Chapter II: Macleod 294 (3)

In London Traquair did nothing. He never wrote to the party in Scotland, and he brought back nothing but the names of the English leaders, the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Orrery, Lord Barrymore, Sir John Hinde Cotton, and Sir Watkin Williams Wynne. When Murray, in turning informer, divulged these names, except that of Beaufort, he told Government nothing which every man who cared did not know. But the English were thrown ‘into a mortal fright,’ as Balhaldie found so late as 1749. They were always in a mortal fright, always insisted that their Scottish allies should not even know who they were. Thus concerted movements were made impossible. Murray was dashed by the discovery that the English party was a mere set of five or six _nominum umbræ_. Doubtless there were plenty of Squire Westerns, who were ready to drink healths.

Were our glasses turned into swords,
Or our actions half as great as our words,
Were our enemies turned to quarts,
How nobly we should play our parts.
The least that we would do, each man should kill his two,
Without the help of France or Spain,
The Whigs should run a tilt, and their dearest blood be spilt,
And the King should enjoy his own again![36]

There may have been more serious intentions. In a Devonshire house I saw, once, a fine portrait of James III., and learned that the great-grandfather of the owner had burned compromising papers. Such papers of English Jacobites, if any existed, seem always to have been destroyed.

Traquair had done nothing; from Barrymore he got a promise of 10,000_l._, from the rich Welsh baronet he got only excuses. Lovat, according to Murray, said, in the Tower, that Beaufort had promised to raise 12,000 men, ‘whereby he exposed before the warders a nobleman to the resentment of Government whom I had been at great pains to represent ... as no ways privy to or concerned in our scheme.’

The year 1743 ended, and at its close (December 23) James announced to Ormonde and to the Earl Marischal the French King’s resolution to help him. Balhaldie brought the Prince to France, early in 1744. Nothing was done, nothing was concerted. An attempt to engage the Cameronians, through Kenmure and Sir Thomas Gordon of Earlstoun, was a predestined failure. After Midsummer, 1744, Murray determined to visit France, watch Balhaldie, and see the Prince. He casually discovered that a Mr. Cockburn left the Jacobite cypher lying loose on his window seat, or under a dictionary! These were pretty characters to manage a conspiracy; but we have seen equal stupidity in ‘Jameson’s Raid.’ In London Murray saw Dr. Barry, whom he later betrayed, as far as in him lay. He crossed to Flanders, and met Balhaldie gambling in the Sun tavern at Rotterdam. Balhaldie vapoured about buying arms, though ‘he had not credit for a _louis d’or_,’ and bragged about the travelling chaise (the Prince’s famous _chese_) which he had designed for his Royal Highness. Not to pursue these chicaneries, Murray exposed Balhaldie and Sempil to Charles, whom he met secretly behind the stables of the Tuileries. The Prince took it very coolly, without loss of temper or excitement, but announced his intention to visit Scotland next summer (1745) if he came with a single servant. Murray replied that his arrival would ever be welcome, ‘but I hoped it would not be without a body of troops.’ Murray then pointed out that, in such an adventure, ‘he could not positively depend on more than 4,000 Highlanders, _if so many_,’ and that even these would infinitely regret the measure.

Murray has been accused, by Maxwell of Kirkconnell, of putting Charles upon this enterprise. In fact, his error lay in not formally and explicitly warning the Prince from the first. Later he did send warning letters, but Traquair did not try to deliver them, and Young Glengarry failed in the attempt.

The result of Murray’s disclosures, and of a written Memorial which he sent in, was to undeceive Charles as to Sempil and Balhaldie. His letters to James are proofs of this, and now the split in the party was incurable. Murray went to and fro, undermining Balhaldie. Balhaldie, at the end of 1744, sent Young Glengarry from France, to work against Murray on the mind of Lochiel. That chief brought the two future traitors, Glengarry and Murray, together, and the Celt came into the Lowlander’s bad opinion of Balhaldie. This was early in 1745. Murray now made the mistake of trying to pin men to a declaration, in writing, that they would join Charles, even if he came alone. His duty was to discourage any such enterprise, which, unaided by France, could only mean ruin. On the other hand, he actually engaged Macleod, the chief of the Skye men. With Stewart of Appin, Macleod chanced to be in Edinburgh. Murray gave him a letter from Charles, and described the character of that Prince. ‘Macleod declared, in a kind of rapture, that he would make it his business to advance his interest as much as was in his power, and would join him, let him come when he would.’ This occurred at a meeting in a tavern attended by the persons already mentioned, with Traquair, Glengarry, and Lochiel. Of these men, Appin did not come out, Traquair skulked, Macleod turned his coat, Glengarry became a spy, Murray was Murray, and only Lochiel saved his honour. Next day, by Murray’s desire, Lochiel extracted from Macleod a written promise to raise his clan, even if Charles came unaided and alone.

How Macleod kept his promise we know. He sent his forces to join Loudon’s detachment in Hanoverian service; the whole array was frightened back in an attempt to surprise and capture Charles. They all ran like hares from the blacksmith of Moy, with one or two gardeners and other retainers of Lady Mackintosh, and the only man slain was Macrimmon, Macleod’s piper, the composer of the prophetic lament, ‘Macleod shall return, but Macrimmon shall never!’ Murray comments with great severity on Macleod’s treason, and, in his promise, and that of others, finds justification for Charles’s adventure, and an answer to the question, ‘Why he made an attempt of such consequence with so small a force?’ All this leaves Murray in a quandary.... To send such promises (as he did) was to encourage Charles in a desperate project. To be sure Murray, later, did attempt to stop Charles; but he should never have sent him these signed encouragements, both from Macleod and Stewart of Appin. But Murray, he says, now changed his mind; he made out a journal of all his proceedings, showing Charles (most inconsistently) that all the party, except the Duke of Perth, ‘were unanimous against his coming without a force.’ These papers Murray entrusted, for Charles, to Traquair, who was going to England, and meant to proceed to France, using this very singular expression, ‘that he would see the Prince, _though in a bawdy house_. The present Earl of Weymss and Laird of Glengarry [Pickle] can vouch this. The latter has since repeated it to me in my house in London.’

Traquair now went to London, but he never went to France, nor did he transmit the warning to Charles. Meanwhile Murray extracted 1,500_l._ from the new Duke of Hamilton (a new fact), and the Duke of Perth paid an equal sum, and even offered to mortgage his estate. Hamilton also gave a verbal promise to join Charles ‘with all the forces he could raise.’ Murray again wrote to Charles, saying that he must bring at least 6,000 men. Perth, Elcho, and Lochiel signed this letter. This letter was sent by one John Macnaughten. Did it ever arrive? In the Stuart Papers is a letter signed ‘J. Barclay,’ and undated. It is clearly from Murray to Charles, and announces the journal entrusted to Traquair, but contains no warning.[37]

In a letter of March 14, 1745, to James, Charles refers to this letter announcing the journal and other despatches, which had not arrived—as Traquair never sent them. On April 9, Charles appears to refer to Macnaughten’s budget of letters as not yet deciphered.[38]

From London Traquair sent only a note of doubtful and, at best, of insignificant meaning. Nothing whatever was settled or arranged. Then came Sir Hector, chief of the Macleans, to Scotland, where he was arrested. Now, Murray reflected that the epistle sent by Macnaughten ‘contained rather a wish than an advice, and might not be sufficient to prevent the Prince’s coming.’ Murray therefore sent, as a final warning, that set of papers which Traquair had not forwarded, entrusting it to Young Glengarry, at the end of May 1745. But Glengarry did not succeed in seeing Charles, who was thus left without warning not to come. Perhaps no warning would have stopped him; at all events he received none, and the die was cast. The Prince embarked on June 22.

Murray’s whole book is one of self-justification. He may clear himself of having suggested the unaided enterprise to Charles. But, partly through the frivolity of Traquair, partly through the zeal of Murray, Charles was left without decisive admonition. He saw his party distracted: for a year and a half France had treated him ‘scandalously’ (as even the patient James averred), and he determined to force the hands both of France and the Jacobites. He pawned the Sobieski rubies—‘the Prince would wear them with a very sore heart on this side of the water’—he put his life to the hazard. If ever an attempt was to be made at all, Charles did well. England was empty of troops. A success or two, the Prince reckoned, must unite the distracted party on the one hand, and tempt or compel France to action on the other. His motto was _de l’audace_! If all men had been Lochiels, if the Duke of Hamilton, Macleod, Traquair, Lovat, Beaufort, Barrymore, Orrery, and the rest, had honour and truth, if France had such a thing as a policy, and could seize an opportunity, Charles would have won the Crown. But many men are not Lochiels, and, if France had a policy, it was not to restore the Stuarts, but to use them as a mere diversion.

By the end of May Macnaughten returned, with news that Charles would be in Scotland by July. This caused Murray much chagrin, but he at once warned Perth, Lochiel, and Macleod. To the Duke of Hamilton he gave the Prince’s commission, ‘which he accepted with great cheerfulness.’ Murray then went to Lochiel, who remarked that every man of honour was bound to rise, and who quite trusted Lovat and Macleod. He leaned on broken reeds. Lovat temporised, Macleod turned his coat. Here Murray’s MS. breaks off, and he continues the history of the Rising ‘from Moidart to Derby.’

The military part of Murray’s ‘Memorials’ is full of reflections on Charles’s ‘unparalleled good nature and humanity,’ and his strategic skill. Murray had desired to be an aide-de-camp: he clearly thinks himself a good judge of warfare. He was obliged to be Secretary, but did not covet that office. He, alone, had any previous personal knowledge of Charles, with whom he was such a favourite as to excite the jealousy of Lord George Murray and of Maxwell of Kirkconnell. These jealousies were of perilous consequence. Maxwell, writing after Murray was the most detested man on earth, charges heavily against him: ‘He began by representing Lord George as a traitor to the Prince; he assured him that he had joined on purpose to have an opportunity of delivering him up to Government.’ Lord George heard of this, and was deeply affected. Prestonpans nearly opened Charles’s eyes, but Lord George’s ‘haughty and overbearing manner prevented a thorough reconciliation, and seconded the malicious insinuations of his rival.... He now and then broke into such violent sallies as the Prince could not digest....’

Now the loyalty of Lord George is beyond all shadow of suspicion. Till his death, in 1760, he was the faithful and devoted subject of King James. Even Murray, in his MSS., does not breathe a word against him. But, if Murray did, at first, conceive suspicions, and suggest precautions, it is impossible to blame him. What was Lord George’s position? He had been out, at Glenshiel, in 1719, with his brother, Tullibardine. He was pardoned, and was residing in Scotland. He never appears as a Jacobite in the negotiations of 1740-45. His brother William, who, but for his steady Jacobitism, would have been Duke of Atholl, came over with Charles. The actual Duke, _de facto_, Lord George’s brother James, deserted Blair Atholl on the approach of the Highlanders, and went to London. Tullibardine (William) assumed the title of Duke, and occupied Blair. Lord George also joined the Prince. But Murray had to ask himself, was Lord George in earnest? Murray knew the treachery of the times, and had employed James Mohr Macgregor, known to be a Hanoverian spy, to beguile Cope and the Lord Chief Justice. Was Lord George, Murray would think, playing James Mohr’s part on the other side?

Murray had reason for suspicion. As late as August 20, 1745, after the standard was raised at Glenfinnan, Lord George wrote to the Lord Advocate from Dunkeld. He announced that, on the following day, he and Old Glengarry would wait on Cope at Crieff. Cope was marching North to fight the Prince. Lord George talked of ‘the Pretender,’ and sent information. He _did_ wait on Cope. As late as September 1, he was corresponding with his Hanoverian brother, Duke James, but, on September 3, he announced to his brother that he was about to join the Prince. ‘Duty to King and Country overweighs everything.’[39]

As a matter of fact, Lord George simply, if rather suddenly, changed his mind, engaging, like Lord Pitsligo, ‘without enthusiasm,’ and it seems without hope. He thought that honour called him. But to Murray Lord George’s conduct in first colloguing with Cope, and then rallying to Charles, must have seemed suspicious. It _was_ suspicious: to Cope it must have appeared the blackest treason. ‘Lord George,’ Murray would say, ‘is betraying somebody; now, whom is he betraying?’

A curious piece of gossip has lately come to light. It was said that one of the Highland army, in England, had a squabble with a wayfaring man, and broke his staff, in which was found a letter from the Whig brother Duke James, to Lord George, suggesting that, in a battle, he should desert, carrying over the Atholl men. Probably the story is false, and based on the sending _to_ Duke James of letters, by one of his servants, concealed in the shank of a whip. In any case, Lord George was never really reconciled to Murray, and Charles (after Lord George counselled retreat at Derby, retreat at Stirling, and the abandonment of the surprise at Nairn) never trusted, never forgave him, wished to imprison him in France, and shut his door against him. James in vain remonstrated, Charles was implacable.

At Carlisle, on the march southwards, there was a great quarrel. Lord George resigned his commission, offering to serve as a volunteer. Charles accepted the resignation. The Duke of Perth was acting as commander-in-chief. He was a Catholic, and Lord George deemed that this would have an ill effect, besides he himself was a much senior and infinitely more experienced officer. Lord George also urged that Murray ‘took everything upon him, both as to civil and military.’ The Duke of Perth then resigned his command, apparently on the advice of Maxwell of Kirkconnell, who praises his magnanimity. Murray also, he himself tells us, withdrew from the councils of war, ‘which seemed to quiet Lord George a good deal.’ Lord George became general in chief, and distinguished himself by skill and personal bravery. But the quarrel was never reconciled. Unluckily Murray gives no account of the decision to retreat from Derby. Then no more councils were held, and ‘little people’ (that is, Murray) were allowed to advise: till Lord George and the chiefs sent in a remonstrance.

Murray breaks off in his narrative at Derby, and does not resume it till after Culloden. He had fallen ill at Elgin, in March 1746, where Charles also had a severe attack of pneumonia.[40]

Murray was carried across country to Mrs. Grant’s house in Glenmoriston. Everything fell into worse confusion after his departure, his successor, John Hay of Restalrig, being incompetent. At Glenmoriston Murray heard from Archibald Cameron of the defeat at Culloden. In the shape of a letter from a friend of Mr. Murray of Broughton, he describes and justifies his own conduct after ‘the wicked day of destiny.’

It is, perhaps, less easy to justify the conduct of his master. The irredeemable point in Charles’s behaviour in Scotland was his withdrawal from the remnant of his army, which met at Ruthven. There is much obscurity as to the details, as to whether a place of rendezvous had been fixed upon or not. But Charles knew where the army and officers were; he received a scolding letter from Lord George, and he declined to return to the forces. His distrust of Lord George had revived; he knew that there were men who would not scruple to win their pardon by betraying him, and, with Sheridan, O’Sullivan, O’Niel, and others, he made for the islands.

Murray, after news came of the defeat, was carried to Fort Augustus, and thence to Lochgarry’s house. Hoping even yet to rally a force, he met the wounded and outworn Duke of Perth at Invergarry, to no result. He then was carried to Lochiel’s country, and Lochiel determined to wage a guerilla war in the hills, expecting French assistance. Murray sent Archy Cameron to Arisaig to get news of Charles, but Archy learned from Hay of Restalrig that the Prince had already taken boat for the Isles. Archy disbelieved Hay, but Charles had really gone, or was on the very point of going (April 26). Certain news reached Murray and Lochiel; the chief determined to remain with his clan, on a point of honour, and Murray stood by Lochiel, as also did Major Kennedy. They could have fled in the French vessels which landed the gold of the fatal treasure, but they were resolute to stand by each other.[41] Those who departed were the dying Duke of Perth, a sacrifice to his own chivalrous devotion: Lord Elcho, who presently tried to gain his pardon; old Sir Thomas Sheridan, who soon afterwards died, heart-broken, at Rome; Lord John Drummond, Lockhart of Carnwath, and Hay of Restalrig.

Murray now arranged for the burial of the French gold, and then Glenbucket, with the poet-soldier John Roy Stewart, Clanranald, Lochgarry, Barisdale, Young Scotus, and Lovat, held a council. Lovat proposed holding out in the hills, and promised the aid of his son, Simon, and 400 Frazers. Murray suspected the old fox, and proposed that all should sign a ‘band’ of mutual fidelity. Lovat would not sign!

The allies were to rendezvous in ten days at Loch Arkaig, and, later, the meeting was deferred for another week. But the Master of Lovat ‘was never so much as heard of’ at the tryst; Lochgarry brought but 100 men, and Murray accuses him of treacherous intentions, this on the suggestion of Barisdale. Now Lochgarry left, and did not return, nor did his sentinels bring in news of an approaching English force. Of all this Lochgarry says nothing in his report to Young Glengarry, published by Mr. Blaikie. But, as we know with absolute certainty that Barisdale was an infamous coward, liar, and traitor, while Lochgarry was loyal to his death, we need not accept Barisdale’s evidence against a cousin whom he detested. However it happened, no news came from Lochgarry, and, if Murray himself had not sent out scouts, the whole party, with Lochiel, would have been taken near Loch Arkaig.[42]

The game being now up, Murray made his way South, in exceedingly bad health, aggravated by exposure and fatigue. His idea was to get a ship on the East Coast, where Lochiel would join him, and to escape. But Murray was captured, through information given by a herd-boy, at the house of his sister, Mrs. Hunter of Polmood. He certainly did not intend to be captured, and he says that, even after he was taken, he tried to arrange about a ship for Lochiel. He also vindicates the conduct of his wife, who was about to bear a child, and he justifies his honesty in money matters. Now in money matters Murray’s hands were clean, and there is no real ground for the charges against poor Mrs. Murray. But what Murray does not say, is that, as soon as he was approached, after his capture, by the Lord Justice Clerk, he promised ‘to discover all he knew.’[43] He did not tell _all_ he knew, but on August 13, being examined in the Tower, he told a great deal. About Traquair he spoke out: he named the English Jacobite leaders, he told his tale about Macleod in the tavern meeting, he sheltered Macdonald of Sleat, and even screened Lovat as far as he dared: in fact, he took revenge on half-hearted Jacobites, and, for some reason, did his best to hang Sir John Douglas. He sent in an account of the Clans, in substance much like that in the MS. of 1750.[44] He betrayed the secret of the Loch Arkaig treasure, and asked to be allowed to go to the spot, and point it out to the agents of Government. In reply to Murray, Traquair and Dr. Barry lied firmly, under examination, and Sir John Douglas refused to answer any questions. They suffered imprisonment, but escaped with life for lack of corroboration. Some legal jugglery was needed before Murray could be accepted as King’s Evidence, but the trick was played, and the Laird of Broughton publicly ‘peached’ at Lovat’s trial. He declares that he peached with economy. ‘The utmost care was taken to conceal everything that was not known by his own letters, of which he was so sensible that he sent me thanks by Mr. Fowler (Gentleman Gaoler of the Tower), for my forbearance, and said he was not the least hurt or offended by anything I had said.’

Such are Murray’s excuses. He could have told more, and Lovat might have died without his testimony, on the evidence of various Frazers. Murray was pardoned in June 1748. He tried to provoke Traquair to a duel and vapoured with cloak and sword behind Montague House. He associated with Young Glengarry, whom he very probably thought an honest man, and his visits a privilege. Glengarry doubtless got from Murray information about the Loch Arkaig treasure, and, perhaps, picked up a few crumbs of intelligence for his employers. His wife had not left Murray, in 1749, when he reconciled his lady to the loss of her repeater, pawned by a priest named Leslie for the relief of Young Glengarry, who was starving.[45] When Mrs. Murray left her intolerable lord is not exactly known, nor is anything certain about her later fortunes. In May 1749, Stonor tells Edgar that Murray’s ‘late actions have not only the appearance of a knave but a madman, and it is the opinion of most people he is really also the latter, several of his family having been disordered in their senses, and his present situation sufficient to cause it in him, as he can’t but feel the sting of such a conscience, finds himself the outcast of mankind, and _is in circumstances extremely indigent_.’ It follows that he did not keep the money buried in the garden of Menzies of Culdares, some 4,000_l._[46] Traquair had Murray arrested by a warrant of the Lord Chief Justice, for provoking a breach of the peace.[47]

In 1764, Murray sold Broughton. His agent was Sir Walter Scott’s father, and, as we all know, Mr. Scott threw the cup from which Murray had drunk out of the window. The younger Dumas, probably by a chance coincidence, uses this in his play, ‘L’Étrangère.’ After selling Broughton, Murray is said to have lived in London, and family tradition avers that he was visited by Charles, whom he introduced to his little boy as ‘your _King_.’ This ought, then, to be dated 1766, or later. Murray is said to have justified Stonor’s letter, already cited, by dying in a madhouse, on December 6, 1777. He was sane enough, certainly, when he wrote his ‘Memorials.’ Such was Murray of Broughton, in spite of his treachery a devoted believer in the Cause; till his capture, a brave, loyal, and constant supporter of the Cause; a man by nature honourable, and a lover of honour in others, as in Lochiel and the Duke of Perth. He sinned, when he did sin, in violation of every tradition of education, and, in turning Informer, wrenched every fibre of his moral nature. His servant, a poet of the time remarks, set his master an example.

Behold, the menial hand that broke your bread,
That wiped your shoes, and with your crumbs was fed,
When life and riches, proffered to his view,
Before his eyes the strong temptation threw,
Rather than quit integrity of heart,
Or act, like you, th’unmanly traytor’s part,
Disdains the purchase of a worthless life,
And bares his bosom to the butcher’s knife.

But Murray renounced honour and lingered on the scene.

And whither, whither, can the guilty fly
From the devouring worms that never die?

‘Lead us not into temptation.’ The view of death brought Murray face to face with a self in his breast, which, it is probable, he had never known to exist: that awful contradictory self to which each of us has yielded, though few in such extremity of surrender.

IV

MADEMOISELLE LUCI

In ‘Pickle the Spy’ mention was frequently made of ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ the mysterious young lady who, from 1749 to her death in 1752, was the French Egeria of Prince Charles. An exile, without a roof to cover his head in any land but the States of the Pope, to which he declined to go, the Prince was sheltered in the Parisian convent of St. Joseph by Mlle. Luci and the lady styled _La Grande Main_ in the cypher of the Prince’s correspondence. By dint of some research, I discovered that Mlle. Luci was Mlle. Ferrand, while La Grande Main was her devoted friend, Madame de Vassé. Both were very intimate with a person always alluded to in the Prince’s correspondence as _le philosophe_. As Montesquieu lived in the same street (the Rue Dominique) as these ladies (who directed the Prince’s philosophical studies), as he was on friendly terms with Charles, Lord Elibank, Bulkeley, and other Jacobites, I concluded that the _philosophe_ of the correspondence was probably the author of ‘L’Esprit des Lois.’ This was a blunder which criticism should have detected. The _philosophe_ was not Montesquieu, but the Abbé Condillac. The proof is in the preliminary chapter of his ‘Traité des Sensations;’ he there dedicates that important psychological work to Madame de Vassé, and deplores the death of their beloved Mlle. Ferrand. Condillac, clearly, was their friend, _le philosophe_. Mlle. Ferrand, it seems, was the instructor of Condillac, as well as the protector and literary adviser of Prince Charles.

‘You know, Madame,’ says Condillac to Madame de Vassé, ‘to whom I owe the light which at length scattered my prejudices. You know what part she had in this book, that lady so justly dear to you, so worthy of your friendship and esteem. I consecrate my work to her memory, and I address you that I may share the pleasure of speaking about her and the pain of our common sorrow. May this book be the monument of your friendship, and preserve it unforgotten.’

A volume on the relations of sense and thought, like Condillac’s, is not the place to which one naturally turns in search of information about a girl who loyally served a proscribed Prince and a forsaken Cause. Yet it is Condillac who attests for us ‘the keenness, the just balance, of Mlle. Ferrand’s intellect, and the vivacity of her imagination, qualities apparently incompatible, when carried to the pitch at which she displayed them.’

The scheme of Condillac’s psychology cannot be discussed in this place, but he says that he owed everything to Prince Charles’s friend. ‘She enlightened me as to the principles, the plan, and the most minute details, and I ought to be the more grateful, as she had no idea of instructing me, or of making a book. She did not remark that she was becoming an author, having no design beyond that of conversing with me on the topics in which I was interested.... Had she taken up the pen, this work would be a better proof of her genius. But there was in her a delicacy which forbade her even to contemplate authorship.... This treatise is, unhappily, but the result of conversations with her, and I fear that I may have sometimes failed to place her ideas in their true light.’

Had Mlle. Ferrand survived, Condillac thinks that she would not have allowed him to acknowledge her influence on his work. ‘But how can I, to-day, deny myself the pleasure of this act of justice? Nothing but this remains to me, in our loss of a wise adviser, an enlightened critic, and a true friend. You, Madame, will share the pleasure with me, you who will not cease to regret her while you live.’ The philosopher speaks of ‘the intellect, the loyalty, the courage, which formed these ladies for each other.’ Loyalty, courage, wit, these women laid them at the feet of a Prince not their own, and solely recommended to their tenderness by his misfortunes.

‘Your friend, in dying, had this one consolation, Madame, that she was not to survive you. I have seen her happy in this reflection. “Speak sometimes of me with Madame de Vassé,” she said to me, “and let it be with a kind of pleasure.”’ Such was the girl, so brilliantly endowed, so brave, so affectionate, who did Prince Charles’s marketing, bought him novels and razors, directed his choice of books, was the channel through which his secret correspondence passed, was jealously regarded by his mistress, Madame de Talmond, and died before the end of all hope had come, before the Prince was renounced even by his own. To the angry Madame de Talmond she wrote, ‘I am strongly attached to your friend [the Prince] and for him would do and suffer anything short of stooping to an act of baseness.’

There must have been something in Charles, beyond his misfortunes, to win so much devotion from a woman of the highest intellect.

Mlle. Ferrand died, after a long illness, in October 1752. Her memory is preserved only by a note in Grimm’s correspondence, by the touching tribute of Condillac, and by the discovery of her kindness to a proscribed Prince. While she protected and advised him, she was inspiring a renowned philosopher, and keeping a secret which every diplomatist in Europe was eager to learn. We naturally desire to know whether Mlle. Ferrand was beautiful as well as talented and kind. But researches in France have not brought to light any portrait either of Mlle. Ferrand, or of Madame de Vassé, who long survived her friend, and was in correspondence, about 1760, with the Earl Marischal.[48]

V

THE ROMANCE OF BARISDALE

While the Lowlanders, for nearly fifteen hundred years, had cast on Highland robbers the eyes of hatred and contempt, Sir Walter Scott suddenly taught men to think a cateran a very fine fellow. The unanimity of a non-Highland testimony had previously been wonderful. ‘The Highlanders are great thieves,’ says Dio Cassius, speaking for civilisation as early as A.D. 200-230. Gildas, in the sixth century, calls the Highlanders (Picti) ‘a set of bloody free booters, with more hair on their thieves’ faces than clothes to cover their nakedness.’ Early mediæval writers talk of the _bestiales Picts_ (‘the beastly Picts’), and later Lowland opinions to a similar effect are too familiar for quotation. To Scott was left the discovery of the virtues of the honest cateran, who looked on cattle-stealing as an ennobling occupation in the intervals of war.

Sir Walter’s opinion ran through Europe like the Fiery Cross. His grandson, Hugh Littlejohn, stirred up by the ‘Tales of a Grandfather,’ dirked his small brother slightly with a pair of scissors in a childish enthusiasm! Even the moral Wordsworth, moved by Scott, had a good word for Rob Roy. Yet about that hero Sir Walter cherished no illusions. He knew Rob’s Letter of Submission to General Wade, after 1715. Rob, of course, had been out for King James, but he coolly says to Wade: ‘I not only avoided acting offensively against his Majesty’s’ (King George’s) ‘forces, but, on the contrary, sent His Grace the Duke of Argyle all the intelligence I could from time to time of the strength and situation of the Rebels; which I hope his Grace will do me the justice to acknowledge.’

‘All the _demerits_ ascribed to him by his enemies are less to his discredit than this one _merit_ which he assumes to himself,’ says Jamieson.[49] The double-faced traitor, Rob’s son, James Mohr, one of the bravest of men, _chassa de race_. The truth is that a life of plunder, however romantic and however little regarded as immoral or degrading by Highland opinion, really did foster, in educated men, the most astonishing perfidy. This is the last vice we look for in the generous cateran; and, indeed, the outlaws of Glen Moriston were as loyal to their Prince as Lochiel. But the prevalent opinion that robbery, sanctioned by tradition, does not degrade the general character, can be proved to be an error. We read about Cluny that, in 1742-5, he held the usual belief. ‘He was certain it’ (the habit of robbery) ‘proceeded only from the remains of barbarism, for he had many convincing proofs that in other respects the dispositions of the people in these parts were generally as benevolent, humane, and even generous, as those of any country whatever.’[50]

Cluny was right about the untutored mass of the people, but he was wrong about a few educated chiefs, who encouraged and lived on an unfortunate tradition. Thus Sir Walter Scott writes about the thief whose history we are to narrate, Macdonnell of Barisdale: ‘He was a scholar and well-bred gentleman. He engraved on his broadswords the well-known lines:

Hae tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.’[51]

Barisdale knew what was right; his following knew only his will. He was the blackest of traitors; they were true as steel.

The specially robber tribes in 1715-45 were those of the dispossessed Macgregors, whose hand was, necessarily, against every man’s hand; of the Macdonnells in Knoydart; and of some of the Camerons in Lochaber and Rannoch. Old Lovat, too, discouraging schools, kept up sedulously the ancient clan ideas. No other sections of the Highlanders are accused, even by Whigs, of robbery. Mackays, Mackenzies, Grants, Mackintoshes, Macphersons, Macleans are not blamed, and such gentlemen of the Camerons and Macdonnells as Lochiel, Scothouse, and Keppoch are specially exculpated. Lochiel was a reformer within his clan. The gallant Keppoch had forsworn the predatory habits which, in 1689, made his people threaten Inverness. Of Scothouse we shall hear the most excellent report. Now, it cannot be by a mere fortuitous coincidence that all the Highland traitors, James Mohr, Old Lovat, Glengarry, Barisdale, and some others, come precisely from the homes of cattle thieves, and from a factitious hothouse of old clan ideas; from the Macgregor country, Knoydart, the worst part of Lochaber, and Rannoch. Yet, so strange was the condition of the North, that we find Barisdale, the meanest wretch of all, recognised as an acquaintance by so high a Lowland dame as the ‘Great Lady of the Cat,’ the Countess of Sutherland.

We now proceed to the story of the chief who loved a Virgilian quotation.

In the army of Charles Edward there was no man more detested and feared than Col Macdonell of Barisdale. According to a curious tract, ‘The Life of Archibald Macdonell of Barisdale, who is to Suffer for High Treason on the Twenty Second of May, at Edinburgh, By an Impartial Hand,’[52] Col of Barisdale was son (? grandson) of the second brother of Alastair Dubh Macdonnell of Glengarry, the hero of Sheriffmuir, being thus a cousin of Glengarry. He was a man of prodigious muscular force, six feet four inches in height. He is said to have caught and held a roedeer; and, on one occasion, to have heaved a recalcitrant cow, probably stolen property, into a boat. There lay, in the present century, on the gravel-drive before Invergarry House, a large boulder, and beside it a short pin of iron was fixed into the ground. Only a very powerful man could lift the boulder on to the pin, a few inches in height, but Barisdale could heave it up to his knees. So write, from tradition, the two ‘Stuarts d’Albanie,’ in ‘Tales of the Century’ (1847). They add that Barisdale’s courage did not match his strength, and that he yielded in single combat to Cluny.

Returning to our ‘Impartial Hand’ (by his minute local knowledge a native of Ross or Moray), we find him nowise partial to Barisdale. ‘Colonel Ban,’ as he calls him, married a Miss Mackenzie of Fairburn, and, having a small estate in Ross-shire, could raise two hundred of the clan. He thus, says Murray of Broughton, declared himself independent of Glengarry, his chief, an indolent drunkard. Being acquainted with the Mackenzie estates, he used his knowledge in the surreptitious acquisition of cattle. He would then throw the blame on the Camerons; and that, says our author, is precisely the cause of the bad name for cattle-stealing which the Camerons have unhappily acquired. One day Barisdale, with his Tail, met Cameron of Taask, with _his_ Tail, and was charged by Cameron with his misdeeds. Words grew high, claymores were drawn, and a finger of Cameron’s left hand was nearly lopped off. The intrepid chieftain, acting on the Scotch proverb, ‘Better a finger off than aye wagging,’ tore the injured limb from his hand, bound the wound with a handkerchief, ‘and so fell to work on Barisdale,’ whom he sliced on the pate. ‘The skin and a lock of his hair hung down,’ and their devoted tenants, anxious observers of the fray, separated the infuriated chieftains. Barisdale was presently arrested on a charge of theft, but his Tail perjured themselves manfully, and he got off on an alibi.

The neighbours, finding the hero so stubborn, paid him ‘black meal’ (_sic_), in return for which he promised to protect their herds. But his genius pointed out to him a more excellent way, and Barisdale became the Jonathan Wild (as Waverley says) of Lochaber and Knoydart. He was a thief-catcher, and also an accomplice of thieves, as interest directed or passion prompted.[53] He kept his tenantry, or gang, in rare order, and ‘had machines for putting them to different sorts of punishment.’ One machine was merely the stocks, where, outside of the chieftain’s drawing-room windows (which commanded a fine view of the sea), many a poor thief sat for twenty-four hours, with food temptingly placed just out of his reach. Thus Barisdale struck terror, inspired respect, and accumulated wealth.

A more cruel engine than the stocks had Barisdale, a triumph of his own invention. In ‘The Lyon in Mourning,’ Mackinnon, who helped Prince Charles to escape from Skye, says that Captain Fergusson (noted for his ferocity) threatened him with torture. ‘The cat or _Barisdale_ shall make you speak,’ said the Captain. The engine is described as one in which no man could live for an hour. The Impartial Hand’ gives this account of it: ‘The supposed criminal’ (that is, any man who would not give Barisdale a share of his booty) ‘was tied to an iron machine, where a ring grasped his feet, and another closed upon his neck, and his hands were received into eyes of iron contrived for that purpose. He had a great weight upon the back of his neck, to which, if he yielded in the least, by shrinking downwards, a sharp spike would infallibly run into his chin, which was kept bare for that very purpose.’ Barisdale was also apt to waylay herring-fishers, and make them pay, as toll, a fifth of what they had captured, alleging certain seignorial rights.

‘It is well known,’ says the author of 1754, ‘that, from the month of March to the middle of August, some poor upon the coast have nothing but shell-fish, such as mussels, cockles, and the like, to support them. Poverty reigns so much among the lower class that scarce a smile is to be seen upon their faces.’ Barisdale also reigned upon the coast.

Such was life in the Highlands in the golden days of the Clans, before sheep, Lowlanders, evictions, emigration, and deer forests brought, as we are told, discontent and destitution. The poor lived on mussels and cockles, some tenants eked out a scanty livelihood by stealing their neighbours’ cows, and the genial Barisdale kept all in good order. For Barisdale’s prowess we are not obliged to rely on the ‘Impartial Hand’ and the Gartmore MS. alone. In ‘The Highlands of Scotland: a Letter from a Gentleman at Edinburgh to a Friend in London,’ we meet our Col again. This manuscript[54] is in the King’s Collection, 104, in the British Museum. The author is an _enragé_ Whig and Protestant, but a close observer. From him we learn how cattle-stealing paid; for at first blush it looks like the practice of those fabled islanders ‘who eke out a livelihood by taking in each other’s washing.’ The business was extended over a wide area; the Macdonells did not merely harry the Mackenzies and Rosses.

Speaking of Knoydart, our author says: ‘Coll. Macdonell of Barisdale, cousin-german of Glengarry, took up his residence here, as a place of undoubted security from all legal prosecution. He entered into a confederacy with Lochgarry and the Camerons of Loch Arkaig, with some others as great villains in Rannoch. This famous Company had the honour to introduce theft into a regular trade; they kept a number of savages dependent on them for the purpose, whom they out-hounded’ on predatory expeditions.

They robbed from Sutherlandshire to Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and Argyle. When the thieves were successful these gentlemen had a dividend of the spoil. When unsuccessful, the thieves lived on the country which they traversed. To denounce them was ill work. A gentleman, known to our author, was nearly ruined by Barisdale & Co. He caught two of the Macdonalds, who were hanged. Fifteen years later his son, going to Fort William, vanished. The tribe, says our author, demanded ‘blood for blood.’

By these devices Barisdale compelled his neighbours to pay, in blackmail, ‘above double their proportion of the land-tax in Seaforth’s, Lovat’s, and Chisholme’s country.’ He captained a kind of ‘Watch.’ But Barisdale’s ‘Watch’ was expensive and unsatisfactory to his subscribers. As early as 1742 we have found Cluny setting up an opposition in business. Cluny’s Watch is described at great length by the author of a kind of memoir of the chief, written in France in 1755-1760. The writer’s object is to show how much Cluny lost by his loyalty to the Stuarts, and how much he deserves the encouragement of Louis XV. He established, for the discouragement of theft, ‘a watch or safeguard of his own trusted followers.’ The nobility and gentry ‘were surpris’d at Cluny’s success, and enveyed so much his happiness, that they applyed to him with one accord, to take them under his protection, and cheerfully offered to join in a voluntary subscription....’ Among the subscribers are the Duke of Gordon, the Earl of Airlie, the Earl of Aberdeen, Forbes of Culloden, the Mackintosh, Grant of Grant, and even the Duke of Argyll. These facts attest the extent of Barisdale’s raids.

Cluny was highly successful, rescuing ‘even those who had never applyed to him.’ The subscriptions amounted to 20,000 livres, and the Dukes of Atholl and Perth, with Seaforth, were about to join. It was now that a preacher, thundering against theft, was interrupted by a listener who ‘desired him to save his labour upon that point, for Mons. de Cluny alone would gain more souls to heaven in one year, than all the priests in the highlands could ever do in fifty.’

The English Ministry, hearing of Cluny’s fame, now sent him, unasked, a captain’s commission in Loudon’s regiment, worth 6,000 livres yearly. But he threw up his new commission when he joined Prince Charles. Cluny’s spirited behaviour, says MS. 104, ‘took the bread out of their mouths,’ the mouths of Barisdale & Co. But ‘Barisdale, by the former trade (theft) and the latter expedient (blackmail), lived at a very high rate, and mortgaged a large sum of money on Glengarry’s estate,’ where he was a wadsetter.

Cluny’s opposition may have led to his duel with Barisdale, as reported by the Stuarts d’Albanie. Barisdale was, as we have seen, like Lochgarry, a wadsetter of Glengarry’s; that is, he received from Glengarry certain lands, redeemable after a specified interval of time, in exchange for money paid, or bills, or perhaps for cattle, which he was skilled in procuring. We do not find that the chief, Glengarry, could or did exercise any authority in controlling the excesses and depredations of his independent cousin Col. For this he is blamed by the author of the Gartmore MS., but his Mackenzie following made Col too strong for his chief.

Ignorant, perhaps, of the character of Barisdale, unwilling, at least, to dispense with his aid, Prince Charles visited him in August 1745, made him a colonel, and gave a major’s commission to his son, young Archibald Macdonnell of Barisdale, a lad of twenty in 1745. Our ‘Impartial Hand’[55] declares that Coll, though at Prestonpans, was not under fire, which seems improbable. Barisdale may have been with the Prince in the second line (fifty yards behind the first, says the Chevalier Johnstone), or, in the oblique advance of the first line, Lochiel and James Mohr may have routed the English before Barisdale could engage. But, in a letter of Thomas Wedderburn to the Earl of Sutherland, we read (September 26, 1745), ‘Three troops that were making their way for Berwick were pursued by Barisdale, and 150 men, who all stript to their shirts, on foot, who overtook the dragoons, I suppose by turning a hill and gaining ground that way, and made them prisoners, for which Barisdale was made a knight bannarett’[56]—knighted, that is, like Dalgetty, on the field.

After Prestonpans, according to the Impartial one, confirmed by the ‘Culloden Papers,’ and by Broughton’s ‘Memorials,’ Barisdale, by Sheridan’s advice, was sent north, to work on Old Lovat. Sheridan reckoned that no man was likely to have so much influence with that subtle schemer as the bluff Barisdale, with ‘his devouring looks, his bulky strides, his awful voice, his long and tremendous sword, which he generally wore in his hand, with a target and bonnet edged broad upon the forehead.’ Barisdale, thus accredited, worked both on Lovat and Lord Cromarty, who raised his peaceful tenants by threats of burning their cottages and cattle.[57] Cromarty might have reported, like a Highland recruiting officer in later days, ‘The volunteers are ready; they are all lying bound hand and foot in the barn.’ Many of the Highlanders did not want to fight, though they fought so well. Barisdale also sent ‘the bloody cross,’ we are told, through the Frazers, who marched reluctantly under the Master of Lovat, a St. Andrews student, himself as reluctant as he was brave. At Falkirk, Barisdale is said to have been with the second line, and later ‘he set out to collect the public money, the greater part of which he kept to himself.’

Just before Culloden, Barisdale was engaged in the not uncongenial duty of reducing the shires of Ross and Sutherland. In the latter county Lord Reay, with the Mackays and the Earl of Sutherland, were for King George; Lord Loudon also was quartered with his force in Ross-shire. Lord Cromarty, with the Mackenzies, Mackintoshes, Mackinnons, Macgregors, and Barisdale’s Macdonnells, did little, retiring to his own house. Barisdale was anxious to burn the house of Ross of Balnagoun, but Lochiel, who had arrived with Lord George Murray, intervened. At Dornoch, Barisdale went to church, where the Rev. Mr. Kirk, a gentleman connected with the Duke of Argyll, had the courage to pray for King George. Barisdale leaped up, swaggered, fumed, and, it is rather absurdly said, threatened to put Mr. Kirk in his famous engine of torture. The chivalrous Duke of Perth protected Mr. Kirk, saying that all brave men were his friends, and asked the clergyman to dinner.[58] Lord George Murray, finding Cromarty incompetent, and Barisdale mainly occupied in burning granaries, now took the command, and Loudon crossed the Firth into Sutherland. Perth then led the Prince’s forces across the Firth, and Loudon hastened to withdraw into central Sutherland.

Neither side was anxious to come to blows. Macdonnell of Scotus, a man ‘brave, polite, obliging, of fine spirit and sound judgment,’ says the Chevalier Johnstone, had a son with Lord Loudon, and was reluctant to engage. Later, to his intense joy, he took this son a not unwilling prisoner. Meanwhile Barisdale, on March 20, captured the Castle of Dunrobin. The Earl of Sutherland fled, under cover of a fog, and escaped to an English ship. The Countess stayed at home; she was a daughter of the Earl of Wemyss by his third wife, was a young lady, of twenty-eight, and had a young nephew, Lord Elcho, with the Prince. According to the ‘Sutherland Book’ (i. 420), one of Barisdale’s officers threatened her with a dirk, and, some one jogging his elbow, she was actually scratched. To this the Countess, as we shall see, herself bears witness. But it is by no means certain that the lady, coming of a Jacobite family, was an unwilling prisoner of the Prince’s men. It was irksome to her, no doubt, to see her rooms littered with hay on which the Highlanders slept, and to observe the robbery of her plate. But the two following intercepted letters, from the Cumberland Papers, display the Countess as an adorer of Prince Charles, and Barisdale as a _preux chevalier_.

_Letter from The Countess of Sutherland to the Young
Pretender, written with MacDonell of Barisdale’s
own Hand._

‘March 26, 1746.

‘The treatment I mett with Friday Last oblidges me to presume
to oCoast your Royall Hyness For a protection to prevent the
Lyke Usadge in the Future. However my Lord Sutherland Acted,
It’s known over the most of this Kingdome my particular
attachment to your Royall Hyness’ Family, and were itt
ordinaire in one of my sex to go to the Field to Fight For
my Prince and Country, I would make as aerly ane appearance
as anie, and hade not my Coch horses and sadle horses being
caryed away I woud presume the Honnaire to waith of your
Royall Hyness. Least my letter be too tediouse I will only
give one Instance of my usadge, a man holding a drawn durk to
my brest gave a scrach of a wound which merk itt well beare:
but this day Barisdale coming here, being my aquaintance, in
his presence I sent a gentleman to all the men of my Lord
Sutherland’s that were in arms desiring them to disperse and
return to their homes in order a proper Draught be made of them
For your royall Hyness service. My success I can not determine
as I can not Depend upon much assistance, but if matters were
further att my Disposall all the Fensable men in Sutherland
woud be on your Royall Hyness armie as I am quite affrighted.
From the Hylanders I beg to petition your Royall Hyness
protection how Soone pasable and I always am and ever will,’ &c.

On March 27, 1746, from Tarbat House Lord Cromarty writes in answer to the Countess of Sutherland, acknowledging her letter, and promising protection to all her people who submit.

Then we have Barisdale’s _billet_ to the lady:

_Col McDonell to Lady Sutherlande_

‘Ardmore: March 27, 1746.

‘My Faire Prisoner,—I presume these with the offer of my most
Respectfull humble Duty to my Lady Sutherland, my Regiment
is ordered back againe to Sutherland For which I am verrie
sorrie, if anie hardships must be used, itt shoud in the Least
Fall to my Shaire. I will have one Certaine pleasure in Itt
that it well give the oportunity of being For once more my
Lady Sutherland’s Saife guard. I Forwarded your Ladyship’s
letter by one Captt Lewlessnent, and sent itt Inclosed to
his Grace, and held Forth my Lady Sutherland’s zeall For our
Cause, and the Friendship she particullarlie expected From
him, and represented the Horses taken away, and pleaded For
her Interest to have them, att Least my Ladys Favourites,
returned. I go this Day to Inverness myself and shall talk to
His Royall Hyness in regard to what my Lady Sutherland woud
Exspect off Favours From our side, and what is Actuallie Deue
to her. After my return, shall have the pleasure of waitting
off your Ladyship att Dunrobine, and allways will be Nott onlie
your Lady’s prisoner in the strictest Confinement, but your
Ladyships most obdtt. and most humble sertt. while

‘COL. MCDONELL.’[59]