friend Lochiel removed from Mellamur, and went two miles further into
Ben Aulder, until they reached a shiel called Uiskchiboa, where the hut
was peculiarly wretched and smoky; "yet his Royal Highness," as Clunie
related, "put up with everything." Here they remained for two or three
nights, and then went to a habitation still two miles further into Ben
Aulder, for no less remote retreat was thought secure. This retreat was
prepared by Clunie, and obtained the name of the Cage. "It was," as he
himself relates, "a great curiosity, and can scarcely be described to
perfection." It is best to give the account of the edifice which he had
himself constructed, in Macpherson's own words. "It was situated in the
face of a very rough, high, and rocky mountain, called Lettemilichk,
still a part of Ben Aulder, full of great stones and crevices, and some
scattered wood interspersed. The habitation called the Cage, in the face
of that mountain, was within a small but thick wood. There were first
some rows of trees laid down, in order to level a floor for the
habitation; and, as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to
an equal height with the other; and these trees, in the way of joists
or planks, were levelled with earth or gravel. There were betwixt the
trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the
earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath
or birch-twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather
oval shape, and the whole thatched and covered over with bog. This whole
fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one
end, all along the roof to the other, and which gave it the name of the
Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones, at a small distance
from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars
of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out
here, all along the face of the rock, which was so much of the same
colour that one could discover no difference in the clearest day. The
Cage was no larger than to contain six or seven persons, four of whom
were frequently employed playing at cards, one idle looking on, one
baking, and another fixing bread and cooking."[295]
Charles and Lochiel remained six or seven days in this seclusion, which
was one of several to which Clunie was in the habit of retiring, never
even informing his wife or his most attached friends whither he was
going. But the deliverance of the Prince and Lochiel was now at hand.
Several small vessels had arrived from France, and touched on the west
coast, expressly to carry away the Prince, but not being able to find
him out, they had returned. By the fidelity of the Highlanders and the
connection between every member of the different clans, the Prince had
been able to keep up a continual communication with persons on the
coast, without discovery. This was managed by some of his adherents
skulking near the shore; and though they knew not where Charles was, yet
they conveyed the intelligence to others, who imparted it to persons in
the interior, who again told it to those who were acquainted with the
obscure place of his retreat. At last two French vessels, l'Heureux and
la Princesse de Conti, departed under the command of Colonel Warren,
from St. Malo, and arrived at Lochnarmagh early in September. This event
was communicated to Cameron of Clunes, who, on the other hand, learned
where the Prince was from a poor woman. A messenger was immediately
dispatched to the Cage, and he reached that place on the thirteenth of
September. Charles Edward and Lochiel now prepared to bid Scotland a
final adieu. Notices were sent round by the Prince to different friends
who might choose to avail themselves of this opportunity of escape; and
it was intimated to them that they might join him if they were inclined.
The place of embarkation was Borodale, whence Charles had first summoned
Lochiel to support his cause. The party travelled only by night, and
were six days on their road. They were joined by Glengary, John Roy
Stewart, Dr. Cameron, and a number of other adherents. On the twentieth
of September they left Lochnarmagh, and had a fair passage to the coast
of France. The Prince had intended to sail direct for Nantes, but he
altered his course in order to escape Admiral Lestoch's squadron; and
after being chased by two men-of-war, he landed at Morlaix, in Lower
Bretagne, in a thick fog, on the twenty-ninth of September.
Lochiel was accompanied in his flight to France by his wife, the
faithful and affectionate associate of his exile. His eldest son was
left in the charge of his brother Cameron, of Fassefern. In Paris
Lochiel found his father, who was then eighty years of age; and to this
aged chief the Prince paid the well-merited compliment of placing him in
the same carriage with himself and Lord Lewis Gordon, when he first went
to the Court of Louis the Fifteenth in state. The Prince was followed on
that occasion by a number of his friends, both in coaches and on
horseback. Lord Ogilvy, Lord Elcho, and the Prince's secretary Kelly,
preceded the royal carriage: the younger Lochiel and several gentlemen
followed on horseback. Amid this noble train of brave men, the Prince
appeared pre-eminent in the splendour of his dress. A coat of
rose-coloured velvet, lined with silver tissue, presented a singular
contrast to the brown short coat in which some of his adherents had
formerly seen him. His waistcoat was of gold brocade with a spangled
fringe, set out in scollops, and the white cockade in his hat was
studded with diamonds. The order of St. Andrew and the George on his
breast were adorned with the same jewels: "he glittered," as an
eye-witness observed, "all over like the star which they tell you
appeared at his nativity." But all this display, and the feigned
kindness of his reception, were but the prelude to a heartless
abandonment of his cause on the part of Louis the Fifteenth.
Lochiel was, eventually, provided for by the French Monarch. He was made
Colonel of a French regiment, and having a peculiar faculty of attaching
others to him, he soon became beloved by those under his command. The
Prince showed him affectionate respect; and, blessed in the society of
his wife, and in a daughter whom he called Donalda, Lochiel might have
passed the rest of his days in tranquil submission to the course of
events: but his heart yearned for Scotland; he could not give up the
hopes of another expedition, which he desired to undertake with any
force that could be collected. Cherishing this scheme, the coldness of
the Court of France, and the rashness of the Prince, gave great sorrow
to his harassed mind. Soon after his arrival in Paris he opened a
correspondence with the Chevalier St. George, and represented to him
that the misfortunes which had befallen the cause were not
irretrievable, and that if ten regiments only could be landed in
Scotland before the depopulating system adopted by the English
Government had taken effect, an insurrection might again be raised with
good grounds for the hope of success.
Still hoping thus to return to his country, and again to take arms in
her service, as he deemed it, it was long before Lochiel consented to
accept the command of the French regiment, "intending still," as he
said, "to share the fate of his people." "I told his Royal Highness," he
wrote to the Chevalier St. George, "that Lord Ogilvy or others might
incline to make a figure in France, but my ambition was to save the
crown and serve my country, or perish with it. His Royal Highness said,
he was doing all he could, but persisted in his resolution to procure me
a regiment. If it is obtained, I shall accept it out of respect to the
Prince; but I hope your Majesty will approve of the resolution I have
taken to share in the fate of the people I have undone, and, if they
must be sacrificed, to fall along with them. This is the only way I can
free myself from the reproach of their blood, and show the disinterested
zeal with which I have lived, and shall dye.
"Your Majesty's most humble, most obedient, and most faithful
servant."[296]
When Prince Charles, disheartened at the growing indifference of the
French Court to his interests, contemplated leaving Paris, Lochiel
objected to a proposal which seemed to imply an abandonment of the
cause which he had pledged himself to support. His representations to
the Prince were ineffectual, for a stronger influence had arisen to
baffle the endeavours of Charles's friends; and he was under the sway of
one who was, not inaptly, termed "his Delilah." He left Paris and
arrived at Avignon, to which place Lochiel addressed to him a letter
full of the most cogent reasons why he should not leave Paris. From his
arguments it appears that the English Jacobites had expressed their
willingness to rise, had the Prince either supplied them with arms or
brought them troops to support them.
"For Heaven's sake, sir," wrote Lochiel,[297] "be pleased to consider
these circumstances with the attention that their importance deserves;
and that your honour, your essential interest, the preservation of the
royal cause, and the bleeding state of your suffering friends, require
of you. Let me beg of your Royal Highness, in the most humble and
earnest manner, to reflect that your reputation must suffer in the
opinion of all mankind, if there should be room to suppose that you had
slighted or neglected any possible means of retrieving your affairs."
These remonstrances were at last so far effectual, that Charles returned
to Paris, and was only again removed from that capital by force.
The spirit of Lochiel was meantime broken by the mournful tidings which
reached him of the death of friends on the scaffold, the cruelties
enacted in Scotland, and, more than all, of the Act which took effect
in August 1747, disarming the Highlanders and restraining the use of the
Highland garb. By this statute it was made penal to wear the national
costume: a first offence was punished with six months' imprisonment; a
second, with transportation for seven years. Such were the efforts made
to break the union of a fiery but faithful people, and such the attempt
to produce a complete revolution in the national habits!
Many were the projects which amused the exiled Jacobites into hopes that
ended in bitter disappointment, and many the fleeting visions of a
restoration of the Stuarts. During one of these brief chimeras, Lochiel
and Clunie visited Charles at a retreat on the Upper Rhine, whither he
had retired after the perfidious imprisonment at the Castle of
Vincennes. They found the Prince sunk in the lassitude which succeeds a
long course of exciting events, and of smothered but not subdued misery.
The visit yielded to neither party satisfaction. Charles was deaf to the
remonstrances of Lochiel, and Lochiel beheld his Prince wholly devoted
to Miss Walkinshaw and her daughter, afterwards Countess of Albany, and
completely under the influence of his mistress, who was regarded by
Lochiel and Clunie as a spy of Hanover.
Lochiel left the Prince, and they never met again. The health of the
chief began to decline; his malady was a mental one, and admitted of no
cure but a return to those vassals who had been so faithful and so much
attached to him, and to friends with whose misfortunes he seems to have
blamed himself. Of the affection of the clansmen he received frequent
proofs. "The estates of Lochiel," says Mrs. Grant, "were forfeited like
others, and paid a moderate rate to the Crown, such as they had formerly
given to their chief. The domain formerly occupied by the Laird was
taken on his behoof by his brother. The tenants brought each a horse,
cow, colt, or heifer, as a free-will offering, till this ample
grazing-farm was as well stocked as formerly. Not content with this,
they sent a yearly tribute of affection to their beloved chief,
independent of the rents they paid to the commissioners for the
forfeited estates. Lochiel's lady and her daughters once or twice made a
sorrowful pilgrimage among their friends and tenants. These last
received them with a tenderness and respect which seemed augmented by
the adversity into which they were plunged."
At last the suffering spirit was released. Lochiel is conjectured to
have died about the year 1760, and is generally thought to have sunk
under the pressure of hopeless sorrow, or, to use the words of one who
spoke from tradition, "of a broken heart." His daughter Donalda, who was
about fourteen at the time of his death, had attached herself so fondly
to her father, that after his decease she pined away, and never
recovered. She died soon after her father, and the mother did not long
survive her daughter. Never, perhaps, did a brave and unfortunate man
sink to rest more honoured by society at large, more admired and
respected by his friends, more revered by his vassals, than the gentle
Lochiel. The beauty of his character showed itself also in the close
ties of domestic life: and in some of these, more particularly as a
brother, his warm and constant affections were destined to be severely
wounded. He felt deeply the banishment of his brother Cameron of
Fassefern; and still more severely the cruel fate of another brother,
Dr. Archibald Cameron. The fate of that young man, who attended Charles
Edward in most of his wanderings, presents, indeed, one of the saddest
episodes of this melancholy period. Dr. Cameron, after sharing the
dangers which the Prince ran, and following him to France, returned to
Scotland in 1749. Charles Edward had left a large sum of money in the
charge of Macpherson of Clunie, upon leaving Scotland; and Dr. Cameron
was privy to the concealment of the money. He visited Clunie, and
obtained from him six thousand louis-d'ors, for which, however, Clunie
took Dr. Cameron's receipt. In 1753, Dr. Cameron made another visit,
which is conjectured to have had a similar object. The money was
concealed near Loch Arkeg, to the amount of twenty-two thousand
louis-d'ors. Some degree of obscurity rests upon this transaction, which
undoubtedly throws a degree of discredit on the memory of Dr. Cameron.
Among the Stuart papers there is a letter from Mr. Ludovick Cameron to
Prince Charles, alluding to the "misfortune" of his nephew, Dr. Cameron,
in taking away a good round sum of his Highness's money, and clearing
himself from the imputation. This proves that there was no commission,
as it has been suggested,[298] to Dr. Cameron, but that the transaction
was regarded in a disgraceful light, even by the relative of the
unfortunate young man.
A severe retribution awaited the offender, who intended, it is said, to
enter into a mercantile concern at Glasgow with the money thus procured.
He was taken prisoner in the house of Stewart of Glenbuckie, by a party
of soldiers from the garrison at Inversnaid. He was carried to London,
arraigned upon the Act of Attainder in 1745, in which his name was
included, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. His wife, who then
resided at Lisle, hurried to London to proffer fruitless petitions for
mercy. Whatever may have been Dr. Cameron's errors, his death was worthy
of the name he bore, and he sustained his fate with calmness and
resignation. Seven children were left to deplore his loss. The Chevalier
St. George, kindly passing over his fault, wrote of him in these terms.
"I am a stranger to the motives which carried poor Archibald Cameron
into Scotland; but whatever they may have been, his fate gives me the
more concern, as I own I could not bring myself to believe that the
English Government would carry their rigour so far." The French
Government settled a pension of one thousand five hundred livres upon
Mrs. Cameron, and an annual allowance of two hundred livres to each of
her sons, who were in their service. The unfortunate Dr. Cameron was
buried in the Savoy in London. The family of the man who betrayed him is
said, in the Highlands, to have been visited with a severe retribution,
having, ever since, had one of its members an idiot. Such is the notion
of retributive justice in the Highlands.
The death of this brother, and still more the stain upon the honour of
Dr. Cameron, must have added greatly to the burden of sorrow which fell
so heavily upon Lochiel. His son was, however, spared for some years,
and was cherished by the Scots as the representative of their ancient
chiefs. He was, it is true, what they called a "landless laird," yet the
clansmen paid him all the honours due to the eldest son of Lochiel. He
received a good education, and was prevented by his friends from taking
any part in the various schemes set on foot at certain intervals for the
return of Charles. He married at an early age. Government was at that
time engaged in levying men for the American war, and found it
convenient to use the influence of the clans for that purpose; Lochiel
was offered a company in General Fraser's regiment, the seventy-first,
provided he could raise it among his clan. Poor and broken as they were,
the clansmen, true to their bond of fidelity, mustered around their
landless laird; and Lochiel marched at the head of his company to
Glasgow, in order to embark for America.
It happened that whilst here, he was taken ill of the measles, a
disorder which prevented his marching. It was therefore arranged that
the first lieutenant should take his place. When, on the point of
marching to Greenock in order to embark, the clansmen discovered this,
they laid down their arms, declaring that they had not engaged with King
George, but with Lochiel; and they refused to move. The chief hearing of
this dilemma, ill as he was, arose, dressed himself, and went down to
his people. He harangued them, and represented that unless they went on
board, their conduct would be imputed to disaffection, and might injure,
if not ruin his interests. The men immediately took up their arms,
huzzaed their chief, and began to march. The result is melancholy.
Enfeebled by this effort, Lochiel again took to his bed; the day on
which he had made this fatal exertion was a raw November morning. He
never recovered from that exposure, but died in a few days afterwards.
Most of the company of Camerons perished in the contest which ensued.
Thrice during the American war was General Fraser's regiment
renewed.[299] Such was the devotion of this gallant race of men to their
chief; and such were the services which those whose fathers had fought
at Culloden, devoted to the cause of the English Monarch.
Late in the eighteenth century, the estates of Lochiel were restored to
the grandson of Lochiel; and the descendants of that race, in which so
much honour, such disinterested exertion, such kindness and heroism
existed, are again the Lords of Achnacarry.
FOOTNOTES:
[247] I am indebted to a MS. account of Cameron of Lochiel for the most
interesting facts in the following memoir. It was communicated to me by
R. Chambers, Esq., and was written by Mrs. Grant of Laggan. In her
letters unpublished, she declares the source of her information to have
been some papers in the possession of a Scotch clergyman, "which," says
Mrs. Grant, "it appears he did not give to John Home, who would scarcely
have asked the favour, keeping very shy of his old brethren."
[248] Brown's History of the Highlands, part ii. p. 141.
[249] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[250] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[251] Brown's Highlands.
[252] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[253] "The credit of this feat," writes Mrs. Grant, "rests merely on the
country tradition: and the silence concerning it, in the publications
and records of those times, is accounted for, first, by the shame which
the commanders of the party felt at being thus surprised and outwitted
by an inferior number of those whom they had been accustomed to style
barbarians and to treat as such."--_MS._
[254] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[255] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[256] Sketches of the Highlands, vol. i. pp. 60, 61.
[257] Brown's Highlands.
[258] Reay, p. 88.
[259] See Culloden Papers.
[260] Stewart's Sketches, vol. i. p. 86.
[261] Reay, p. 271.
[262] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[263] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[264] Conjectured to be Lord Lovat.
[265] Appendix to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, p. 177.
[266] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[267] Appendix to Home's History of the Rebellion, No. II.
[268] See Appendix, No. II.
[269] Home. Appendix. From the papers of Cameron of Fassefern, Lochiel's
nephew.
[270] In the year 1781, Fassefern repeated this conversation to Mr.
Home. History of the Rebellion, p. 7.
[271] Forbes, p. 19.
[272] Home, p. 5.
[273] Forbes, p. 19.
[274] Home, p. 6.
[275] Maxwell of Kirkconnel's Narrative, p. 23.
[276] The beautiful poem of Campbell, entitled "Lochiel," is founded on
this circumstance.
[277] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[278] Life of Jenny Cameron. London. Printed for C. Whitefield, in White
Friars, 1746.
[279] Life of Jenny Cameron.
[280] Forbes, p. 23.
[281] The poem entitled "Jeanie Cameron's Lament," is, with other
inedited Jacobite songs, likely soon to be given to the world, arranged
to true Scottish airs, and published in parts. These songs are collected
by a member of one of the most ancient Jacobite families. The
accomplished young lady who has engaged in this undertaking is Miss
Charlotte Maxwell, the sister of Sir William Maxwell, Bart., of
Menteith, Wigtonshire, and a descendant of the Earl of Nithisdale. The
ballad of Sherriff Muir, is among the first of the interesting
collection.
[282] Forbes, p. 23.
[283] Maxwell of Kirkconnel, p. 45.
[284] Maxwell, p. 105.
[285] Home, p. 164.
[286] Dated, Edinburgh, 12th Jan. 1745-6. This extract, for which I am
indebted to Mr. Macdonald, who possesses the orderly-book, was
considered an extremely curious passage by Sir Walter Scott.
[287] Burrell's regiment was so broken, that not two men were left
standing. Home, Appendix.
[288] In a letter among the papers of Mr. Murray of Abercairney, the
imputations upon the Highlanders are strongly and ably refuted. For
obvious reasons I have not given the extract, nor gone more closely into
a subject which belongs to the province of history.
[289] See Mrs. Grant's MS.
[290] Home, Appendix, p. 373.
[291] See note 2 in Chambers's History of the Rebellion, p. 121.
[292] See History of the Rebellion, taken from the Scots' Magazine, p.
353.
[293] Cluny Macpherson's Narrative. Home, Appendix, p. 365.
[294] Of one of these there is an interesting anecdote in the Tales of a
Grandfather, vol. iii. p. 295, note.
[295] Home's History of the Rebellion, Appendix, p. 146.
[296] Brown's History of the Highlands, Part II. App. CVII. from the
Stuart Papers.
[297] Brown's History of the Highlands. No. LXX.
[298] Chambers, p. 145.
[299] Mrs. Grant's MS.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON:
Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, AND FLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: The following errors in the original have been
corrected.
Page 24 - missing quote mark added: in Scots' affairs."[B]
Page 36 - missing quote mark added: Scottish nobility."
Page 47 - from Paris to Boisleduc changed to from Paris to Barleduc
Page 54 - missing quote mark added: faithfully serving King George."
Page 66 - few duties changed to feu duties
Page 88 - disastrous contest changed to diastrous contest
Page 94 - missing footnote marker added: Earl conceived.[101]
Page 101 - extra comma removed from after harbour, which succeeded
Page 111 - extra quote mark removed from before MAR.
Page 126 - Footnote marker with no associated footnote after pardoned in
1726.
Page 158 - at Fetterosso changed to at Fetteresso
Page 163 - missing quotation mark added after Ave Marias:
Page 183 - Porbably (in footnote) changed to Probably
Page 258 - missing quotation mark added before we saw a drum
Page 266 - against him." missing closing quote after him added
Page 300 - missing quotation mark added after black as a craw, man.
Page 309 - extra quotation mark removed from after their uncles.
Page 310 - missing quotation mark added after his possession,
Page 369 - missing quotation mark added after the smallest assistance!"
Page 383 - In this rereat changed to In this retreat
Page 387 - from the imputation. extra quotation mark removed from after
imputation