earned him the epithet of "honest David," and where he attracted the
notice of George, first Lord Dartmouth, when that rising statesman was
appointed Master. Captain Trotter had served the Crown from his youth,
"with great gallantry and fidelity, both by land and sea," and had been
very successful in the Dutch wars. He had a brother who was a commander
in the Navy. We get an impression of high respectability in the outer,
but not outermost, circles of influential Scottish society. Doubtless
the infancy of Catharine was spent in conditions of dependent
prosperity. These conditions were not to last. When she was four years
old Lord Dartmouth started on the famous expedition to demolish Tangier,
and he took Captain Trotter with him as his commodore. In this affair,
as before, the captain distinguished himself by his ability, and instead
of returning to London after Tangier he was recommended to King Charles
II. as the proper person to convoy the fleet of the Turkey Company to
its destination. Apparently it was understood that this would be the
final reward of his services and that he was to "make his fortune" out
of the Turks. Unhappily, after convoying his charge safely to
Scanderoon, he fell sick of the plague that was raging there, and died,
in the course of January 1684, in company with all the other officers of
his ship. Every misfortune now ensued; the purser, who was thus left to
his own devices, helped himself to the money destined for the expenses
of the voyage, while, to crown all, the London goldsmith in whose hands
the captain had left his private fortune took this occasion to go
bankrupt. The King, in these melancholy circumstances, granted an
Admiralty pension to the widow, but when he died early in the following
year this was no longer paid, and the unfortunate ladies of the Trotter
family might well murmur:--

"One mischief brings another on his neck,
As mighty billows tumble in the seas."