XXI. A.D. 1689-1691…

XXI. A.D. 1689-1691

BRITISH SOVEREIGN:--William III., 1688-1703.

Mackay’s movements--Advances to Perth--Colonel Cannon marches north and is joined by several clans--Followed by Mackay--Cannon returns south--The Cameronians at Dunkeld--Movements of Mackay --Major-General Buchan arrives from Ireland and marches north --Skirmish at Cromdale--Mackay marches to Inverlochy--Erection of Fort-William--Movements of Buchan and Cannon--Mackay marches to the north--Earl of Seaforth imprisoned--Cessation of hostilities --Departure of Dundee’s officers for France.

The news of Mackay’s defeat reached Edinburgh on Sunday the 28th of July, the day after the battle, and threw the partizans of the government, who were there assembled, into the greatest consternation. In the absence of official details, the most gloomy accounts were given by a few terrified stragglers who arrived in the capital, and who gave out that, with the exception of themselves, the whole of Mackay’s army had been destroyed. In the state of disorder and confusion which prevailed, the Duke of Hamilton, the Commissioner to the revolution parliament, summoned a meeting of the privy council, at which orders were issued to raise all the fencible men in the west, and to concentrate all the forces in the south at Stirling, to which point it was supposed Dundee (of whose death they were not aware) would be rapidly hastening; and on the supposition that Mackay was either killed or made prisoner, Sir John Lanier was ordered west to take the command.

During two entire days the ferment continued in the capital, and every hour added to the fears of those who had most to dread from a counter-revolution. At length, when the minds of men were wrought up to the highest pitch of terror and dismay, intelligence was received of the death of Dundee, and shortly thereafter a despatch from General Mackay, giving an account of the battle, and of his safe retreat to Stirling. An event so unlooked for and so important as the death of the only man in whom the hopes of King James rested, and from the decision of whose character the supporters of the revolution settlement anticipated the most fearful consequences, was hailed by the Duke of Hamilton and his friends with transports of joy. They had indeed good reason to rejoice, for although the battle had been disastrous to their forces, the loss which King James had sustained in the person of Dundee was irreparable.

On arriving at Stirling, Mackay met Sir John Lanier, who communicated to him the orders that had been issued by the government on receiving the news of his defeat. So decisive had the battle of Killiecrankie appeared to them that they had given up all idea of maintaining a position on the north of the Forth, all the country beyond which they meant to abandon to the victorious arms of Dundee, and to confine their operations to a defence of the fords of the Forth, and the pass and bridge of Stirling. In pursuance of this design orders had been sent to Barclay’s regiment, which was quartered in the county of Aberdeen, to retire upon Dundee, and Lanier had despatched an express to his own regiment, which lay partly at Alnwick and partly at Morpeth, to hasten down to Scotland. This plan, however, was disapproved of by Mackay, and he, therefore, as he says, “resolved to alter these measures, knowing how hard a pull we would have, if he left the north, which are absolutely the best men of that kingdom for the war, to the discretion of the enemy, where he would not only get great numbers to join him, but also take possession of towns and seize upon the public revenues, whereby they could form a fashion of government, and so have more plausible ways, not only to maintain but also to engross their party, than ever they have had.”[608]

For these reasons Mackay determined to take the field again without delay, and to give, as he observes, “some eclat to the service, and hinder the disaffected of the shires of Perth and Angus to rise in arms against the government,” he resolved to march direct to Perth with the forces which were at hand, and place a garrison there. Fortunately some of the troops which the privy council had ordered to rendezvous at Stirling were already there, and others were at hand. Preparatory to his march he sent Sir John Lanier to Edinburgh to hasten the advance of his own regiment, consisting of nine troops of horse, and also of Hayford’s dragoons, consisting of eight troops, and ordered eight troops of horse, and four of dragoons, both of which had been newly levied, and Lord Colchester’s regiment of horse, not above 500 men in all, to join him at Stirling on the morning of Wednesday, the 31st of July. Many thousands of men in the western counties were now assembling of their own accord in consequence of Mackay’s defeat; but disliking such auxiliaries, “whose pretensions,” he says, “appeared already exorbitant enough,” and who, if employed, might think that the government could not be maintained without their assistance, he intimated that he would not require their services, and ordered them to return to their homes.

The horse and dragoons having come to Stirling as directed, with these he departed for Perth at two o’clock in the afternoon, giving orders to a newly-raised battalion of foot, consisting of Mar and Bargeny’s regiments, to follow him. On his way he could obtain no intelligence respecting the motions of the enemy, as he found the houses mostly deserted by their inhabitants, who had taken up arms and had gone to join the standard of King James. On approaching the river Earn, however, Mackay’s scouts, who, to prevent notice of his approach, kept only a musket-shot in advance, were saluted with a loud “qui vive” by two horsemen. The scouts, four in number, answered this challenge by a discharge from their carabines, which brought down the two horsemen, one of whom was shot dead. The other was mortally wounded, and though he spoke a few words, was not able to answer some questions put to him for eliciting information. As Mackay conjectured from this occurrence, that the main body of the enemy was not far off, he altered his line of march, and crossing a pretty steep hill to the north, reached the field of Tippermuir, a few miles west from Perth.

Having been informed at Tippermuir, that the enemy lay encamped at Dunkeld, and that a party of their horse and foot was in Perth for the purpose of carrying off some meal which had been sent thither by the council for the use of Mackay’s army, the general drew off his men to the left to throw himself between Dunkeld and Perth, and thereby cut off the party. He himself marched down upon Perth, but on coming within sight of the town was disappointed to observe that about 30 of the enemy’s horse had already crossed the Tay, and were beyond his reach. He proceeded on his march, and when within half a mile of the town observed the foot party, which consisted of about 300 Athole-men, approaching. The Highlanders, who had not the most distant idea that there was a single enemy nearer than Stirling, were almost petrified with horror when they beheld such a large body of cavalry ready to pounce upon them, and for a time they stood quite motionless not knowing what to do. Apprehensive that they might attempt to escape by a ford near the place where they stood, Mackay despatched four troops of dragoons at full gallop to prevent their passage. The Athole-men seeing that their retreat would be cut off, threw themselves into the Tay, whither they were followed by the horse and dragoons, who cut them down in the water without mercy. About 120 of the Athole-men were killed and 30 made prisoners. In this affair Mackay lost only one man, who had imprudently pursued to a distance a small party of the Highlanders.[609]

This disastrous skirmish, whilst it raised the expectations of the revolutionists, threw a damp over King James’s supporters, and augured ill for the success of Colonel Cannon, who had assumed the command of James’s army on the death of Dundee. This officer, though a faithful adherent of his royal master, was altogether unfit for the command of such an army. He seems to have possessed none of Dundee’s genius, and his regular military experience rendered him totally unfit to deal with such an irregular and capricious race as were the Highlanders, with whose habits, feelings, and dispositions, he was totally unacquainted. Had Dundee lived he would probably have carried his victorious army across the Forth, seized upon the capital and dispersed the government; but his successor did not know how to take advantage of the victory which had been obtained, and instead of marching instantly south, he merely advanced to Dunkeld, about 16 miles from the field of the recent battle, where he remained encamped for several days, when the party he had sent to Perth was attacked and almost destroyed by the dogged and steady Mackay.

At Dunkeld, Cannon was joined by the Stewarts of Appin, the Macgregors and the Athole-men under Lord James Murray, of which circumstance Mackay was informed soon after his arrival at Perth. In the meantime he took care to secure the town against attack by erecting pallisades, and sent out patrols during the night to bring notice of the enemy should they approach the town. Cannon, however, made no attempt to disturb Mackay, and after passing several days at Dunkeld in inactivity, he raised his camp and proceeded northwards along the skirts of the Grampians with a force of about 3,000 men. It was the intention of Mackay to have returned to Edinburgh to consult with the privy council as to the best means of speedily settling the peace of the kingdom, and to leave Mar and Bargeny’s regiments and six troops of cavalry in garrison at Perth; but on hearing of Cannon’s movement to the north he abandoned his intention, and after despatching orders to Sir John Lanier to proceed to Perth with all possible haste along with the horse and dragoons which were expected from England, he crossed the Tay with his whole cavalry force, consisting of nearly 1,500 men, leaving two battalions of foot behind, and advanced towards Coupar-Angus. At Coupar he received intelligence from some prisoners who had been taken at Killiecrankie, and who had escaped on the march north, that Cannon had marched as far as Glen Isla, about eight miles from Forfar, where he had encamped. Mackay in consequence continued his march to Forfar, where he learned that Cannon had made another movement to Clova.

After passing two nights at Forfar, he received notice that Cannon had crossed the mountains and entered Braemar. As Mackay considered that these movements of Cannon were intended by him as a ruse to draw him north, and that when Cannon had accomplished his object he meant immediately to recross the mountains and enter Angus, where he expected some reinforcements to join him, Mackay sent orders to Lanier to advance to Forfar, to serve as a check upon Cannon should he again enter Angus, and proceeded himself to Aberdeen, which he reached the second day, to the great joy, he says, of most of the inhabitants, who were in dread of a visit from the Highlanders that very night.[610]

On arriving at the Braes of Mar, Cannon was joined by the Farquharsons, the Frasers, the Gordons of Strathdown and Glenlivet, and by 200 of the Macphersons. Keppoch and young Lochiel also met him.[611] At Aberdeen, Mackay received an express from the Master of Forbes, informing him that Cannon had taken up a very strong position upon his father’s lands, having the Highlands at his back and a wood to cover him in front; the position being so well chosen that he could keep up a free communication with his friends in the lower parts of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff. Judging that Cannon’s object in selecting such a position was to strengthen himself in horse from the adjoining low country, of which species of force he stood in most need, Mackay, with the view of obstructing his levies, ordered Sir Thomas Livingston to leave the command of the forces at Inverness with Sir James Leslie, and to repair immediately to Strathbogie with his regiment of dragoons, with instructions, should the enemy appear in that quarter, to march farther to the left across the low country, and to send him despatches from time to time, announcing the state of matters. At the same time he ordered Sir John Lanier to send Hayford’s regiment of dragoons to Aberdeen to strengthen him.

After remaining a day at Aberdeen, Mackay marched up Dee-side to beat up Cannon’s quarters, but learning on his march that the Highlanders had left Lord Forbes’s lands and had gone north in the direction of the Duke of Gordon’s territory, he drew off his men next morning at break of day towards Strathbogie, for the purpose of covering Livingston’s march. Mackay having nothing but cavalry, got the start of Cannon, and reached Strathbogie before Cannon arrived at the castle of Auchindoun, where he intended to fix his head quarters. At Auchindoun, Cannon was informed that Mackay was already at the castle of Strathbogie, a distance of about six miles. He, thereupon, called a council of war to discuss the expediency of giving battle to Mackay. A preliminary question was agitated by the Highland chiefs as to the right of the Lowland officers to sit in the council, the former contending that as none of these officers had any troops under their immediate command, and were wholly unacquainted with the discipline of the Highlanders and their mode of fighting, they had no right to deliberate on the subject, and were unable to form a correct judgment on the question they were called upon to discuss. The decision of this point lay with Cannon, who, by the advice of the Earl of Dunfermline, decided the question against the Highlanders. A judgment more unfortunate to the cause of King James could not have been pronounced, as it gave rise to jealousies and strifes among the officers, and when the question whether a battle should be hazarded was put to the vote, the clans who were for fighting Mackay immediately, found themselves in a minority. This was followed by a resolution to return to Athole. As matters stood, the chances of victory on either side may be considered to have been pretty fairly balanced, but subsequent events showed that Cannon in the present instance omitted the best opportunity he was ever destined to have of gaining a victory which might have decided the fate of Scotland.

Although Mackay’s men were almost worn out with extreme fatigue, being kept under arms every night for a considerable time, and only allowed an occasional repose by turns during the day-time, the general resolved to follow Cannon with all possible despatch.

The cause of Cannon’s movement was owing to the following circumstances. The privy council wishing to obtain possession of the castles of Blair and Finlarig, had sent a letter to Mackay at Strathbogie with instructions to proceed to these places before the rainy season should set in, for the purpose of reducing and putting garrisons into them. Mackay, in answer, stated his inability to undertake such a service in the face of the formidable force which lay so near him, and that he did not conceive there was any necessity for being in such a hurry, as, from the proximity of these castles to the low country, he could make himself master of them at any time if sufficiently strong. But he observed, that if the council was bent upon the undertaking, they might direct Sir John Lanier to order some foot and Barclay’s regiment to join him from Forfar, and with these and three battalions of the Dutch regiments, then at Perth, and which had not been at the battle of Killiecrankie, execute that piece of service. Upon receiving Mackay’s answer, the council ordered the Earl of Angus’s regiment, known by the name of the Cameronian regiment--a band of stern, fearless, religious enthusiasts from the west--to advance to Dunkeld, with the view, it is supposed, of supporting Lanier. Mackay was quite averse to the employment of these men, and disapproved of the plan of posting them so near the Highlands, the effect of which, he observed, would be, that they would be instantly attacked, “because the enemy had not such prejudice at any of the forces as at this regiment, whom they called the Cameronian regiment, whose oppression against all such as were not of their own sentiments, made them generally hated and feared in the northern counties.”[612] Accordingly, no sooner had they encamped at Dunkeld, than some of King James’s friends in Athole resolved to put them off, and a notice was sent to Cannon to return south with that view, in consequence of which, he raised his camp and proceeded suddenly towards the Dee, as already mentioned.

Mackay followed him, and on arriving at Aberdeen, warned Sir John Lanier of the advance of Cannon, and to prevent the Highlanders from making any inroads, he sent out small parties of his men to scour the neighbouring country. When Lanier was informed of Cannon’s approach, he left Forfar, where he was posted with his own and Barclay’s regiment, for Brechin, near to which town the enemy had advanced. Some skirmishing took place between the advanced posts, with loss on both sides. The Highlanders, thereupon, retired to the hills, and Lanier, who was ignorant of the object of Cannon’s march, returned to Forfar. Here he received orders from the privy council to march to the castles of Blair and Finlarig, in consequence of which he proceeded to Coupar-Angus the following day, where intelligence was brought him from Colonel Ramsay, that the Highlanders were marching upon Dunkeld. He was informed at the same time that the Cameronian regiment, which was disadvantageously posted, would assuredly be defeated, if not immediately supported. Instead of sending any instructions to Ramsay, who required his advice, Lanier delayed forwarding an answer till he should arrive at Perth the following day, “in which interim,” says Mackay, “if the providence of God had not blinded Cannon, and disheartened his Highlanders from continuing their attack, the regiment had certainly been lost, for they had two full days’ time to carry them, and all their defence was but low gardens, in most places not above four feet high.”[613]

On Sunday morning, the 18th of August, the Cameronians, in expectation of an attack, began to entrench themselves within some inclosures about the Marquis of Athole’s house at Dunkeld. The country people, in parties of ten and twenty, appeared during the morning on the neighbouring hills, and about four in the afternoon a body of about 300 men drew up on a hill to the north of Dunkeld, whence they despatched a messenger, who carried a halbert surmounted by a white cloth as a flag of truce, with a letter without any subscription, addressed to Lieutenant-colonel Cleland, the commanding officer, of the following tenor:--“We the gentlemen assembled being informed that ye intend to burn the town, desire to know whether ye come for peace or war, and do certify you, that if ye burn any one house, we will destroy you.” To which communication Lieutenant-colonel Cleland replied as follows:--“We are faithful subjects to King William and Queen Mary, and enemies to their enemies; and if you, who send these threats, shall make any hostile appearance, we will burn all that belongs to you, and otherwise chastise you as you deserve.”

On the first alarm of the Highlanders’ approach to Dunkeld, Colonel Ramsay sent up some troops of horse and dragoons under Lord Cardross to assist the Cameronians in case of attack. This party arrived at Dunkeld on Tuesday morning, but the Highlanders not being yet sufficiently numerous, showed no disposition to attack the Cameronians that day. At night, Cleland received intelligence that the fiery cross had been sent round, and that a considerable gathering had taken place, and next morning the Highlanders began to appear in large parties among the hills, between whom and some detached parties of horse and foot which Cleland sent out to scour the country, some brisk skirmishing took place during the day. The Highlanders having retired, Cleland’s forces returned to Dunkeld in the evening, where Lord Cardross received an order from Colonel Ramsay to return instantly to Perth, from an absurd apprehension that the cavalry could be of little use in defending the position occupied by the Cameronian regiment. When Cleland, who appears to have been a determined, sensible, clear-headed enthusiast of about 30 years of age, was informed of this extraordinary mandate, he remonstrated with Cardross in the strongest manner against complying with it, as the safety of his regiment might be involved in the result; but his lordship pleaded his instructions, which gave him no discretionary power, and he departed for Perth the same evening, leaving the Cameronians to the tender mercies of their bitterest enemies, the Highlanders. Cleland’s obvious course was to have followed the cavalry, but though the danger was imminent, he disdained to abandon the post which had been assigned him, and easily prevailed upon the Cameronians to remain and meet the enemy at all hazards. Burton[614] truly says that it is difficult to imagine a position more dangerous for a Lowland force than the little village of Dunkeld, being deep sunk among hills commanding it, and cutting off retreat, while a rapid river forms the diameter of their semicircle.

The parties which had appeared during the day consisted entirely of Athole-men, whose numbers probably did not exceed 500 or 600; but in the evening they were joined by the whole of Cannon’s force, amounting to nearly 4,000. To the great surprise and dismay of the Cameronians, this formidable body appeared at six o’clock next morning, Wednesday the 21st of August, on the hills about Dunkeld formed in order of battle. The situation of the Cameronians was now critical in the extreme. They had no alternative but to fight or surrender, for retreat was not in their power. A capitulation would have been the obvious course, but the great abhorrence in which the Cameronians were held by the Highlanders, gave faint hopes of obtaining the usual terms of civilized warfare from the inveterate host which hung over them on the surrounding heights. They, therefore, adopted the desperate resolution of defending themselves to the last extremity, and they hoped, that by posting themselves advantageously behind the walls and enclosures adjoining the village and Dunkeld-house, they would be able to keep the Highlanders in check till some relief might arrive.

The Cameronian commander accordingly made the necessary preparations for defence. He first posted parties of his men in the cathedral and steeple, and in Dunkeld-house. The remainder of his men he disposed behind the walls of the adjoining gardens and parks, and along some ditches which he caused to be thrown up to extend his line of defence. All these arrangements were completed before 7 o’clock in the morning, about which time the Highlanders appeared moving down the hills towards Dunkeld. Desirous to gain possession of the town, to dislodge the Cameronians, or to draw off their attention from the points where he meant to direct his main attack, Cannon despatched a small train of artillery down a little hill near the town, accompanied by 100 men clad in armour, who were followed by a party of Highlanders on foot. To prevent the Cameronians from escaping by the ford across the Tay, he sent two troops of horse round the town, who took up a position betwixt the ford and the church, while two other troops were placed at the opposite end of the town. When the party arrived at the bottom of the hill, they were opposed by a small body of men whom Cleland had posted behind a stone wall, but after some smart firing, this body was obliged to give way and to retire to Dunkeld-house. Another party of the Cameronians, which had been posted at the other end of the town, was obliged also to retire. Having forced the outposts, the whole body of the Highlanders rushed furiously into the town, which they entered at four different points at once. The Cameronians, however, firmly maintained their ground within the enclosures, from which they kept up a galling and destructive fire upon the Highlanders, who in vain attempted to dislodge them. Finding their broad-swords of little avail against the pikes and halberts of an enemy protected by stone walls, the Highlanders retired to the houses, and some to the heights near the town, from which they kept up a sharp though ineffectual fire upon the Cameronians, who returned it with much better effect. The Cameronians, however, soon sustained a heavy loss in the death of Cleland, their brave commander, who, in the act of exhorting his men to stand firm to their posts, was, within an hour after the engagement commenced, mortally wounded by two bullets, one of which pierced his liver, the other entering his head at the same instant Aware of his fate, he attempted to gain Dunkeld-house, lest his men, seeing him expire, might become dispirited; but he was unable to reach the threshold, and expired in their presence.

During three hours an incessant firing was kept up on both sides, which might have continued for several hours longer without producing any definite result, unless, indeed, the ammunition of either party had become exhausted. Probably from the dread of such a contingency, which would have been fatal to the Cameronians, Captain Munro, to whom, on the death of Cleland, the command had fallen, resolved to attempt to dislodge the Highlanders from the houses by setting the town on fire. He accordingly sent into the town several small parties of pikemen with burning faggots upon the points of their pikes to set fire to the houses in which the Highlanders were posted. This order was executed with such promptitude, that in a short time the whole town was in a conflagration. The scene which the town now presented was one of the most heart-rending description. The din of war was indeed no longer heard, but a more terrific sound had succeeded, from the wild shrieks of despair which issued from the dense mass of smoke and flame which enveloped the unfortunate sufferers. To add to the calamity, the pikemen had coolly locked the doors of such of the houses as had keys standing in them, and the unhappy intruders being thus cut off from escape, perished in the flames. No less than 16 Highlanders were, in consequence, burnt to death in one house. With the exception of three houses, possessed by the Cameronians, the whole of the town was consumed.

The Highlanders finding their ammunition all spent,[615] and seeing that they could no longer maintain their position among the ruins of the town, began to retire to the hills about eleven o’clock, after having sustained a loss of about 300 men. The Cameronians, whose loss was trifling, on seeing the Highlanders depart, set up a loud shout, threw up their caps, beat their drums, and waved their colours in token of triumph, demonstrations which must have been exceedingly galling to the feelings of the Highlanders, who only four hours before had assured themselves of an easy conquest. It is stated in the Cameronian account of the battle, that an attempt was made by Cannon to induce the Highlanders to renew the attack, but they declined, for this reason, that although still ready to fight with men, they would not again encounter devils.[616] To show their gratitude to God for “so miraculous a victory,” the Cameronians spent a considerable part of the afternoon in singing psalms of praise and thanksgiving.

The Highlanders were greatly discouraged by the repulse which they sustained at Dunkeld, and they attributed the misfortune to the incapacity of Cannon, in whom they consequently lost all confidence. Perceiving that they could no longer keep the field with any probability of success under such a commander, they retired to Blair, and after entering into a bond of association to support the cause of King James, and for mutual protection, they departed for their homes, leaving Cannon and his Irish troops and the few lowland gentlemen to shift for themselves. Cannon went to Mull, and resided with the chief of Maclean.[617]

In the meantime Mackay left Aberdeen for the purpose of joining Lanier, leaving behind him Sir Thomas Livingston, with his regiment and nine troops of cavalry, to keep the adjoining northern counties in awe. At Brechin he learnt that Lanier had received an order from the privy council to march into Athole, in consequence of which information he joined him at Perth on the 26th of August. He thereafter left Perth, with the greater part of the forces which he found there assembled, and took the route to Blair. It was clearly the interest of James’s party to have burned the castle of Blair, so as to prevent Mackay from placing a garrison in it to overawe the neighbouring country; but if such was the intention of the Highlanders, they were deterred from putting it in execution by a message from Mackay, who threatened, in the event of the castle being burnt, to raze every house in Athole to the ground, and to burn and destroy all the corn in that district. Mackay remained ten days at the castle of Blair, during which time many of the Athole people took advantage of an indemnity which he offered them, and delivered up their arms. Having placed a garrison of 500 men in the castle, and given orders to raise a pallisade and breast-work round it, he was forced to return to Perth in consequence of continual rains, which made him also forego a resolution he had entertained of marching to the head of Loch Tay, and placing a garrison in the castle of Finlarig, belonging to the Earl of Breadalbane, who, according to him, was “one of the chiefest and cunningest fomenters of the trouble of that kingdom (Scotland), not for love of King James, but to make himself necessary to the government.”[618] The subsequent conduct of this nobleman fully corroborated this opinion. After the rains had subsided, a detachment of 200 men under Lord Cardross, took possession of Finlarig castle, notwithstanding that the proprietor had, shortly before, taken the oaths to the government, and found bail for his allegiance.

While the death of Dundee seemed to give stability to the government in Scotland on the one hand, its safety appeared to be endangered on the other, by the jealousies and dissensions which agitated the parliament. Among the persons who had been instrumental in bringing about the revolution, there were some extreme Presbyterians, who, seeing that their expectations were not to be realized, and that all the offices of trust were monopolized by a few favourites about court, became factious and impatient, and were ready to seize the first opportunity that offered of overturning the government. Sir James Montgomery was at the head of this disaffected party, which, during the ensuing winter, held several private meetings. The result was, that a most extraordinary and unnatural coalition took place between the Jacobites and the discontented Presbyterians for the restoration of King James. By uniting their votes in parliament they expected to embarrass the government, and make it odious to the people, and thereby pave the way for the return of the exiled monarch; but their designs were disconcerted by a discovery of the plot.

Mackay had now grown heartily tired of the service, and as his plans for the subjugation of the Highlands had been treated with indifference or neglect by the government, he became desirous to resign his commission, and retire to Holland, his adopted country, there to spend the remainder of his days in peace. There was certainly nothing in the situation of his native country at the period in question to induce him to remain. An unpaid, disorderly, and mutinous army; an oppressed people, a discontented nobility, a divided parliament and council; “church divided into two more irreconcileable factions, though both calling themselves Protestants, than Rome and Geneva,” matters deemed of so little importance by the first reformers as scarcely to be mentioned in their writings, preferred by the “religious zealots” of those days to the well-being of the whole Protestant church, the Episcopal ministers who had been ejected preaching “King James more than Christ, as they had been accustomed to take passive obedience more than the gospel for their text:”--these considerations all tended to disgust a man of a moderate and conciliating disposition like Mackay, and made him “look upon Scotsmen of those times in general, as void of zeal for their religion and natural affection, seeing all men hunt after their particular advantages, and none minding sincerely and self-deniedly the common good, which gave him a real distaste of the country and service; resolving from that time forward to disengage himself out of it as soon as possible he could get it done, and that the service could allow of.”[619] Mackay, however, failed in obtaining even a temporary leave of absence during the winter, by the intrigues of Lord Melville and Viscount Tarbet, who, as he says, suspecting an interview with William, who was then in Holland, to be the object of his proposed visit thither, were afraid that he would induce William to adopt a system different from that hitherto followed in the management of Scottish affairs.

Mackay finding that he would not succeed in his application for leave of absence, began to apply himself with great perseverance to accomplish his long-desired project of erecting a fort at Inverlochy, capable of containing 1,000 or 1,200 men, to keep the western Highlanders in check. In a communication which he made to King William on the subject, he requested to be supplied with three frigates of about 30 guns each, 10 or 12 ships of burden, and 3 or 4 dozen of large boats, 3,000 muskets, 400 chevaux de frise, and 2,000 spades, shovels, and pickaxes, with money sufficient to purchase two months’ provisions for 3,000 or 4,000 men. On receiving these supplies he proposed to march with this force through Argyle about the end of March, as far as Dunstaffnage, where he meant to embark his men in the ships, and thence proceed to Inverlochy, and land them under the protection of the guns of the ships of war. No notice, however, was taken of this proposal either by William or his ministers, notwithstanding that its importance was urged in repeated letters from Mackay, who, in consequence, grew quite impatient, and threatened to throw up his commission. At length the privy council having, at his request, written a letter to the king on the subject, he ordered the frigates to be sent down, with some arms and ammunition, and implements for commencing the work; but the required supply of money was not forthcoming, without which the expedition could not be undertaken. Anxious, however, to get the fort erected with as little delay as possible, Mackay offered to the privy council to proceed to Inverlochy with a select detachment of 600 men, provided they would give him provisions for three months; but although a sum of five or six hundred pounds would have almost sufficed for this purpose, the council pleaded the impossibility of raising the money.[620] In this emergency he applied to the city of Glasgow, the magistrates of which undertook to hire vessels for transporting the detachment, and to furnish him with the necessary provisions, and such articles as he might require for completing the fort, in addition to those sent down from England.[621] Major Ferguson, who was appointed to command this expedition, repaired to Glasgow; but he was detained there about five weeks waiting for the provisions. The news, however, of such an armament being in preparation, and a report purposely circulated by Mackay, that it was much larger than it actually was, having reached the Highlands, had the effect of preventing many of the Islanders and the inhabitants of the adjoining mainland from joining Major-general Buchan, who took the field in April 1690.

Before the arrival of this officer, the Highlanders had resolved to place themselves under the command of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, having, in consequence of their defeat at Dunkeld, lost confidence in Cannon as a commander. After that disaster, Lochiel and the other Jacobite chiefs had represented to James the precarious state of his affairs in Scotland, and the necessity there was for sending them aid; but James was too much occupied with preparations for resisting a threatened invasion of Ireland, by his son-in-law, to attend much to his Scottish concerns. He, however, sent over a vessel with some clothes, arms, ammunition, and provisions, and a few Irish officers, among whom was Major-general Buchan, with a commission, as commander-in-chief of all the Jacobite forces in Scotland.

On Buchan’s arrival, a meeting of the chiefs and principal officers was held at Keppoch, to deliberate upon the course they ought to pursue. As no reinforcement had arrived from Ireland, and as the plot between the Jacobites and the disappointed chiefs of the Presbyterians, which had raised the expectations of King James’s partizans, had been discovered, the meeting was divided in opinion, upon the expediency of renewing hostilities. Some, thinking the cause quite desperate, proposed to submit to the government, which they knew was quite disposed to grant them the most favourable terms; but this proposition was warmly resisted by Lochiel, who had great influence with his fellow chiefs. He stated that he had adhered to the cause of Charles II. at a time when it was more desperate than that of his royal brother now was, who was still at the head of an army in Ireland, and who had many friends in Britain, ready to declare themselves, when a fit opportunity offered; that under these circumstances, he considered they would disgrace themselves, if they abandoned the cause they had pledged themselves to defend, and that for his own part he would neither listen to terms from the government, nor lay down his arms, without an express order from King James himself. In consequence of this declaration, the meeting unanimously resolved to continue the war; but as the labours of the spring season were not over, they postponed the muster of the clans, till those should be completed; and in the mean time directed Major-general Buchan, to employ the interval in beating up the enemy’s quarters, along the borders of the lowlands, for which purpose a detachment of 1,200 foot was to be placed at his disposal.[622]

When Mackay heard that Buchan had taken the field, he ordered Sir Thomas Livingston,--whom he had despatched north from Aberdeen to Inverness, with his regiment, in the month of January, to watch the motions of the Highlanders,--to keep a sharp outlook after Buchan, who, it was supposed, would probably make a descent upon the lowlands of Moray or Banff. Sir Thomas had at this time, besides his own regiment of dragoons, three regiments of foot, and some troops of horse, under his command, posted in and about the town of Inverness. Hearing that Buchan was marching through Lochaber and Badenoch, Livingston made two successive marches up the country, in the direction Buchan was said to be advancing, but on both occasions, from the great difficulty he experienced in obtaining provender for his horses, and provisions for his troops, he was obliged to return to Inverness without seeing Buchan, or hearing anything concerning him. Having ascertained that the feeling of hostility towards the government was rapidly extending, and that it had even reached the clans, who had hitherto, in appearance at least, shown themselves favourably inclined to the revolution, Livingston, thereupon, despatched a letter to Mackay, acquainting him of the circumstance, and stating that if Buchan was not speedily opposed, he was afraid that by far the greater part of the northern counties would join him. That he might obtain early intelligence of Buchan’s motions, and avoid the difficulties he had experienced in his former marches for want of provisions, Livingston took up a position eight miles from Inverness, with a select body of 1,200 men, consisting of his own regiment, which amounted to 300 men, 400 of Leslie’s regiment, a company of 100 of Lord Reay’s Highlanders, 300 of Grant’s Highlanders, and two troops of horse.[623]

On receiving Livingston’s despatch, Mackay sent orders to the different detachments which lay at Stirling, Glasgow, Dundee, and other places, amounting together to 3,000 men, to assemble without delay at Perth, that they might be in readiness, should a general rising in favour of King James take place in the north, to support Livingston, and to serve as a check upon the southern Highlands. He, at the same time, directed Lieutenant-colonel Buchan, brother of King James’s general, who commanded the forces in the city and county of Aberdeen, consisting of a battalion of Ramsay’s regiment, the Cameronian regiment, and five troops of horse and dragoons, to march upon any point Livingston should direct.[624]

In the mean time Major-general Buchan was advancing through Badenoch with the design of marching down Speyside into the Duke of Gordon’s country, where he expected to be joined by some of the vassals of that nobleman. At Culnakill he held a council of war to determine whether to take up a position in that neighbourhood, where they would be secure from the attacks of Livingston’s cavalry, or proceed farther down the Spey. As Buchan’s force did not exceed 800 men, and as they were aware that a large force of horse and foot lay at Inverness, the Highland officers were unanimously of opinion that they should not advance beyond Culnakill, but should march the following day to Glenlochy, and encamp among the adjoining woods. Buchan, who appears to have been as incapable of conducting a Highland force, and as ignorant of the mode of warfare pursued by the Highlanders as Cannon, his predecessor, now second in command, rejecting the Highland officers’ advice, on the following day marched down the Spey as far as Cromdale, where he encamped on the last day of April.[625]

Livingston was, at this time, lying within eight miles of Strathspey, on the grounds of the laird of Grant, where he received notice the same day from a captain in Grant’s regiment, who, with a company of men, held possession for the government of Balloch, now Grant castle, in the vicinity of Cromdale, that Buchan was marching down Strathspey. Desirous of attacking him before he should have an opportunity of being joined by the country people, Livingston marched off towards the Spey, in the afternoon, and continued his march till he arrived within two miles of Balloch castle. As it was already dark, and the night far advanced, and as a difficult pass lay between him and the castle, Livingston proposed to encamp during the night; but not finding a convenient place, he, by the persuasion of one of his officers who was acquainted with the pass, and who undertook to conduct him safely through it, renewed his march, and arrived at the top of the hill above the castle at two o’clock in the morning. Buchan’s men were then reposing in fancied security near Lethindie, on the adjoining plain of Cromdale, and the fires of their camp, which were pointed out by the captain of the castle to Livingston, showed him that he was much nearer the enemy than he had any idea of. Mackay says, that had Livingston been aware that the Highlanders were encamped so near the pass, he would not have ventured through it during the night, having little confidence in the country people; nor would the enemy, had they suspected Livingston’s march, left their former station and encamped upon an open plain, a considerable distance from any secure position, “just as if they had been led thither by the hand as an ox to the slaughter.”[626]

As several gentlemen of the adjoining country had sought an asylum in the castle on hearing of Buchan’s advance, the commander, in order to prevent any knowledge of Livingston’s approach being communicated to the Highlanders, had taken the precaution to shut the gates of the castle, and to prohibit all egress; so that the Highlanders were as ignorant of Livingston’s arrival as he had previously been of their encampment at Cromdale. Such being the case, the commander of the castle advised him to attack the Highlanders without delay, and he himself offered to conduct the troops into the plain. This proposition having been acceded to, the troops were allowed half an hour to refresh themselves, after which they marched down through the valley of Auchinarrow to the river. Finding a ford below Dellachaple, guarded by 100 Highlanders, Livingston left a detachment of foot and a few dragoons to amuse them, while, with his main body, led by some gentlemen of the name of Grant on horseback, he marched to another ford through a covered way, a mile farther down the river, which he crossed at the head of three troops of dragoons, and a troop of horse, a company of his Highlanders forming the advanced guard. After he reached the opposite bank of the Spey, he perceived the Highlanders, who had received notice of his approach from their advanced guards at the upper ford, in great confusion, and in motion towards the hills. He thereupon sent orders to a part of his regiment, and another troop of horse to cross the river and join him; but, without waiting for them, he galloped off at full speed towards the hills, so as to get between the fugitives--the greater part of whom were almost naked--and the hills, and intercept them in their retreat. The cavalry were accompanied by the company of Highlanders which had crossed the river, and who are said to have outrun their mounted companions, a circumstance which induced the flying Highlanders, on arriving at the foot of the hill of Cromdale, to make a stand; but, on the approach of Livingston and the remainder of his dragoons and horse, they again took to their heels. They turned, however, frequently round upon their pursuers, and defended themselves with their swords and targets with great bravery. A thick fog, which, coming down the side of the mountain, enveloped the fugitives, compelled Livingston to discontinue the pursuit, and even to beat a retreat. According to Mackay, the Highlanders had 400 men killed and taken prisoners, while Livingston did not lose a single man, and only 7 or 8 horses; but Balcarras states his loss at about 100 killed, and several prisoners; and the author of the “Memoirs of Dundee” says, that many of Livingston’s dragoons fell.[627] A party of the Camerons and Macleans, who had in the flight separated from their companions in arms, crossed the Spey the following day, but, being pursued by some of Livingston’s men, were overtaken and dispersed on the moor of Granish near Aviemore, where some of them were killed. The rest took shelter in Craigelachie, and, being joined by Keppoch and his Highlanders, made an attempt to seize the castle of Lochinclan in Rothiemurchus, but were repulsed with loss by the proprietor and his tenants.[628]

The news of the disaster at Cromdale was received with feelings of dismay by the partisans of King James at Edinburgh, who began to regret that they had not embraced an offer which had been made by King William for a cessation of arms. On the other hand, the friends of the government were elated with Livingston’s success, and hastened the long delayed expedition to Inverlochy, under Major Ferguson, which accordingly set sail from Greenock on the 15th of May. Having obtained the consent of King William to march into Lochaber, Mackay made preparations for the expedition; and, although the Earl of Melville, the commissioner to the Scottish parliament, gave him notice of some dangerous plots against the government both in England and Scotland, which might require the presence of a large force in the lowlands to check, yet, as he considered the subjugation of the Highlands of primary importance, he resolved to proceed on his expedition; and, accordingly, on the 18th of June, marched from Perth at the head of about 3,000 horse and foot. As his route to Inverlochy would bring him within a short day’s march of the enemy, and as he was desirous--agreeably, as he says, to a military maxim, “without necessity, to put nothing to an apparent hazard when the success is of great importance,”--to avoid an engagement in a country full of defiles and difficult passes till he should join the forces in the north under Sir Thomas Livingston, he resolved to march towards Strathspey, and thence through Badenoch into Lochaber. To conceal from the enemy his design of marching north, after entering Athole, he made a movement as if he intended to enter Badenoch by the nearest route, and then turning suddenly to the right, took the road to Strathspey. Having joined Livingston in Strathspey on the 26th of June, the united forces, after a day’s rest, marched towards Badenoch.

The Highlanders who, after their dispersion at Cromdale, had returned to their homes, had re-assembled on hearing of Mackay’s approach; but, from the fewness of their numbers, they made no attempt to obstruct his passage through Badenoch. Being informed that they had taken possession of a strait and difficult pass through which they expected him to march, he, on the 1st of July,--the very day on which the celebrated battle of the Boyne was fought,--made a feint with four troops of horse and dragoons as if he intended to pass that way, for the purpose of deceiving the enemy; after which he suddenly changed his march to the left. After traversing mountains and bogs, he entered Lochaber by Glenspean the same night, and arrived at Inverlochy on the 3d of the month.[629]

The site of the old fort, which had been erected by Oliver Cromwell, did not please Mackay, as it was commanded by a neighbouring hill; but, as a more eligible one could not be found, he commenced the work on the 5th of the month, and, in eleven days the wall was raised to its full intended height of twenty feet from the bottom of the fosse, and pallisaded round with a chemin couvert and glacis. Having finished the fort, which was named Fort-William, in honour of the king, he was about proceeding to send a detachment into Mull to reduce that island, but received despatches from the privy council announcing the defeat of the English and Dutch fleets, and requiring his return to the South as soon as possible, with as many of his forces as could be spared, in consequence of an expected invasion from France. He therefore marched from Inverlochy for the South on the 18th, leaving behind him 1,000 men in garrison in the new fort. He arrived in Badenoch on the 20th by easy marches, and leaving his army in camp the whole of the 21st to rest themselves, he went with a party of 150 horse and dragoons to inspect Ruthven castle which the Jacobite forces had burnt the preceding year. Here he left the company of Lord Reay’s Highlanders with instructions to the commander to raise a breastwork round an old square wall, within which the garrison might remain secure against surprise or attack. He then descended into Athole, and arrived at Perth on the 26th of July, being little more than five weeks since he set out on his long projected expedition.

During his absence Major-general Buchan and Colonel Cannon, each at the head of a select body of cavalier horse, had been scouring the low country. The latter, in particular, with 200 horse, had attacked Lord Cardross’s dragoons who were stationed in Menteith, and had pursued them down as far as the park of Stirling. On his arrival at Perth, Mackay being informed of the proceedings of Cannon’s party, sent orders to the troops at Stirling to march out in quest of them, while he himself, after receiving a supply of biscuit from Dundee, resolved to march from Perth with a detachment for the purpose of intercepting them; but Cannon had passed through the heights of Athole towards Braemar before the troops at Stirling left that town. Mackay followed after them for two days with a force of 1,000 men, but was unable to overtake them. Being unprovided for a longer march, he returned on the third day to Stirling, whence he despatched three troops of Cardross’s dragoons, and one of horse, to support the Master of Forbes who was guarding Aberdeenshire.

Buchan and Cannon having united their forces, and being joined by Farquharson of Inverey, at the head of 500 or 600 of the Braemar Highlanders, descended into the adjoining low parts of Aberdeenshire, Mearns, and Banff, to unite themselves to some of the country Jacobite gentlemen, leaving behind them a body of 160 men, to block up Abergeldie, in which Mackay still kept a garrison. They were at first opposed on their descent into the low country, by the Master of Forbes, and Colonel Jackson, with eight troops of cavalry, which was fully more than sufficient to have repulsed in a level country, any body the Highlanders could then bring into the field. Buchan, however, having purposely magnified the appearance of his forces, by ranging his foot over a large extent of ground, and interspersing his baggage and baggage horses among them, inspired the Master of Forbes and Jackson with such dread, that they considered it prudent to retire before a foe apparently so formidable in appearance, and their fears increasing after they had begun their retreat, they set off towards Aberdeen at full gallop, and never looked behind, till they had entered the town, after a race of upwards of 20 miles.[630] Buchan, who had no immediate design upon Aberdeen, followed the alarmed cavalry, and such was the effect of the retreat upon some of the neighbouring noblemen and gentlemen, that they joined Buchan in the pursuit. The inhabitants were thrown into a state of the greatest alarm at this occurrence, and the necessary means of defence were adopted, but Buchan made no attempt to enter the town.

When Mackay received intelligence of this “disorder,” as he terms the flight of Forbes and Jackson, he instantly despatched Colonel Cunningham with 300 men, and two troops of cavalry, to the north to join Jackson; but Cunningham was unable to effect a junction, as Cannon lay encamped between him and Jackson. As the fears of a French invasion had subsided, Mackay, on hearing of Cunningham’s failure, marched north himself in such haste that he carried neither baggage nor provisions along with him; but on his way north, he learned that Buchan had left the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, and was marching southward. On hearing of Mackay’s advance, Buchan drew off his men to the right, and crossed the hills. On arriving at the Dee, he left Cunningham with a detachment at the castle of Aboyne, and proceeded with his own division to raise the siege of Abergeldie. In the course of this march, a party of 60 dragoons, under Major Mackay, fell in among the hills, with a body of 200 Highlanders, under Inverey, all of whom were either killed or made prisoners. The chief himself made a very narrow escape, having been trampled under the horses’ feet, and left for dead on the field. Mackay also laid waste the fertile country about Abergeldie, to the extent of twelve miles round, and burnt from 1,200 to 1,400 houses, by way of reprisal, for having blocked up the garrison.[631]

Having united all his forces in the north, with the exception of those which lay at Inverness, Mackay marched as far north as Strathdon, where he was told that the greater part of the north was hostile to the government, and was ready to rise in arms, which information made him at once resolve to proceed north with all possible haste in order to get Buchan’s force dispersed, before any general rising should take place. Leaving therefore his foot behind, he proceeded north with his cavalry in great haste, and in the course of his march was informed that Buchan was not only on his way north, but that he expected to be joined by several thousand Highlanders. He, therefore, continued his march with great celerity, allowing his men no more time than was absolutely necessary for refreshing their horses, and arrived within four hours’ march of the enemy, before they received any notice of his approach. Buchan had reached Inverness, and was only waiting for the Earl of Seaforth’s and other Highlanders, whom he expected to join him in attacking the town; but on hearing of Mackay’s advance, he crossed the river Ness, and retired along the north side of the Loch.

The Earl of Seaforth, afraid of the consequences which might result to him personally, for the part he had acted, sent his mother, the Countess Dowager of Seaforth, and Mackenzie of Coul, to Mackay, to inform him that he would accede to such conditions as might be agreed upon between them and Mackay. An agreement was accordingly entered into, by which it was stipulated, that the earl should deliver himself into Mackay’s hands, to be kept as a prisoner at Inverness, till the privy council should decide as to his future disposal; and to conceal this arrangement from the Jacobite party, it was farther agreed that the earl should allow himself to be seized as if by surprise, by a party of horse under Major Mackay, at one of his seats during the night. The earl, however, disappointed the party sent out to apprehend him, in excuse for which, both he and his mother, in letters to Mackay, pleaded the state of his health, which they alleged would suffer from imprisonment. The earl cannot certainly be blamed for having demurred placing himself at the unconditional disposal of such a body as the privy council of Scotland, some of whom would not have hesitated to sacrifice him, if by doing so they could have obtained a share of his estates.

Mackay was so irritated at the deception which had been practised upon him, that he resolved to treat the earl’s vassals “with all the rigour of military execution.” Having, however, a warm feeling for the earl’s friends, on account of their being “all Protestants, and none of the most dangerous enemies,” as he says, and being more desirous to obtain possession of the earl’s person than to ruin his friends, he caused information of his intentions upon the earl’s lands to be sent to Seaforth’s camp, by some of his own party, as if from a feeling of friendship to him. Contrary to Mackay’s anticipations, Seaforth surrendered himself, and was committed prisoner to the castle of Inverness.[632] About this time the Earl of Argyle--who had fled to Holland in 1685, on his father’s execution, but returned with the Prince of Orange, and was reinstated by the Convention in his father’s estates and title--with a force of 1,900 foot, and 60 dragoons, invaded Mull, the inhabitants of which took the oaths of allegiance to the government, and delivered up their arms. He was, however, from the state of the weather, obliged to leave the island, before effecting the reduction of Duart castle, and left 300 men behind him to keep it in check. Maclean himself, with a few of his friends, took refuge on Carnburrow, an inaccessible rock near Mull.

King James’s affairs had now become utterly desperate in Scotland, and his defeat at the battle of the Boyne, on the 1st of July, 1690, almost annihilated his hopes in Ireland. Unable to collect any considerable body of men together, Buchan, after wandering through Lochaber, dismissed the few that still remained with him, and along with Sir George Barclay, Lieutenant-colonel Graham, and other officers, took up his abode with Macdonell of Glengary, Cannon and his officers retiring to the isles, under the protection of Sir Donald Macdonald. In their retreats, these officers who had displayed the most heroic attachment to the cause of the unfortunate king, under the most trying circumstances, still continued to cherish some distant hopes of his restoration, and were prepared to enter upon any service, however hazardous, which might lead to such a consummation.

At length, seeing no chance of making a successful effort in favour of James, they, in connexion with the chiefs, sent over the Earl of Dunfermline to France in the spring of 1691, to represent to him the state of matters, and to receive his commands. Having received instructions from his majesty to enter into a negotiation with the government, a meeting of the principal officers and the Jacobite chiefs was held at Achallader in Glenorchy on the 30th of June, which was attended by the Earl of Breadalbane on the part of the government, at which a cessation of hostilities was agreed upon till the 1st of October. To get the chiefs to submit to the government, money and other inducements were held out to them by Breadalbane, at whose disposal a sum of about £15,000 or £20,000 had been placed by King William. They, however, declined to come to any definite arrangement at this time, and requested liberty to send Sir George Barclay and Major Menzies to France, to obtain the sanction of King James, to enter into a treaty with the government, a request which was reluctantly granted. After learning from these officers the miseries to which the clans were reduced, and the utter hopelessness of attempting another campaign under existing circumstances, James allowed them to make the best terms they could with the government. Accordingly, and in terms of a proclamation issued by the government on the 27th of August, 1691, promising an indemnity to all persons who had been in arms, and who should take an oath of allegiance to the government before the 1st of January 1692; all the chiefs, with one unfortunate exception, which will be afterwards noticed, gave in their adherence, and took the oath within the prescribed time. Buchan and Cannon with their officers, in terms of an agreement with the government, were transported to France, to which country they had asked and obtained permission from their royal master to retire, as they could no longer be serviceable to him in their native land.

We are sorry that it is beyond the province of the present work, even did space permit, to give a detailed account of the heroic and almost quixotically chivalrous conduct of Dundee’s officers, after their emigration to France. In order that they might not be a burden on their royal master King James, they entered the French service, forming themselves into a company of “private sentinels” or common soldiers, four of their number being appointed officers, whose conduct gives “no opportunity of speaking well of them.”[633] They numbered only about 150, and so effectively performed their duty in the service of France, that, unsuited as they were for the hard life of common soldiers, and cheated by their heartless officers of the few comforts provided for them, in a very short time “the earth closed over the last remains of the gentlemen-adventurers who followed the banner of Dundee.”[634] They bore all their hardships with cheerfulness and even gaiety, winning the tears and love of the women wherever they passed, and the respect of their French comrades. The following incident must suffice as an example of their fearless hardihood.

“The Germans had made a lodgement in an island in the Rhine (near Strasburg). The French, from an opinion that the river was impassable without boats, had ordered a number for the passage. Among other troops intended for the service, this company was ordered to keep a station opposite to the island until the boats should arrive; but finding, upon examination, the ford, though difficult, not impassable, they, according to the custom of the Highlanders in wading through rivers, joining their hands together, and entering the river in a line with its current, the strongest men in the upper part, and the weaker in the under, so that those who were highest up the stream broke all its force, and tying their arms and clothes on their shoulders, passed to the island in sight of both armies on the opposite bank, and drove ten times their number from the lodgement. The French cried out in admiration, ‘A gentleman, in whatever station, is still a gentleman.’ ‘Le gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme.’ The place is called l’Isle d’Ecosse to this day.”[635]

FOOTNOTES:

[608] Memoirs, p. 62.

[609] Mackay, pp. 63, 64.

[610] Memoirs, p. 66.

[611] Memoirs of Dundee.

[612] Memoirs, p. 69.

[613] Idem.

[614] Scotland, vol. i. p. 141.

[615] Balcarras.

[616] Life and Diary of Colonel Blackader.

[617] “We, Lord James Murray, Patrick Stewart of Ballechan, Sir John M’Lean, Sir Donald M’Donald, Sir Ewen Cameron, Glengarie, Benbecula, Sir Alexander M’Lean, Appin, Enveray, Keppoch, Glencoe, Strowan, Calochele, Lieut.-Col. M’Gregor, Bara, Large, M’Naughten, do hereby bind and oblige ourselves, for his Majesty’s service and our own safeties, to meet at _____________ the __________ day of September next, and bring along with us _______ fencible men. That is to say, Lord James Murray and Ballechan _______, Sir John M’Lean 200, Sir Donald M’Donald 200, Sir Ewen Cameron 200, Glengarie 200, Benbecula 200, Sir Alexander M’Lean 100, Appin 100, Enveray 100, Keppoch 100, Lieut.-Col. M’Gregor 100, Calochele 50, Strowan 60, Bara 50, Glencoe 50, M’Naughten 50, Large 50; but in case any of the rebels shall assault or attack any of the above-named persons betwixt the date hereof and the said day of rendezvous, we do all solemnly promise to assist one another to the utmost of our power, as witness these presents, signed by us at the castle of Blair, the 24th of August, 1689 years.--Al. Robertson, D. M’Neil, Alex. M’Donald, Do. M’Gregor, Alex. M’Donell, D. M’Donald, D. M’D. of Benbecula, Al. M’Donald, Tho. Farqrson, Jo. M’Leane, E. Cameron of Lochiel, Al. Stuart.”--Records of Parliament.

Seven days before the date of this bond, these associates, and other friends, sent the following characteristic letter to Mackay, in answer to a friendly invitation from him to lay down their arms:--

“Birse, 17th August, 1689.

“Sir,

“We received your letter from Strathbogy, and we saw that you wrote to Brigadier Cannan from St Johnstoun, to which we gave a civil return, for by telling that you support yourselves by fictions and stories (a thing known all the world over), is no railing. The Christian means (as you say in your last) you make use of to advance the good cause by, is evident to all the world, and the argument you use to move us to address your government, is consequential to the whole; for instead of telling us what good Christians, men of honour, good subjects, and good neighbours, ought to do, you tell us in both your letters, that his Majesty has hot wars in Ireland, and cannot in haste come to us, which, though it were as true as we know it is not, is only an argument from safety and interest. And that you may know the sentiments of men of honour, we declare to you and all the world, we scorn your usurper, and the indemnities of his government; and to save you farther trouble by your frequent invitations, we assure you that we are satisfied our king will take his own time and way to manage his dominions and punish his rebels; and although he should send no assistance to us at all, we will die with our swords in our hands before we fail in our loyalty and sworn allegiance to our sovereign. Judge, then, what effect Duke Hamilton’s letter has upon us; but you have got an honourable father for this story from Ireland, and although we can better tell you how matters go in Ireland, and that we pity those on whom such stories have influence, yet we have no orders to offer conditions to any rebels; we allow them and his grace to believe on and take your measures by your success, till his Majesty’s farther orders. Sir, We thank you for the good meaning of your invitation, (though we are confident you had no hope of success.) And we will shortly endeavour to give you a requital--and those of us who live in islands have already seen and defied the Prince of Orange his frigates. We are, Sir, your affectionate and humble servants. Jo. MacLeane, E. Cameron of Lochiel, C. M’Kenzie, D. Mackdonald, John Grant of Balnadaloch, Pa. Steuart, J. M’Nachtane, Alexr. M’Donald, A. M’Nachtan, Jo. Cameron, Tho. Farqrson, H. M’Lean of Lochbuye, Alexr. M’Donell, D. M’D. of Benbecula, B. MacNeill of Bara, D. M’Neill, Ra. M’Donald, J. M’Donald, Alexr. Maclaine. We have returned your letter from Duke Hamilton, because you have more use for it than we.”--Parliamentary Records.

[618] Memoirs, p. 72.

[619] Memoirs, p. 77.

[620] Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 85.

[621] Idem, page 86.

[622] Balcarras.

[623] Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 93. Mackay’s account says, “six companies of Grant’s regiment, making about 800 men,”--an evident error.

[624] Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 94.

[625] Memoirs of Dundee.

[626] Memoirs, p. 95.

[627] Shaw (History of Moray) says that above 100 of Buchan’s men were killed, and about 60 made prisoners, who were found in the castle of Lethindie and the mill; and he adds, as a thing deserving of remark, that “Colonel Macdonald of Keppoch, who was ever keen for plunder, had never once fought for his king, would not encamp with the other rebels, but with his men quartered at Garvlin, half-a-mile distant, and thereby escaped without loss.”

[628] Shaw’s Moray.

[629] Memoirs, p. 98.

[630] “His mastership (of Forbes) understanding the word of command, wheel, better than advance, turned the battle into a race, and won; for he was first at Aberdeen, and alarmed the town with a frightful outcry, The enemy, the enemy’s coming.”--Memoirs of Dundee.

[631] Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 101.

[632] “I believe it shall fare so with the Earl of Seaforth, that is, that he shall haply, (perhaps) submit, when his countrey is ruined, and spoyled, which is the character of a true Scotsman, wyse behinde the hand!”--Letter to the Privy Council, 1st Sept. 1690. Appendix to Memoirs, No. 73. Mackay was directed by the privy council, by warrant, dated 7th Oct. 1690, “to transport the person of Colin, Earl of Seaforth, with safety from Inverness to Edinburgh, in such way and manner, as he should think fit.” In consequence of this removal, he was entered a prisoner within the castle of Edinburgh, on 6th Nov. following, whence he was liberated on 7th Jan. 1692, on finding caution to appear when called upon. He was bound not to go ten miles beyond Edinburgh. He was again imprisoned, but made his escape, and was apprehended at Pencaitland, on 7th May 1692, and again kept in close confinement, within the castle of Edinburgh. He was afterwards liberated, on giving security for his peaceable behaviour.--Records of the Privy Council.

[633] For details, see An Account of Dundee’s officers after they went to France in Miscellanea Scotica.

[634] Burton’s Scotland from Revolution, vol. i. p. 153.

[635] Dalrymple’s Memoirs, vol. i. part ii. p. 61.

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XXII. A.D. 1691-1702

BRITISH SOVEREIGN:--William III., 1688-1703.

Negotiations with the Highland chiefs--Massacre of Glencoe --Master of Stair--King William--Subsequent enquiry--State of Highlands during William’s reign--Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat.

During 1690 and 1691 the Jacobites caused the government much trouble and anxiety by their ceaseless plotting to get up an insurrection, in which they were to be assisted by supplies from France. Many men, professedly loyal to King William, gave, from various motives, their secret countenance to these attempts; and the Highlanders especially proved a galling and distracting thorn in the side of the government. As early as 1690, Lord Tarbet, (subsequently Earl of Cromarty,) proposed a scheme for the quieting of the Highlands, which Lord Breadalbane offered to carry into execution; but it was at the time abandoned. In 1691, however, negotiations were again renewed, and, as has been seen, Breadalbane was intrusted with a sum of money to distribute among the chiefs, or rather to buy up the claims which Argyle and other superiors had over their feudal vassals, and which was the real cause of the strife and dissatisfaction existing in the Highlands. The Secretary of State, Sir John Dalrymple, known as the Master of Stair, son of the Earl of Stair, appears latterly to have been at the bottom of the scheme, and was certainly most anxious that it should be successfully and speedily carried out, having at first apparently no thought of resorting to measures of cruel severity.

Not much appears to have resulted from the meeting which Breadalbane had with the chiefs at Achallader; indeed, he showed very little of an earnest desire for conciliation, as his threatening conduct induced Alexander Macdonald, or MacIan, of Glencoe, to leave the meeting abruptly for his own safety. Between Breadalbane, who was a Campbell, and Macdonald much bad blood appears to have existed; indeed, nothing but the bitterest hatred was cherished by the whole tribe of the Macdonalds to the Campbells, as the latter had from time to time, oftener by foul than by fair means, ousted the former from their once extensive possessions. The Macdonalds of Glencoe especially, still considered the lands and property of the Campbells as their own, and without hesitation supplied their wants out of the numerous herds of the latter. It was some recent raid of this sort which roused the wrath of Breadalbane; and on poor Macdonald’s head lighted all the blame and the punishment of the ineffectual negotiation. What became of the money has never been clearly ascertained; but much can be inferred from Breadalbane’s answer when asked afterwards by Lord Nottingham to account for it, “The money is spent, the Highlands are quiet, and this is the only way of accounting among friends.”

Like many of his contemporaries, Breadalbane attached himself openly to King William’s government only because it was for the time the winning side; while at the same time he professed secretly to be attached to the interest of the exiled King James. He told the Highland chiefs that in urging them to enter into terms with the government, he had their own interests and those of King James at heart; for there being then “no other appearance of relief, he thought they could not do better than sue for a cessation, which would be a breathing to them, and give them time to represent their circumstances to King James.”[636] A contemporary characterises him as being “cunning as a fox; wise as a serpent; but as slippery as an eel. No government can trust him but where his own private interest is in view.”[637]

As the chiefs did not seem in any hurry to come to terms, a proclamation was issued, in August 1691, requiring them to take the oath of allegiance before the 1st of January 1692, threatening all those who did not comply with “letters of fire and sword.” This had the proper effect, as, one by one, the chiefs swore fealty to the government, Macdonald of Glencoe, from pride or some other reason, being the last to comply with the terms of the proclamation. The difficulty in getting the chiefs to come to terms, and thus allowing the government to pursue its other schemes without anxiety, seems at last to have irritated Sir John Dalrymple so much against them, that latterly he eagerly desired that some, and especially the various tribes of Macdonalds, might hold out beyond the time, in order that an example might be made of them by putting into execution the penalty attached to the non-fulfilment of the terms of the proclamation. In a letter to Breadalbane of Dec. 2d, he thinks “the clan Donald must be rooted out and Lochiel,” and is doubtful whether the money “had been better employed to settle the Highlands, or to ravage them.” In another written on the following day he mentions with approval Breadalbane’s “mauling scheme,” artfully rousing the latter’s indignation by speaking of the chiefs’ ungratefulness to him, using at the same time the significant phrase delenda est Carthago. He and Breadalbane seemed however likely to be cheated of their vengeance, for even the obstinate and hated Mac Ian himself, after holding out to the very last day, hastened to fulfil the requirements of the proclamation, and thus place himself beyond the power of the strong arm of the law.

On the 31st of December, 1691, Glencoe made his way to Fort-William, and presented himself to Colonel Hill the governor, asking him to administer the required oath of allegiance. The Colonel, however, declined to act, on the ground, that according to the proclamation, the civil magistrate alone could administer them. Glencoe remonstrated with Hill on account of the exigency of the case, as there was not any magistrate whom he could reach before the expiration of that day, but Hill persisted in asserting that it was out of his power to act in the matter. He, however advised Glencoe to proceed instantly to Inverary, giving him at the same time a letter to Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglass, sheriff of Argyleshire, begging him to receive Glencoe as “a lost sheep,” and to administer to him the necessary oaths. Hill also gave Glencoe a letter of protection, and an assurance that no proceedings should be instituted against him under the proclamation, till he should have an opportunity of laying his case before the king or the privy council.

Glencoe left Fort-William immediately, and so great was his anxiety to reach Inverary with as little delay as possible, that although his way lay through mountains almost impassable, and although the country was deeply covered with snow, he proceeded on his journey without even stopping to see his family, though he passed within half a mile of his own house. On arriving at Inverary, Sir Colin Campbell was absent, and he had to wait three days till his return, Sir Colin having been prevented from reaching Inverary sooner, on account of the badness of the weather. As the time allowed by the proclamation for taking the oaths had expired, Sir Colin declined at first to swear Glencoe, alleging that it would be of no use to take the oaths; but Glencoe having first importuned him with tears to receive from him the oath of allegiance, and having thereafter threatened to protest against the sheriff should he refuse to act, Sir Colin yielded, and administered the oaths to Glencoe and his attendants on the 6th of January. Glencoe, thereupon, returned home in perfect reliance that having done his utmost to comply with the injunction of the government, he was free from danger.

Shortly after this, Campbell transmitted to Colin Campbell, sheriff-clerk of Argyle, who was then in Edinburgh, the certificate of Glencoe’s oath on the same paper with other certificates, sending at the same time the letter which he had received from Hill. Campbell showed this paper with Hill’s letter to several privy councillors, among whom was the Earl of Stair, all of whom were of opinion that the certificate could not be received without a warrant from the king. Instead, however, of laying the matter before the privy council, or informing Glencoe of the rejection of the certificate, that he might petition the king, Campbell gave in the paper to the clerks of the council with Glencoe’s certificate “delete and obliterate.”

Whether this was done at the instigation of Secretary Dalrymple, it is impossible to say; but it is not improbable that this man--who, a few weeks before, had exulted[638] that as the winter was the only season in which the Highlanders could not escape, they could easily be destroyed “in the cold long nights”--was not an indifferent spectator to Campbell’s proceedings. In fact, it appears that the secretary contemplated the total extirpation of the clans, for, in a letter to Sir Thomas Livingston, commander of the forces in Scotland, dated January 7th, he says, “You know in general that these troops posted at Inverness and Inverlochie, will be ordered to take in the house of Innergarie, and to destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Lochiel’s lands, Keppoch’s, Glengarie’s, and Glencoe,” and he adds, “I assure you your power shall be full enough, and I hope the soldiers will not trouble the government with prisoners.” The Macdonalds were chiefly marked out by him for destruction, and after saying, in a letter of the 9th, that he could have wished that they “had not divided” on the question of taking the oath of indemnity, he expresses his regret to find that Keppoch and Glencoe were safe. When he heard two days after from Argyle, that Glencoe had not managed to take the oaths within the time prescribed, he expressed a joy which might be called fiendish, and set himself busily to take proper advantage of the opportunity.[639] Delenda est Carthago.

That no time might be lost in enforcing the penalties in the proclamation, now that the time allowed for taking the oath of allegiance had expired, instructions of rather an equivocal nature, signed and countersigned by the king on the 11th of January, were sent down by young Stair to Sir Thomas Livingston, enclosed in a letter from the secretary of same date. By the instructions, Livingston was ordered “to march the troops against the rebels who had not taken the benefit of the indemnity, and to destroy them by fire and sword;” but lest such a course might render them desperate, he was allowed to “give terms and quarters, but in this manner only, that chieftains and heritors, or leaders, be prisoners of war, their lives only safe, and all other things in mercy, they taking the oath of allegiance, and the community taking the oath of allegiance, and rendering their arms, and submitting to the government, are to have quarters, and indemnity for their lives and fortunes, and to be protected from the soldiers.” As a hint to Livingston how to act under the discretionary power with which these instructions vested him, Dalrymple says in his letter containing them, “I have no great kindness to Keppoch nor Glencoe, and it is well that people are in mercy, and then just now my Lord Argyle tells me that Glencoe hath not taken the oath, at which I rejoice. It is a great work of charity to be exact in rooting out that damnable sect, the worst of the Highlands.”

The purport of this letter could not be misunderstood; but lest Livingston might not feel disposed to imbrue his hands in the blood of Glencoe and his people, additional instructions bearing the date (in Stair’s handwriting) of January 16th, and also signed and countersigned by King William, were despatched to Livingston by the Master of Stair, ordering him to extirpate the whole clan. In the letter containing these instructions, Dalrymple informs Livingston that “the king does not at all incline to receive any after the diet but in mercy,” but he artfully adds, “but for a just example of vengeance, I entreat the thieving tribe of Glencoe may be rooted out to purpose.” Lest, however, Livingston might hesitate, a duplicate of these additional instructions[640] was sent at the same time by Secretary Dalrymple to Colonel Hill, the governor of Fort-William, with a letter of an import similar to that sent to Livingston. From the following extract it would appear that not only the Earl of Breadalbane, but also the Earl of Argyle, was privy to this infamous transaction. “The Earls of Argyle and Breadalbane have promised that they (the Macdonalds of Glencoe) shall have no retreat in their bounds, the passes to Rannoch would be secured, and the hazard certified to the laird of Weems to reset them; in that case Argyle’s detachment with a party that may be posted in Island Stalker must cut them off.”

Preparatory to putting the butchering warrant in execution, a party of Argyle’s regiment, to the number of 120 men, under the command of Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, was ordered to proceed to Glencoe, and take up their quarters there, about the end of January or beginning of February. On approaching the Glen, they were met by John Macdonald, the elder son of the chief, at the head of about 20 men, who demanded from Campbell the reason of his coming into a peaceful country with a military force; Glenlyon and two subalterns who were with him explained that they came as friends, and that their sole object was to obtain suitable quarters, where they could conveniently collect the arrears of cess and hearth-money,--a new tax laid on by the Scottish parliament in 1690,--in proof of which, Lieutenant Lindsay produced the instructions of Colonel Hill to that effect. They thereupon received a hearty welcome, and were hospitably entertained by Glencoe and his people till the fatal morning of the massacre. Indeed, so familiar was Glenlyon, that scarcely a day passed that he did not visit the house of Alexander Macdonald, the younger son of the chief, who was married to Glenlyon’s niece, the sister of Rob Roy, and take his “morning drink,” agreeably to the most approved practice of Highland hospitality.

If Secretary Dalrymple imagined that Livingston was disinclined to follow his instructions he was mistaken, for immediately on receipt of them he wrote Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton, who had been fixed upon by the secretary to be the executioner, expressing his satisfaction that Glencoe had not taken the oath within the period prescribed, and urging him, if he wished to approve himself to the government, to execute his commission with the utmost rigour, and “not to trouble the government with prisoners.” In the meantime, the Master of Stair was taking every precaution that the deed should be done suddenly and effectively, and accordingly, on the 13th of January he wrote two letters, one to Livingston, and the other to Hill, urging them on. Addressing the former, he says, “I am glad Glencoe did not come in within the time prefixed; I hope what is done there may be in earnest, since the rest are not in a condition to draw together help. I think to harry (plunder) their cattle and burn their houses is but to render them desperate lawless men to rob their neighbours, but I believe you will be satisfied, it were a great advantage to the nation that thieving tribe were rooted out and cut off; it must be quietly done, otherwise they will make shift for both their men and their cattle.” And in his letter to Hill he says, “Pray, when the thing concerning Glencoe is resolved, let it be secret and sudden, otherwise the men will shift you, and better not meddle with them than not to do it to purpose, to cut off that nest of robbers who have fallen in the mercy of the law, now when there is force and opportunity, whereby the king’s justice will be as conspicuous and useful as his clemency to others. I apprehend the storm is so great that for some time you can do little, but so soon as possible I know you will be at work, for these false people will do nothing, but as they see you in a condition to do with them.”

In pursuance of these fresh instructions from the secretary, Hill, on the 12th of February, sent orders to Hamilton, forthwith to execute the fatal commission. Accordingly, on the same day, Hamilton directed Major Robert Duncanson of Argyle’s regiment to proceed immediately with a detachment of that regiment to Glencoe, so as to reach the post which had been assigned him by five o’clock the following morning, at which hour Hamilton promised to reach another post with a party of Hill’s regiment. Whether Duncanson, who appears to have been a Campbell,[641] was averse to take an active personal part in the bloody tragedy about to be enacted, is a question that cannot now be solved; but it may have been from some repugnance to act in person that immediately on receipt of Hamilton’s order, he despatched another order from himself to Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, then living in Glencoe, with instructions to fall upon the Macdonalds precisely at five o’clock the following morning, and put all to the sword under seventy years of age.[642]

Glenlyon appears to have been a man equal to any kind of loathsome work, especially against a Macdonald; one who

“Could smile, and murder while he smiled.”

With this sanguinary order in his pocket, and with his mind made up unhesitatingly and rigorously to execute it, he did not hesitate to spend the eve of the massacre playing at cards with John and Alexander Macdonald, the sons of the chief, to wish them good night at parting, and to accept an invitation from Glencoe himself to dine with him the following day. Little suspecting the intended butchery, Glencoe and his sons retired to rest at their usual hour; but early in the morning, while the preparations for the intended massacre were going on, John Macdonald, the elder son of the chief, hearing the sound of voices about his house, grew alarmed, and jumping out of bed threw on his clothes and went to Inverriggen, where Glenlyon was quartered, to ascertain the cause of the unusual bustle which had interrupted his nocturnal slumbers. To his great surprise he found the soldiers all in motion, as if preparing for some enterprise, which induced him to inquire at Captain Campbell the object of these extraordinary preparations at such an early hour. The anxiety with which young Macdonald pressed his question, indicating a secret distrust on his part, Campbell endeavoured by professions of friendship to lull his suspicions, and pretended that his sole design was to march against some of Glengarry’s men. As John Macdonald, the younger son of Glencoe, was married to Glenlyon’s niece, that crafty knave referred to his connexion with the family of Glencoe, and put it to the young man, whether, if he intended any thing hostile to the clan, he would not have provided for the safety of his niece and her husband. Macdonald, apparently satisfied with this explanation, returned home and retired again to rest, but he had not been long in bed when his servant, who, apprehensive of the real intentions of Glenlyon and his party, had prevented Macdonald from sleeping, informed him of the approach of a party of men towards the house. Jumping immediately out of bed he ran to the door, and perceiving a body of about 20 soldiers with muskets and fixed bayonets coming in the direction of his house, he fled to a hill in the neighbourhood, where he was joined by his brother Alexander, who had escaped from the scene of carnage, after being wakened from sleep by his servant.

The massacre commenced about five o’clock in the morning at three different places at once. Glenlyon, with a barbarity which fortunately for society has few parallels, undertook to butcher his own hospitable landlord and the other inhabitants of Inverriggen, where he and a party of his men were quartered, and despatched Lieutenant Lindsay with another party of soldiers to Glencoe’s house to cut off the unsuspecting chief. Under the pretence of a friendly visit, he and his party obtained admission into the house. Glencoe was in bed, and while in the act of rising to receive his cruel visitors, was basely shot at by two of the soldiers, and fell lifeless into the arms of his wife. The lady in the extremity of her anguish leaped out of bed and put on her clothes, but the ruffians stripped her naked, pulled the rings off her fingers with their teeth, and treated her so cruelly that she died the following day. The party also killed two men whom they found in the house, and wounded a third named Duncan Don, who came occasionally to Glencoe with letters from Braemar.

While the butchery was going on in Glencoe’s house, Glenlyon was busily doing his bloody work at Inverriggen, where his own host was shot by his order. Here the party seized nine men, whom they first bound hand and foot, after which they shot them one by one. Glenlyon was desirous of saving the life of a young man about twenty years of age, but one Captain Drummond shot him dead. The same officer, impelled by a thirst for blood, ran his dagger through the body of a boy who had grasped Campbell by the legs and was supplicating for mercy.

A third party under the command of one Sergeant Barker, which was quartered in the village of Auchnaion, fired upon a body of nine men whom they observed in a house in the village sitting before a fire. Among these was the laird of Auchintriaten, who was killed on the spot, along with four more of the party. This gentleman had at the time a protection in his pocket from Colonel Hill, which he had received three months before. The remainder of the party in the house, two or three of whom were wounded, escaped by the back of the house, with the exception of a brother of Auchintriaten, who having been seized by Barker, requested him as a favour not to despatch him in the house but to kill him without. The sergeant consented, on account of having shared his generous hospitality; but when brought out he threw his plaid, which he had kept loose, over the faces of the soldiers who were appointed to shoot him, and thus escaped.

Besides the slaughter at these three places, there were some persons dragged from their beds and murdered in other parts of the Glen, among whom was an old man of eighty years of age; in all, 38 persons were slaughtered. The whole male population under 70 years of age, amounting to 200, would in all likelihood have been cut off, if, fortunately for them, a party of 400 men under Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton, who was principally charged with the execution of the sanguinary warrant, had not been prevented by the severity of the weather from reaching the Glen till eleven o’clock, six hours after the slaughter, by which time the whole surviving male inhabitants, warned of their danger and of the fate of their chief and other sufferers, had fled to the hills. Ignorant of this latter circumstance, Hamilton, on arriving at the pass, appointed several parties to proceed to different parts of the Glen, with orders to take no prisoners, but to kill all the men that came in their way. They had not, however, proceeded far when they fell in with Major Duncanson’s party, by whom they were informed of the events of the morning, and who told them that as the survivors had escaped to the hills, they had nothing to do but to burn the houses, and carry off the cattle. They accordingly set fire to the houses, and having collected the cattle and effects in the Glen, carried them to Inverlochy, where they were divided among the officers of the garrison. That Hamilton would have executed his commission to the very letter, is evident from the fact, that an old man, above seventy, the only remaining male inhabitant of the desolate vale they fell in with, was put to death by his orders.

After the destruction of the houses, a heart-rending scene ensued. Ejected from their dwellings by the devouring element, aged matrons, women with child, and mothers, with infants at their breasts and followed by children on foot, clinging to them with all the solicitude and anxiety of helplessness, were to be seen wending their way, almost in a state of nudity, towards the mountains in quest of some friendly hovel, beneath whose roof they might seek shelter from the pitiless tempest and deplore their unhappy fate. But as there were no houses within the distance of several miles, and as these could only be reached by crossing mountains deeply covered with snow, a great number of these unhappy beings, overcome by fatigue, cold, and hunger, dropt down and perished miserably among the snow.

While this brutal massacre struck terror into the hearts of the Jacobite chiefs, and thus so far served the immediate object of the government, it was highly prejudicial to King William. In every quarter, even at court, the account of the massacre was received at first with incredulity, and then with horror and indignation; and the Jacobite party did not fail to turn the affair to good account against the government, by exaggerating, both at home and abroad, the barbarous details. The odium of the nation rose to such a pitch, that had the exiled monarch appeared at the head of a few thousand men, he would, probably, have succeeded in regaining his crown. The ministry, and even King William, grew alarmed, and to pacify the people he dismissed the Master of Stair from his councils, and appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the affair.

As for the Master of Stair, at whose door the chief blame of the infamous transaction was laid by the commission of inquiry, and who is popularly considered to have been a heartless and bloodthirsty wretch, he could not understand the indignant astonishment expressed on all hands at what he considered a most patriotic, beneficial, and in every respect highly commendable proceeding. He considered that he had done his ungrateful country excellent service in doing a little to root out a band of pestilential banditti, whom he regarded in as bad a light as the Italian government of the present day does the unscrupulous robbers who infest the country, or as the American government did the bloodthirsty Indians who harassed the frontiers. Letters of “fire and sword” against the Highlanders were as common, in the days of the Stewarts, as warrants for the apprehension of house-breakers or forgers are at the present day. They were looked upon as semi-civilized aborigines, characterised by such names as “rebellious and barbarous thieves, limmers, sorners,” &c.; and the killing of a Highlandman was thought no more of than the killing of a “nigger” was in the slave-states of America. In various acts of the privy council of Scotland, the clan Gregor is denounced in the above terms, and was visited with all the terrors of “fire and sword.” “Their habitations were destroyed. They were hunted down like wild beasts. Their very name was proscribed.”[643] We have already referred to, in its proper place, a mandate from King James V. in 1583, against the clan Chattan, in which he charges his lieges to invade the clan “to their utter destruction by slaughter, burning, drowning, and otherways; and leave no creature living of that clan, except priests, women, and bairns.” Even Captain Burt, in the beginning of the next century, writes of the Highlanders as if they were an interesting race of semi-barbarians, many of whom would cut a man’s throat for the mere sake of keeping their hands in practice.[644] In a letter of the 5th March, 1692, after referring to the universal talk in London about the transaction, Dalrymple says, “All I regret is, that any of the sort got away; and there is a necessity to prosecute them to the utmost.” Again, writing to Colonel Hill in April of the same year, he tells him that “as for the people of Glencoe, when you do your duty in a thing so necessary to rid the country of thieving, you need not trouble yourself to take the pains to vindicate yourself. When you do right, you need fear nobody. All that can be said is, that, in the execution, it was neither so full nor so fair as might have been.” Indeed we think that any one who examines into the matter with unbiassed and cool mind, which is difficult, cannot fail to conclude that neither private spite nor heartless bloodthirstiness actuated him in bringing about the transaction; but that he sincerely thought he was doing his country a service in taking the only effectual means of putting down a public pest and a hindrance to progress.

Had the clan been proceeded against in open and legitimate warfare, resulting in its utter extinction, the affair might have occupied no more than a short paragraph in this and other histories. There can be no doubt that what gives the deed its nefarious stamp, is the fiendishly deliberate and deceitful way in which it was accomplished, in violation of laws of hospitality which are respected even by cut-throat Arabs. And after all it was a blunder.

As to whether King William knew the full significance of the order which he signed, and what was the extent of his knowledge of the circumstances, are points which can never be ascertained. It is mere meaningless declamation to talk of it as a foul and indelible blot on his character and reign. “The best that can be done for the cause of truth, is to give the facts abundantly and accurately. The character of the revolution king is one of the questions which political passion and partizanship have not yet let go, so that reason may take it up. And with those who believe that, by his very act of heading the revolution which drove forth the Stewarts, he was the man to order and urge on the murder of an interesting and loyal clan, it would be quite useless to discuss the question on the ground of rational probabilities.”[645]

Though the nation had long desired an inquiry into this barbarous affair, it was not until the 29th of April, 1695, upwards of three years after the massacre, that a commission was granted. A commission had indeed been issued in 1693 appointing the Duke of Hamilton and others to examine into the affair, but this was never acted upon. The Marquis of Tweeddale, lord high chancellor of Scotland, and the other commissioners now appointed, accordingly entered upon the inquiry, and, after examining witnesses and documents, drew up a report and transmitted it to his majesty. The commissioners appear to have executed their task, on the whole, with great fairness, although they put the very best construction on William’s orders, and threw the whole blame of the massacre upon Secretary Dalrymple.

The report of the commissioners was laid before the parliament of Scotland on the 24th of June, which decided that the execution of the Glencoe-men was a murder, resolved nemine contradicente, that the instructions contained in the warrant of the 16th January, 1692, did not authorise the massacre. After various sittings on the subject, “the committee for the security of the kingdom” was appointed to draw up an address to the king on the subject of the massacre, which being submitted to parliament on the 10th of July, was voted and approved of.

No active measures in the way of punishing either principals or subordinates, however, were taken in consequence of the findings of the commission and the recommendations of parliament, except that Breadalbane, who they found had laid himself open to a charge of high treason, was imprisoned for a few days in Edinburgh castle. A curious and interesting incident came out during the sitting of the commission, tending to show that Breadalbane was conscious of a very large share of guilt, and was fully aware of the heinous and nefarious character of the bloody transaction. Some days after the slaughter, a person sent by Breadalbane’s steward waited upon Glencoe’s sons, and told them that if they would declare that his lordship had no concern in the slaughter, they might be assured that the earl would procure their “remission and restitution.”

As the surviving Macdonalds, who on their humble petition and promise of good behaviour were allowed to return to the glen, had been reduced to great poverty and distress by the destruction of their property, and as they had conducted themselves with great moderation under their misfortunes, the estates solicited his majesty to order reparation to be made to them for the losses they had sustained in their properties. Whether the “royal charity and compassion” invoked by the estates in behalf of these unfortunate people were ever exercised does not appear; but it is highly probable, that this part of the address was as little heeded as the rest.[646] In fact, the whole matter was hushed up, and it now lives in the page of history as a sad and somewhat inexplicable blunder, which has rendered the memories of those who contrived it and those who executed it, for ever infamous.[647]

These measures of the government, conciliatory and threatening, seem to have had the effect for the time of suppressing open hostility at least among the Highlanders; but from the nature of that people, and the method in which government treated them, we can readily believe that their obedience was none of the heartiest, and that they would be glad any moment to join in an attempt to oust King William and restore King James. During the whole of William’s reign his peace of mind was being continually disturbed by rumours and discoveries of plots, and by threats of a hostile descent on this country from France. In all these the Highland chiefs had their fair share, and were ready to receive with open arms any hostile expedition which might be fortunate enough to effect a landing on their coasts.

The stirring events of the last fifty years, in which the Highlanders played a conspicuous part, appear to have been the means of drawing their attention somewhat away from their hereditary clan-quarrels, and thus rendering their destructive internal strifes less frequent. But now that there was no external outlet for their belligerent propensities, they appear again to have resumed their old clan feuds. “To be at peace, unless they were disarmed and overawed, was not in their nature; and neither the law nor the military power of the nation was then on a scale sufficient to have accomplished these ends. We even find those chiefs who had ingratiated themselves with the government, obtaining, though not so readily as formerly, the writs known by the savage name of ‘letters of fire and sword’ against their enemies. These were licenses for civil war, giving the sanction of government aid and encouragement to one side in the conflict. They authorised the favoured clan to burn, waste, and slay, far and wide, within the territory of their enemies, setting forth--such were the words of style used by the clerks of the privy council who prepared these terrible documents--‘that whatever slaughter, mutilation, blood, fire-raising, or other violence’ may be done by the persons holding the letters, shall be held ‘laudable, good, and warrantable service to his majesty and his government.’ There is little doubt that the readiness with which these warrants were issued in earlier times, arose from the view that it was a good thing to encourage the Highlanders in slaying each other, and doubtless, even for a few years after such an event as Glencoe, such a feeling would linger in the usual official quarters. Though it was professed that no one could obtain letters of fire and sword but a litigant who could not enforce his just claims, it would be generally a vain task to examine the relative merits of the two sides, expecting to find one of them in the right. Any mitigation which the horrors of such a system may have received in later times, would be from the garrison of Fort-William being associated in arms with the holders of the letters.”[648]

The materials for the internal history of the Highlands at this period are scanty; doubtless there were many petty strifes carried on between hostile clans, and many cattle-lifting raids made by the Highland borderers upon their lowland neighbours, but no records of these appear to have been kept.

Shortly after the Glencoe massacre, a scheme appears to have been proposed to the king by Breadalbane[649] for utilizing the Highlanders “in case of any insurrection at home, or invasion from abroad.” The gist of it was that the Highland chiefs should be ordered to raise a body of 4,000 men, who would be so disciplined that they would be ready to be called out when required, and who were to be commanded by “some principal man in the Highlands,” who would have the pay of a general officer. This “principal man,” Breadalbane doubtless meant to be himself, as he suggests that the second in command should be Lochiel, who he said was ambitious to serve his majesty, and was a Protestant. Forty subordinate officers were to be appointed, Breadalbane wisely suggesting that these should be of Highland extraction, and that the soldiers themselves should be allowed to use their own apparel, their own arms, and to be disciplined after their own fashion. As will be afterwards seen, government appears to have acted on this or some similar proposal, and organized a few independent Highland companies. We give below the number of men which, according to Breadalbane’s estimate, each of the chiefs to which the proposal referred could raise. It is probably considerably below the number of men capable of bearing arms, who were at the command of the various chiefs named.[650]

It is about this time that the famous Robert Macgregor, better known as Rob Roy, first emerges into notice. The details of his life will be found in the account of the Clan Macgregor, in Part Second of this work.

During this reign, and shortly after the hushing-up of the Glencoe affair, there came into prominence another character, destined to play a far more important part in the history of the Highlands and of the country generally, than Rob Roy, whom he resembled in the unscrupulous means he took to attain his ends, but whose rude but genuine sense of honour and sincerity he appears to have been entirely devoid of. This was the notorious Simon Fraser, so well known afterwards as Lord Lovat. He was born, according to some authorities, in the year 1670, but according to himself in 1676, and was the second son of Thomas Fraser, styled of Beaufort, near Inverness, fourth son of Hugh, ninth Lord Lovat. Simon’s mother was dame Sybilla Macleod, daughter of the chief of the Macleods. He was educated at King’s College, Aberdeen, where he is said highly to have distinguished himself, and to have taken the degree of Master of Arts.[651] “One can easily believe that Simon, with his brain ever at work, and his ambition ever on the stretch, would let no one outstrip him.... His subsequent full and free use of the French indicates an aptitude for languages seldom equalled, and his tone of writing and speaking was that of a scholar, always when he thought fit that it should be so.”[652] In 1695, he was induced to leave the university, just as he was about to enter upon the study of law, and accept a company in a regiment raised for the service of King William, by Lord Murray, son of the Marquis of Athole, whose daughter was married to the then Lord Lovat, Simon’s cousin. Simon, who pretended the most inviolable loyalty to the exiled King James, gives as his excuse for accepting this commission, that it was only that “he might have a regiment well trained and accoutred to join King James in a descent he had promised to make in the ensuing summer.” While in Lord Murray’s regiment, he, in 1696, entered into a plan for surprising Edinburgh castle, and holding it in the interest of James, but this was stifled by the decisive victory at La Hogue.

In 1696, Simon accompanied his cousin Lord Lovat, who appears to have been of a “contracted understanding,” and Lord Murray, to London, and while there, endeavoured to worm himself into the colonelcy of his regiment, but was checkmated by Murray, whom, with the house of Athole, he thenceforth regarded as his enemy.

Lord Lovat died in September 1696, immediately after his return from London, on which Thomas of Beaufort assumed the family title, and Simon that of Master of Lovat. To render his claims indisputable, Simon paid his addresses to the daughter of the late lord, who had assumed the title of baroness of Lovat, and having prevailed on her to consent to elope with him, would have carried his design of marrying her into execution, had not their mutual confident, Fraser of Tenechiel, after conducting the young lady forth one night in such precipitate haste that she is said to have walked barefooted, failed in his trust, and restored her to her mother. The heiress was then removed out of the reach of Simon’s artifices by her uncle, the Marquis of Athole, to his stronghold at Dunkeld. Here it was determined that to put an end to dispute, she should be married to the son of Lord Saltoun, the head of a branch of the Fraser family in Aberdeenshire. As Simon saw in this match the ruin of all his hopes, he determined at all hazards to prevent it. As Saltoun and Lord Mungo Murray were returning, October, 1697, from Castle Dounie, the residence of the late lord’s widow, they were met at the wood of Bunchrew, near Inverness, by Simon and his followers, and immediately disarmed and carried to Fanellan, a house of Lord Lovat’s, before the windows of which a threatening gallows was erected. They were detained here about a week, when, on a report that Lord Murray and the red coats were coming against him, Captain Fraser sent the fiery cross and coronach through the country of his clan, and immediately had at his command a body of 500 armed men. With this small army, Fraser, accompanied by his prisoners, proceeded to Castle Dounie, of which they took possession, sentinels being placed in all the rooms, particularly Lady Lovat’s. The prisoners, after being detained for some time in the Island of Angus in the Beauly river, were dismissed.

Burton[653] very justly remarks, that the whole of these wild acts were evidently the result of a series of impulses. What followed appears to have been equally unpremeditated and the result of pure impulse. Simon determined to atone to himself for the loss of the daughter by forcibly wedding the mother, whom he himself describes as a widow “old enough to be his mother, dwarfish in her person, and deformed in her shape.”[654] For this purpose her three waiting maids were carried by force out of the room, and about two in the morning one of them was brought back and found her lady “sitting on the floor, her hair dishevelled, her head reclining backwards on the bed, Donald Beaton pulling off the lady’s shoes, and the Captain holding burning feathers and aqua-vitae to her nose, her ladyship being in a swoon.” A mock marriage was performed between Simon and Lady Lovat, by a wretched minister of the name of Munro, and the lady’s clothes having been violently pulled off her, her stays being cut off with a dirk, she was tossed into the bed, to have the marriage consummated with violence. Notwithstanding that the bagpipes were kept playing in the next room, the poor lady’s cries were heard outside the house.[655] In the morning the lady was found to be so stupified with the brutal treatment she had received that she could not recognise her dearest friends.

These violent proceedings caused much consternation in the country, and the Athole family immediately set about to obtain redress, or rather revenge. Letters of fire and sword and of intercommuning were passed against the whole of the Frasers, and the Marquis of Tulliebardine organised a force to carry these threats into execution. “On the whole, the force brought against him cannot have been very large; but in Simon’s own history of his conflicts and escapes, the whole affair assumes the aspect of a very considerable campaign, in which his enemies, spoken of as ‘the several regiments of cavalry, infantry, and dragoons,’ are always defeated and baffled in an unaccountable manner by some handful of Frasers.”[656] There does not appear to have been any downright skirmish, the only approach to such a thing being a meeting that took place at Stratherrick between the Frasers and the Athole-men under the two Lords Murray, in which the latter threw themselves on the mercy of Simon, who made them, after the manner of the ancient Romans, pass through the yoke, and at the same time swear by a fearful oath never again to enter the Lovat territories.

In June, 1698, proceedings were commenced in the court of justiciary against Fraser and his accomplices, and in September they were condemned, in their absence, to be executed as traitors.

In 1699, died old Fraser of Beaufort, at the house of his brother-in-law Macleod of Dunvegan Castle in Skye, and his son thenceforth assumed the title of Lord Lovat. He appears for some time to have led a wandering life, subsisting on pillage and the occasional contributions of the attached mountaineers.[657] Tired of this kind of life, he, at the recommendation of Argyle, who had endeavoured to secure favour for him at head-quarters, sued for a pardon, which King William granted for all his proceedings except the rape. He was willing to stand trial on this last head, and for this purpose appeared in Edinburgh with a small army of 100 followers as witnesses; but as the majority of the judges were prejudiced against him, he found it prudent again to take refuge in his mountains. He was outlawed, and finding his enemies too powerful for him, he fled to France in 1702, and offered his services to King James.

These details show, that amid the growing civilization and rapid progress of the country generally, the Highlanders were yet as barbarous and lawless as ever; the clans still cherishing the same devotion to their chiefs, and the same readiness, in defiance of law, to enter into an exterminating mutual strife. The government appears to have given up in despair all hopes of making the Highlanders amenable to the ordinary law of the country, or of rooting out from among them those ancient customs so inconsistent with the spirit of the British constitution. All it apparently aimed at was to confine the lawless and belligerent propensities of these troublesome Celts to their own country, and prevent them from taking a form that would be injurious to the civilized Lowlanders and the interests of the existing government generally. “From old experience in dealing with the Highlanders, government had learned a policy which suited temporary purposes at all events, however little it tended to the general pacification and civilisation of the people. This was, not to trust entirely to a Lowland government force, but to arm one clan against another. It seemed a crafty device for the extermination of these troublesome tribes, and a real practical adaptation of Swift’s paradoxical project for abolishing pauperism, by making the poor feed upon each other. But practised as it had been for centuries, down from the celebrated battle of the antagonist clans on the Inch of Perth, yet it never seemed to weaken the strength or abate the ferocity of these warlike vagrants, but rather seemed to nourish their thirst of blood, to make arms and warfare more familiar and indispensable, and to add every year to the terrors of this formidable people, who, in the very bosom of fast civilizing Europe, were as little under the control of enlightened social institutions, and as completely savage in their habits, as the Bosgesman of the East, or the Black-foot Indian of the West.”[658]

FOOTNOTES:

[636] Carstares’ Papers, p. 138.

[637] Memoirs of Mackay’s Secret Services, p. 199. Quoted by Burton.

[638] Letters to Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton, &c. 1st and 3d Dec. 1691.

[639] Burton’s Scotland, 1689-1748, vol. i. p. 160.

[640] These instructions are as follow:

WILLIAM R. 16th January, 1692.

1. The copy of the paper given by Macdonald of Aughtera to you has been shown us. We did formerly grant passes to Buchan and Cannon, and we do authorize and allow you to grant passes to them, and ten servants to each of them, to come freely and safely to Leith; from that to be transported to the Netherlands before the 15th of March next, to go from thence where they please, without any stop or trouble.

2. We doe allow you to receive the submissions of Glengarry and those with him upon their taking the oath of allegiance and delivering up the house of Invergarry; to be safe as to their lives, but as to their estates to depend upon our mercy.

3. In case you find that the house of Invergarry cannot probably be taken in this season of the year, with the artillery and provision you can bring there; in that case we leave it to your discretion to give Glengarry the assurance of entire indemnity for life and fortune, upon delivering of the house and arms, and taking the oath of allegiance. In this you are to act as you find the circumstances of the affair do require; but it were much better that those who have not taken the benefit of our indemnity, in the terms within the diet prefixt by our proclamation, should be obliged to render upon mercy. The taking the oath of allegiance is indispensable, others having already taken it.

4. If M’Ean of Glencoe and that tribe can be well separated from the rest, it will be a proper vindication of the public justice to extirpate that set of thieves. The double of these instructions is only communicated to Sir Thomas Livingston.

W. REX

[641] See note at p. 165, vol. i. of Burton’s Scotland, 1689-1748.

[642] Colonel HILL’S Order to Lieut.-Col. JAMES HAMILTON.

“Fort William, 12th Feb., 1692.

“SIR,

“You are, with 400 of my regiment, and the 400 of my Lord Argyle’s regiment under the command of Major Duncanson, to march straight to Glenco, and there put in due execution the orders you have received from the commander-in-chief. Given under my hand at Fort William, the 12th February 1692.

“J. HILL.”

“To Lieut.-Col. James Hamilton.”

Order from Lieut.-Col. HAMILTON, to Major ROBERT DUNCANSON.

“Ballechylls, 12th Feb., 1692.

“SIR,

“Persuant to the commander-in-chief and my colonel’s order to me for putting in execution the King’s commands against those rebels of Glenco, wherein you with the party of the Earl of Argyle’s regiment under your command, are to be concerned; you are therefore forthwith to order your affair so, as that the several posts already assigned you be by you and your several detachments faln in activeness precisely by five of the clock to-morrow morning, being Saturday; at which time I will endeavour the same with those appointed from this regiment from the other places. It will be most necessary you secure well those avenues on the south side, that the old fox, nor none of his cubbs get away. The orders are, that none be spared of the sword, nor the government troubled with prisoners; which is all until I see you from,

“Sir,

“Your most humble Servant,

“JAMES HAMILTOUNE.”

“Please to order a guard to secure the ferry, and boats there; and the boats must be all on this side the ferry after your men are over.

“For their Majesty’s service.

“_To Major Robert Duncanson of the Earl of Argyle’s Regt._”

Order from Major DUNCANSON to Captain ROBERT CAMPBELL of Glenlyon.

“12th Feb., 1692.

“SIR,

“You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebells the Macdonalds of Glenco, and put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the old fox and his sons do not escape your hands; you are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to put in execution at five of the clock precisely; and by that time, or very shortly after it, I will strive to be at you with a stronger party. If I do not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me but to fall on. This is by the king’s speciall commands, for the good and safety of the countrey, that these miscreants be cut off, root and branch. See that this be put in execution without fear or favour, or you may expect to be dealt with as one not true to king or government, nor as man fit to carry commission in the king’s service. Expecting you will not fail in the fulfilling hereof, as you love yourself, I subscribe this with my hand at Ballychylls, the 12th February, 1692.

“ROBERT DUNCANSON.”

[643] Maitland Club, vol. containing Papers on the Condition of the Highlands, 1686-1696. Preface.

[644] Letters from a Gentleman in the North.

[645] Burton’s Scotland, 1689-1748, vol. i. p. 174.

[646] The following extraordinary anecdote is given by General Stewart (Sketches, vol. i.) in reference to the punishment which, in the opinion of the Highlanders, awaits the descendants of the oppressor. “The belief that punishment of the cruelty, oppression, or misconduct of an individual, descended as a curse on his children to the third and fourth generation, was not confined to the common people. All ranks were influenced by it, believing that if the curse did not fall upon the first, or second generation, it would inevitably descend upon the succeeding. The late Colonel Campbell of Glenlyon retained this belief through a course of thirty years’ intercourse with the world, as an officer of the 42d regiment, and of marines. He was grandson of the laird of Glenlyon, who commanded the military at the massacre of Glencoe; and who lived in the laird of Glencoe’s house, where he and his men were hospitably received as friends, and entertained a fortnight before the execution of his orders. He was playing at cards with the family when the first shot was fired, and the murderous scene commenced. Colonel Campbell was an additional captain in the 42d regiment in 1748, and was put on half pay. He then entered the marines, and in 1762 was major, with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel, and commanded 800 of his corps at the Havannah. In 1771, he was ordered to superintend the execution of the sentence of a court-martial on a soldier of marines, condemned to be shot. A reprieve was sent, but the whole ceremony of the execution was to proceed until the criminal was upon his knees, with a cap over his eyes, prepared to receive the volley. It was then he was to be informed of his pardon. No person was to be told previously, and Colonel Campbell was directed not to inform even the firing party, who were warned that the signal to fire would be the waving of a white handkerchief by the commanding officer. When all was prepared, and the clergyman had left the prisoner on his knees, in momentary expectation of his fate, and the firing party were looking with intense attention for the signal, Colonel Campbell put his hand into his pocket for the reprieve, and in pulling out the packet the white handkerchief accompanied it, and catching the eyes of the party, they fired, and the unfortunate prisoner was shot dead.

“The paper dropped through Colonel Campbell’s fingers, and clapping his hand to his forehead, he exclaimed, ‘The curse of God and of Glencoe is here, I am an unfortunate ruined man.’ He desired the soldiers to be sent to the barracks, instantly quitted the parade, and soon afterwards retired from the service. This retirement was not the result of any reflection or reprimand on account of this unfortunate affair, as it was known to be entirely accidental. The impression on his mind, however, was never effaced. Nor is the massacre and the judgment which the people believe has fallen on the descendants of the principal actors in this tragedy, effaced from their recollection. They carefully note, that while the family of the unfortunate gentleman who suffered is still entire, and his estate preserved in direct male succession to his posterity, this is not the case with the family, posterity, and estates, of those who were the principals, promoters, and actors in this black affair.”

[647] Report of Commission on Glencoe: Carstare’s State Papers: Gallienus Redivivus: Dalrymple’s Memoirs and Appendix: Papers on the Condition of the Highlands in Maitland Club.

[648] Burton’s Scotland, 1689-1748, vol. i., pp. 175, 176.

[649] Dalrymple’s Appendix, vol. ii., part ii. p. 217.

[650] List of chieftains to which the proposals relate:--

Men.

The Earl of Seaforth, 200 The Viscount of Tarbat, 50 The Lord Lovat, 150 The Earl of Sutherland, 100 The Lord Reay, 50 The Laird of Ballingoun, 100 The Laird of Fouls, 50 The Laird of Straglasse, 20 The Laird of Glenmoriston, 30 The Laird of M’Intosh, 100 M’Pherson of Clunie, The Laird of Kilravock, 150 The Land of Grant, 200 The Laird of Balindaloch, 20 The Duke of Gordon, 300 The Earl of Mar, 200 The Marquis of Atholl, 300 The Laird of Ashintullie, 30 The Laird of Weem, 50 The Laird of Garntully, 50 The Laird of Strowan, 20 The Earl of Perth, 150 The Earl of Murray, 100 The Earl of Monteath, 100 The Marquis of Montrose, 150 The Laird of Luss, 50 The Laird of Macfarlane, 30 The Earl of Argyle, 500 The Earl of Breadalbane, 250 The Laird of Calder, 100 The Laird of M’Lean, 100 The Laird of Lochiel, 150 The Captain of Clanronald, 100 Sir Donald M’Donald, of Sleat, 100 The Laird of M’Leod, 100 The Laird of Glengary, 100 The Laird of M’Finzone, 30 M’Donald of Keppoch, 50 The Laird of Appin, 50 The Tutor of Appin, 30 The Laird of Lochbuy, 30

[651] Anderson’s History of the Frazers, p. 128

[652] Burton’s Lord Lovat, p. 9.

[653] Lovat, p. 27.

[654] Memoirs, p. 62.

[655] Pitcairn’s Trials, p. 89. Anderson’s Fraser Family, p. 121.

[656] Burton’s Lovat, p. 38.

[657] Anderson, 130.

[658] Burton’s Life of Lord Lovat, p. 36.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXIII. A.D. 1695-1714

BRITISH SOVEREIGNS:--William III., 1688-1703.--Anne, 1703-1714.

The Darien Scheme--Hopes of the Jacobites--Death of James II.--Death of King William--Accession of the Princess Anne--The Scottish Parliament--Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat--Meeting of Scottish Parliament--Union with England--Ferment in Scotland against it--Hooke’s Negotiation--Preparations in France to invade Scotland--Unsuccessful result of the expedition--State of Scotland--Proceedings of the Jacobites--Death of Queen Anne.

In the meantime, December 28, 1694, had died Queen Mary, to the great grief of her husband and the sincere regret of the nation generally.

We are not required to enter here into a history of the Darien scheme, which originated in 1695, and was so mismanaged as to involve in ruin thousands of families formerly in comparative opulence. It appears to have had little influence on the Highlands, for although a few natives took part in the expedition out of dissatisfaction with William’s government, the great mass of the Highlanders were too far behind the age to resort to such a roundabout means of aggrandizing a fortune.

The attitude assumed by King William and the government to the Darien expedition exasperated the Scottish nation so much that there seemed to be some danger of a counter-revolution. To the bitterness of disappointment succeeded an implacable hostility to the king, who was denounced, in pamphlets of the most violent and inflammatory tendency, as a hypocrite, and as the deceiver of those who had shed their best blood in his cause, and as the author of all the misfortunes which had befallen Scotland. One of these pamphlets was voted by the House of Commons a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, and ordered to be burned by the common executioner, and an address was voted to his majesty to issue a proclamation for apprehending the author, printer, and publisher of the obnoxious publication. The king was so chagrined at the conduct of the Scotch that he refused to see Lord Basil Hamilton, who had an address to present to his majesty from the company, praying for his interference on behalf of their servants who were kept in captivity by the Spaniards.

In direct contradiction to the House of Lords, the Scottish parliament voted that the colony of Darien was a lawful and rightful settlement which they would support; a resolution which induced the Duke of Queensberry, the commissioner, to prorogue the session. But this step only tended to increase the discontents of the nation; and, to show the king that the people would be no longer trifled with, an address to his majesty, containing a detail of national grievances, and representing the necessity of calling an immediate meeting of parliament, was drawn up and signed by a considerable number of the members; and a deputation, with Lord Ross at its head, was appointed to present the address to the king. His majesty, however, evaded the address, by informing the deputation that they would be made acquainted in Scotland with his intentions; and, as if to show his displeasure, he ordered the parliament to be adjourned by proclamation.

The Scottish nation was now fully ripe for a rebellion, but neither James nor his advisers had the capacity to avail themselves of passing events, to snatch the tottering crown from the head of the illustrious foreigner, who was destined to be the happy instrument of placing the liberties of the nation upon a more sure and permanent footing than they had hitherto been. The hopes of the Jacobites were, however, greatly raised by the jarrings between the king and his Scottish subjects, and an event occurred, about this time, which tended still farther to strengthen them. This was the death of the young Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving child of the Princess Anne, on the 29th of July, 1700, in the eleventh year of his age. As the Jacobites considered that the duke was the chief obstacle in the way of the accession of the Prince of Wales to the crown, they could not conceal their pleasure at an occurrence which seemed to pave the way for the restoration of the exiled family, and they privately despatched a trusty adherent to France to assure King James that they would settle the succession upon the Prince of Wales. Such a proposition had indeed been made by William himself at an interview he had with Louis XIV. in 1697, when a prospect opened of James being elected king of Poland on the death of John Sobieski; but this proposal was rejected by James, who told the king of France, that though he could bear with patience the usurpation of his nephew and son-in-law, he would not allow his own son to commit such an act of injustice; that by permitting his son to reign while he (James) was alive, he would, in fact, be held as having renounced his crown, and that the Prince of Wales would also be held as having resigned his own right, if he accepted the crown as successor to the Prince of Orange. As James had now given up all idea of a crown, and was wholly engrossed with the more important concerns of a future life, it is probable that he received the proposal of his friends in a very different spirit from that he evinced when made by William.

The designs of the Jacobites, however, were frustrated by the intrigues of the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, grand-daughter of King James I., who had for several years contemplated the plan of getting the succession to the English crown settled upon herself and her heirs. An act was accordingly passed by the English parliament in June, 1701, at the desire of the king, whom the princess had prevailed upon to espouse her cause, declaring her to be the next in succession to the crown of England, after his majesty and the Princess Anne, in default of issue of their bodies respectively, and that after the decease of William and Anne respectively without issue, the crown and government of England should remain and continue to the Princess Sophia and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. This act, which, by one swoop, cut off the whole Catholic descendants of James I., of whom there were fifty-three alive, all nearer heirs to the crown than the princess, gave great offence to all the Catholic princes concerned in the succession.

The act of settlement in favour of the Princess Sophia and her heirs, was a death-blow to the Jacobite interest, but still the hopes of the party were not extinguished. As James had given up all idea of dispossessing William, and even discountenanced any attempt to disturb the peace of the kingdom during his own life-time, the partisans of his family had given up every expectation of his restoration. But the death of King James, which took place at St. Germains on the 16th of September, 1701, and the recognition of his son by Louis XIV. as king, were events which opened up brighter prospects than they had yet enjoyed. The unfortunate monarch had, for several years, taken farewell of worldly objects, and had turned his whole attention to the concerns of eternity, dying ardently attached to the creed which, from principle, he had embraced. Of the arbitrary and unconstitutional conduct of James, at the period preceding the revolution, it is impossible for any lover of genuine liberty to speak without feelings of indignation; but it must not be forgotten that in his time the prerogatives of the crown were not clearly defined, and that he was misled by evil counsellors, who advised him to violate the existing constitution.

Nothing but the prospect of an immediate war with England could, it is believed, have induced Louis to recognise, as he did, the Prince of Wales as king of England, Ireland, and Scotland. William remonstrated against this act of the French king, as a violation of the treaty of Ryswick, and appealed to the King of Sweden, as the guarantee for its observance; but Louis was inflexible, and maintained in the face of all Europe, that he was not debarred by the treaty from acknowledging the title of the Prince of Wales, to which he had right by birth. He admitted that by the fourth article of the treaty he was bound not to disturb William in the possession of his dominions, and he declared his intention to adhere to that stipulation; but this explanation was considered quite unsatisfactory by William, who recalled his ambassador from Paris. The conduct of the French king excited general indignation in England, and addresses were sent up from all parts of the kingdom, expressive of attachment to the government. The English parliament passed two separate acts of attainder against the pretended Prince of Wales, as the son of James was termed, and the queen, his mother, who acted as regent. Great preparations were made for entering into a war with France, and William had concerted with his allies the plan of a campaign, but he did not live to see the gigantic schemes which he had devised for humbling the pride of France put into execution. He expired at Kensington on the 8th of March, 1702, in consequence of a fall from his horse about a fortnight before, which fractured his collar-bone. He had reigned thirteen years, and was in the fifty-second year of his age.

The accession of the Princess Anne gave satisfaction to all parties, particularly to the Jacobites, who imagined, that as she had no heirs of her own body, she would be induced to concur with them in getting the succession act repealed, so as to make way for her brother, the Prince of Wales. At first the queen seemed disposed to throw herself into the hands of the Tory faction, at the head of which was the Earl of Rochester, first cousin to the queen, who was averse to a war with France; but the Earl, (afterwards the celebrated Duke) of Marlborough, his rival, succeeded, through the intrigues of his countess, in altering the mind of her majesty, and war was accordingly declared against France on the 4th of May.

The Scottish parliament, to which the Duke of Queensberry was appointed commissioner, met on the 9th of June; but before his commission was read, the Duke of Hamilton objected to the legality of the meeting, the parliament having been virtually dissolved, as he maintained, by not having met within the statutory period; and having taken a formal protest against its proceedings, he withdrew from the house, followed by seventy-nine members of the first rank in the kingdom, amidst the acclamations of the people. The seceding members, thereupon, sent up Lord Blantyre to London with an address to the queen, but she refused to see him. This refusal highly displeased the people, whose resentment was still farther increased by a prosecution raised by the lord advocate against the faculty of advocates, for having, by a vote, approved of the secession and address. Several acts were passed by the parliament, one of the most important of which was that authorizing the queen to name commissioners for negotiating a treaty of union with England. An attempt was made by the Earl of Marchmont, the lord-chancellor, (better known as Sir Patrick Home of Polwarth) without any instructions from his colleagues, and even contrary to the advice of the commissioner, to alter the succession, by bringing in a bill similar to that which had passed in England for abjuring the Prince of Wales, and settling the succession on the Princess Sophia and her heirs; but as the ministry had no instructions from the queen, the bill was not supported. It is not improbable that Marchmont intended, by the introduction of this measure, to sound the disposition of the queen in regard of her brother.

The queen, by virtue of the powers conferred on her by the parliaments of England and Scotland, named commissioners to treat about a union, who met at the Cockpit, near Whitehall, on the 22d of October; but after some of the preliminaries had been adjusted, the conference broke off, in consequence of the Scottish commissioners insisting that all the rights and privileges of the Darien company should be preserved and maintained.

A partial change in the Scottish ministry having taken place, the queen resolved upon calling a new parliament, in the spring of 1703, previous to which she issued an act of indemnity in favour of every person who had taken any part against the government since the revolution, and allowed such of them as were abroad to return home. Under the protection of this amnesty many of the Jacobites returned to Scotland, and took the oaths to the government, in the hope of forwarding the interest of the Prince of Wales. At this time Scotland was divided into three parties. The first consisted of the revolutionists, who were headed by the Duke of Argyle. The second of what was called the country party, who were opposed to the union, and who insisted on indemnification for the losses sustained in the Darien speculation, and satisfaction for the massacre of Glencoe and other grievances suffered in the late reign. The Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Tweeddale took the direction of this party. The last, called Mitchell’s club, from the house they met in, was composed entirely of the Jacobites or Cavaliers. These were headed by the Earl of Home.[659] The two latter parties, by coalescing at the elections, might have returned a majority favourable to their views; but the Earl of Seafield, who had succeeded the Earl of Marchmont as chancellor, had the address to separate the Jacobites from the country party, and, by making them believe that he was their friend, prevailed upon them to throw their interest at the elections into the scale of the government. The parliament, however, which met on the 6th of May, was not so pliable to ministerial dictation as might have been expected, for although the royal assent was refused to what was called the act of security for limiting the power of the crown, “this session of parliament,” to use the words of Lockhart, “did more for redressing the grievances and restoring the liberties of the nation than all the parliaments since the year 1660.”[660] It was in this parliament that the celebrated patriot, Fletcher of Saltoun, first distinguished himself. The Earl of Marchmont again brought in his bill for settling the crown of Scotland upon the house of Hanover; but such was the indignation with which it was received by the house, that some of the members proposed that the bill should be burnt, while others moved that the proposer of the measure should be committed to the castle of Edinburgh. On a division the bill was thrown out by a very large majority.

After the prorogation of the parliament, the courtiers and the heads of the cavaliers repaired to London to pay court to the queen, who received them kindly, and conferred marks of her favour upon some of them. The Marquis of Athole, in particular, who aspired to be leader of the Jacobites, was made a duke, and invested with the dignity of a knight of the order of the Thistle, which she had just revived to enable her to extend the royal favour. Her policy seems to have been to gain over all parties to her interest; but she was soon made to believe that a conspiracy existed against her among the cavaliers to supersede her, and to place her brother upon the throne. The moving spirit in this plot, known as the Scotch Plot, was the now notorious Lovat.

“An indemnity having been granted to those who had left the country with the exiled court, on condition of their returning within a time limited, and taking the oaths, it was observed with alarm, that many persons were taking advantage of this opportunity to return, who were among the most formidable of the Jacobite leaders, and who could not be supposed to be sincerely disposed to support the Protestant line of succession. Among these ominous apparitions were Lovat himself, the two Murrays, Sir John Maclean, Robertson of Struan the poet chieftain,--‘a little black man, about thirty years old,’ as he was described by those who kept their eyes on him; and David Lindsay, secretary to the Pretender’s prime minister, Middleton. The fiery Lord Belhaven had just paid a visit to France. He was an opponent of English ascendency, and a cadet of the house of Hamilton; and his mission could, of course, have no other object but to offer the allegiance of that house to the young prince. Political intriguers, such as the renowned Ferguson, looked busy and mysterious. Mrs. Fox, whose name was connected with the plot for which Sir John Fenwick suffered, had ventured over to Britain, under a feigned name; and sundry young men of good birth, whose avowed mission to France had been to study medicine, had, either in vanity or carelessness, allowed it to transpire that they had been at the court of St. Germains, and had seen those royal personages who created so dangerous an interest throughout the country. The general movement of these parties was northwards, and was accompanied by incidents such as those which happened to Lovat. Captain Hamilton, an officer stationed at Inverness, wrote to Brigadier-general Maitland, governor of Fortwilliam, on the 23d of July, that a great hunting match had been planned for the 2d of the month, at which many of the Highland chiefs were to assemble their vassals.

“‘The Duke of Hamilton is to be there, the Marquis of Athol: and our neighbour the Laird of Grant, who has ordered 600 of his men in arms, in good order, with tartane coats, all of one colour and fashion. This is his order to his people in Strathspey. If it be a match of hunting only, I know not, but I think it my duty to acquaint you, whatever may fall out of any such body of men in arms, particularly in our northern parts.’

“It will be remembered that this was exactly the form in which the Earl of Mar raised the standard of rebellion at Braemar, in 1715; and we appear to owe the suggestion to the inventive genius of Lovat. At the same time, the British ambassador at the Hague received some mysterious intimations about large sums forwarded in gold, through a Dutch commercial house, to persons of importance in Scotland.”[661]

Lovat had the address before leaving France, by imposing upon Louis, to whom he was introduced by the pope’s nuncio, to obtain from the widow of King James, acting as regent for her son, a commission of Major-general, with power to raise and command forces in his behalf. As the court of St. Germains had some suspicion of Fraser’s integrity, Captain John Murray, brother of Mr. Murray of Abercairney, and Captain James Murray, brother of Sir David Murray of Stanhope, were sent over to Scotland, under the protection of Queen Anne’s indemnity, as a check upon him, and to sound the dispositions of the people.

On arriving in Scotland, he set off for the Highlands, introduced himself into the society of the adherents of the exiled family, and, by producing his commission of major-general, induced some of them to give him assurances that they would rise in arms when required, though they regretted that such a character should have been intrusted with so important a command. Others, however, apprehensive of his real designs, refused to hold any intercourse with him on the subject of his mission.

On Lovat’s return to Edinburgh, late in September, he contrived to obtain an interview with the Duke of Queensberry, High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland, and revealed to him the whole affair, drawing considerably on his own fertile fancy for startling facts. He also produced a letter, purporting to be from the ex-queen, signed with the initial M., addressed to the Duke of Athole. Its words were, “You may be sure that when my concerns require the help of my friends, you are one of the first I have in my view. I am satisfied you will not be wanting for any thing that may be in your power according to your promise, and you may be assured of all such returns as you can expect from me and mine. The bearer, who is known to you, will tell you more of my friendship to you, and how I rely on yours for me, and those I am concerned for.” Queensberry was delighted with this apparent discovery, and immediately sent the letter unopened to the queen. Lovat, however, by his plotting had made the country too hot to hold him, and a day or two after his letter had been sent to the queen, letters of fire and sword were issued against him, so that he now set himself to get safely back to France. He managed to obtain from Queensberry a pass to London, to which place the duke himself was bound, and after a few more secret interviews in London, with another pass which he contrived to obtain, he safely quitted England about the middle of October.[662]

When this so-called conspiracy became publicly known it excited considerable sensation, and the House of Lords immediately resolved that a committee should be appointed to inquire into the matter; but the queen, who was already well acquainted with the circumstances, sent them a message, intimating, that as the affair was already under investigation, she was desirous that the house should not interfere, and she promised in a short time to inform them of the result. Accordingly, on the 17th of December, she went to the House of Peers, and made a speech to both houses, informing them that she had complete evidence of evil practices and designs against her government, carried on by the emissaries of France in Scotland. The peers, however, proceeded in the inquiry, and after considerable investigation they agreed to the following resolution, “that there had been a dangerous conspiracy in Scotland toward the invading that kingdom with a French power, in order to subvert her majesty’s government, and the bringing in the pretended Prince of Wales; that it was their opinion nothing had given so much encouragement to these designs as the succession of the crown of Scotland not being declared in favour of the Princess Sophia and her heirs; that the queen should be addressed to use such methods as she thought convenient, for having the succession of the crown of that kingdom settled after that manner; and that being once done, then they would do all in their power to promote an entire union of the two kingdoms.” Mr. Lockhart asserts that the lords thus interfered at the instance of the Duke of Queensberry, as he knew that the Whigs would bring him off, and although they were so clear as to the existence of a plot, he maintains that “it was all trick and villany.” Meanwhile Fraser, for his imposition upon the French king, was committed a prisoner to the Bastile, in which he remained several years.[663]

It was discovered that the address on the letter from the ex-queen was forged by Lovat himself, she having addressed it to no one, although it is supposed to have been meant for the Duke of Gordon. Lovat had also to implicate the Duke of Hamilton, and as he regarded both these noblemen as “impostors” and enemies of the exiled family, he considered that his conduct, in thus attempting to ruin them, “far from being a real crime, ought to be regarded as a good and essential service to the king (James III.), and the sincere, political, and ingenious fruit of his zeal, for his project, and the interests of his sovereign.”[664] Such is a specimen of the morality of this extraordinary personage, who, in his correspondence with the revolution party, always pretended to be a friend to the revolution settlement.

According to Lockhart, the Duke of Queensberry was at the bottom of this sham plot, but he appears really to have been entirely innocent, and to have acted all along for what he thought the best interests of the government. “He was, to use a common but clear expression, made a fool of.”[665] Although he had managed to clear himself of all blame, still as the affair had rendered him very unpopular in Scotland, he was dismissed from his situation as one of the Scottish secretaries of state, and the Marquis of Tweeddale was appointed to succeed him as lord high-commissioner to the Scottish parliament, which met on the 6th of July, 1704.[666]

From the temper displayed in the Scottish parliament, it was obvious that without entering into a treaty with Scotland, it would be utterly impossible for the English ministry to carry the question of the succession in Scotland. To accomplish this the English parliament authorised the queen to nominate commissioners to treat with commissioners from Scotland; but the conduct of the parliament was by no means calculated to allay the jealousy entertained by the Scotch, of the interference of England in imposing a foreign sovereign upon them. Instead of simply empowering the queen to appoint commissioners, the English parliament, instigated by the Scottish ministry, directed the Scottish parliament in the choice of its commissioners, and they even prohibited their own commissioners to meet and treat with those of Scotland unless the parliament of Scotland allowed the queen to name these commissioners herself. Moreover all Scotsmen not settled in England, or in its service, were declared aliens, until the succession to the crown of Scotland should be settled on the Princess Sophia and her Protestant heirs. Several prohibitory clauses against the trade of Scotland were also inserted in the act, which were to take effect about eight months thereafter if the Scottish parliament did not, before the appointed time, yield to the instructions of that of England.

To strengthen the government party the Scottish ministry was changed, and the Duke of Queensberry was recalled to office, being appointed to the privy seal. The Cavaliers, thus deprived of the aid of the duke and his friends, applied to the Marquis of Tweeddale--who, with his displaced friends, had formed a party called the squadrone volante, or “flying squadron”--to unite with them against the court; but he declined the proposal, as being inconsistent with the object for which it was said to be formed, namely, to keep the contending parties in parliament in check, and to vote only for such measures, by whatever party introduced, which should appear most beneficial to the country.

Notwithstanding the exertions of the court party, the Scottish ministry soon found themselves in a minority in the parliament, which was opened on the 28th of June, 1705, by the Duke of Argyle as commissioner. The motion of Sir James Falconer, which had hitherto remained a dead letter, was again renewed; but although the ministry was supported by the “squadron” in opposition to the motion, the Cavaliers carried it by a great majority. The Dukes of Hamilton and Athole were now desirous of pushing on the inquiry into the alleged plot, but by advice of the Cavaliers, who insisted that such a proceeding would be a violation of the agreement entered into between them and the Duke of Queensberry’s friends, they desisted for a time. But the duke having prevailed upon such of his friends as had voted with the Cavaliers in the beginning of the session, to join the court party, the subject was introduced before the house in the shape of a motion, to know what answer the queen had sent to an address which had been voted to her in the preceding session, to send down to Scotland against the next session such persons as had been examined respecting the plot, and the papers connected therewith. The Dukes of Hamilton and Athole vindicated themselves against the charge of being accessory to Fraser’s proceedings, and the latter particularly, in a long speech, reprobated the conduct of the Duke of Queensberry, whom he openly accused of a design to ruin him. Neither the duke nor his friends made any answer to the charge, and Athole and Hamilton conceiving that they had cleared themselves sufficiently, allowed the subject to drop. The most important business of the session was the measure of the proposed union with England, an act for effecting which was passed, though not without considerable opposition.

Before the state of the vote upon this measure was announced, the Duke of Athole, “in regard that by an English act of parliament made in the last sessions thereof, entituled an act for the effectual securing England from the dangers that may arise from several acts passed lately in Scotland, the subjects of this kingdom were adjudged aliens, born out of the allegiance of the queen, as queen of England, after the 25th of December 1705,” protested that, for saving the honour and interest of her majesty as queen of Scotland, and maintaining and preserving the undoubted rights and privileges of her subjects, no act for a treaty with England ought to pass without a clause being added thereto, prohibiting and discharging the commissioners that might be appointed for carrying on the treaty from departing from Scotland until the English parliament should repeal and rescind the obnoxious act alluded to. To this protest twenty-four peers, thirty-seven barons, and eighteen of the burgh representatives adhered. When the state of the vote was announced, the Duke of Hamilton, to the surprise of the cavaliers and the country party, moved that the nomination of the commissioners should be left wholly to the queen. From twelve to fifteen members immediately exclaimed that the duke had deserted and basely betrayed his friends, and ran out of the house in rage and despair. A warm debate then ensued, in which Hamilton was roughly handled, and the inconsistency of his conduct exposed; but he persisted in his motion, which was carried by a majority of eight votes. Had the other members remained he would have found himself in a minority. The Duke of Athole protested a second time for the reasons contained in his first protest, and twenty-one peers, thirty-three barons, and eighteen burgh representatives adhered to his second protest. The protesters consisted of most of the cavaliers and the country party, and the whole of the “Squadron.” The protesters, however, were not discouraged, and they succeeded so far as to obtain an order of the house prohibiting the Scottish commissioners from treating until the clause in the English act, declaring the subjects of Scotland aliens, should be repealed, a resolution which had the desired effect, the English parliament rescinding the clause before the time fixed for its operation arrived.[667]

In terms of the powers vested in her by the parliaments of England and Scotland, the queen nominated commissioners, who met in the council chamber of the Cockpit, near Whitehall, on the 16th of April, 1706. During their sittings they were twice visited by the queen, who urged them to complete with as little delay as possible, a treaty which, she anticipated, would be advantageous to both kingdoms. By the second article of the treaty, it was declared that the succession to the monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, in default of issue of the queen, should remain and continue to the Princess Sophia and her heirs, being Protestants.

When the terms of the treaty became publicly known in Scotland, a shout of indignation was set up in every part of the kingdom, at a measure which, it was supposed, would destroy the independence of the nation; and when the Scottish parliament met for the purpose of ratifying the treaty, considerable rioting took place in different parts of the country, and large bodies of armed men threatened to march upon the capital, and disperse the assembly. Numerous addresses were sent to the parliament from every part of the kingdom against the Union, and considerable opposition was made by the Dukes of Hamilton and Athole, Lord Belhaven, Fletcher of Saltoun, and others, but the court party, having obtained the support of the “Squadron,” carried the measure by a great majority. The treaty was, however, after strenuous opposition, ratified by the Scotch as well as the English parliament, and ultimately completed on May 1st, 1707.

As the restoration of the son of James II. now appeared to the Scottish nation necessary to preserve its independence, various combinations were entered into among the people to effect it. The inhabitants of the western shires, chiefly Cameronians, formerly the most determined supporters of the Protestant government, all at once became the most zealous partisans of the exiled family, whose Catholicity they showed themselves disposed altogether to overlook. Preparatory to more active measures for accomplishing their object, the ringleaders among them held several meetings, divided themselves into regiments, chose their officers, provided themselves with horses and arms, and, notwithstanding the religious asperity which had long existed between them and the inhabitants of the northern shires, offered to unite with them in any measure which might be devised for accomplishing the restoration of the young prince, who had now assumed the title of the Chevalier de St. George.[668] The court of St. Germains, fully aware of the strong national feeling which existed in favour of the prince, sent, in concert with the French king, one Hooke into Scotland to obtain intelligence, and to treat with the people for his restoration. This gentleman had been one of the Duke of Monmouth’s chaplains when he invaded England; but after the execution of that unfortunate nobleman, Hooke went to France, where he became a Catholic, and entered into the French service, in which he rose to the rank of Colonel. He had been in Scotland in 1705 on a mission to the heads of the Jacobite chiefs and the country party; but though a man of sense, he conducted himself with such indiscretion, that he could only obtain general promises, from the parties he consulted, of their readiness to advance the prince’s interest. The cavaliers, however, sent Captain Henry Straton, a gentleman in whom they placed great confidence, to France, in July the following year, to ascertain the extent of the aid they might expect from Louis.

Hooke, on this occasion, landed in the north of Scotland, about the end of February or beginning of March, 1707, and took up a temporary abode in Slains Castle, the seat of the Earl of Errol, high-constable of Scotland, where he was waited upon by the countess-dowager, the mother of the earl, her son being then absent from home. Instead of consulting, as he should have done, the principal chiefs upon the subject of his mission, Hooke at first confined himself to interviews with some gentlemen in the counties of Perth and Angus, by whom he was received with great favour and hospitality, and looked upon as a person of no ordinary importance. The attention thus paid him, flattered his vanity, in return for which he made them his confidents, and proceeded, in concert with them, to deliberate upon the mode of accomplishing a restoration. This party, however, had not the wisdom to conceal the negotiation with Hooke, whose presence in the country became consequently generally known. The result was, that the Duke of Hamilton and others, conceiving themselves slighted, and alarmed at the imprudence of Hooke’s friends, declined to correspond with him, and entered into direct communication with the court of St. Germains itself.

As the French king was desirous of ascertaining the exact situation of the affairs in Scotland, M. de Chamillard, his minister of war, had furnished Hooke with a paper of instructions, in the shape of questions, to which he was desired to obtain distinct answers, to enable his majesty to judge of the extent of the assistance required from him, and the probability of success. In answer to these questions, a memorial, addressed to the king of France, was drawn up, and signed by several noblemen and gentlemen, in which they stated that the greater part of the Scottish nation had always been disposed for the service of “its lawful king” ever since the revolution; but that this disposition had now become universal, and that the shires of the west, which used to be the most disaffected, were now zealous to serve him. That to reap the benefit of so favourable a disposition, and of so happy a conjuncture, the presence of the king (the Chevalier) would be absolutely necessary, the people being unwilling to take arms without being sure of having him at their head--that the whole nation would rise upon his arrival--that he would become master of Scotland without opposition, and that the existing government would be entirely abolished--that of the numbers that they would raise, the memorialists would immediately despatch 25,000 foot, and 5,000 horse and dragoons into England, while the other peers and chiefs would assemble all their men in their respective counties, and that the general rendezvous of the troops on the north of the river Tay should be at Perth, those of the western counties at Stirling, and those of the south and east at Dumfries and Dunse. As to the subsistence of the troops, they informed his majesty that they would require nothing from him, as the harvests of two years were to be found in the granaries, and that so great was its abundance, that a crown would purchase as much flour as would maintain a man two months--that there was also great plenty of meat, beer and brandy in the kingdom, and cloth, linen, shoes and bonnets, sufficient to clothe a considerable number of troops. The principal articles they stood in most need of were arms and money. Of the former, the memorialists begged his majesty to send them as many as would equip 25,000 foot, and 5,000 horse or dragoons, together with a proportionate quantity of ammunition, and also some pieces of artillery, bombs, &c. Of money, of which the country had been almost drained by the Darien speculation, by five years of famine, and by the constant residence of the nobility at London, they required a remittance of 100,000 pistoles, to enable them to march into England, and also a regular monthly subsidy during the war. In addition to these demands, they required that the Chevalier should be accompanied to Scotland by a body of 8,000 troops, to protect his person against any sudden attempt by the government forces. The memorialists concluded, by assuring his most Christian Majesty of their resolution to bind themselves by the strictest and most sacred ties, to assist one another in what they deemed a common cause, to forget all family differences, and to concur sincerely, and with all their hearts, “without jealousy or distrust, like men of honour in so just and glorious an enterprise.”[669]

Having finished his negotiation, Hooke returned to France in the month of May, after assuring his friends that “the Pretender” would land in Scotland about August following. On arriving at the court of St. Germains, Hooke gave the most flattering account of his reception, and of the zeal of the people in behalf of the Chevalier, and accused the Duke of Hamilton and the other persons who had refused openly to commit themselves, of luke-warmness in the cause. The armament, promised by the king of France, should have been ready in August; but the court of Versailles contrived to put it off, from time to time, under various pretences. The fact appears to be, that Louis was indifferent about the matter, and, although he pretended that his object was to place the Chevalier upon the throne of his ancestors, his real object was to create a diversion in his own favour by embroiling Great Britain in a civil war. His reverses at Ramillies and Turin had induced him to send Hooke into Scotland to obtain information, but, having afterwards defeated the allies at Almanza, he was in hopes that he would be able to retrieve his affairs without the aid of the intended descent on Scotland.

To hasten the enterprise, the cavaliers sent the Honourable Charles Fleming, brother of the Earl of Wigton, over to France with letters to his most Christian Majesty and the Chevalier, in consequence of which, preparations for the expedition were commenced at Dunkirk, where a squadron was collected under the command of the Chevalier de Forbin. When the news of these preparations reached England, the greatest exertions were made to meet the threatened danger. Both houses of parliament joined in an address to the queen, in which they pledged themselves to defend her with their lives and fortunes against the “pretended Prince of Wales,” and all her other enemies. They suspended the habeas corpus act, and passed a bill enacting, that all persons should take the oath of abjuration under the pain of being held as convicted recusants. They also passed another bill, releasing the Scottish clans from all vassalage to those chiefs who should appear in arms against her majesty; and “the Pretender” and his adherents were declared traitors and rebels. A large fleet was equipped and assembled at Deal with extraordinary promptitude, and despatched towards Dunkirk under the command of Sir John Leake, Sir George Byng, and Lord Dursley, and transports were engaged to bring over ten British battalions from Ostend. When this fleet, which the French had supposed to be destined for Lisbon, appeared off Mardyke, they were greatly surprised; and the embarkation of their troops, which had commenced, was immediately countermanded. The French admiral represented to his court the danger of proceeding with the expedition; but he received positive orders to finish the embarkation, and to sail with the first favourable wind. The Chevalier de St. George, at taking farewell, was presented by Louis with a sword studded with costly diamonds, and sumptuous services of gold and silver plate, rich dresses, and other necessaries becoming his high station.

While the embarkation was going on, Mr. Fleming and a gentleman of the name of Arnott were separately despatched for Scotland from Dunkirk, on the evening of the 6th of March, 1708, in two frigates, with instructions from the Chevalier to the Jacobite chiefs. Fleming arrived on the northern coast on the 13th, and, when about two leagues off the land, entered a fishing boat which landed him at Slains castle, where he met the Earl of Errol, who received the intelligence of the expedition with great pleasure. On perusing the Chevalier’s instructions, he immediately despatched a messenger to Mr. Malcolm of Grange, in Fife, with orders to have a boat and pilots in readiness at the mouth of the Frith of Forth to go on board the first vessel that should give the signal agreed on.

In the mean time, the British fleet having been forced, by stress of weather, off their station on the 14th of March, the expedition sailed on the 17th from the road of Dunkirk; but it was detained in Newport-pits in consequence of a change in the wind, till the 19th, when it again set sail with a fair breeze for Scotland. The expedition consisted of seven men-of-war, two of which were fitted up as transports, and twenty-one frigates, having on board 5,100 troops, under the command of Monsieur le Comte de Gassé, who, on the last-mentioned day, received from the French king the patent of a Marshal of France, and assumed the name of Mantignon. While at Newport, three of the frigates, which had received some damage, returned to Dunkirk; but, at a council of war, held in the apartment of the Chevalier, it was resolved, at his desire, to proceed without them, although these vessels had 800 troops on board, and a considerable quantity of arms and provisions. At the same council it was also determined to sail directly to the Frith of Forth, and to disembark the troops at Burnt-island, whence it was proposed to send a detachment to take possession of Stirling.[670]

The French fleet having been observed in Newport-pits from the steeples of Ostend, a vessel was immediately despatched thence by Major-general Cadogan to inform Sir George Byng of their having left Dunkirk: Sir George went immediately in quest of the enemy. The French fleet, favoured by a strong and fair wind, reached the Frith on the evening of the 23d, without seeing any of the English squadron, and anchored off Crail, the commander intending to proceed up the Frith the following morning; but he had been anticipated by the Proteus, one of the three vessels which had returned to Dunkirk, and which, being a superior sailer, had reached the Frith before him, and had given notice of the approach of the French fleet to the friends of the Chevalier, who lived on the coast, by firing five guns, the concerted signal by which the friends of the prince along that coast were to be apprized of his arrival. Malcolm of Grange, who had been for some days anxiously looking out for the fleet, went immediately on board this vessel with a pilot.

The resolution of M. de Forbin to proceed up the Frith next morning, was, however, put an end to, by the appearance, at day-break, of the English fleet, consisting of 28 sail, standing in for the Frith. Alarmed for the safety of his ships, the French commander immediately cut his cables, and by favour of a strong land breeze which fortunately sprung up, stood out to sea under full sail, having previously given orders to the different ships, in case of separation, to rendezvous at Cromarty or Inverness. The French vessels being lighter and cleaner, outstripped the English in sailing, and all of them escaped, with the exception of the Salisbury, a ship formerly captured from the English, which was taken. On board of this vessel were Lord Griffin, the Earl of Middleton’s two sons, M. La Vie, a Major-general, Colonel Francis Wauchope, some other officers, and between 300 and 400 soldiers. On the following day, the French commander finding himself out of sight of the enemy, and all his vessels together, with the exception of the Salisbury, consulted with the Marshal de Mantignon, on the expediency of landing at some place in the north of Scotland, and proposed Inverness. The Chevalier, who was so desirous of landing, that he had, though in vain, entreated M. de Forbin, the preceding day, to put him ashore, though his domestics alone should accompany him, received this proposal with great satisfaction. The fleet accordingly, aided by a favourable wind, steered to the north during the whole of the 25th; but at ten o’clock at night, the wind suddenly changed to the north, and blew directly in their teeth with considerable violence. As the storm continued the whole of the following day, and as M. de Forbin was afraid that the fleet would be dispersed, and might, when separated, fall into the hands of the enemy, a council was held, at which it was unanimously resolved, with the entire concurrence of the Chevalier, to return to Dunkirk, where the expedition arrived on the 7th of April.

Such was the result of an enterprise, which, but for the merest accidental circumstance, might have been crowned with the most complete success; for had the expedition arrived only a few hours earlier in the Frith of Forth, the whole troops, arms and ammunition, would have been landed without opposition. Such were the dispositions of the people of Scotland in favour of “the Pretender,” and so disaffected had they become towards the government, that a universal rising would undoubtedly have taken place in his support had he set his foot in Scotland. No effectual resistance could have been offered to him by the regular troops, which did not exceed 2,500 men; and as little reliance could be placed in them, from their participating generally in the national feeling, the Earl of Leven, the commander-in-chief, had determined to retire to Carlisle or Berwick, with such forces as would accompany him.[671] The news of the sailing of the expedition created a panic in England, was followed by a run upon the bank, which would have been obliged to suspend its payments had not the most extraordinary exertions been made to support its credit.

The principal friends of the Chevalier de St. George, and every person of any distinction in Scotland, suspected of favouring his pretensions, were, upon the failure of the expedition, immediately seized and committed to the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling, and the common jails, whence many of them were transmitted to England, and imprisoned in the Tower of London, or in Newgate. Among those who were carried to London, was the Duke of Hamilton, who, taking advantage of a quarrel between the Lord-treasurer Godolphin and the Whigs, obtained, by offering his support to the latter in the election of the Scottish representative peers, not only his own liberation, but also that of all the other prisoners, with the exception of Stirling of Kier. Seaton of Touch, Stirling of Carden, and other gentlemen of Stirlingshire, who, on receiving intelligence that the Chevalier had landed, had mounted their horses and advanced in a body towards Edinburgh, to support him. These last were brought to trial for high treason, as having appeared in arms against the government; but as no proof was brought against them, they were acquitted.[672] The fact is, that the queen’s advisers, fully aware of the great danger which the government had escaped, and the risks to which it was still exposed, were disposed to act a very lenient part, and were afraid, under existing circumstances, to commit themselves by sacrificing any of the disaffected to a doubtful, and, as it must have appeared to them, a precarious expediency.

For a time, the idea of a restoration seems to have been abandoned; but the systematic attacks made by the High Church party in England, upon the principles of the revolution, and the popular excitement raised against the Whig ministry in consequence of Dr. Sacheverel’s trial, raised anew the expectations of the Jacobites, which were still farther elevated by the expulsion of the Whigs from office in 1710, by the intrigues of the Tories. Although the queen on opening the new parliament, which met on the 25th of November, declared to both houses that she would employ such persons only as were warmly attached to the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover; yet it was generally understood that she was inclined to favour the pretensions of her brother, the Chevalier de St. George. As his religion was, in fact, the only bar in the way of his succession, she endeavoured, but without success, to induce him to abandon it. “You see,” she observed to the Duke of Buckingham, when speaking of her brother, “he does not take the least step to oblige me. I have no reason to think he values me or my kingdom, therefore I shall give it to the Elector of Hanover.” On another occasion, when warmly pressed by the duke, she replied, “What would you have me to do? You know, as the law stands, a Papist cannot inherit the crown, and, therefore, any will I may make will be to no purpose; the law gives all to Hanover; and therefore I had better do that with a good grace which I cannot help. He may thank himself for it. He knows I always loved him better than the Elector.”[673] The Tories were by no means averse to her majesty’s views of a successor, but afraid of a reaction in public opinion in favour of the Whigs, who were endeavouring to excite the fears of the nation by raising a no-popery cry, they not only carefully abstained from any act which might be considered as favouring the claims of “the Pretender;” but even appeared as if hostile to them. Indeed, so desirous were some of the Tory members of the House of Commons to settle the crown upon his head, that they required a mere profession of Protestantism from him, till he should be firmly seated on the throne, after which he might, they said, again resume the exercise and profession of his religion. But the prince refused to comply.

In Scotland, however, little reserve was shown, a remarkable instance of which occurred in the Faculty of Advocates, which body accepted from the Duchess of Gordon a silver medal, having on one side an impression of the head of the Chevalier de St. George, and on the reverse a representation of the British islands, with the motto, “Reddite.” At the presentation of this treasonable device, a motion thanking her grace for her gift was carried, after a warm debate, by a majority of sixty-three voices against twelve. Dundas of Arniston, to whom the task of conveying the vote was intrusted, thanked her grace for having presented the Faculty with a medal of their sovereign, and stated a hope that she would very soon be enabled to present them with a second medal struck upon the restoration of the king and royal family, and the finishing of usurpation, rebellion, and whiggery. This proceeding created an extraordinary sensation, and Sir David Dalrymple, the Lord Advocate, was directed by the ministry to inquire into the matter. The Faculty grew alarmed, disclaimed the conduct of Dundas and of Horne, another member with whom they alleged the transaction originated, and by a solemn resolution declared their attachment to the queen and the Protestant succession. To satisfy, in some measure, the court of Hanover, the resident of which at the British court had presented a memorial to the queen desiring that Dundas and his party might be prosecuted, the Lord Advocate was dismissed from office, because he had been remiss in bringing the delinquents to justice; but no instructions were given to his successor to prosecute them.

The remaining years of Queen Anne’s reign were chiefly occupied with party struggles, which embittered her existence and impaired her constitution. The Tories disunited among themselves, split latterly into two factions, which were respectively headed by Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke. The Whigs, on the other hand, united, active and vigorous, pressed hard upon them, and employed every art to inflame the people against the authors of their disgrace. Popery and the Pretender were the never-ceasing topics with which they endeavoured to enlist the feelings of the nation in their favour, and the Duke of Argyle, in a warm debate which took place in the House of Peers on a question proposed by the Earl of Wharton, “Whether the Protestant succession was in danger under the present administration?” offered to prove that the lord-treasurer had remitted a sum of money annually to the Highland Jacobite chiefs. Oxford did not deny the charge, but defended himself by saying, that he had only adopted the policy of King William, who had granted yearly pensions to the heads of the clans, the better to secure their obedience to the government. The fate of the Tory ministry was at length sealed by the removal of Oxford and the death of the queen, who survived that event only a few days. Fatigued by a long attendance at a cabinet council held immediately after the dismissal of the lord-treasurer, she was thrown into a lethargic disorder, which terminated her existence on the morning of the 1st of August, 1714, in the fiftieth year of her age, and in the thirteenth of her reign. With the exception of her dereliction of duty towards her father, which, from the circumstances in which she was placed, may admit of considerable palliation, she left behind her an unblemished reputation; and though not possessed of much genius or vigour of mind, she wielded the sceptre with greater skill than is usually to be found in sovereigns, who, like her, have allowed themselves to be controlled by favourites.

FOOTNOTES:

[659] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 58.

[660] Idem, vol. i. p. 71.

[661] Burton’s Life of Lovat, pp. 76, 77.

[662] Macpherson’s Papers. Burton’s Lovat.

[663] Lockhart, vol. i. pp. 78-83.

[664] Memoirs of the Life of Simon, Lord Lovat. Written by himself, p. 179.

[665] Burton’s Lovat, p. 90.

[666] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 98.

[667] Lockhart, vol. i. pp. 131, 132, 133, 137, 140.

[668] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 196.

[669] Secret History of Colonel Hooke’s Negotiation in Scotland in 1707.--Edin. 1760. Pp. 69-75.

[670] M. D’Andrezel’s Account in Hooke, p. 139.

[671] Alluding to the appearance of the French fleet in the Frith, Lockhart says, “It is impossible to describe the different appearance of people’s sentiments; all this day (23d March) generally speaking, in every person’s face was to be observed an air of jollity and satisfaction, excepting the general (Leven), those concerned in the government, and such as were deeply dipt in the revolution. These indeed were in the greatest terror and confusion. And it was no great wonder that the Earl of Leven did afterwards, in one of his letters to the secretaries of state, complain that the Jacobites were so uppish he durst hardly look them in the face as they walked in the streets of Edinburgh; for uppish they were indeed, expecting soon to have an occasion of repaying him and his fellow-rebels in the same coin he and they had treated them for these twenty years past. But next day advice was sent from Sir George Byng, that he had come up with and was then in pursuit of the French fleet, and then it was that every body was in the greatest pain and anxiety imaginable; some fearing it would, and others that it would not, determine as it did. In this perplexity were people when, on the next day, being Sunday, a great number of tall ships were seen sailing up the Frith. This put our general in such a terror and confusion as can scarcely be well expressed: he drew up his army in battle array on the sands of Leith, as if he’d oppose a landing, and in this posture did he remain for several hours, when at last his fears, which truly had almost distracted him, vanished by the landing of a boat, which acquainted him that it was the English fleet returning from chasing the French. For Sir George Byng, after a day’s pursuit, finding the French out-sailed him, tackt about for the Frith, which was the place he designed chiefly to guard; besides, he had sailed so unprovided that most of his ships wanted water and provisions. Here he lay several weeks, and for the most part the wind was easterly, so that he could not well have sailed down the Frith, and the French might, and every body believed would, have landed in the north, or sailed round and landed in the west; but instead of that they went sneakingly home, without doing any good, but on the contrary much harm, to the king, his country, and themselves.”--Vol. i. pp. 243, 244.

[672] Lockhart.

[673] Stuart Papers, July, 1712. vol. ii. p. 327.

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