In early May 1726, William Petrie, a town officer in Leith, held a bill of exchange for fifty-eight pounds drawn upon the Duchess of Gordon. Mrs Macleod had placed it in his hands as security for a loan of six pounds, intended to deliver her imprisoned husband. The paper appeared to bear the signature of George Henderson, an Edinburgh merchant, together with the Duchess’s acceptance. The name of the next indorsee, however, was missing: Mrs Macleod had left that space blank. The instrument promised far more than the few coins she had borrowed, and each name inscribed upon it could now drag another to the bar.
Borrow entitles the cause “George Henderson and Margaret Nisbet”; in the depositions transcribed, the woman is styled Mrs Macleod. Petrie explained that she claimed to have received the bill from Henderson, who had allegedly signed it to discharge an account for goods she had furnished. She offered an explanation for the delay as well: the Duchess was retired to her devotions, and her man of business was absent. Some years before, Petrie had accepted a similar instrument as security for a debt, and Mrs Macleod had duly satisfied it. This earlier transaction had weighed heavily in his decision to advance her the six pounds.
By the beginning of the month, her narrative could no longer allay suspicion. Petrie was examined in Edinburgh on the 5th of May. Henderson, brought in at the same time, denied all knowledge of the matter. Mrs Macleod was apprehended two days later. Confronted with him, she swore that Henderson had written the bill and the other disputed papers; he denied it once more. Both were committed to ward. The question was not merely whether the Duchess’s acceptance was forged: the court had to determine who had fabricated it, and whether the man whose name stood upon the paper had truly taken part in the design.
Several witnesses placed Henderson in Mrs Macleod’s company on the evening of the 3rd of May, in the Canongate. John Gibson, a wright, related that he had met them towards nine o’clock and conducted them to his dwelling. There, Henderson had signed an obligation undertaking to repay the money to Mrs Macleod. Gibson maintained that he had read the instrument and signed as witness. Archibald Dempster, a young journeyman, likewise affirmed that he had seen the man write and subscribe; he had initially felt uneasy at being drawn into a matter of law, but Gibson had assured him it was merely an ordinary bond of debt.
On the morrow, according to Gibson, the three men walked down the Canongate together once more. Mrs Macleod announced that she had apprised the Duchess’s agent regarding the bill. Henderson struck his breast and cried out that all was lost, then made off at once. Catherine Gray, servant to a tailor in the street, confirmed having seen them together that night; Mrs Macleod had told her she was going to obtain security for the money Henderson owed her. These encounters lent weight to the accusation, yet they did not yet prove that the face seen at Gibson’s was truly that of the merchant.
Petrie set forth the delivery of the bill in detail. He stated he had received it on the 6th of February, with Henderson’s indorsement to Mrs Macleod, followed by the blank indorsement. Before presenting the paper to the Duchess, he had demanded a letter from Henderson attesting to its authenticity. Mrs Macleod had brought him the letter, followed by an obligation executed before witnesses. Another witness affirmed that she had sought to induce him to say he had seen Henderson deliver a bill accepted by the Duchess; he had refused, and had subsequently received a threatening letter. Mrs Macleod, for her part, maintained that the bill was genuine and that the business arose from their mutual accounts.
Yet one name recurred continually without ever being seized. Several depositions mentioned David Household, a former servant of Mrs Macleod, a youth of about seventeen years. Captain Macleod recognized his former domestic’s handwriting in the obligation, while affirming that Household wore his own black hair and was of far shorter stature than Henderson. A witness reported that Household had confessed to having put on Mr Macleod’s coat, impersonated Henderson before two witnesses, and subscribed a paper in the Canongate. But Household had vanished. Without him, these declarations remained second-hand tales, whilst Gibson and Dempster persisted in swearing they had seen Henderson sign.
At this juncture, the Lord Advocate nonetheless moved the court to find Henderson guilty and remit him to the Court of Justiciary, where he faced a capital charge. The defence countered that the witnesses were mistaken in the identity of the person, reminding the bench that the prisoner, when interrogated in the tolbooth, had unfalteringly maintained his innocence. Counsel prayed for time: where a man’s life hung in the balance, to await another sitting was no miscarriage. The judges adjourned the cause to the following session. Henderson was not set at liberty, but this stay of proceedings opened a space in which the young wright’s absence was to become the decisive circumstance.
During the recess, the Lord Advocate visited Mr Rose of Kilravock, in the North. Kilravock informed him that a carpenter had left his employment upon hearing that his Lordship was coming into the country. The lad had reportedly said he must reach Aberdeen and take ship for London. When asked his name, the overseer answered: David Household. The Lord Advocate immediately dispatched a messenger to Aberdeen. Household was apprehended, and brought back to Edinburgh.
Before the court, Household confessed that he had written the bill at Mrs Macleod’s behest, as she dictated the words. She had made him put on her husband’s coat and a tied black periwig, then conducted him to a house in the Canongate to pass himself off as Henderson. In a second house, he had written out the remainder of the obligation before the eyes of Gibson and Dempster. He declared further that he had written the letter addressed to Petrie. His account did not make him the signatory of the acceptance in the Duchess’s name: his testimony concerned the instruments and signatures he claimed to have executed upon her command.
Dempster was recalled and confronted with both Household and Henderson. Looking upon the two men, he acknowledged his belief that the person seen at Gibson’s was Household, not Henderson. The Lord Advocate thereupon deserted the diet against the merchant and admitted that Mrs Macleod had contrived the fraud. Henderson was assoilzied and set at liberty. The very investigation that had brought him within sight of the gallows had turned the testimony against the woman who had delivered the bill to Petrie.
Mrs Macleod was subsequently brought to trial for forging or uttering the instruments. Her counsel contended that the law of Scotland did not make forgery an inherently capital crime; that her sole intent had been to obtain a small advance which she meant to repay; and that the interlocutor pronounced upon the former process could not, of itself, establish her criminal guilt. These pleas failed to move the court. The jury found her guilty of the crimes libelled, and the judges ordained that she be hanged on the 8th of March. Borrow does not record the year of this execution.
He relates that she went to the scaffold arrayed in a black gown and petticoat, beneath a large hoop, carrying a white fan and wearing a pale coif. Having mounted the platform, she took off the ornaments of her dress, placed a handkerchief over her bosom, and put the cord about her neck with her own hands. To the very last moment, she persisted in denying her guilt.