62 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



Isle, the Mill and the Miller of Dee, and Paul Jones. Coupled 

 with these were romantic stories, yet narrated to me as true, 

 and which, could I relate them as told, were unquestionably 

 true. But the events I speak of happened before my time, and 

 yet were fresh in the recollection of the much-beloved person 

 who narrated them to me. It seemed that on a time, the time 

 I now speak of, my friends held a farm of the family of Selkirk. 

 The Little Mote, I think, was the name I often heard it called 

 by, but when I visited Kirkcudbright no such place could be 

 found. There stood, it is true, a homestead or farm-house, or 

 barn, and a few labouring peasants occupied a cottage near. 

 From the presence of a marl-pit at hand, I conjectured that this 

 must be the spot where brothers and sisters now dead and gone 

 first saw the light ; and the adjoining height was the mote ; 

 but all had been enclosed in the park and home farm of the 

 noble owner ; and as I had not come there to trace the site of a 

 ruined farm-house, I soon abandoned the inquiry. But return- 

 ing to the times when my father held a farm in this locality, it 

 is sufficient to say, that they were the times of Paul Jones' 

 visit to St. Mary's Isle. How he landed there, the Bonhomme 

 Richard tacking off and on in the Solway a few miles distant ; 

 how he took possession of the house of the earl, who, fortunately 

 for himself, happened to be in London, or at least from home ; 

 how he dined with the countess and her friends, removing, how- 

 ever, after dinner, all the plate ; all this has been told by others ; 

 but I heard the story from the lips of one who was present at 

 the dreaded meeting. How this plate was afterwards sold in 

 France, the money divided amongst his crew, the plate repur- 

 chased by Paul Jones, and presented to the countess, I have 

 heard from the same lips the romance, for such it really was, 

 with certain anecdotes which have escaped, I think, the grubbing 

 collectors of anas, the Boswells of the day. Of these little inci- 

 dents I shall relate but one. When the boats of the Bonhomme 

 Richard withdrew from the Dee, night began to fall, and 

 the townsmen, who had very prudently kept out of the way, 

 showed themselves in some force. They had discovered a 

 cannon somewhere that they could not find before, and having 

 made this discovery it was easy enough to find something to fire 



