BY a Lady, extempore, upon the ribband which the Prince wore
about his head when obliged to disguise himself in a female
dress under the name of Betty Burk.
Most honoured ribband, of all else take place,
Of greens and blues, and all their tawdry race.
Thou wast the laurel the fair temples bound
Of Royal Charles, for greatness so renown'd.
Thee I'll reserve, as Heav'n reserves his crown,
Till his rebellious foes be overthrown.
Then in thy place a diadem shall shine
His by his virtues, as by right divine.
NARRATIVE of a Conversation betwixt Captain
JOHN HAY and me, ROBERT FORBES.
[Sidenote: 7 Nov. 1747]
_Leith, Saturday, November 7th, 1747._
[Sidenote: _fol._ 479.] I dined in the house of Mrs. Seaman at the
foot of the Kirkgate, with John Hay, captain of the Custom-House
yacht at Air, when the conversation turned much upon the dangers
and distresses the Prince behoved to undergoe in his skulking and
wandering from place to place after the battle of Culloden.
Captain Hay asked if it was not one of the name of MacLeod that went
to Stornoway in the Lewis upon the business of engaging a ship, with
a design to take off the Prince and the few that were then with
him? I told him it was Donald MacLeod, an old man of sixty-eight
years of age, and who had been along with the Prince for nine or
ten weeks after the battle of Culloden. 'That project,' said the
Captain, 'happened to miscarry by being discovered, and I have reason
to think that the discovery was owing to an information given by a
Presbyterian minister.' Upon this I gave the Captain an account of
this affair (to the best of my remembrance) as I [Sidenote: _fol._
480.] had got it from the mouth of Donald MacLeod, viz., that a
Presbyterian preacher in one of the Uists had writ a letter to a
friend in the Harris, who then writ a letter to a Presbyterian
preacher in the Lewis, upon which the people of the Lewis conveened
at Stornoway to the number of some hundreds, etc.[213]
[213] See f. 288.
To this the Captain replied that he had good reason to assure me
that that indeed was the matter of fact. 'For,' added he, 'as I was
cruizing along with the rest at that time I had an opportunity of
knowing how the different informations came about.'
I told him I was exceedingly glad to have his account of the matter
to support and confirm Donald Macleod's own representation of it,
because that Donald had been reproached by severals for having
got drunk;[214] and in his cups for having discovered to some one
acquaintance or other the real design for which he had hired the
ship, and this acquaintance was said to have blown the whole project.
Captain Hay said he did not believe one word of all that, but
that the true state [Sidenote: _fol._ 481.] of the case was above
represented, and that the Prince would have been on board with his
few attendants that very night when the discovery was made, had he
not met with that unexpected disappointment.
[214] See ff. 134, 184.
Captain Hay asked if I could inform him of the day when the Prince
set out from the Isle of Sky to the mainland.[215] I told him it was
July 5th, and likewise remarked to him what difficulty I had with
Captain Malcolm MacLeod to adjust this matter of a precise date.[216]
'Surely then,' said the Captain, 'we behoved to be very near the
Prince in his crossing the ferry to the mainland.' I told him I did
not doubt that at all, and then I gave him an account (as exactly as
I could) of that narrative given me by Mrs. MacDonald of Kingsburgh,
and afterwards confirmed to me by Malcolm MacLeod himself,[217] anent
the Prince's desiring Malcolm MacLeod to have no fear, for that the
wind would soon change, and make the ships of war, [Sidenote: _fol._
482.] then in view upon the coast of Sky, steer a direct contrary
course, so that it would not be in their power to come near him at
that time. At this Captain Hay, with an asseveration, assured the
company that that was literally true; for that when they were sailing
along the coast of Sky with a pretty brisk gale, all of a sudden the
wind changed upon them and forced them to sail a direct contrary
course. He said he remembered nothing better.
[215] See f. 267.
[216] See ff. 247, 262.
[217] See ff. 215, 242.
Here I remarked that some would be ready to attribute this in the
Prince to the second sight or some such uncommon supernatural cause;
but that for my own part I believed there were some who could tell a
little time before that the wind would blow from this or the other
point of the compass, being in the use of making observations in
that way. Captain Hay replied that sailors and others who dealt
in observations of that kind could exactly enough tell from the
[Sidenote: _fol._ 483.] motion of a cloud, or the like, when the wind
would veer about to this or the other quarter; and from what had been
said he remarked that the Prince behoved to have skill in that way.
I then told the company that Malcolm MacLeod had said that he never
knew a man in all his life that had such a firm and steady trust in
the providence of God as the Prince was remarkably blessed with.[218]
[218] See f. 216.
The conversation happening to turn upon the subject of Rorie
MacKenzie's death, it was said that it was certain enough that Rorie
MacKenzie had been taken by a party of Cumberland's army for the
Prince, and that he had been actually butchered by them; but as to
the particular circumstance of the butchery, that was an affair not
so easily to be discovered. Here I told the company that particular
story given me by Kingsburgh anent the officer's talking to him at
Fort Augustus [Sidenote: _fol._ 484.] about the young Pretender's
head.[219] Upon this Captain Hay said that in visiting his friends
lately in the south country he had discovered a story well worth
the remarking, and the more so because it had come from the Duke of
Cumberland's own mouth. The Captain informed the company that he
had met with a gentleman in the south who told him that when the
Duke of Cumberland was on his way from the north to Berwick he had
gone to that town to wait upon him, that accordingly he paid his
court to him, and after he had done so, he asked his highness if
he had entirely finished the whole affair, and left the country in
peace. The Duke answered he had done so. Then the gentleman asked
what was become of the Pretender's oldest son? The Duke replied
that he had taken care to leave such orders behind him that the
Pretender's [Sidenote: _fol._ 485.] eldest son would never be more
heard of. Captain Hay said that as he had this particular narrative
from the gentleman's own mouth, it deserved the more credit, for he
could depend upon the truth of it; but he did not chuse to name the
gentleman.
[219] See f. 146.
Captain Hay was pleased to tell the company that when General
Campbell came to the Laird of Clanranald's house in search of the
Prince (so the Captain named him during the whole conversation)
Lady Clanranald happened not to be at home, but that she came home
pretty soon after. The General told the lady that he was to dine
with her, and then began to interrogate her where she had been? Lady
Clanranald answered that she had been visiting a sick child at some
distance.[220] The General asking the name of the child, the lady
made no stop in giving a name, and said likewise that the child was
much better than formerly it had been; and she conversed all along
with the General in a very easy, unconcerned way. [Sidenote: _fol._
486.] Here the Captain observed that the visiting of the sick child
was only a mere pretence the better to cover the real business the
lady had been employed about, for afterwards it was discovered that
Lady Clanranald at that time had actually been with the Prince.
[220] See f. 527.
I could not fail remarking to Captain Hay that Lady Clanranald's
acquitting herself so exactly and wisely in the Prince's preservation
was something very singular, and the more extraordinary that (as I
had been informed) she happens frequently not to be so well in her
health, and therefore (one would be apt to imagine) quite unfit to
manage a point of so much delicacy and danger. The Captain answered
that Lady Clanranald's conduct in that affair, all things considered,
was very extraordinary indeed.
After giving several very remarkable instances of the miseries and
dangers the Prince had been exposed to in his wanderings, I begged
leave to ask at Captain Hay what notions he [Sidenote: _fol._ 487.]
would entertain of those folks in and about Edinburgh (people of no
mean sense and discretion in the common affairs of life) who when
certain accounts had come of the Prince's arrival in France were
pleased to say: 'O these Jacobites are strange bodies, who attribute
the preservation of their Prince to the providence of God alone,
when Providence could have no hand in it at all, seeing the Duke of
Cumberland and his army were not willing to take him, but, on the
contrary, avoided the laying hands on him when they might have done
it.' At this Captain Hay held up his hands and declared his amazement
that any such expression could ever proceed out of the mouth of any
person whatsomever, and asked seriously if there were any persons
that could have the impudence to talk so? I assured him there were
such persons as had actually used the above expressions, or words
to the same purpose, and that they could [Sidenote: _fol._ 488.] be
named. He said he was indeed surprised to hear the thing, considering
the strict searches that had been made for the person of the Prince,
and the many narrow escapes he had made. And, moreover, that it was
well known in the army that when any officers happened to bring
prisoners into the camp in the north, and after the report being made
at the headquarters, the Duke of Cumberland used to be in a very bad
humour, and to express himself in these words: 'These officers don't
know their duty.'
The whole conversation went easily on, and lasted till between four
and five o'clock at night.
There were present who witnessed the above conversation, Richard
Seaman, baxter in Leith, John Hay, piriwig maker in Edinburgh, Mrs.
Bettie Seaman and Mrs. Ellie Kendal. Mrs. Seaman herself went from
the company pretty soon after dinner to look after her business,
so that she witnessed but a small part of the conversation. John
Hay, piriwig maker, [Sidenote: _fol._ 489.] declared his being very
much pleased with being present at such a long and so particular a
conversation upon the dangers and distresses of the Prince, and at
the narrating some of the more moving and interesting parts he was
so much affected that he shed tears. He frankly owned that he had
never heard so much of the matter in all the several companies he had
formerly resorted to where this extraordinary and affecting history
happened to be the subject of conversation.