Free A Sink of Atrocity: Crime in 19th-Century Dundee by Malcolm Archibald

promptly forgave her, but it was obvious they could not stay in Greenock.
    The game of musical chairs began again. Margaret crossed the country to Dundee and moved in with her recently widowed father. She took Macleod’s son with her, and Macleod followed like a hungry dog with Balfour close behind, determined to keep his wife.
    Once again Balfour had to intervene to salvage his marriage. He chased Macleod back to Greenock and ordered him to take his son with him. Macleod left, his retreat possibly sweetened by his consolation prize, for he had transferred his affections from Margaret to her younger sister, a girl of sixteen. Satisfied he had regained his wife, Balfour returned to sea.
    In late 1825 Balfour was shipwrecked off the west coast of England. Such occurrences were part and parcel of a seaman’s life, and he returned to Dundee as a passenger on a packet ship. When he arrived home his wife refused to let him in, saying, ‘You have got Macleod’s boy away, but it will cost you dear.’ She spoke the truth, and Balfour had only his own thoughts and the wet December streets for company. He returned home at night and despite opposition from his wife’s brothers, stayed until morning, but Margaret was anything but friendly and her brothers gave Balfour unpleasant advice to leave Dundee. When he tried to win Margaret back the next day she swore at him and said ‘she loved Torquil Macleod’s finger better than his whole body’.
    At least that statement, unless shouted in thoughtless anger, would have removed any lingering ambiguity about where Margaret’s affections lay, but the sentiment would sink deep and fester. Balfour and Margaret argued again that evening and Margaret stormed into the bedroom, dragged a chest of drawers across the door and kept Balfour out. He asked her to pass him out a clean shirt but Margaret refused. All night Balfour remained in the kitchen, fully dressed and probably fuming.
    Sometime during the night Margaret must have removed the barricade, for at the back of seven the next morning Balfour came to her bed and tried once more to patch the relationship.
    ‘Oh Margaret, why will ye no’ mak’ peace atween us?’
    But Margaret was having nothing of it. ‘Be gone, you vagabond,’ she said. ‘I’ll have nothing to do with you, and some misty morning you will find me away from Dundee. As for you, I will have you fixed before twelve o’clock this day.’
    It was then that Balfour left the house, to return with the knife and murder his wife.
    On 20th April 1826 Balfour was tried at Perth. On the advice of his advocates he pleaded not guilty and Alexander Macneil, speaking for him, argued he had suffered mental derangement brought about by jealousy. The judge, Lord Pitmilly, had little sympathy. After advising the jury against feelings of compassion for the prisoner, he said, ‘Jealousy, revenge, anger from insult or other provocation and every other passion to which human nature is subject, are aberrations of the mind, but not such as to justify the commission of so heinous a crime as that with which the panel is charged.’
    The jury was out for an hour, but when they announced that Balfour was guilty, they also asked for mercy. Once again the judge disagreed and sentenced Balfour to be hanged on the afternoon of 2nd June.
    Balfour remained composed between the sentence and his death. He read the Bible, spoke of death as a happy event and seemed not to let a petition for mercy affect his equanimity. Even after all the provocation he had endured he spoke of ‘his dear little wife, his poor little woman, whom he loved as he loved himself’.
    It was a short walk from the condemned cell through the Guild Hall of the Town House to the gibbet that had been erected outside the window. Probably the calmest person in Dundee, Balfour stepped outside, sang a hymn and spoke to the estimated 18,000-strong crowd. He was hanged at ten to three and less than an hour later his body was taken into