Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/159

 While Lockhart was writing his ‘Life of Burns,’ Train sent him some information which Lockhart acknowledged in a letter of 20 Sept. 1827; but the portion of these notes now in the Laing collection in the library of Edinburgh University is of very slight value. Train also supplied to George Chalmers, author of ‘Caledonia,’ the earliest knowledge of Roman remains in Ayrshire and Wigtownshire, it being previously supposed that the Romans had never penetrated into Wigtownshire, nor further into Ayrshire than Loudoun Hill. This included notices of the Roman post on the Blackwater of Dee, of the Roman camp at Rispain near Galloway, and of the Roman road from Dumfriesshire to Ayr. Train further succeeded in tracing the wall, of very ancient but unknown origin, called the Deil's Dyke, from Lochryan in Wigtownshire to the farm of Hightae in the parish of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, a distance of eighty miles.

While [q. v.] was collecting material for her life of Mary Queen of Scots, she applied to Train for information regarding the flight of Mary through eastern Galloway after the battle of Langside, but any lingering traditions of this occurrence must be regarded as compounded more largely of fiction than of fact.

In 1820, through the representations of Scott to the lord advocate, Train was promoted supervisor, the station to which he was appointed being Cupar-Fife, whence in 1822 he was removed to Queensferry, and in 1823 to Falkirk. Owing, however, to the then prevailing custom of reserving the highest offices of the excise mainly for Englishmen, the efforts of Scott for the advancement of Train to the rank of general supervisor or collector were unsuccessful. Not only so, but owing to fictitious offences, manufactured it is said by an English official, Train was in 1824 ‘removed in censure’ from Falkirk to be supervisor at Wigtown, and although afterwards he was appointed to Dumfries, he was, on account of a supposed negligence, reduced while at Dumfries from the rank of supervisor. After six months he was, however, on his own petition, restored to his former rank, being appointed in November 1827 supervisor at Castle Douglas. While there he supplied Scott with a variety of information for his notes to the new edition of the ‘Waverley Novels’ begun in 1829. In November of the same year he was admitted a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

The death of Scott, 21 Sept. 1832, made a great blank in the life of Train, but the absence of the accustomed stimulus did not lessen his interest in his old studies. Although he had presented Scott with many antiquarian relics, he still retained a rare and valuable collection of his own. James Hannay, editor of the Edinburgh ‘Courant,’ who records in ‘Household Words’ of 10 July 1853 a visit which he paid to Train, states that his ‘little parlour was full of antiquities,’ and describes him as ‘a tall old man, with an autumnal red in his face, hale-looking, and of simple quaint manners.’ After his retirement from the excise in 1836, he took up his residence in a cottage near Castle Douglas, where he occupied his leisure in contributing to ‘Chambers's Journal’ and other periodicals, in completing his ‘Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man, from the earliest time to the present date, with a view of its peculiar customs and popular superstitions’ (Douglas, 1845, 2 vols. 8vo), and in writing an account of the local religious sect known as the Buchanites, under the title, ‘The Buchanites from First to Last’ (Edinburgh, 1846, 8vo). He died on 1 Dec. 1852. By Mary, daughter of Robert Wilson, gardener in Ayr, he had five children.



TRANT, ‘’ NICHOLAS (1769–1839), brigadier-general in the Portuguese army, born in 1769, belonged to an Irish family originally of Danish origin. His grandfather, Dominick Trant of Dingle, co. Kerry, wrote a tract ‘Considerations on the present Disturbance in Munster,’ 1787 (3rd edit. 1790). He was educated at a military college in France, but in consequence of the French revolution he entered the British army, and was commissioned as lieutenant in the 84th foot on 31 May 1794. He served with that regiment at Flushing, and went with it to the Cape of Good Hope in 1795. Returning to England, he obtained a company in one of the regiments of the Irish brigade, his commission bearing date 1 Oct. 1794. His regiment was sent to Portugal, and he took part in the expedition under Sir Charles Stuart, which captured Minorca in November 1798. There Trant was appointed agent-general for prizes, and helped to organise the Minorca regiment, in which he was made major on 17 Jan. 1799. He served in the expedition to Egypt, and his regiment was in support of the 42nd and 28th in the battle of Alexandria. It was disbanded after the peace of Amiens, and Trant left