bankingletters.co.uk - 1812 Leith Banking Company "Laird of Macnab's bill"

This letter is relatively routine in type although inter branch letters for this bank are rare.

The letter reads as follows with spelling and punctuation as per the letter.

I duly received your favour of the 15^th Current & note the contents. – I have now to trouble you with another of the Laird of Macnab’s acceptances to Rob Paterson £21. 5. 1. which if paid please advise me or if unpaid return me with a Protest in the name of Mr John Tweedie Writer to the Signet with a note of Expenses. – We have had untoward weather for some days but I hope, as it rains, it will turn milder. I wish, if possible you could send in the Cash & Notes on friday morning before 9 & we would send a messenger on thursday to bring them to Leith by Friday’s Mail; write me in course as to this. – We hope Gant will write me his Resolution as to our Stirling friend without delay.

mail, we shall therefore send out Mr R Johnstone to be in Stir’g as to return on Saturday morning.

Alexander Macdonald was the Agent in Callander for the Leith Banking Company. He was also referred to as Alexander Macdonald of Lochans and at the time of the death of his wife the announcement was as follows.

“Jane or Jean ROBERTS or MacDONALD Carronflatts, Co Stirling relict of Alexander MacDONALD sometime of Dalilia? & thereafter Lochans esq. who had a dwelling house in Nth Leith."

The reference to North Leith perhaps explains why Alexander Macdonald of Lochans was both the Agent for Callander and, in 1829, a Partner of the Leith Banking Company. I cannot yet locate the residence of Alexander Macdonald and this may be difficult as the term “Lochan” refers to small pools. It is known that within three miles of Callander there are two major lochs - Venachar and Lubnaig - and many more smaller lochs and lochans and whether this general area was known as Lochans I cannot say.

James Ker and Henry Johnston were Joint Managers of the Leith Banking Company and both were employed for many years; both were also Partners in 1829 and both were still in situ when the Bank was sequestrated in 1842. Both James Ker and Henry Johnston also held responsibility for signing the Banknotes of the Leith Banking Company. I cannot find any reference to the Robert Johnstone referred to in the letter but I am aware that a Robert Johnston also signed the Bank’s Banknotes “per Accountant” and I presume this is to whom the reference is made.

The early part of the letter is relatively routine for inter branch correspondence and refers to a Bill which has been endorsed by the Laird of Macnab on which payment is now due. The message is that if paid, please advise, and if not paid start the legal process known as Protest. The wording of the letter suggests to me that there was some doubt as to the ability - perhaps desire - of the Laird of Macnab to pay the item. As a consequence of this inference I did a bit of digging on the Laird of Macnab and I uncovered the following reference in respect of a Raeburn portrait in the national Galleries of Scotland.

“FRANCIS, twelfth Laird of Macnab, and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Breadalbane Fencibles, was born in 1734 and died in 1816. He is said to have been a "character," and the portrait shows more of the "character" than of the officer or the Highland chief. He is not an attractive subject. Dressed in the Highland costume, the uniform of his regiment, he stands at full length in a Highland landscape. The picture is nevertheless powerfully conceived and painted, done with the masterly ease of Raeburn in the plenitude of his power”

I also found the following which is more humourous and perhaps explains the doubt in the letter and the reference in the above to Macnab being a “character”

Macnab's always precarious financial business was managed by the Perth bank, where the officials, by knowing his peculiarities and how to humour him, always got back the money lent to him with full interest. Macnab never thought that it was incumbent on him to pay upon the dates mentioned in his bills. But by mischance one of his bills fell into the hands of a Stirling bank agent, who, when no reply was made to his note asking payment without delay, resorted to legal proceedings, which Macnab ignored, and having got decree against him the agent sent a Sheriff-officer and concurrent to Kihnell to poind goods and chattels, unless the debt with interest and expenses should be instantly paid. Macnab knew that these limbs of the law were coming forthwith to pounce on him, so he thought it best to pay at once a long visit to Taymouth, where he was always welcome, and to leave Janet (his house-keeper) to deal with the visitors. When he was away they came late in the evening. They were footsore, weary, hungry, and thirsty. When they told their errand, Janet assured them that the Laird had gold in his kist, and would readily pay them when he got back from visiting his friends, Lord and Lady Breadalbane, at Taymouth, which return, she hoped, would take place the next day. They got plenty to eat and drink, were elated with the hope of obtaining full payment promptly, and it was in a jubilant frame of mind that they followed Janet to the ground-floor room in which they were to sleep. The moon was shining bright; the bed was at the room's further end; while the window, which was near the door, was open; and Janet, while bidding them good-night, and holding the door half-open, advised them to shut the window. The one who went to do her bidding looked out, and seeing the figure of a man hanging to a tree outside, emitted a cry of consternation which drew his companion to his side. "What is that horrid thing?" they asked in one breath. "Oh," replied Janet, "that is only a poor body who has been hanged out of hand by the Laird, because he came bothering about the payment of a miserable debt." Having given her explanation, Janet quickly withdrew, and closed and locked the heavy door behind her. The trembling limbs of the law, believing Janet's tale, and fearing a similar fate for bothering the formidable Macnab about a debt, made their escape through the unbarred window and got far beyond the Breadalbane march before the sun rose. What so thoroughly frightened them were old clothes stuffed with straw and a round bag filled with chaff to represent a human head. Wherever he got the money perhaps it was lent to him at Taymouth this particular debt was paid without further delay, and nothing worse than fun sprang out of Janet's trickery.

The second part of the letter is a request for Alexander Macdonald to change the arrangements for sending Cash to Leith. The Leith Banking Company did considerable business in the Highland area and it was advantageous for this Leith based operation to distribute its notes far from Head Office and at the same time receive quickly the Banknotes of other banks. Receiving the notes would enable the Leith Banking Company to call on the other banks for payment of the notes drawn on them and such payment would be received in gold or notes drawn on London. This would benefit the Leith Banking Company whilst its own notes were still out in circulation and – hopefully – being constantly exchanged and seldom being presented for payment.

In the “Annual Register of Scotland” of 1827 there is a report of a High Court case in connection with the robbery of the Stirling Mail by a Robert Murray. Within this report on the case were are advised that Alexander Macdonald was then the Callander Agent for the Leith Banking Company and that it was the normal practice of his clerk (Angus Macdonald) to make up a parcel of notes to be forwarded to a Mr McPherson at Stirling, who would, in turn, forward these to the Leith Banking Company in Leith.