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

322 JOHNSTONS OF ROUNDSTONEFUTE
stonefute, also belong to the Poldean branch, and have still a representative in
Mr William Johnston of Alderwood House near Thornliebank, whose grandfather,
Provost William Johnston of Sanquhar, sold his little property on Moffat
Water and settled on the farm of Clackleith in Nithsdale. He was first elected
a member of the Town Council of Sanquhar in 1765, and served as Provost from
1 79 1 to 1793. He was a boon companion of Robert Burns, described by the
poet as the trusty and worthy " Clackleith," and, perhaps playfully, as " that
worthy veteran of original wit and social iniquity" ; but he appears to have been
among the mistaken friends who helped to bring Burns to an early grave, as it
is reported that he was one of another trio, including Burns, who repeated
the drinking competition of Friar's Carse at Sanquhar. " Occasional hard
drinking," wrote Burns, " is the devil to me. Taverns I have totally abandoned ;
it is the private parties among the hard-drinking gentry that do me the mis-
chief." Yet William Johnston lived to be eighty-seven, and his eleventh child,
Susan, to be 101. His wife, who predeceased him, was Susanna M'Adam
of Craigengillan. He is described as an excellent scholar, a musician, and
a collector of old ballads and local songs, and " much respected in the district."
Among their many children the twelfth and thirteenth were distinguished
John, who died Sept. 1, 1880, aged ninety-nine, and is buried in Old Cumnock
Churchyard, and William, born in 1782, who died on board the Atholl troopship
and was buried at sea 1836. John was intended to succeed his father in his
farm, but the stirring events of the time and the patriotic snngs filled him with
a desire to serve at the seat of war, and he ran away from home to enlist in the
Marines at Liverpool. He was severely wounded on the Colossus at the battle
of Trafalgar,—a wound which troubled him for the rest of his life, and in 1814
caused him to be discharged when serving on the West Indian Station, but
without a pension. Later he received one of £27, 10s. yearly from Greenwich
Hospital. He was at first warmly received by his father and lived at home,
where he was made a Baillie of Sanquhar in 1815, but, owing to a quarrel which
ended in his father disinheriting him, he opened a school near Cumnock, and
partly supported himself with his pen. He contributed to Dr Simpson's
Traditions, and wrote a long poem on Lord Nelson, in which he forcibly
describes the battle where he had himself taken a part. His eldest son is the
present William Johnston of Alderwood House, now aged ninety-one, but the
younger generations springing up seem to make it improbable that this sprig of
an ancient tree will die out.
William, the younger son of the Provost, obtained a commission in the
Army in 1805, and was transferred as Lieutenant to the Rifle Brigade the
next year. He was with his regiment at Copenhagen under Lord Cathcart,
and at Rolica and Vimiera in the Peninsula, in the Corunna retreat, at
Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and later at Waterloo. At Badajoz he
commanded a storming party with ropes and nooses intended to drag down the
bayonets and swords which formed a chevaux de frise, but he and his party
were all shot down before they arrived within throwing distance ; and Johnston
so severely wounded that he was invalided home. He was still only a lieutenant,