Kidnapped

Kidnapped

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson This eBook is
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Title: Kidnapped
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Release Date: January 16, 2006 [EBook #421]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIDNAPPED ***

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

KIDNAPPED BEING MEMOIRS OF THE ADVENTURES OF DAVID BALFOUR IN
THE YEAR 1751

HOW HE WAS KIDNAPPED AND CAST AWAY; HIS SUFFERINGS IN A DESERT
ISLE; HIS JOURNEY IN THE WILD HIGHLANDS; HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH
ALAN BRECK STEWART AND OTHER NOTORIOUS HIGHLAND JACOBITES;
WITH ALL THAT HE SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF HIS UNCLE, EBENEZER
BALFOUR OF SHAWS, FALSELY SO CALLED
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF AND NOW SET FORTH BY ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON WITH A PREFACE BY MRS. STEVENSON

PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION
While my husband and Mr. Henley were engaged in writing plays in Bournemouth they

made a number of titles, hoping to use them in the future. Dramatic composition was not
what my husband preferred, but the torrent of Mr. Henley's enthusiasm swept him off his
feet. However, after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously impaired by
his endeavours to keep up with Mr. Henley, play writing was abandoned forever, and my
husband returned to his legitimate vocation. Having added one of the titles, The Hanging
Judge, to the list of projected plays, now thrown aside, and emboldened by my husband's
offer to give me any help needed, I concluded to try and write it myself.
As I wanted a trial scene in the Old Bailey, I chose the period of 1700 for my purpose;
but being shamefully ignorant of my subject, and my husband confessing to little more
knowledge than I possessed, a London bookseller was commissioned to send us
everything he could procure bearing on Old Bailey trials. A great package came in
response to our order, and very soon we were both absorbed, not so much in the trials as
in following the brilliant career of a Mr. Garrow, who appeared as counsel in many of the
cases. We sent for more books, and yet more, still intent on Mr. Garrow, whose subtle
cross-examination of witnesses and masterly, if sometimes startling, methods of arriving
at the truth seemed more thrilling to us than any novel.
Occasionally other trials than those of the Old Bailey would be included in the package
of books we received from London; among these my husband found and read with
avidity:--
THE TRIAL OF JAMES STEWART in Aucharn in Duror of Appin FOR THE Murder of
COLIN CAMPBELL of Glenure, Efq; Factor for His Majefty on the forfeited Estate of
Ardfhiel.
My husband was always interested in this period of his country's history, and had already
the intention of writing a story that should turn on the Appin murder. The tale was to be
of a boy, David Balfour, supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should
travel in Scotland as though it were a foreign country, meeting with various adventures
and misadventures by the way. From the trial of James Stewart my husband gleaned
much valuable material for his novel, the most important being the character of Alan
Breck. Aside from having described him as "smallish in stature," my husband seems to
have taken Alan Breck's personal appearance, even to his clothing, from the book.
A letter from James Stewart to Mr. John Macfarlane, introduced as evidence in the trial,
says: "There is one Alan Stewart, a distant friend of the late Ardshiel's, who is in the
French service, and came over in March last, as he said to some, in order to settle at home;
to others, that he was to go soon back; and was, as I hear, the day that the murder was
committed, seen not far from the place where it happened, and is not now to be seen; by
which it is believed he was the actor. He is a desperate foolish fellow; and if he is guilty,
came to the country for that very purpose. He is a tall, pock-pitted lad, very black hair,
and wore a blue coat and metal buttons, an old red vest, and breeches of the same
colour." A second witness testified to having seen him wearing "a blue coat with silver
buttons, a red waistcoat, black shag breeches, tartan hose, and a feathered hat, with a big
coat, dun coloured," a costume referred to by one of the counsel as "French cloathes
which were remarkable."

There are many incidents given