Hugh Blair to Colin Mitchell, Edinburgh, Tuesday, 26 September 1745
One of the benefits of working with a prosopographical database for historical research is being able to find commonalities in large amounts of data hitherto disconnected and, therefore, often unnoticed. A most intriguing example of this within my studies is the discovery that about one-half of the active goldsmiths, or ‘hammermen’, in Edinburgh during and just after the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6 gave evidence against the other half, citing rebellious activities to the government authorities. That the extent of this strange web of blame occurs nowhere else and within no other occupation with such frequency is striking, and while there is no direct evidence yet uncovered that marks this as anything other than a curious coincidence, one gets the feeling that there might be something more to the story.
I beg the
favour you will come to my house this
day att half an hour after two precisely
about a piece of Necessary business. I am
Dr Sir
Yours
Hugh Blair 1
