Chapter II: Macleod 294 (5)

‘In No. 2. You see Angus in his proper Colours appointing the
Congress with Cluny (in December 1749); and it would not be
amiss that the Name of the Place, Catlaick, should be well
observed on that worthy Gentleman’s Account. You see that
Loch Gary was in the Country, and on what accounts; likewise
the errand of young Glengary. Whether the “Crookshanks” there
aludes to Cluny as a Cant word for his having a wry Neck, or to
a Brother of Glen Evis [Samuel, the spy] who is an officer in
the French Service, and has crooked legs, I am not certain, but
I believe it is to the Latter.

‘You will likewise observe by this letter that a correction is
to be made in the key of your Intercepted Letter, that Angus is
Brother to Glen Eves and not to Fassifarn. I daresay you are no
stranger to the part that Angus has Acted from the beginning in
relation to the great Money Affair, and that no one excepting
Cluny knows more of it. I am fully persuaded that Mrs. Chalmers
(Mrs. Archibald Cameron) is charged with orders upon his Bank
stock, however unwilling he may be to part with it⸺’

On October 14, Glenevis tired of hiding, and surrendered himself to Crawfurd. No harm was found in Fassifern’s papers, which had been seized, and he, with Angus MacIan, a brother (or half-brother) of Lochgarry, was admitted to bail.

On October 22, Colonel Crawfurd wrote an account of Glenevis’s examination to Churchill, who forwarded it to the Duke of Newcastle. Now we must ask how Government, which in 1749-50 knew only the anonymous account of the treasure already quoted, was, in 1751, informed that Lochgarry, Young Glengarry, Cameron of Glenevis, and his brother Angus, had meddled with the spoil in December 1749? Readers of ‘Pickle the Spy’ will remember that Pickle (that is, _ex hypothesi_, Young Glengarry) dates his services as a paid informer from 1750-51. Young Glengarry, then, may have been himself the source of the intelligence about the plunder, and that, as we shall see, was the strong opinion of Glenevis.

In any case this is the earliest hint of suspicion against the honour of Young Glengarry which we have encountered. The eternal feud of Macdonnells and Camerons may have suggested the notion of Glengarry’s treachery to the mind of Glenevis; Cluny being out of the question, and he not knowing any one out of prison, except Young Glengarry, who had the necessary information. Glenevis’s brother, Angus, and Angus MacIan were in prison with himself, and Lochgarry was with his regiment in France.

Crawfurd says of Glenevis, and his suspicions:

‘He seems to think that all the Intelligence procured against him has been by means of Young Glengary: this you may believe I am at no great pains to desuade him from, as the greater Enmity gives the better chance of your coming at truth. He does not deny but that his brother, (Angus) Lochgary, Young Glengary, Angus Mc.Ian and he went into Badenoch in the winter 1749, after the Troops were gone from thence, with a view of meeting Clunie, but that while Lochgary, and young Glengary had their Interview at a sheiling opposite to Dalwhinnie, he was desired by Clunie to keep at the House of Dalwhinnie till sent for; and that neither Angus nor he coud be allowd to speak with him, tho he sent repeated messages by Clunie’s Piper, and a young Brother of Clunie’s. That he lay in the same Room with Young Glengary at Dalwhinnie, and early in the morning, the young Brother of Clunie brought Glengary a Bag which might contain two or three Hundred guineas, and counted them out to him, and that he understood Glengary got, in the whole, by that expedition about Two Thousand;[96] he farther says that the money remitted abroad by Cluny was carried away by his Brother in Law Mc.Pherson of Brechachie to Major Kennedy in the North of England....’ (So Gask also says.)

On October 31, Crawfurd again writes to Churchill. He had recommended on October 21, that Angus Cameron ‘should be allowed the quiet enjoyment of his treasure.’ He now remarks that Glenevis has been admitted to bail. ‘He says, in the Scotch phrase, that _it is hard, to have both the skaith and the scorn_’—that is, to be molested, though he has not got much of the French gold. ‘He blames his brother Angus for having acted a weak and foolish part in quitting (parting) with so great a share of the money that had fallen into his hands, which, he says, did not exceed £2,500, tho’ most people call it £3,000, and of which he knew his brother had paid £1,000 for the use of Lochiel soon after his going to France’ (1746). Next we find a repetition of Glenevis’s charges against Young Glengarry, as his betrayer. The accusation, too, that Young Glengarry forged King James’s name (alluded to by James in a letter to the Prince, March 17, 1750, as a story reported by Archy Cameron) is urged by Glenevis.

‘He (Glenevis) still continues full of resentment against Young Glengary, believing that he is the Author of all the information against him and his Brother Angus, not being able to account for our knowledge of the Badenoch meeting in any other way. He confirms what I wrote of the young Gentleman in my last, only that the £2,000 was not of Clunie’s money, but of what was left by the Secretary Murray in the hands of Mr. Mc.Douel his brother in Law, and that his credentials for receiving the money was from the old Pretender, _but that he was sure they were forged_.’ They certainly _were_ forged.

One thing is to be observed about Glenevis’s doubts of Young Glengarry. In this year, 1751, and onwards, that hero was allowed by Government to live in London, in Beaufort Buildings, Strand, whence he communicated with Charles and James, as a strenuous Jacobite agent. His letters are printed by Browne from the Stuart MSS. Yet Government, if only from Glenevis’s evidence just given, knew that Glengarry was at least as guilty as Glenevis and his brother of the only crime charged against them on this occasion—namely, dealing with French gold that had been landed for the use of Prince Charles. Where the treason to King George came in, unless they were using the money for Jacobite purposes, or depriving his Majesty of spoils of war, or of treasure trove, does not appear. Yet the Camerons, Glenevis, Dunan, Fassifern, were all kept in durance at Port William, while Young Glengarry, implicated in their vague offence, was permitted to live, and even to make love, in London. To this point we return later (p. 207). Government had their own reasons for sparing Glengarry, while punishing his accomplices. These accomplices, again, averred that Glengarry had ‘peached’ upon them, as doubtless he had. The Camerons were released, but before very long, they and Fassifern were all imprisoned again in Edinburgh Castle, on a charge of treasonable dealings with the attainted. This was part of a plan of Government’s for ‘uprooting’ Fassifern, who represented the exiled Young Lochiel in the eyes of the Clan. The action of Government makes another chapter in the history of the sufferings after Culloden. Meanwhile the casks of louis d’or had done their task, and sown among the Clans the dragon’s teeth of distrust and of calumny. We cannot tell where the remainder of the gold went, though Cluny probably took what was left over to France, in 1754, as Charles commanded him to do, getting no more for his trouble, perhaps, than did poor Duncan Cameron in Strontian—‘not a shilling.’ As for Glenevis and his brother, they seem to have finally been fobbed off with the skaith and the scorn, and with very little else but the company of Colonel Crawfurd, so anxious to talk about their hay crop.

Such is an example of Highland life after Culloden. There are midnight meetings at lonely sheilings, there is digging and delving by hands that knew the claymore better than the spade. Letters are opened in the post office, secret murmurs fly about carrying charges of indefinite guilt, reported by unknown spies. No man can put confidence in another: each neighbour _may_ have been bullied or bribed into babbling, and, when the laird sees the English colonel saunter along the avenue, Highland hospitality struggles in his heart with a natural inclination to drop out of a back window, and steal up the glen into the hills. A gentleman is apt to be less often on his estates than in Fort William prison or in Edinburgh Castle. No wonder that many joined the new Highland regiments when they were raised, and preferred King George’s pay to domiciliary visits from King George’s colonels!

VIII

JUSTICE AFTER CULLODEN

_The Uprooting of Fassifern_

The years 1752-1754 were full of trouble for Highlanders. The Prince was intriguing desperately with Scotland, and with Prussia. The Elibank Plot was matured and betrayed. Dr. Cameron and Lochgarry were stirring up the Clans. Cluny remained as untakable as Abd-el-Kader. The Government were alarmed at once by Pickle, by their ambassadors abroad, and by Count Kaunitz. The Forfeited Estates had been nationalised, ‘for the improvement of the Highlands,’ factors had been appointed to raise and collect rents: evictions were threatened; agrarian discontent had been aroused; Campbell of Glenure had been shot in the wood of Lettermore.[97] The reports of all these things flew from township to township, from strath to strath, as fleetly as the fiery cross. The Highlands, in 1752, were boiling like a caldron. Old tenants were being turned out that men of a hostile Whiggish clan might occupy their hereditary holdings. Ensign Small, an officer who knew Gaelic, and was engaged in secret service, found murmurs of a rising even in the Islands. The Duke of Newcastle was jotting down alarmed notes, ‘to be at any expense in order to find out where the Young Pretender is. Lord Anson to have Fregates upon the Scotch and Irish coast.’[98]

The consequence of this official flutter was a crowd of arrests and trials. James Stewart, on a charge of being accessory to Glenure’s slaying, was, to speak plain words, judicially murdered. He was confined in Fort William, and denied access to his advisers; the charges and evidence against him were kept from him till too late, he had a jury of hostile Campbells at Inveraray, the Duke on the bench, and he was hanged as accessory to a murder in which the alleged principal was not before the Court. Political necessities and clan hatred killed James Stewart (1752).

In 1753 Dr. Cameron was caught, and hanged in London, denouncing as informer his kinsman, Samuel Cameron. The famed Sergeant Mohr Cameron was taken (by treachery, General Stuart hints and tradition proclaims; both are right), and he ‘died for the law.’ His alleged crime was cattle theft, but, as a sergeant in French service, he was probably regarded as a Jacobite agent. The Sergeant was captured in mid-April, 1753: a few days later Angus Cameron, brother of Glenevis, was taken at the same place, his house of Dunan or Downan, in Rannoch. On May 6 Fassifern, Charles Stewart, writer in Banavie, Fassifern’s agent, and Glenevis, were lodged, with Angus Cameron, in Edinburgh Castle. On July 7 Young Barisdale, Young Morar, and others, were culled like flowers at Lochourn, while Young John Macdonnell, ‘Spanish John,’ was also arrested.

Of all these, the most important prisoner was Fassifern. He had been taken, as we saw, in October 1751, and released, as nothing could be found against him in the affair of the Cluny Treasure. He was Lochiel’s brother and representative, and consequently chief, for the time, of the Camerons. He had not been out in Forty-five. A man of commerce, a burgess of Glasgow, he had tried to dissuade Lochiel from exposing himself to the dangerous charm of the Prince. But he was naturally anxious to save as much as possible of Lochiel’s estate for the family. There were several lawful claims on it, which Government was bound to respect and he to press. Moreover he, with ‘Glenevegh’ (Glenevis), had been denounced by Pickle as agents between the Southern and Northern Jacobites.[99] In addition to all this, Fassifern was trying to keep the old Cameron tenants, Jacobites, in their holdings, and evict tenants who had the bad taste to be Whigs.

As early as May 1751 he had been denounced for these offences by Captains Johnston and Mylne, of the Buffs, in garrison at Inversnaid. ‘He falls on ways,’ writes an informer whose letter they forward, ‘of turning out any from their possessions, who he knows to be well affected to His Majesty.’ He encourages Jacobites to settle near the forts, for the purpose of a sudden assault.[100] He has ‘plenty of the Pretender’s money’ to use for these purposes. Clan sentiment, not Jacobitism, may have influenced Fassifern, and Glenevis, at least, was hardly the man to play the part of Jacobite agent.

The original charge against Fassifern in May 1753 was that of ‘correspondence with persons attainted.’ But the game of the Government was to get rid of him on any pretext. Colonel Crawfurd had come from Fort William to Edinburgh, and, on June 4, 1753, wrote a long letter to the Lord Justice Clerk. ‘The uprooting of Fassifern,’ he says, with candour, ‘is what we ought chiefly to have in view.’[101] He has found witnesses, or rather has heard of them (it seems kinder to omit the names of these gentlemen), who avow that Fassifern tampered with them to threaten the late Glenure’s wife, and to murder Glenure. That unlucky man was factor for Lochiel’s as well as for Ardsheil’s forfeited estate, and was expected to evict Cameron tenants. ‘The Lord Advocate said that, if this did not hang Fassiefairn, it would at least send him to Nova Scotia.’ Perhaps, the Colonel thinks, Breakachie may be induced to inform against Fassifern! That culprit has only sent 100_l._ to Lochiel’s family in France, and has made Lochiel’s tenants work on his estate, instead of on the county roads.

These last were not hanging matters. And, somehow, Breakachie, a perfectly loyal gentleman, and kinsman of Cluny’s, did not give the desired information. The witnesses as to the suborning of Glenure’s murder by Fassifern would not kiss the book, or, perhaps, had never promised their evidence at all. Angus Cameron and Glenevis were discharged on bail, on July 3. No proof of treasonable correspondence, or suborned murder, or anything else existed, or could be found against Fassifern. Pickle, of course, could not be produced in Court. The Colonel does not conceal the discomfort of his reflections, and Government is perplexed as to the details of the process of ‘uprooting’ the representative of Lochiel. On June 10 Fassifern and Charles Stewart petitioned that they might be put on their trial. But what were they to be tried for? It was an awkward situation.

The resources of civilisation, however, were not exhausted. On August 6 the Duke of Argyll came to Edinburgh and, next day, took his seat in the Court of Session.

That day the Lord Advocate sprang a fresh charge on the accused. They might not have been holding treasonable correspondence, or even suborning murder, but they had been mixed up in—forgery! The Lord Advocate suspected that certain deeds had been forged, to substantiate claims made by Fassifern on Lochiel’s estate. These claims rested on old papers and bonds of various dates, from 1713 to 1748. There was ‘credible information’ (how obtained we shall learn) that five of these deeds were forged. Fassifern’s lawyer, Mr. Macfarlane (husband of pretty Mrs. Macfarlane who shot the Captain), had no longer the vouchers, the original papers from which he drew up the claims. These vouchers had been in a bag at Mr. Macfarlane’s house; but ‘some time in Summer’ (1752) Fassifern (being in Edinburgh) had sent for the bag, and had returned it in a few hours.

The papers were no longer in it. Fassifern, being examined, could remember having abstracted no such deeds as interested the Court. Next day Fassifern asked for a copy of his statement, ‘as he was apprehensive he might have inadvertently fallen into some mistakes in the hurry of the examination, which he was extremely desirous to rectify.’ The Lords refused his petition: he might have a copy of his examination ‘when he is brought upon trial.’ Next day he was charged with being guilty, or ‘art and part in forging the deeds, or of using them, knowing them to be forged.’ He was to be detained in prison till his trial.

He protested that he had already lain in prison for three months, on a charge (Pickle’s) of ‘being privy to unlawful designs carried on by disaffected persons’—namely, a rising to follow on the kidnapping of the Royal Family. He ‘has reason to believe that no such prosecution is seriously intended,’ which is pretty obvious, Pickle not being producible, but absent, at that very hour, in France, with Prince Charles! Moreover Fassifern was not told on whose information he was examined, though he was ‘heckled’ for several hours.

The charge of forgery was, in fact, based, as usual, on the evidence of an Informer, whom we need not name. Here is a report of his accusations:—

‘... Says he has been certainly informed that Fassfarn caused Forge several Grounds of Debt, in Order to be the Foundation of Claims upon the Estate of Lochiel, some of which were written by Charles Stewart present prisoner in the Castle, and Lochiel’s name was Forged by one Allan Cameron of Landavrae, who could write like him, and there were Forced Discharges by Lochiel to his Tenants for Crops in 1746 and Proceedings in Order to prevent the Government from getting payment of the Rent of 1746 and arrears.’

Says on knowing this he ‘instantly told Crawfurd’!

Now even the Government’s plea against Fassifern says no word of ‘forged discharges of Lochiel to his tenants!’[102]

The interest of this case is partly the mystery—had Fassifern really been concerned in tampering with documents?—partly the procedure, which we know had political motives, and was iniquitous in method. As to Fassifern’s guilt, if any, we are not likely to learn the truth; as to the kind of justice he got—there can only be one opinion.

On August 10 Fassifern was ‘ordained’ to receive a full copy of his examination. He was anxious that the evidence of an aged solicitor, Alexander Stewart, in Appin, a man over eighty, and unable to travel, should be taken by commission. This Stewart had written, or witnessed, several of the old disputed deeds, and was the only person alive able to testify, of his own knowledge, to their authenticity. Fassifern also remonstrated against being described, in the Lord Advocate’s charge, as ‘the immediate younger brother of Donald Cameron, late of Lochiel, attainted.’ He ‘ventures to hope that this is not meant to make a point of dittay.’ It was obviously meant to suggest prejudice. He asked for bail, after his already long imprisonment. Bail was refused by the Lords of Session, nor would they examine Alexander Stewart by commission; but they promised to remove Fassifern from the Castle to the Tolbooth. The full charges, or ‘improbatory articles’ against him, he was not to receive.

On August 24 the prisoner once more protested against ‘the practice of dropping out charges one after the other,’ which unpleasantly resembles the system of Titus Oates. If the Government, as appears certain, had this accusation of forgery pigeon-holed before they locked up the prisoner in May, why did they not bring it forward at first? Fassifern’s imprisonment, he justly remarks, ‘approaches to a kind of torture.’ He is denied the free use of pen and ink, so necessary in his preparation of a defence. An armed sentinel is in his room day and night. This petition was so far successful that pen and ink were given, but what he wrote was inspected, and even his lawyer’s chief clerk, Mr. Flockhart, could only visit him by special license. He was allowed to take the air, under a guard, but he seems to have been detained in the Castle, at least the Deputy-Governor is charged to remove the armed sentinel.

In January 1754 articles of accusation were placed before the Lords of Session, and witnesses were examined, including old Alexander Stewart, who was brought from Appin ‘in a chaise.’ He attested that, as early as 1713, he had written and witnessed some of the deeds, and again in 1728. Appin (whom one of the deeds especially concerned) gave evidence as to the authenticity of others, and quoted Lochiel’s remarks to him, in 1746, about 1,000_l._ borrowed from Fassifern in 1741, and a bond given for the money by himself. He averred that Charles Stewart, writer in Banavie, accused now of forging that instrument, had really written and witnessed it, with Torcastle (in exile) and others (Culchenna and Lundavra), now dead. On these grounds Fassifern petitioned for bail. He had lain in prison for ten months, and his eyes were so impaired that he could not see to read. He must sink _sub squalore carceris_, and be ‘uprooted’ in earnest.

To all this plea it was replied ‘that many persons, even of those who would not do injustice in private affairs, are too easily induced to countenance an injustice done to the public’—that is, by getting public money out of the forfeited estates. Fassifern, with his ‘connections and influence, might, if at liberty, use means to prevent discoveries.’ There is thus one law (an unpleasant law) for the rich, and another for the poor. Finally Fassifern’s ‘coolness and silence on the loss of papers of such consequence, notwithstanding his being confessedly a sensible careful man, were mentioned as very suspicious circumstances.’

No doubt they _are_ suspicious, but that a ‘sensible careful man,’ of the best family, should, as charged, forge a bond of 90_l._ from his own gardener, still in his service, is also a very improbable kind of accusation. Fassifern and Charles Stewart were, therefore, left _sub squalore carceris_ (March 6, 1754).

In August 1754 they again petitioned for bail. They had lain in gaol for fifteen months on no capital charge. ‘There is not one of the deeds under challenge that does not seem to be supported by unimpeachable evidence,’ as of Appin, a man of honour, and old Alexander Stewart. ‘They have suffered punishment beyond bounds already, without example, and since The Happy Revolution, neither heard of nor dreamed of in our neighbouring country,’ England.

Bail was not granted, and the Lord Advocate told a very extraordinary and, it may be said, inconsistent tale. His witnesses, he alleged, ‘have thought fit to stand a second diligence for compelling them to appear, and, though wrote to, have not given any answer.’ Of course there may be two interpretations of this reluctance, or even three. The witnesses may be coerced by local sentiment, or may not care to take oath to their evidence, or may have reason to suppose that they are not really wanted, as the Crown manifestly merely wishes to keep Fassifern out of his own country. The evidence of one informer has been given as to forged discharges of Lochiel’s. The Government, however, dropped that slander, while keeping up other charges, not supported by evidence given in Court.

The Advocate then carries back the origin of the trouble to the Loch Arkaig treasure. In some quarrel about this, a person was ‘heard to declare, that, in self defence, he would make known to persons in the King’s service what he knew, or had learned, concerning forged deeds prepared by Fassfern and Charles Stewart.’ This information he actually gave to Colonel Crawfurd. This was certainly one of the witnesses who would not answer to his subpœna, or come to the trial in spite of repeated ‘diligences.’ Lochaber was not likely to be a happy home for him afterwards; _Lochaber no more!_ would probably be the burden of his song. Even Glenevis had three shots fired at him, in November 1752, between Fort William and his own house. So he alleges in a memorial, or petition, in the State Papers. The Colonel then sent for Charles Stewart, who had been introduced to him as a fit person for managing prosecutions against wearers of the philabeg. Charles Stewart, before the arrest of Fassifern, gave Colonel Crawfurd, at Fort William, a written set of Remarks on Fassifern’s claims, impeaching the authenticity of those to which Appin and Charles Stewart had sworn, including the gardener’s 90_l._ But Charles Stewart, when examined before the Lords, withdrew all this, and vowed that he had already denied it to the Colonel. When shown the written statement, he acknowledged that it was in his hand, but that he had written it ‘to pacify the Colonel, who was then in a great rage.’ For, in early summer, 1752, ‘a very hot inquiry was going on touching the murder of Glenure.’ Relations of Charles Stewart were imprisoned, and Colonel Crawfurd, interrogating Charles on the claims of Fassifern, told him that _he_, Charles, ‘was suspected of some accession to Glenure’s murder, and was to be imprisoned if he did not speak out, and make discoveries against the claims upon Lochiel’s forfeiture.’ Charles ‘cannot affirm’ that he did _not_ ‘soothe Col. Crawfurd, who appeared to be in great passion,’ by telling tales against the claims, but rather suspects that he did. But, if he did, he admits that he lied, ‘in the confusion and terror he was then in.’ So far, the evidence before the Court is that of a witness who declines to be sworn, and of a prisoner who withdraws testimony extorted by threats.

The Lord Advocate next quoted a letter to Fassifern, from his Edinburgh agent, Mr. Macfarlane, of December 1751—that is, shortly after Fassifern’s release in the affair of the treasure. Mr. Macfarlane obscurely warns him in this letter ‘not to be carried, for the sake of a small paultry sum of money into difficulties.’ ‘Mines were to be sprung,’ ‘odd appellations are given,’ phrases which may, or may not, refer to the business of the French gold.

The Advocate then told how Fassifern, in summer, 1752, a year before his arrest in 1753, got his bag of papers from Mr. Macfarlane and returned it, since when no mortal has seen the incriminated deeds. This, of course, is the crucial point; but Mr. Macfarlane had himself prepared Fassifern’s claim from the very deeds which, having disappeared, are now said to have been recently forged. Mr. Macfarlane can have seen nothing suspicious in them, or he would not have made them the basis of a claim drawn up by himself. His suspicions of 1751 would have revived, and he would have abandoned the case. He still acts daily for Fassifern, but Fassifern has not recovered the documents, nor tried seriously to recover them.

On these grounds bail was again refused.

No decision was arrived at by the Lords of Session till January 1755. By that time all danger from Jacobitism was over. Charles was deserted by Prussia, by the Earl Marischal, and by his English adherents. The Lords found Fassifern guilty of abstracting his own papers, from the bag in Mr. Macfarlane’s custody. These papers it was inferred, were forged. He was sentenced to ten years of banishment, which he passed at Alnwick. Charles Stewart was deprived of his office of notary public. ‘Some of the Lords were of opinion that there was not a proof of guilt sufficient to infer any punishment. But others were of a different opinion.’ In Fassifern’s plea he complained of Colonel Crawfurd’s frequent examinations of Charles Stewart, and of a present of 10_l._ made by him to that notary.

Innocent or guilty, Fassifern was ‘uprooted, which is what we ought chiefly to have in view,’ to quote Colonel Crawfurd. The gross oppressiveness of the proceedings, the unexplained delays, the series of charges ‘dropped out,’ the bullying and cajoling of prisoners under examination, the unconcealed political motive, and the rewards of farms which, we learn, were given to the informers, are all characteristic of justice in Scotland after Culloden. The improbability of the charge, against ‘a sensible careful man,’ must be set against the mystery of the disappearance of the papers. In that disappearance the ‘uprooters’ had, of course, no less interest than the accused. After nearly two years _sub squalore carceris_, Fassifern was condemned for suborning the forgery of papers not in evidence. In fact, after all the schemes for his uprooting, he was (in cricketing phrase) ‘given out’—several of the Fifteen dissenting—‘for obstructing the field.’ What is the legal name for this offence?

This affair had lingered on from May 1753 to January 1755 before the Fifteen, the Lords of Session. It is probable that a jury, disgusted by the military methods of extorting evidence, would have made short work of the case, and acquitted Fassifern. Of this temper in a jury we have a curious contemporary instance. Sir Walter Scott printed for the Bannatyne Club the trial, in June 1754, of Duncan Terig, or Clerk, and Alexander Bain Macdonald, for the murder of Sergeant Davies, of Guise’s regiment, in 1749, on Christie Hill, in Braemar. There was really no doubt of the guilt of the accused. Scott, who knew one of their counsel, says that they themselves were convinced of the fact. But two Highland witnesses told a story of the murdered sergeant’s ghost, which appeared to them in 1750. By making fun of this apparition, the advocates for the defence, Scott says, secured an acquittal in face of the evidence.

Probably the jury had another motive—namely, indignation at military extortion of evidence. A certain Ensign Small has been mentioned. He seems to have been an astute and energetic man. We find him everywhere in the Cumberland Papers. He it was who, soon after Culloden, arrested the Barisdales in a cave, and took their swords. In 1749 he arrested Barisdale on his return from France. He pursued Lochgarry (after Dr. Cameron’s arrest) into England, and searched the vessels leaving the ports of the East Coast. We find him in the Islands, mixing with the people in disguise, and reporting their murmurs and their curses on the Chiefs and the Prince. In Knoydart he notes that the commons have lost their taste for a rising. Small was rewarded by a factorship on the forfeited estates of Cluny and Robertson of Strowan, and exerted himself to procure the condemnation of the murderers of Sergeant Davies.

Now on June 14, 1754, Mr. Alexander Lockhart, one of the counsel for the accused, laid a complaint against Small before the Court of Session. By Small’s instigation, Lockhart said, Terig and Macdonald were charged with the crime. Small had sought out and privately examined witnesses, ‘giving them an obligation to stand between them and any hazard they might incur thereby’—such protection was very necessary. ‘He endeavoured to intimidate such as would not say such strong things as he wished, or expected.’ Lockhart asks ‘how far these practices’ (the very practices employed to ‘uproot’ Fassifern) ‘should be tolerated?’ Moreover, Small had been swaggering with a sword, had stopped Lockhart in the Parliament Close, had insulted, challenged him, and shaken a stick over his head: ‘which, if he meant to resent, he would be at no loss to find out where the said James Small lived.’

Small replied that, after doing his best to bring Clerk and Macdonald to trial, his character had been blackened by Lockhart before the jury, as having pursued the accused for private reasons of malice. As an officer and a gentleman, believing in his heart that the accused were guilty (which they undoubtedly were), he had resented the license of Lockhart.

Small was found guilty of contempt, bound over to keep the peace, and obliged to apologise.

Meanwhile General Bland, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, justified Ensign Small in a letter to the English Ministry. Lockhart, the General denounces as a ‘famous foul-mouthed Jacobite advocate.’ He had ‘concerted’ his abuse of the Ensign in court ‘with his Jacobite fraternity.’ The Ensign had very properly ‘taken him by the nose, and called him a scoundrell. He took it quietly.’ If Lockhart is not warned, his bones will be broken. The General has used his influence with the judges to secure easy terms for the loyal Ensign.[103]

The docile judges, ‘the Fifteen,’ had accepted evidence extorted by military violence in what was really a political case, that of Fassifern. But it is clear that the jury, in the case of the Sergeant’s murder, had resented such intimidation, as denounced by Lockhart, and this resentment, rather than the ghost story, probably procured the acquittal of two undeniable robbers and murderers, Terig, or Clerk, and Macdonald.[104]

Another curious instance of the methods of Government occurs in the case of James Mohr. It was generally suspected that Government connived at his escape from Edinburgh Castle in the disguise of a cobbler (November 16, 1752). The Government, however, broke the lieutenants of the guard, deprived the sergeant of his stripes, and whipped the porter.

But we find a remarkable letter of General Churchill’s,[105] saying that ‘James Mohr had been taken up on the abduction charge,’ and was extremely anxious to make disclosures. That his recent behaviour cannot allow him to be believed unless he is allowed to suppose ‘his life is at stake.’ That ‘should your Grace think proper to employ him, the great difficulty is to bring about his liberation without raising a suspicion of the Cause, _nor can it be so effectually done as by giveing private orders to a Party of the Troops employed in escorting him to favour his escape_.’

If this suggestion was acted on later, if James was allowed to escape from Edinburgh Castle that he might become a spy, as he did, the lieutenants, the sergeant, and the porter were very scurvily treated. The game of justice was not played with much scrupulousness by the English Government.

IX

A GENTLEMAN OF KNOYDART

The modern autobiographical romance of adventure has perhaps been overdone. The hero is always very young and very brave; he is mixed up with great affairs; he is a true lover; he marries the heroine, and he leaves his Memoirs (at six shillings) to posterity. Stereotyped as is the method, and mechanical as are most of the novels thus constructed, it is interesting to compare with them a set of genuine Memoirs, which actually are what the novels pretend to be.

Colonel John Macdonell, the author of the Memoirs, was of the Scottos family, a branch of the House of Glengarry. Indeed, in the male line the chiefs of Clan Donald are now represented by the head of the Scottos branch, not to enter on the old controversy as to the chiefship of Clan Ranald. Our Colonel was born in 1728, and was therefore a boy of eighteen in 1746. He had already been conversant with great adventures; he had seen Rome and his King, had been thrice wounded in one engagement of the Italian wars, and had relinquished his excellent prospects in the Spanish service to fight for the White Rose. An emissary between the Duke of York (not yet Cardinal) and the Prince, the bearer of a treasure in gold, our hero arrived in the Highlands just after Culloden. Robbed by the wicked Mackenzies, associated with the last rally of the loyal clans, betrayed by a cousin to a Hanoverian dungeon, young Macdonell must needs fall in love, at this juncture, with his future wife. He insults his enemies, cows the traitor who denounced him (or another traitor), marries his lady, retires to Canada, and, dying in 1810, leaves his Memoirs to his children.

What more can be asked from a hero? ‘Oh, Colonel Macdonell and Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, which of you imitated the other?’ the critic is tempted to exclaim. But, if the real Colonel John ‘does it more natural,’ the fictitious David Balfour ‘does it with the better grace.’ The good Colonel never, of course, discourses to us about his contending emotions, or dilates, like Mr. Balfour, on the various trains of casuistry which meet in his simple soul. He never describes a place, nor a person, not even when he meets his King, the Duke of York, or the Duc de Fitzjames; he only describes action, vividly enough. He leaves out the love-interest, with the merest allusion; and thus, though the Colonel played a heroic part in romantic occurrences, he did not write a romance. He arranges his recollections ill, ignoring essential facts, and, later, dragging them in very awkwardly. His Memoirs are such as an elderly warrior of his period would naturally pen; they illustrate the chaotic condition of Highland morals and manners in 1745-54, and introduce us to figures familiar in the Prince’s campaign of Scotland.[106]

Scotus, Scottos, or Scothouse, the estate of the Colonel’s family, lies in the south of Knoydart, and on the north side of the entrance to Loch Nevis, just opposite to the Aird of Sleat in Skye. On the north of Knoydart, and on the south shore of Loch Hourn, is Barisdale, the seat of the Colonel’s cousin, Col of Barisdale, the tallest man and the greatest robber, ruffian, and traitor of Clan Donald. Universal testimony, from that of the Chevalier Johnstone to the Whig Manuscript of 1750, applauds the family of Scottos as brave gentlemen, honest in the midst of ‘a den of thieves’ (says our Whig author), loyal when loyalty had most to tempt or discourage it. Our Colonel’s father was a younger son of old Scottos. He resided at Crowlin; concerning his means of life we learn nothing, but the Colonel was always well supplied with money in his boyhood. The clan were Catholics, and John’s father, in 1740, sent the boy, then aged twelve, to be educated at the Scots College in Rome. He was accompanied by a lad of fourteen, Angus Macdonald, of the Clan Ranald family. From Edinburgh they sailed to Boulogne, and in Paris were entertained by Mr. George Innes, head of the Scots College and brother of Thomas Innes, the first really critical writer on early Scottish history. From Paris the pair of boys went, partly by water, partly in a _calèche_, to Avignon and Marseilles, whence they embarked for Toulon. Here they met with the following adventure, which may be given as an example of the Colonel’s style in narrative, though it had no sequel. Most of his adventures led to nothing, unlike the course of fiction:—

‘One night, as we walked through the streets and were cracking nuts, my comrade, who was somewhat roguish, observed a Monsieur with a large powdered wig, and his hat under his arm, going past us; he took a handful of nuts from his pocket and threw them with all his force at the Frenchman’s head, which unfortunately disordered his wig. Monsieur turned upon and collared him; by good luck a Spaniard was of our party, who instantly ran to the relief of my comrade and gave the Frenchman a severe drubbing. We then adjourned to a tavern, when our Spaniard, calling for a bottle of wine, brought me to a private room, and after bolting the door, to my great terror and surprise, drew a stiletto with his right hand from his left bosom, and made me to understand by signs that with that weapon he would have killed the Frenchman, if he had proved too strong for him. He then took a net purse out of his pocket wherein there appeared to be about a hundred Spanish pistoles, and made me an offer of a part: I made him a low bow, but, not standing in need of it, would not accept of his liberality, for I thought I had enough, being always purse-bearer for myself and companion. My friend made sometimes free with my pockets, merely to try if I should miss anything, and was happy to find that I made a discovery of his tricks by immediately missing what he took in that way.... I bought out of our stock two large folding French knives, by way of carvers, in case of any sinister accident.’

Such an accident of travel presently occurred. A Mr. O’Rourk of Tipperary, on his way to study at Rome, introduced the boys to a certain Mr. Creach, late of the Irish brigade in Spanish service. Mr. Creach, finding Master Macdonell alone in his room, tried to rob him. Macdonell flew at the man; Angus Macdonald entered; the pair threw Creach on the ground, and John had his ‘carver’ out, with a view to cutting Creach’s throat, when O’Rourk interfered with this wild Celtic justice. Arrived in Rome, the boys found that the fame of their exploit had preceded them and done them good service, as they were reckoned lads of spirit.

John, though the youngest pupil in the lowest class of the seminary, was advancing rapidly in his studies when, in the winter of 1743, Prince Charles rode out of Rome to a hunting-party, and, disguised as a Spanish courier, continued his course as far as Antibes. France had invited him, though, when he arrived, she neglected him. John now conceived that, in the event of the Prince’s landing in England, ‘My clan would not be the last to join the young Charles.... This set my brains agoing, which were not very settled of themselves. I got disgusted with the life of a student, and thought I would be much happier in the army.’

John, therefore, contrived to get ‘introduced to King James by noblemen attending on that Prince, who inquired of me particularly about my grandfather and granduncles [Glengarry and Barisdale, apparently], with all of whom he had been acquainted personally in the year 1715,’ when Glengarry distinguished himself so brilliantly, avenging the fallen Clan Ranald, at Sheriffmuir. A recommendation for John was sent to General Macdonnell (of the Antrim family), then commanding the Irish of the Spanish forces in Italy, and, though the Cardinal Protector demurred to John’s change of service, our hero was equipped with a sword by the Rector of his College. ‘Presenting me with the sword, his eyes filled, and he told me that I should lose that sword by the enemy, which was verified in seven or eight months after.’ The Rector had the second sight!

Mr. Macdonell, a sage of sixteen, was now horrified by the ethical ideas which he surprised in the conversation of the young Italian gentlemen who rode with him to join the Spanish army. They assured him that his military value depended on his emancipation from the prudish notions of ‘a parcel of bigots,’ but he was destined to refute this theory. General Macdonnell admitted his young clansman to his own table, and put him in the way of seeing fire. He thus describes his first view of that element; probably his emotions are common to recruits:—

‘I’ll tell you the truth, I felt myself rather queer, my heart panting very strong, not with bravery, I assure you. I thought that every bullet would finish [me], and thought seriously to run away, a cursed thought! I dare never see my friends or nearest relations after such dastardly conduct. My thoughts were all at once cut short by the word of command, “Advance quick!” We were at once within about one hundred paces of the enemy, to whom we gave so well directed a fire, that their impetuosity was bridled. The firing on both sides continued until dark came on, which put a stop to the work of the evening. The enemy retreated some distance back, and we rejoined our own army. I went to Genl. McDonnell, who asked me if I had smelled powder to-day; I told him I had plentifully. “What, Sir,” said he, “are you wounded?” “No, please your Excellency.” “Sir, you will never smell powder until you are wounded.” I got great credit from the officers commanding the party I belonged to for my undaunted behaviour during the action, but they little knew what past within me before it began.’

The smell of powder was soon in our hero’s experience. The Neapolitan general who commanded on alternate days with the French leader, withdrew his troops from a strong position on the heights above Velletri, which was attacked by Prince Lobkwitz and the famous General Brown, with forty-five thousand Austrians. There was daily fighting, and General Macdonnell was stopped by his superior officer while in the very act of driving the Austrians from the deserted heights, which they, of course, had occupied. An Austrian surprise cut off Macdonell’s regiment from the main force, and he thus describes what occurred:

‘For my own share I was among the last that gave way, but when I once turned my back, I imagined that the enemy all aimed at me alone, and therefore ran with all my might, and thought there was a weight tied to each of my legs, till I had outrun everyone, and looking behind, saw the whole coming up. I halted and faced about, every one as he came up did the same, we soon formed a regular line, and resolved to revenge our dead comrades and to fight to the last; but found our situation to be as bad as before.... Reduced to extremity we offered to capitulate on honourable terms, but could obtain no condition except surrendering at discretion, rather than which we resolved to fight while powder and ball remained among the living or the dead. Our officers and men fell very fast. I among the rest got a ball through my thigh which prevented my standing; I crossed my firelock under my thigh and shook it, to try if the bone was whole, which finding to be the case, dropped on one knee and continued firing. I received another shot, which threw me down; I made once more an attempt to help my surviving comrades, but received a third wound, which quite disabled me. Loss of blood and no way of stopping it soon reduced my strength, I however, griped my sword to be ready to run through the first enemy that should insult me.

‘All our ammunition being spent, not a single cartridge remained amongst the living or the dead, quarters were called for by the few that were yet alive. Many of the wounded were knocked on the head, and I did not escape with impunity. One approached me; at first I made ready to run him through, but observing five more close to him, I dropt the sword, and was saluted with _Hunts-foot_,[107] accompanied with a cracking of muskets about my head. I was only sensible of three blows and fainted; I suppose they thought me dead. On coming to myself again, I found my clothes were stripped off, weltering in my blood, and no one alive near me to speak to, twisting and rolling in the dust with pain, and my skin scorched by the sun. In this condition a Croat came up to me with a cocked pistol in his hand, and asked for my purse in bad Italian. I told him that I had no place to hide it in, and if he found it anywhere about me to take it. “Is that an answer for me, you son of a b—ch?” at same time pointing his pistol straight between my eyes. I saw no one near, but the word _quarter_ was scarcely expressed by me, when I saw his pistol-arm seized by a genteel young man dressed only in his waistcoat, who said to him, “You rascal, let the man die as he pleases; you see he has enough, go and kill some one able to resist.” The fellow went off. Previous to this a Croat, taking my gold-laced hat and putting it upon his own head, coolly asked me how he looked in it. He then with his sabre cut off my queue and took it along with him.’

A civilised scalp!

_The Duke of York and Prince Charles_

_circ. 1735_]

The Austrians, after all, lost the day, and a certain Miles Macdonnell rescued our hero, and had him carried into hospital. Recovering, he returned to Rome, and was welcomed in a flattering manner both by his King, who presented him with a sum of money, and by the young Duke of York. After seeing some service on the Po, young Macdonell obtained leave to go to France and join a detachment which was to aid Prince Charles in Scotland. At Lyons they heard of the Prince’s defeat of Hawley at Falkirk, but at Paris the news was worse, and of all the Jacobite volunteers (who were Irish) John Macdonell alone persevered. He urged that, as the Prince’s affairs went ill, ‘It was ungenerous not to give what aid we were capable of, but I could not prevail on any of them to be of my opinion.’ In fact, it was now plain that France did not mean to lend any solid assistance to the Cause. The Duke of York since Christmas had been waiting at Dunkirk and Boulogne, expecting permission to sail for England with a large force, but delay followed delay. Young Macdonell now went to Boulogne, where he met the Duke, and was introduced by him to the Duc de Fitzjames and to Lally Tollendal. Here the good Colonel’s memory deceives him, for he avers that Lally wished to take him to Pondicherry. Now Lally was deep in the Scottish rising, and did not leave France for India till ten years after 1746.[108] Young Macdonell, in these weeks of hope deferred, lived with the Duke of York at Boulogne, Dunkirk, and St. Omer. Finally, he set sail from Dunkirk with several Irish officers on the very day of Culloden, April 16.

Here the Colonel is guilty of an artistic blunder in his narrative. It is plain, from his later statements, that the Duke of York made him the bearer of a letter, and a sum of 1,500_l._ or 2,000_l._ in gold, to Prince Charles. But we do not hear, till later, of the money or the missive. The little company with Macdonell rounded the Orkneys, landed in Loch Broom, and at once heard the fatal news of Culloden. Macdonell’s uncle, Scottus, had fallen with twenty of his men, ‘and nobody knew what was become of the Prince.’ Colonel Macdonell never gives dates, but he must have arrived in Loch Broom between May 8 and May 12, 1746. On May 8, a meeting of chiefs was held at Murlagan, and a tryst appointed at Loch Arkaig, in Lochiel’s country, for May 15.[109] Our hero heard something of this at Loch Broom, and determined to join the rallied clans. He first went to Laggy, at the head of Little Loch Broom, where he found Colin Dearg Mackenzie of Laggy, with several other Mackenzie gentlemen, and sixty of the clan. ‘We thought ourselves as safe [he and his friend, Lynch, an Irish officer,] as in the heart of France.’

Now began the purely personal romance of the Colonel. The Mackenzies entertained him and Captain Lynch at dinner in a dark and crowded room; he noticed that men gathered suspiciously behind him, and he remembered that they had remarked on the weight of his portmanteau. He therefore rose more than once from table to inspect that valise, but, while the company were drinking the Prince’s health, Colin Dearg walked out. Absent, too, was the portmanteau, when the guests left the table, but Colin explained that he had packed it on the back of our Colonel’s horse. There, indeed, it was, but when the Colonel stopped at Dundonell, and opened his valise in search of a pair of shoes, a canvas bag containing 1,000_l._ was missing. A gentleman of the Mackenzie clan had slashed open the portmanteau and stolen the money of the Prince whose health they were drinking! It was the affair of the Loch Arkaig hoard on a smaller scale. The situation of our injured hero was the more awkward, as Dundonell, where he found, himself, was the estate of a Mr. Mackenzie, nephew to the thief, Colin Dearg. Mr. Mackenzie was absent; Mrs. Mackenzie was at home, but in bed. However, she saw Macdonell, who told her what had occurred, and entrusted to her another bag of five hundred guineas: ‘If killed, I bequeath it to your ladyship. God be with you! I wish you a good morning.’ Accompanied by Lynch, Macdonell now returned to Laggy. He dared not use force against Colin Dearg, for, if he fell, Colin would win his own pardon by producing a letter from the Duke of York to Charles, which our hero was carrying, though he now mentions it for the first time. Accused by Macdonell of taking the money, Colin Dearg denied all knowledge of it, and, as he was attended by a tail of armed clansmen, Macdonell had no resource but in retreat.