HUGH MILLER 17 



ject of religious convictions ; and when, on the death 

 of Balfour of Nigg in 1756, an unpopular presentee, 

 Mr. Patrick Grant, was forced upon the parish, resist- 

 ance was offered. Four years before this, Gillespie of 

 Carnock had been deposed on the motion of John 

 Home, author of Douglas, seconded by Robertson of 

 Gladsmuir, the subsequent historian of Charles V. t for 

 his refusal to participate in the settlement of Richardson 

 to Inverkeithing ; and when some of the presbytery, in 

 fear of similar proceedings, had met for the induction, 

 they found an empty church and an old man protesting 

 that ' if they settled a man to the walls of that kirk, the 

 blood of the parish of Nigg would be required at their 

 hands.' For long the entire parish clung to the Church 

 of Scotland, but never could they be induced to enter 

 the building again, and so they perforce allied them- 

 selves to the Burgher Secession. Thus early was the 

 non-intrusion principle made familiar to Miller, and 

 thus early were made manifest the miserable effects 

 of the high-handed policy which, begun in the long 

 reign of Robertson, was destined a century later to 

 have such disastrous results. 



In early youth his father had sailed in an East India- 

 man, and during the intervals of his Indian and Chinese 

 voyages had learned to write and add to his nautical 

 knowledge stores of general reading and information 

 not then common among sailors. Storing up, instead 

 of drinking, his grog-money, he drove a small trade 

 with the natives of these countries in little articles 



B 



