William McGhie

William McGhie has been identified alternately as a glazier from Dumfries (List of Persons, p. 144) and a merchant from Edinburgh. He was allegedly sent by Charles Edward Stuart to Carlisle to report on the government army and to "bring forward Rebel Stragglers" (List of Persons, p. 145). He was taken prisoner at Dumfries on April 30, 1746 (Prisoners vol. 3, pp. 90-91), and subsequently held in London at the house of Nathan Carrington, King's Messenger, along with fellow witnesses James Patterson and Samuel Maddox, among others. He gave evidence against several Jacobites, most notoriously Lord Balmerino and Aeneas MacDonald. At Balmerino's trial, McGhie testimony was so quiet that the Lord High Steward arranged for a clerk to stand near him and repeat his words so that they could be heard (Whole Proceedings, p. 17). In the following years, McGhie and other witnesses made several petitions for relief from the persecution they faced as witnesses, both in London and in Scotland (NA SP 36/102/1/62, 36/102/1/66, 36/104/1/32, 36/104/1/85, 36/104/1/86).