Chapter II: Part 2

Having learned from the Baron of Balhaldies of the happy success
of the representations that we had instructed him to make to
Your Eminence, with the approval of our legitimate Sovereign, we
now hasten to send this Baron back with the proofs of our lively
and respectful gratitude, and with the most solemn undertaking,
both by ourselves and by those who are engaged along with us, to
take up arms to throw off the yoke of the usurpation, that we
are ready to fulfil faithfully all that was put forward in the
Memorial, which my lord Sempill and the said Baron of Balhaldies
signed with their own hands, and had the honour to place in the
hands of Your Eminence last May.

The chiefs of our Highland clans, whose names we have sent at
the same time with the number of men that each binds himself to
furnish, will without fail keep their engagements, and we venture
to be responsible to Your Eminence that there will be 20,000 men
on foot for the service of our true and only lord, King James
VIII. of Scotland, as soon as it will please His Most Christian
Majesty to send us arms and munitions, and the troops that are
necessary to guard those arms until we shall be able to assemble.

These 20,000 men will be able so easily to defeat or to destroy
the troops that the Government employs at present in our country,
and even all those that it may be able to despatch upon the first
alarm, so that we feel entirely justified in hoping that with
divine assistance and under the auspices of the most Christian
King, the loyal Scots will be in a condition, not only in a short
time to re-establish the authority of their legitimate King
throughout the whole Kingdom of Scotland, and to sustain him
there against the efforts of the partisans of Hanover, but also
to aid powerfully in the recovery of these other States, which
will be all the easier since our neighbours of England are not
less wearied than we are of the odious tyranny under which we all
equally groan; and we know that they are thoroughly determined to
unite with us, and with any power whatever that would give them
the opportunity they require to place themselves once more under
a legitimate and natural Government. We are at present taking
measures to act along with them.

As to the assistance that is necessary for Scotland in
particular, we should have preferred that His Most Christian
Majesty might have been willing to grant us French troops, who
would have renewed among us the lessons of heroic bravery and
incorruptible fidelity, that our ancestors have so often learned
in France itself, but since Your Eminence thinks fit to send
subjects of our King, we will receive them with joy as coming
from him, and we will endeavour to make them feel the value that
we attach to their devotion to our legitimate Sovereign, and
the honour that they have acquired in treading so long in the
footsteps of the best subjects and of the bravest troops in the
Universe.

The Baron of Balhaldies knows so perfectly our situation, the
plans that we have concerted, and everything that affects us,
that it will be unnecessary to enter into any detail. We implore
Your Eminence to listen to him favourably, and to be assured
that he will have the honour of reporting to you with the utmost
accuracy.

If the ministers of the Government were only less suspicious
of our actions or less watchful, we would willingly pledge all
our belongings to defray the cost of this expedition, but as no
contracts (of loan or sale) are binding by our customs unless
they have been inscribed in the public registers, it is not
possible for us to raise a sum that would be sufficient, with
the necessary secrecy that present circumstances require. It is
this consideration alone that prevents us from raising a fund for
the necessary expense, the raising of which would bear further
proof of our zeal, which we should give with pleasure, and of
the confidence with which we place ourselves under the standard
of our natural King; but the good of the service obliges us to
restrain our wishes and to have recourse to the generosity of
His Most Christian Majesty until it is possible to establish the
royal rights in our country in a regular manner.

We are persuaded that it would be possible to accomplish this
three months after the arrival of the Irish troops, and we do
not doubt that our country, reunited under the Government of its
king, so much desired, would make such efforts as would enable
Your Excellency to prove to His Most Christian Majesty that the
modern Scots are the true descendants of those who have had
the honour of being counted during so many centuries the most
faithful allies of the kings, his predecessors.

We are very sensibly touched by what Your Eminence has done, and
will continue to do, to make the Catholic king understand the
advantages that he would have in acting in favour of the King
our master in the present juncture. We had believed that these
advantages could not escape the notice of the Spanish Ministers,
but whatever strange things they may have done in the conduct of
this war, your Eminence is now acting in such a way as cannot
fail happily to extricate them from the consequences of their
mistakes, and to frustrate the unjust attitude of those nations
who are ready to fall upon the treasures of the new world.

We praise God, Monseigneur, and we pray with fervour that He
would preserve Your Eminence, not only for the accomplishment
of the great work which we are going to undertake under your
protection, but also that you may see the great and happy effects
throughout Europe as well as in the three kingdoms of Britain in
which your name will be not less precious in all time to come
than in France itself, which has been enlarged so remarkably
under your ministry; and that the glory of your name will be
raised to the highest pitch by making justice flourish among your
neighbours. We have the Honour to be, with profound veneration
and perfect devotion, Monseigneur, Your Eminence’s very humble
and obedient servants.

The promises of assistance from the French Court brought by Balhaldy, and the letter of acceptance by the lords of the Concert constituted the treaty between France and the Scottish Jacobites which formed the foundation of all subsequent schemes undertaken in Scotland. Even in the end it was detachments of the Irish regiments, whose use was originally suggested by Glenbucket, together with a Scottish regiment raised later than this by Lord John Drummond, that formed the meagre support that was actually sent over from France in 1745.

Balhaldy returned to France almost immediately, and in the winter of 1740-41, he went to England where he met the Jacobite leaders, of whom he particularly mentions the Earls of Orrery and Barrymore, Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, and Sir John Hinde Cotton. With them he endeavoured to form a scheme of concert between the English and the Scottish Jacobites, but without much success.[45]

[Sidenote: Murray taken into the confidence of the Concert.]

It was not until after the signing of the letter to Fleury that Murray was taken into the confidence of the Jacobite leaders, and it was at this time that he first met Lord Lovat. This was also the occasion of his first meeting with Balhaldy; their relations at this time were quite friendly; Balhaldy handed over to Murray the negotiation of a delicate ecclesiastical matter with which he had been entrusted by the Chevalier.[46]

Another early duty was to raise money for the Cause, but to Murray’s mortification, he had to give up the scheme of a loan, because all the sympathisers to whom he applied declined to subscribe; not, they said, because they objected to giving their money, but each and all refused to be the first to compromise himself by heading the subscription list. At this time Murray was not permitted to undertake any active propaganda for a rising, as the associated leaders feared that by increasing the numbers in the secret there would be too great danger of leakage. The Associators preferred to keep such work in their own hands, and each of them had a district assigned to him.

After Balhaldy’s departure the unfortunate Associators were kept in a state of agonising suspense, for nothing was heard from France until the end of 1742. In December of that year, Lord Traquair received a letter from Balhaldy couched in vague terms, assuring him that troops and all things necessary for a rising would be embarked early in the spring. The scheme, he wrote, was to make a landing near Aberdeen and another in Kintyre. The whole tone of the letter was so confident that the Associators felt that a French expedition might be expected almost immediately, and they were profoundly conscious that Scotland was not ready. So alarmed were the leaders at the possibility of a premature landing, and so uncertain were they about the promises vaguely conveyed in Balhaldy’s letter, that they determined to send Murray over to Paris to find out what the actual French promises were, and how they were to be performed; and moreover to warn the Government of King Louis how matters stood in Scotland.

Murray set off in January 1743. On his way he visited the Duke of Perth, then residing at York, making what friends he could among the English Jacobites. When Murray got to London, he was informed of Cardinal Fleury’s death,[47] which somewhat staggered him, but he determined to go on to France to find out how matters stood.

[Sidenote: Murray’s visit to Paris, 1743.]

On arriving in Paris, Murray met Balhaldy and Sempill. Balhaldy was surprised and not particularly glad to see him, but he treated him courteously, and discussing affairs with Murray, he patronisingly informed him that he had not been told everything. Sempill was very polite. He told Murray that a scheme had been prepared by Fleury, but that the Cardinal’s illness and death had interrupted it.[48] Sempill also told him that luckily he had persuaded the Cardinal to impart his schemes to Monsieur Amelot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. An interview with the Minister was obtained at Versailles, and on Murray’s explaining the reason of his visit, Amelot frankly told him that the King of France had full confidence in the Scots, but that nothing could be done without co-operation with the English. He further warned the Scotsmen that an enterprise such as they proposed was dangerous and precarious. The King, he said, was quite willing to send ten thousand troops to help James his master, but the Jacobites must take care not to bring ruin on the Cause by a rash attempt. Murray was startled at Amelot’s answer after the assurances he had had from Sempill and Balhaldy of the minister’s keenness to help; he was further distressed that some arrangements, which Sempill had confidently mentioned to him as being made, were unknown to Amelot, while the minister owned that he had not read the Memorials, but promised to look into them.

It was on this occasion that Murray first became suspicious of the behaviour of Balhaldy and Sempill, a state of mind which grew later to absolute frenzy. When arranging for the interview with Amelot, they hinted very plainly to Murray that he must exaggerate any accounts he gave of preparations in Scotland. He came to the conclusion that they were deceiving the French minister by overstating Jacobite prospects at home, and after the interview he was further persuaded that Balhaldy and Sempill were similarly deceiving the Jacobite leaders with exaggerated accounts of French promises. He was further mortified to find that the Earl Marischal, who was much respected in Scotland, and to whom the Jacobite Scotsmen looked as their leader in any rising, would have nothing to do with Sempill and Balhaldy; while, on their part, they described the earl as a wrong-headed man, continually setting himself in opposition to his master and those employed by him, and applied to him the epithet of ‘honourable fool.’

Apparently about this time the preparations of the English Jacobites were languishing, and Balhaldy, proud of the Scottish Association which he looked upon as his own creation, volunteered to go over to England and arrange a similar Concert among the English leaders. He and Murray went to London together, and there Murray took the opportunity of privately seeing Cecil, the Jacobite agent for England. Cecil explained his difficulties, told him of the dissensions among the English Jacobites, and of their complaints about Sempill, who, he considered, was being imposed upon by the French Ministry. It is characteristic of Jacobite plotting to find that Murray concealed, on the one side, his interviews with Cecil from Balhaldy, and, on the other, he kept it a secret from Cecil that he had ever been in France.[49] Disappointed with his mission both in France and England, Murray returned to Edinburgh in March or April.

[Sidenote: Butler’s mission to England.]

Meanwhile, Balhaldy was busy getting pledges in England and making lists of Jacobite adherents avowed and secret. Though they said they were willing to rise, he found they absolutely refused to give any pledge in writing, and he suggested, through Sempill, that the French minister should send over a man he could trust to see the state of matters for himself. Amelot selected an equerry of King Louis’s of the name of Butler, an Englishman by birth. Under pretence of purchasing horses, Butler visited racecourses in England, where he had the opportunity of meeting country gentlemen, and was astonished to find that at Lichfield, where he met three hundred lords and gentlemen, of whom, he said, the poorest possessed £3000 a year, he found only one who was not opposed to the Government. On his return to France, Butler sent in a long report on the possibilities of an English rising. He told the French Government that after going through part of England, a document had been placed in his hands giving an account of the whole country, from which it appeared that three-quarters of the well-to-do (‘qui avaient les biens-fonds’) were zealous adherents of their legitimate king, and that he had been enabled to verify this statement through men who could be trusted, some of whom indeed were partisans of the Government. He was amazed that the Government was able to exist at all where it was so generally hated. The secret, he said, was that all positions of authority--the army, the navy, the revenue offices--were in the hands of their mercenary partisans. The English noblesse were untrained to war, and a very small body of regular soldiers could easily crush large numbers of men unused to discipline. It would be necessary then to have a force of regular troops from abroad to make head against those of the Government.

[Sidenote: French determine on an Invasion.]

[Sidenote: Letter of Louis XV. to Philip V.]

Butler and Balhaldy returned to France in October. During their absence things had changed; the battle of Dettingen had been fought (June 27th, 1743), although Great Britain and France were technically at peace. King Louis was furious, and he took the matter up personally, and gave instructions to prepare an expeditionary force for the invasion of England. The main body was to consist of sixteen battalions of infantry and one regiment of dismounted dragoons, under Marshal Saxe, and was to land in the Thames. It was further suggested that two or three battalions should be sent to Scotland. Prince Charles Edward was invited to accompany the expedition, and was secretly brought from Rome, arriving in Paris at the end of January 1744. There was no affectation of altruism for the Stuart exile in King Louis’s mind, but the zeal of the Jacobites was to be exploited. He wrote his private views to his uncle, the King of Spain, communicating a project that he had formed, he said, in great secrecy, which was to destroy at one blow the foundations of the league of the enemies of the House of Bourbon. It might, perhaps, be hazardous, but from all that he could learn it was likely to be successful. He wished to act in concert with Spain. He sent a plan of campaign. Everything was ready for execution, and he proposed to begin the expedition on the 1st of January. It would be a very good thing that the British minister should see that the barrier of the sea did not entirely protect England from French enterprise.[50] It might be that the revolution to be promoted by the expedition would not be so quick as was expected, but in any case there would be a civil war which would necessitate the recall of the English troops in the Netherlands. The Courts of Vienna and Turin would no longer receive English subsidies, and these Courts, left to their own resources, would submit to terms provided they were not too rigorous.[51]

[Sidenote: Collapse of French Expedition.]

The story of the collapse of the proposed invasion is too well known to need description. Ten thousand troops were on board ship. Marshal Saxe and Prince Charles were ready to embark. On the night of the 6th of March a terrible storm arose which lasted some days. The protecting men-of-war were dispersed, many of the transports were sunk, a British fleet appeared in the Channel, and Saxe was ordered to tell the Prince first that the enterprise was postponed, and later that it was abandoned. Charles, nearly broken-hearted, remained on in France, living in great privacy, and hoping against hope that the French would renew their preparations. For a time he remained at Gravelines, where Lord Marischal was with him. He longed for action, and implored the earl to urge the French to renew the expedition to England, but Marischal only suggested difficulties. Charles proposed an expedition to Scotland, but his lordship said it would mean destruction. Then he desired to make a campaign with the French army, but Lord Marischal said it would only disgust the English. Charles removed to Montmartre, near Paris, but he was ordered to maintain the strictest incognito. He asked to see King Louis, but he was refused any audience. His old tutor, Sir Thomas Sheridan, was sent from Rome to be with him; also George Kelly, Atterbury’s old secretary, who, since his escape from the Tower, had been living at Avignon. He took as his confessor a Cordelier friar of the name Kelly, a relative of the Protestant George Kelly, and, sad to say, a sorry drunkard, whose example did Charles no good. These Irish companions soon quarrelled with Balhaldy and Sempill, who wrote to the Chevalier complaining of their evil influence, while the Irishmen also wrote denouncing Balhaldy and Sempill.

Charles left Montmartre. His cousin, the Bishop of Soissons, son of the Marshal Duke of Berwick, kindly lent him his Château Fitzjames, a house seven posts from Paris on the Calais road, where he remained for a time. Another cousin, the Duke of Bouillon, a nephew of his mother, also was very kind, and entertained him at Navarre, a château near Evreux in Normandy. But his life was full of weary days. He could get nothing from the French, and ‘our friends in England,’ he wrote to his father, are ‘afraid of their own shadow, and think of little else than of diverting themselves.’ Things seemed very hopeless: the Scots alone remained faithful.

[Sidenote: Suspense in Scotland.]

From the time that Murray left London in the spring of 1743, the Jacobite Associators had received no letters from Balhaldy. The suspense was very trying; indeed Lord Lovat felt for a time so hopeless that he proposed to retire with his son to France and end his days in a religious house.[52] Lovat’s spirits seem to have risen shortly after this owing to some success he had in persuading his neighbours to join the Cause, and he eventually resolved to remain in Scotland. It was only from the newspapers the Jacobite leaders knew of the French preparations, but towards the end of December a letter was received from Balhaldy, which stated that the descent was to take place in the month of January. Other letters, however, threw some doubt on Lord Marischal’s part of the enterprise, which included an auxiliary landing in Scotland, and once more the Jacobite leaders were thrown into a state of suspense. They felt, however, that preparations must be made, and an active propaganda began among the Stuart adherents.

[Sidenote: Murray’s interview with Prince Charles, August 1744.]

In due course news of the disaster to the French fleet reached Scotland, but no word came from Balhaldy or Sempill, and it was then determined to send John Murray to France to find out the state of matters. Murray tells the story of his mission in his _Memorials_. He met Prince Charles at Paris on several occasions, and told him that so far from there being 20,000 Highlanders ready to rise, as was the boast of Balhaldy, it would be unwise to depend on more than 4000, if so many. But in spite of this discouraging information, the Prince categorically informed Murray that whatever happened he was determined to go to Scotland the following summer, though with a single footman.[53]

Murray hastened home, and at once began an active canvass among the Jacobites; money and arms were collected, and arrangements were made in various parts of the country. Among other expedients was the establishment of Jacobite clubs, and the celebrated ‘Buck Club’ was founded in Edinburgh. The members of these clubs were not at one among themselves. Some of them said they were prepared to join Prince Charles whatever happened, but others only undertook to join if he were accompanied by a French expedition. At a meeting of the Club a document was drawn up by Murray representing the views of the majority present, which insisted that unless the Prince could bring them 6000 regular troops, arms for 10,000 more, and 30,000 louis d’or, it would mean ruin to himself, to the Cause, and to his supporters.[54] This letter was handed to Lord Traquair, who undertook to take it to London and have it sent to Prince Charles in France. By Traquair it was delayed, possibly because he was busy paying court to the lady who about this time became Countess of Traquair,[55] but to the expectant Jacobites for no apparent reason save apathy. After keeping the letter for four months he returned it in April 1745, with the statement that he had been unable to find a proper messenger. Another letter was then sent by young Glengarry, who was about to proceed to France to join the Scottish regiment raised by Lord John Drummond for service in the French army. It was, however, too late; the Prince had left Paris before the letter could be delivered.

Distressed that the King of France would not admit him to his presence; wearied with the shuffling of the English Jacobites and the French ministers; depressed by Lord Marischal, who chilled his adventurous aspirations; plagued, as he tells his father, with the _tracasseries_ of his own people, Charles determined to trust himself to the loyalty of the Scottish Highlanders. He ran heavily into debt; he purchased 40,000 livres’ worth of weapons and munitions,--muskets, broadswords, and twenty small field-pieces; he hired and fitted out two vessels. With 4000 louis d’or in his _cassette_ he embarked with seven followers at Nantes on June 22nd (O.S.).

On July 25th he landed in Arisaig,--the ’Forty-five had begun.

PAPERS OF JOHN MURRAY OF BROUGHTON

These papers, picked up after Culloden, are fragmentary and are not easy reading without a knowledge of their general historical setting, and this I have endeavoured to give in brief outline in the preceding pages. They are particularly interesting as throwing glimpses of light on the origins of the last Jacobite rising. They were written before the collapse of that rising and before Murray, after the great betrayal, had become a social outcast. Murray’s _Memorials_, edited for the Scottish History Society by the late Mr. Fitzroy Bell, were written thirteen years after Culloden as a history and a vindication. These papers may be considered as memoranda or records of the business Murray had been transacting, and they view the situation from a different angle.

Some of the events mentioned in the _Memorials_ are told with fuller detail in these papers; they also contain thirteen hitherto unpublished letters, consisting for the most part of a correspondence between Murray and the Chevalier de St. George and his secretary James Edgar. But to my mind the chief interest of the papers lies in the fact that they present a clue to the origin of the Jacobite revival which led up to the ’Forty-five; that clue will be found in Murray’s note on page 25.

In 1901 the Headquarters Staff of the French Army issued a monograph based on French State Papers, giving in great detail the project for the invasion of Great Britain in 1744, and the negotiations which led up to it. The book is entitled _Louis XV. et les Jacobites_, the author being Captain Jean Colin of the French Staff. In his opening sentence Captain Colin tells how the Chevalier de St. George was living tranquilly in Rome, having abandoned all hope of a restoration, when about the end of 1737 he received a message from his subjects in Scotland informing him that the Scottish Highlanders would be able, successfully, to oppose the Government troops then in Scotland. In no English or Scottish history, so far as I am aware, has this message from Scotland been emphasised, but in the French records it is assumed as the starting-point of the movement on the part of the French Government to undertake an expedition in favour of the Stuarts. Murray refers to Glenbucket’s mission in the _Memorials_ (p. 2), though very casually, and as if it were a matter of little moment, but the insistence in French State Papers of the importance of the Scottish message made it necessary to investigate the matter further.

The first step to discover was the date of the sale of the estate of Glenbucket, the price of which was probably required for the expenses of the mission, and it was found from Duff family papers, kindly communicated by the authors of _The Book of the Duffs_, that Glenbucket sold his estate to Lord Braco in 1737. The next step is told in the pages of _James Francis Edward_, where it is narrated that Glenbucket was in Paris about the end of that year, that he there presented to Cardinal Fleury a scheme for a rising in Scotland, which he proposed should be assisted by the Irish regiments in the service of Louis XV. The same work tells how Glenbucket went on to Rome in January 1738, and there conveyed to the Chevalier satisfactory assurances from the Highlands, but few from the Lowlands.[56] The result was that William Hay was sent to Scotland on the mission which eventuated in the ‘Concert’ of Jacobite leaders, Highland and Lowland, and Balhaldy’s subsequent mission to Paris and Rome.

It would be interesting to know who the Highlanders were who entrusted Glenbucket with the message to Rome. Murray, in his jealous, disparaging way, remarks that it could only be Glengarry and General Gordon, but either he did not know much about Glenbucket or he was prejudiced. In an account of the Highland clans preserved in the Public Record Office, and evidently prepared for the information of the Government after he had turned traitor, Murray writes: ‘I have heard Gordon of Glenbucket looked upon as a man of Consequence, whereas, in fact, he is quite the reverse. He is not liked by his own name, a man of no property nor natural following, of very mean understanding, with a vast deal of vanity.’[57] But this word-portrait does not correspond with that drawn by a writer who had better opportunities of knowing Glenbucket. The author of the Memoirs of the Rebellion in the Counties of Aberdeen and Banff particularly emphasises the affection he inspired in the Highlanders, and significantly adds:--

‘It is generally believed he was very serviceable to the court of
Rome, in keeping up their correspondence with the Chiefs of the
Clans, and was certainly . . . of late years over at that court,
when his Low Country friends believed him to be all the while in
the Highlands.’[58]

It may be that Lovat was one of those Highlanders who joined in Glenbucket’s message. About this time he had been deprived of his sheriffship and of his independent company, and, furious against the Government, had almost openly avowed his Jacobitism. In 1736 he, as sheriff, had released the Jacobite agent John Roy Stewart from prison in Inverness and by him had despatched a message of devotion to the Chevalier,[59] but of his co-operation with Glenbucket I have found no hint. The sequence of events here narrated make it plain that whoever it was for whom he spoke, it was Gordon of Glenbucket whose initiative in 1737 originated the Jacobite revival which eventually brought Prince Charles to Scotland.

Analysis of the papers is unnecessary after the admirable introduction to the _Memorials_ by Mr. Fitzroy Bell, but it may interest readers of that work to refer to two letters mentioned in the _Memorials_. The first of these was a letter Murray says he wrote to the Chevalier giving an account of his interview with Cecil in London.[60] Mr. Bell searched the Stuart Papers at Windsor, but failed to find it. I think the letter printed on page 20 is the letter that was intended, though it is addressed not to James but to his secretary Edgar. The other letter mentioned in the _Memorials_ was one to the Earl Marischal written about the same time. It was entrusted for delivery to Balhaldy and Traquair, but to Murray’s intense indignation they destroyed it. In the _Memorials_ he expresses his regret that he has not a copy to insert. There is little doubt that the letter on page 27 of these papers is the draft of the letter referred to.

The account of the interview with Cecil (pp. 16, 21) makes pathetic reading. Murray, the Scottish official agent, fresh from seeing Balhaldy and Sempill, the official agents in Paris, is conscious that the latter are deceiving both the French Government and their own party. Murray conceals from Balhaldy that he is going to interview Cecil; from Cecil that he has been in Paris. Cecil, on the other hand, makes only a partial disclosure of his feelings in Murray’s presence. He is contemptuous of his Jacobite colleagues, the Duchess of Buckingham and her party, and he has not a good word to say of Sempill. Murray again ridicules Cecil, of whom he has a poor opinion.

How could a cause served by such agents ever prosper?

This copy of John Murray’s papers and the three following documents were found among some papers relating to the ’Forty-five collected by a gentleman of Midlothian shortly after the Rising. Many years ago I was permitted to copy them, and from these transcripts the text has been printed.

MEMORIAL CONCERNING THE HIGHLANDS

In 1898 the late Mr. Andrew Lang edited and published a manuscript from the King’s Library in the British Museum, which he entitled _The Highlands of Scotland in 1750_. Mr. Lang was unable to discover the author, but conjectured that it was written by Mr. Bruce, a Government agent employed to survey the Highland forfeited estates after the ’Forty-five. A close scrutiny of Mr. Lang’s volume along with the _Memorial_ here printed has convinced me that they are the work of the same hand. Whoever wrote the manuscript in the King’s Library, the information contained therein came from the author of this ‘Memorial.’ The manuscript in the British Museum contains a good deal more than this _Memorial_, but the views advanced are generally the same, the sentiments are similar, and occasionally the phraseology is identical.

The manuscript from which the ‘Memorial Concerning the Highlands’ is printed is holograph of the Rev. Alexander Macbean, minister of Inverness at the time of the ’Forty-five. Macbean was well qualified to write on this subject. I have been unable to discover the place of his birth, but it may be conjectured that, if not actually born in the Macbean country, his family came from there, _i.e._ that part of Inverness-shire lying to the east of Loch Ness, of which The Mackintosh was feudal superior. The earliest information that can be gleaned from ecclesiastical records is that he received his degree of Master of Arts from the University of St. Andrews in 1702, and that he was employed as schoolmaster at Fort William from 1701 to 1709. That his salary was slender may well be believed, but its tenuity was aggravated by the fact that it was not paid regularly. We find that as late as 1717 the Commission of the General Assembly applied to the Treasury for arrears due to Macbean, and was bluntly refused on the ground that the Treasury was not responsible for debts incurred before the Union of 1707.

Alexander Macbean went from the Western Highlands to Roxburghshire, where he became chaplain to Douglas of Cavers, and was licensed as a probationer by the Presbytery of Edinburgh in 1711. In the following year the right of presentation to the parish of Avoch in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, having fallen to the Presbytery of Chanonry, _jure devoluto_, Macbean was selected to fill the vacancy, and was ordained minister of the parish in June 1712. His appointment met with fierce opposition. His predecessor had been one of the pre-Revolution episcopal ministers who had retained his living, and the parishioners, for the most part episcopalians, resented his intrusion and fretted him with litigation. He became so unhappy that he obtained permission to resign his charge. In 1714 he was presented to the rural parish of Douglas in Lanarkshire, and there he remained for six years. In 1720 he was back in the Highlands as minister of the ‘third charge’ of Inverness; and in 1727 he was transferred to the ‘first charge’ of that important town, and there he remained until his death in 1762.

In Inverness he made his individuality strongly felt as champion for the Government. He was ‘the John Knox of the North,’ and one who exerted himself to suppress the spirit of rebellion in and about Inverness in the years 1745 and 1746.

On one occasion he nearly fell a victim to his interest in the struggle. Having gone with many others to the Muir of Culloden to witness the battle, one of the flying Highlanders attempted to cut him down with his broadsword, but the blow was warded off by a bystander.

Alexander Macbean was the father of a very distinguished son, Lieut.-General Forbes Macbean (1725-1800) of the Royal Artillery. This officer was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, was present at Fontenoy in 1745, and at Minden in 1759. At Minden he so distinguished himself that he was presented with a gratuity of five hundred crowns and a letter of thanks from the Commander-in-Chief, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, written with his own hand. Forbes Macbean subsequently became Inspector-General of Portuguese Artillery, 1765-69; served in Canada 1769-73 and 1778-80; but his principal claim to the gratitude of posterity is a collection of manuscript notes recording the early history of the Royal Artillery.

Of Alexander Macbean’s ‘Memorial’ it is perhaps enough to say that it is, considering the times, fairly impartial, and corresponds on the whole with authentic information gleaned from other sources. I have taken the opportunity of supplementing, perhaps overloading, his text with notes detailing, so far as I have been able to discover them from various sources, the names of the principal Highland gentlemen who were concerned in the Rising of the ’Forty-five.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE LATE REBELLION FROM ROSS AND SUTHERLAND

The author of this narrative was Daniel Munro, minister of the parish of Tain. His origin was probably humble, as in Scott’s _Fasti_ it is stated that owing to his knowledge of the Irish (_i.e._ Gaelic) language, he was educated on the Church’s charitable funds, and held a bursary from the Synod of Ross at Marischal College, and the University of Aberdeen. Munro was minister of the parish of Auldearn, near Nairn, from 1736 to April 1745, when he was translated to Tain, where he remained until his death in 1748. Of his life and work I have found little record. Andrew Henderson, the author of the Edinburgh _History of the Rebellion_, who knew this country well, says that he was ‘an uncouth man, a monster of impiety, wickedness, and ill nature.’ He further states that he was turned out of his church for ‘fighting and other immoralities.’[61]

This ‘Account’ is a very meagre one. The important fact in the history of Ross in the ’Forty-five was that the head of the house of Seaforth forsook the family tradition and took active part with the Government against the old royal family. It was a heavy blow to Prince Charles when Lord Macleod, eldest son of Lord Cromartie, who went to Glasgow to see the Prince in January 1746, informed him at supper that Seaforth had furnished two hundred men for the service of the Government. Charles turned to the French minister and gasped, ‘Hé, mon Dieu, et Seaforth est aussi contre moi!’

Kenneth Mackenzie, known as Lord Fortrose (which was really a Jacobite title), would have been the sixth Earl of Seaforth but for the attainder. His wife was Lady Mary Stewart, eldest daughter of the Earl of Galloway. She held Jacobite principles and raised many of her husband’s clan for the Prince, while most of Fortrose’s men eventually deserted to the Jacobites.

The principal operations in Ross and Sutherland began after Inverness had been taken by the Jacobite army. Lord Loudoun then retired to the shores of the Dornoch Firth. Lord Cromartie was sent in pursuit. Loudoun had boats, and when Cromartie approached him, he crossed the Firth to Dornoch. The Jacobites had to go round by the head of the Firth, whereupon Loudoun returned in his boats to the southern shore at Tain, and went back to Sutherland when Cromartie came to Ross. Cromartie was superseded by the Duke of Perth. Land operations seeming to be useless, a flotilla of boats was secretly collected at Findhorn and taken to Tain under shelter of a dense fog. On March 20th, 1746, Perth crossed over the Meikle Ferry, and completely defeated Loudoun at the bloodless battle of Dornoch. Lord Loudoun, along with Duncan Forbes, Sir Alexander Macdonald, Macleod of Macleod, fled to the Isle of Skye, while the chief of Mackintosh was taken prisoner.

On March 25th, the _Hazard_, a sloop of war which had been captured by the Jacobites at Montrose four months previously and sent to France, when returning with money, stores, and recruits, was forced to run ashore in the Kyle of Tongue by four men-of-war. Lord Reay, the Whig head of the Mackays, took possession of the wreck and its contents, including 156 prisoners and £12,000, the money being sorely needed by the army. Lord Cromartie and his son, Lord Macleod, were sent with a force of 1500 men to expostulate with Lord Reay, and if possible to recover the spoil. In this they naturally failed, but they continued the march as far as Thurso, beating up for recruits and levying the land cess upon the inhabitants.[62] On the way back, Cromartie and his son paid a visit to the Countess of Sutherland at Dunrobin. There, on the day before the battle of Culloden, they were made prisoners by the clever trick of a certain Ensign Mackay, while their followers, then at Golspie, were beaten and dispersed in an action sometimes called the battle of the Little Ferry.

MEMOIRS OF THE REBELLION IN THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN AND BANFF

This manuscript bears neither signature nor date, and gives no indication of authorship. There can, however, be little doubt that the author of the narrative was a minister belonging to Aberdeen or Banffshire, and that it was written at the same time as the two previous papers, about the end of 1746 or the beginning of 1747.

The story of the events of the Rising in the north-eastern counties is recounted with much fulness of detail, and with a minute knowledge of the country and the people. It is told, moreover, with marked fairness. Although the writer is a Whig, he speaks kindly of the Jacobite leaders, and he does not conceal the cruelties committed by the Government troops.

He tells the story of the skirmish of Inverurie in greater detail than is found elsewhere, and he gives picturesque touches in places that add to the interest of his narrative. Specially graphic is his account of Macleod’s famous piper, MacCrimmon, who was captured in that action.

The condition of parties in the north-eastern counties was not what it had been in the ’Fifteen. At that time the great lords of the counties had been Jacobite, whereas in 1745 most of the Aberdeenshire peers were supporters of the Government. None of them, however, took a prominent lead in the struggle. It is interesting to read the reasons given by the author of these Memoirs for the reticence of the Whig peers. The Duke of Gordon was prevented by indisposition. Lord Findlater’s sickly condition quite disabled him, and Lord Kintore’s incumbrances on his fortune were a drawback. Lord Forbes again had by no means an estate suited to his ability, while Lord Saltoun had no weight in the county. As for Lord Braco (afterwards Earl Fife), the newness of his family would have marred any project of his forming. The author considers, however, that something might have been expected of the Earl of Aberdeen.[63]

These explanations carry no conviction, and there can be little doubt that, in the beginning, these Aberdeenshire lords were more or less sitting on the fence. Nor is this to be wondered at; family tradition and family connection would make them very chary of taking any prominent steps against the Jacobites. The Duke of Gordon, whose mother was a daughter of the Earl of Peterborough, had been brought up a Protestant and a Whig in defiance of the Catholic religion and Jacobite principles of his predecessors. Yet he must have had some sympathy with the family tradition. Early in September his father’s old factor, Gordon of Glenbucket, carried off horses and arms from Gordon Castle while the Duke was there, apparently with his connivance. Moreover, Sir Harry Innes of Innes in writing of this to his brother-in-law, Ludovick Grant, adds: ‘I am sory to tell yow that the Duke is quite wronge.’[64] By the end of November, however, he had pronounced for the Government. Lord Findlater was a Jacobite in the ’Fifteen, and had then been imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Lord Kintore’s father had fought at Sheriffmuir, and been deprived of his office of Knight-Marischal as a punishment. Lord Braco’s family was deeply concerned on the Jacobite side; his son-in-law, Sir William Gordon of Park, his brother-in-law, William Baird of Auchmedden, his nephew, a son of Duff of Hatton, were all ‘out,’ and his eldest son was only kept by force from joining the Jacobites.[65] Lord Aberdeen had only in March succeeded his father, who, it is known, had intended to join the Stuart cause.[66]

Lord Forbes, whose traditions were Whig, and whose father was Lord-Lieutenant of the county in 1715, might have acted, but his family connections were nearly all Jacobite. He was the brother-in-law of Lord Pitsligo and Gordon of Park, while his three daughters were married to prominent Jacobites.[67]

Nor on the Jacobite side were there any noted personages. The two most prominent Jacobite leaders were Gordon of Glenbucket, a tenant farmer, and Lord Pitsligo. Though of small estate, Lord Pitsligo was universally respected for his high character and his personal piety. He knew his own mind and never faltered. He had been out in the ’Fifteen, and was sixty-seven years of age. In a letter to a friend, he confesses that what really troubled him was the fear of ridicule that a man of his age should take part in the adventure; but he thought, and weighed, and weighed again. His enthusiasm was of the coldest kind, but duty called him and he obeyed. His example influenced many Aberdeen and Banffshire lairds, and he gathered a considerable contingent of horse and foot. It is related that when he was ready to start to join the Prince, and had put himself at the head of his troop, he turned his face upwards and prayed aloud, ‘O Lord, Thou knowest that our cause is just,’ and then quietly gave the order to march.[68]

To understand these Memoirs fully, it is necessary to place them in their historical setting, and to give a brief outline of the military operations during the campaign.

On August 31st the corporation of Aberdeen, thoroughly alarmed at the news of the advance of Prince Charles, determined to put the city into a position of defence. Lists were made of all available citizens, who were embodied into a force of twelve companies of infantry and a detachment of artillery, while arms and ammunition were collected for their equipment. Sir John Cope, who had left Inverness on September 4th, reached Aberdeen on the 11th. Finding guns placed to defend the harbour and citizens fully armed, he commandeered both cannon and small arms, and carried them off, alleging that otherwise they might fall into the enemy’s hands. Cope left Aberdeen by sea for the Firth of Forth on September 15th, the city being left without any defence.

Meantime the Jacobites were not idle. Gordon of Glenbucket, now aged seventy-two, had been bed-ridden for three years, but he no sooner heard of the Prince’s arrival than he experienced ‘a kind of new life.’[69] Although bent nearly double on horseback, he hurried off to the West Highlands, and met Prince Charles at Kinlochmoidart on August 18th. He was back in Banffshire raising men by September 5th.[70] John Hamilton, the Duke of Gordon’s factor in Strathbogie, also quickly raised a contingent, and ten days after Cope’s departure, on September 25th, he marched into Aberdeen, where he proclaimed King James at the Cross, and perpetrated the somewhat ludicrous outrage on the provost and magistrates narrated on page 119. From that time until the last week in February, Aberdeen was under Jacobite government. Men were hurriedly collected; and on October 4th Glenbucket joined Prince Charles at Edinburgh with 400 men from Strathavon and Glenlivet, Hamilton also arrived in the city with 480 from Strathbogie and the Enzie. On the 9th Lord Pitsligo followed with 132 horse and 248 foot.

In the last week of October Lord Lewis Gordon, brother of the Duke of Gordon, a young naval officer who had joined the Prince in Edinburgh, was sent north as Lord-Lieutenant of the counties of Aberdeen and Banff. He found his task harder than he expected, being grossly thwarted by ‘the vile and malicious behaviour of the Prysbiterian ministers.’[71] Towards the end of November, to his intense surprise, his brother, the Duke, instructed his vassals to disregard Lord Lewis’s orders.[72] In spite of discouragement, Lord Lewis worked on. Moir of Lonmay was appointed deputy-governor of Aberdeenshire and Baird of Auchmedden of Banffshire. Three new regiments were raised under Moir of Stonywood (Lonmay’s brother), Gordon of Avochy (Glenbucket’s nephew), and Farquharson of Monaltrie, a cadet of Invercauld; rates and taxes were imposed and collected; and a good deal of hardship was inflicted on the lieges.

After the battle of Prestonpans (September 21st) Lord Loudoun, who there acted as Cope’s adjutant-general, had gone to London, where he received a commission to return to Inverness to command an army of Highlanders friendly to the Government, then being organised by Duncan Forbes of Culloden.

By December Loudoun was able to send an expedition under Munro of Culcairn and Macleod of Macleod to relieve Aberdeen. Lord Lewis Gordon, reinforced by some of the French troops of Lord John Drummond, which had landed in November at Stonehaven, Peterhead, and Montrose, met the invaders at Inverurie on December 23rd. He defeated Macleod completely, and forced him to retire across the Spey, thus freeing Aberdeen and Banff from all enemy troops.

Lord Lewis now collected all his available forces and marched to Stirling to join Prince Charles, who had returned from his English expedition; and by the first week in January 1746 Aberdeen was left without Jacobite troops. The battle of Falkirk was fought on January 17th, and on February 1st the army of Prince Charles began its retreat to the north. One column under Lord George Murray, taking the coast road, marched through Aberdeen and on to Elgin; another proceeded by Glenshee and Braemar, occupying for a time the northern districts of the county; the main body of the Highlanders went by Blair Atholl and Badenoch to Inverness. Two small French contingents landed at Aberdeenshire ports on February 21st and 22nd, but on the 23rd the last of the Jacobite army had left the town of Aberdeen.

Meantime, Cumberland’s army was in full pursuit. It left Perth on February 20th, and the van reached Aberdeen on the 25th, the Duke himself following two days later. The Earl of Albemarle and General Bland, along with Brigadier Mordaunt, occupied Strathbogie, the Jacobites retiring before them. Lord John Drummond was entrusted with the defence of the passage of the Spey, but some troops were left under John Roy Stewart and Major Glascoe to carry on a guerrilla warfare. Glascoe, on March 20th, surprised a detachment of Campbell’s and Kingston’s horse at Keith, and captured nearly the whole garrison.

Hitherto the loyal inhabitants of Aberdeen had murmured at the excesses of the Jacobite troops, but their complaints were more bitter at the excesses of those of the Government.[73] Houses were plundered and burned, the chapels and meeting-houses of Roman Catholics and Episcopalian non-jurors were destroyed, and the inhabitants were more or less terrorised. In the General Order Book of the Duke of Cumberland, an instance is given of the kind of punishment that was meted out. There was a certain loyal schoolmaster in the parish of Glass, who, having learned that John Roy Stewart intended to spring a surprise similar to that at Keith, warned Lord Albemarle of the intention. This warning had the effect of keeping the Government troops on the watch for several nights. No attack was made on them, however, and the General, believing that the intelligence had been given for the purpose of harassing the troops by depriving them of sleep (although in reality he had been saved by the vigilance he had exercised as the result of the schoolmaster’s information), sent the unfortunate informer to headquarters at Aberdeen. The punishment was very severe. In the Order Book, it is stated ‘that Peter Maconachy of Glass, convicted of spreading false intelligence in order to allarm our defence post, to be tied to a cart and whipped and drum’d through the cantoonments of Aberdeen, Old Meldrum, and Strathbogey, with a labell on his breast mentioning his crime. From Strathbogey he is to be turn’d out towards the rebells with orders never to come near where the army may be on pain of being hanged. The woman suspected of inveigling men to list in the French service is to be carried in the same cart.’[74] On April 8th, the Duke of Cumberland left Aberdeen, concentrated his army on Cullen, and crossed the Spey on the 12th, when Lord John Drummond retired before him. Four days later the battle of Culloden was fought.

CAPTAIN DANIEL’S PROGRESS WITH PRINCE CHARLES

This narrative, written by an English officer, who served in Lord Balmerino’s regiment, is occasionally referred to by modern historians of the Jacobite period, but has never been printed. Two manuscripts are known to exist. One, which belongs to an English gentleman, was shown to me by the late Mr. Andrew Lang. It is evidently contemporary, or nearly so, but the spelling is so eccentric that it is exceedingly difficult to read. The second manuscript is preserved at Drummond Castle, and is a certificated copy of the original, but it is written with modern spelling. Both were put at my disposal, but as there was nothing to show that the older version was Daniel’s holograph--indeed the evidence was against it--I preferred to use the Drummond Castle copy. The matter in both was practically identical. Of the writer nothing is known beyond what he tells of himself. Apparently he came from the Fylde country of Lancashire, the district between the Lune and the Ribble, and he was brought up in Jacobite principles.

The narrative is particularly interesting as giving the adventures of an English Jacobite. Daniel, stimulated by the call of conscience, had determined to embrace the cause. He had the good fortune to meet the Duke of Perth when the Prince’s army was near Preston on the march to Derby. The Duke invited him to join, offering him his friendship and patronage. Daniel accepted the offer, and he continued with the army until the end, when he escaped to France in the same ship as the Duke of Perth, whose death he witnessed on the voyage from Arisaig to France in the following May.