It was obvious to the inhabitants around the River Forth at Stirling, Alloa, Airth and Falkirk that the Jacobite army under the command of Lord George Murray were using this part of the river as a crossing point to supply the troops assembling at Bannockburn and the surrounding area. Hanoverian spy and government tax and custom officer Walter Grosset was asked by the Lord Justice Clerk in Edinburgh to try and stall the Jacobite army here by deploying two sloops of war from Leith. The Vulture and The Pearl supported by armed boats carrying troops, the Happy Jennet and the Jean of Leith and another out of Kinghorn. The flotilla set sail up the Forth and managed to set fire to two skiffs that the Jacobites had anchored at The Pow estuary, near Airth. They deployed their Redcoat marines under the command of a Colonel Leighton at Kincardine whose aim was to outflank the Jacobite forces at Alloa, unfortunately the Jacobite force here had been strengthened by 300 Camerons and the government force retreated back to Kincardine and boarded their troop transports back to Leith. The troops on the Airth side of the river, under cover of darkness, reached Kersie Mains House where they thought Lord Elcho was staying, unfortunately he had left the house earlier to command the Artillery emplacement at Elphinstone-Pans. They returned to their boats and reached the two sloops Vulture and the Pearl which were now stuck on a sand bank mid river on the low tide. The Jacobite artillery now alerted to these actions opened fire on the sloops who returned fire and in the ensuing fire fight there were casualties on both sides. The Royal Navy had the pilots of their sloops mortally wounded and later died and are reputed to have been buried at or near Higgins Nuek ferry. At high tide the two sloops sailed down the river back to Leith leaving the upper Forth under Jacobite control. History tells us that if the government troops had been a little bit braver and been more adventurous, that if they had gone a little more inland, their main enemy and wanted man, with a price of £30,000 for his arrest and capture, was convalescing at BannockburnHouse being looked after by Lady Clemintina Walkinshaw. |