History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

JOHNSTONS OF CARNSALLOCH 319
of Bankruptcy in England. His next brother, Alexander, obtained a civil post
under Lord Macartney at Madras, and settled at Madura in 178 1. On his
way out, with his wife and eldest son (born in 1775), he sailed in one of the
ships convoyed by Commodore George Johnstone, but they were attacked, off
the Cape Verd Islands, by the French squadron under Admiral Suffrien. One
of the enemy's frigates engaged the Indiaman which contained his party, and,
with permission of the Captain, Alexander Johnston took the command of four
of the quarter-deck guns. His wife refused to leave his side, and held her sixyears-old
son by one hand, while in the other she grasped a thick velvet bag
containing, with other things of particular value to her, a gold filigree case
enclosing the heart of Montrose. This had been given to her by her father,
Lord Napier of Merchiston, having been handed down in his family since a
friend of the Napiers at midnight opened the grave where a few remains of
Montrose had been buried after his execution, and brought it to Lady Napier,
his nephew's wife, as a precious relic. A French shot struck one of the guns,
killed two sailors, knocked over the amateur gunner, and shattered the box
in his wife's reticule to pieces, severely wounding Mrs Johnston's arm, and
bruising the muscles of the little boy's hand, so as to make it difficult for him
at times to hold a pen for the rest of his life. But the French were repulsed,
and immediately after Commodore Johnstone came on board and "complimented
them both in the highest terms for the encouragement which they had
given to the crew."
" My father," wrote Sir A. Johnston to his daughters from Great Cumberland
Place on July 1, 1836, "was in the habit of sending me every year during
the hunting season to stay with some of the native chiefs who lived in the
neighbourhood of Madura for four months at a time, in order to acquire the
various languages and to practise the native gymnastic exercises. One day,
while I was hunting, my horse was attacked by a wild hog which we were
pursuing, but I succeeded in wounding it so severely with my hunting pike
that the chief soon killed it." Probably young Johnston was accompanied to
the chief's house by Swartz, the missionary, and Munro, afterwards Sir Thomas,
who are said to have educated him. "This was the chief, so celebrated
throughout the Southern Peninsula of India, who thirty or forty years ago
rebelled against the authority of his supposed sovereign, the Nabob of Arcot,
and who, after behaving with the most undaunted courage, was conquered by
a detachment of British troops and executed, with many members of his
family,"—a necessity to be regretted, as, from Johnston's account, he was an
upright and civilised native. 1
At the age of eleven, young Johnston obtained a cornetcy of dragoons,
but, as the regiment was ordered on active service, he resigned, and returned
1 A new case was made for Montrose's heart in India, and it was kept in the drawing-
room at the Residency in Madura ; but, with the idea that it was a talisman, a native stole it
and sold it for a large sum to the chief at whose house young Johnston visited. When the
last distinguished himself by wounding the hog the chief asked what he could do for him in
return, when Johnston told him about the relic, and begged for it again. It was at once
restored.