best suspicious and more probably a spy...
to be sent with officer escort and all haste...,
but minimum fanfare, across the mountains to the capital.
On 12 October they reached Mexico City, where he was detained and interrogated.
His answers were so convincing that the Viceroy
put him on a ship to Spain as a suspected spy. Double Dammit!
Havana Cuba was an obvious transit point, and a good place to attempt an escape....
unless you get captured and put in the dungeons for three months
So Spain it is then What dangers awaited?
What would the Spanish do to him? Would he face death in Spain?
At the very least he would be safe till he got to Cadiz.
Unleeeees with the Spanish being at war with the British...
his sailor goalers were attacked by blockading
Royal Navy ships as they approached Cadiz Harbour.
A three hour coastal chase was followed by a fierce sea battle
during which Muir s face was smashed with shrapnel tearing at his eye and cheek bone,
as the battle raged around this noncombatant prisoner.
After the battle, a defeated crewman let slip that Muir had been on board,
and now the hunt was on but the Spanish captain
insisted that Muir was dead and too badly disfigured to be identified.
In reality he d been sent ashore with the wounded.
Most Scottish viewers won t know about Thomas Muir, but he was a hero in France.
At every stage of his journey Frenchmen had helped him.
The French had set out to free him from the transport ship on its way to Botany Bay.
It was a Frenchman who set up the link with the American ship off Sydney harbour.
The French Agent for the Windward Islands had demanded his release in Havana.
Now the French consular officers Ambassadors and even ministers got involved in negotiating
his release from Span. In September 1797,
weak, half blind and emaciated, he arrived in France,
and was hailed as a Hero of the French Republic and a 'Martyr of Liberty'.
You ll see his portrait from this time with a black cloth covering the left of his face,
because of the damaged eye, missing left cheekbone and drooping flesh.
Consequences of that sea battle off the Spanish coast.
In France, he associated with Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man and
James Napper Tandy of the United Irishmen..., but his chief confidant was the emissary to
France on behalf of the United Englishmen. ...The struggle was international...,
but his cause was Scottish.
His hopes were raised when people of Scotland rose up against the Militia Act...,
but that brought the atrocity of The Trannent Massacre.
You should definitely watch my video about it after this one.
He planned to meet with compatriots from Scotland,
but his notoriety made Paris a difficult place to operate, so he moved incognito
to the little village of Chantilly in Ile-de France.
It was here that he died, unexpectedly and alone on 26 January 1799
Shortly before his death, he wrote:
We have achieved a great duty in these critical times.
After the destruction of so many years, we have been the first to
revive the spirit of our country and give it a National Existence
Thomas Muir was probably the greatest and sadly the most anonymous Scottish hero.
Robert the Bruce fought for himself and his family...
and played a political game that meant bending the knee to the English king when
real politick required it Robert Bruns sang
revolutionary songs in the theatre Then apologised to his government bosses later
Thomas Muir was a man
who co-operated with like-minded people in England, Ireland and the USA,
who was feted in France; worked with and respected by people in Australia and Spain...
but he was a Scotsman in every fibre of his being.
A Scotsman remembered with one of his countrymen and three Englishman
in a monument to martyrs in Edinburgh s Calton cemetery
A Scotsman who s legal training and ability, could have seen him rise to sit on the Judicial Bench,
but who eschewed a career at the centre of power...
rather choosing imprisonment and exile... to fight for the rights of the common man.
Thirty years after his death a reform bill would come, extending voting rights.
Before that the Trannent Massacre, who s story is coming up on screen now
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