This is the relevant section of one of the letters to which I referred.
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NORTHERN ENSIGN - Tuesday 7th July 1891 - page 6, columns a, b
THE BROYNACHS AND THE EARLDOM OF CAITHNESS.
EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF THE CLAIM OF JAMES SINCLAIR, MID CLYTH.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN ENSIGN.
[ I chopped out a large section here ]
".....Isabella Green (Mrs George Sinclair), Halkirk, aged 66 upwards, depones that she is a daughter of the deceased Walter Green, Wick, and Margaret Sutherland ; that Margaret Sutherland, her mother, was daughter of Isabella Sinclair, whose father was Robert Sinclair, merchant. Wick, younger brother to James, the chamberlain at Thrumster House ; that the said Robert Sinclair, her great-grandfather, was born in Cairnquoy, a farm on the Thrumster estate, situated near Yarrows; that Robert Sinclair's only son was a soldier and died abroad, and she remembers his gaiters, and a malacca cane with silver top and tassel, and some other things belonging to him, which were sent home to John O' Groats to his sister Isabella (Mrs John Sutherland), by his widow, but that deponent does not know anything about his having a family or not, and that she thinks his name was Robert Sinclair. Depones that his father, Robert Sinclair, merchant and burgess, Wick, was married a second time, and that it was the second wife's son who was drowned at sea, being in the navy. Depones that she remembers her grandmother, Isabella Sinclair, the merchant's daughter, as a fine-looking woman, very proud-spirited, and even in old age and poverty showing the traces of having been well brought up; that Isabella was preparing to go to Edinburgh to be educated when her father died, she being then a young girl, and her higher education was thus stopped ; that the circumstances of her marriage to John Sutherland, Canisbay, were that a large vessel had come ashore at Staxigoe, and the houses of Wick being thrown open to the ship-wrecked, the captain was received by the merchant-burgess, with whose daughter, Isabella Sinclair, he fell in love, and to whom he proposed marriage ; that John Sutherland, her accepted sweetheart, heard of this, and he and his sister immediately journeyed from John O'Groats, contrived to have an interview with Isabella, who by the help of a servant left home a runaway or in elopement that night, and was married in Canisbay quam primum to John Sutherland (landlord afterwards of an inn there); that a John Sutherland, an aged man now in Thurso, is their youngest son; and that deponent was much with her grandmother, Isabella Sinclair, in Canisbay, for whose memory she has great respect, regretting she has not more to tell, when by her opportunities she might have had so much.—June 30th, 1890.
Ellen Green (Mrs Donald Bain), widow, sister of Mrs George Sinclair, Halkirk, and aged 70 upwards, depones that she has lived with her grandfather and grandmother at John O'Groats, John Sutherland and Isabella, the only daughter of Robert Sinclair, merchant-burgess of Wick; and further depones that Robert's shop was on the site in the High Street, now occupied by the offices of the Wick parochial board.
This last item of knowledge has appeared before in one of the Broynach letters to the Northern Ensign when discussing this younger son of Donald the Sailor, Donald being the second and last son of the Hon. David Sinclair of Broynach by his marriage in 1700 to Janet Ewen. The exact text of Robert's burgess-ticket, which is now in the possession of his grandson, Robert Green, Wick, brother of Mrs Donald Bain and Mrs George Sinclair, is as follows, provisions being always a portion of his trading :-—
"At Wick, 31st January, 1777, in presence of James Sinclair of Harpsdale, provost of the burgh of Wick, James Miller and John Russell, baillies thereof, and remanent council of the same. The said day, Robert Sinclair, baker in Wick, was created, received, and admitted burgess and guild-brother of the said burgh, after taking the ordinary oaths thereto belonging, and being solemnly sworn in the common form of burgesses at their admission, with full power to him to haunt, use, and exercise all the liberties and privileges pertaining, or known to pertain, to any burgess or guild-brother in like cases. In witness whereof, these presents are extracted, by advice of above, and signed by the clerk of court, place, date, and year before said. ALEX. RUSSELL, clerk of court." The endorsation of the parchment is " Burgess Act: the Burgh of Wick in favour of Robert Sinclair." By my personal examination of it, through its possessor's politeness, its size is 6 1/4 inches by 3 3/4, written broad-wise. To the middle is attached a dark green silk ribbon, 7 inches by l 1/4, in two folds, at the end of which was the wax seal of Wick burgh. Further details, local evidence, and register records have to be given in this particular section of substantiating the claim of James Sinclair, Mid-Clyth, to be Earl of Caithness.----Yours, &c.,
THOMAS SINCLAIR
Falmouth, July, 1891. "
