INVERSNAID GARRISONED.
After the close of the whole insurrection, when the leaders of it
were in their bloody graves or in hopeless exile, seeking in foreign
camps and fields their bread at the point of the sword, the old
rancorous sentiment against the Clan Alpine was still found to exist;
for in the subsequent Act of Indemnity a free pardon was granted to
all Jacobites, "_excepting persons of the name of MacGregor_,
mentioned in an Act, made in Scotland in the first year of King
Charles I., intituled 'Anent the Clan Gregor,' whatever name he or
they may have, or do _assume_;" and hence especially among the
proscribed appeared the now dreaded name of "Robert Campbell, _alias_
MacGregor, _commonly_ called Robert Roy."
This insulting mode of designating him, as if he had been a common
thief in the "Hue and Cry," embittered yet more the soul of
MacGregor; though he had been so long outlawed, and subjected to
every severity and danger, this new act made little difference
circumstantially to Rob, and doubtless he despised it. But the
erection of a government fortress and barrack on _his own lands_ of
Inversnaid, for the direct purpose of overawing and subjugating his
clan, and to lay him and it more completely at the mercy of the Whigs
and Montrose, was more than he could suffer with patience.
His house of Auchinchisallan, in which he had resided in Breadalbane,
had been wantonly burned, and his wife and children were once more
driven to the caves and rocks for shelter; his cattle and crops were
seized by a party of troops specially sent for those purposes by
General Charles Lord Cadogan, an officer who had served as a
brigadier under Marlborough, who had been taken prisoner at the siege
of Messina, in 1706, and who was made Master-General of the Ordnance
in 1722.
On MacGregor's lands he exercised great severity; and now, separated
from his wife and children, the unfortunate Rob Roy, attended by his
faithful henchman and foster-brother, Callam MacAleister, lurked in
the mountains, and chiefly in the cavern near Loch Lomond, which
still bears his name, and from whence he could see the flames of
rapine and destruction, as the country was swept by fire and sword;
and there he schemed out many a futile plan of vengeance on his
oppressors.
Amid all this his heart bled for his children, who were growing up to
desperate lives and wayward fortunes, the end of which he could not
foresee. One thing, however, his own sense predicted: that the life
of war and hazard he now lead could not last for ever, and that the
erection of forts in the Highlands, and the entrance of war ships
into the great salt lochs by which they were intersected, might
ultimately curb the power of the Jacobite clans, especially when the
overwhelming strength of the Campbells, the Grants, and other Whig
clans, was united to that of the Lowland invader; and ultimately--but
not in Rob's time--this prediction of his soul came true.
And yet it was for his children, and the patrimony which had been
rent from them, that he maintained a hopeless struggle with their
oppressors. It has been well observed by a modern writer, "that the
motives to exertion furnished by the possession of children are as
powerful as ever moved heart or hand. The secret of many a struggle
in life's battle may be found at home. The man who has children
dependent upon him will and must struggle manfully against the most
adverse circumstances. The thought that the joy of their innocent
young lives depends upon his courage, his perseverance, his
energy--this thought will enable him to work wonders, and achieve
what will appear impossibilities to the man who has only his own
selfish needs and his own selfish ambition to urge him on." And so,
when poor MacGregor thought of the _future_ of his boys, his
otherwise unflinching heart was rent in twain.
Meanwhile, the erection of the government fortress at Inversnaid
proceeded rapidly, though he did all in his power to retard it; and
he had the mortification to see the stones of his own dwelling-house
and of the cottages of his tenantry used in construction of the
barrack and bastions.
A builder named Naysmith, from Edinburgh, contracted to build this
fort of Inversnaid; but his operations were frequently and roughly
interrupted.
It was commenced during the winter season, and he and his workmen
lodged in huts near the edifice.
One night, when the snow was falling heavily in great and feathery
flakes, they were roused by some travellers noisily demanding
shelter. On the door being opened, a number of fierce-looking
MacGregors, with their plaids and bonnets coated with snow, rushed
in, menaced the poor workmen with drawn swords, and reviled them
bitterly.
Being defenceless and unarmed men, they were not slain by Rob Roy's
followers, but they were driven half naked through the snow to a
distance, when Greumoch and young Coll dismissed them, after exacting
from them a solemn oath that they would never again enter the
MacGregors' country.
Whether the same masons returned or not we have no means of knowing;
but the fort was ultimately finished and garrisoned. "Mr. Naysmith,"
says Robert Chambers, "being held by Government to a contract which
he could not fulfil, was seriously injured in his means by this
affair; but its worst consequence was the effect of exposure on that
dreadful winter night on his health. He sunk under his complaints,
and died about eighteen months after."
When the fort was complete, the works were mounted with cannon, and
the barrack within it was occupied by three companies of Lord
Tyrawley's regiment, the South British Fusiliers, under Major
(formerly Captain) Huske, with express orders to keep the MacGregors
in check and to make short work with them on every occasion--orders
not to be misconstrued.
During the progress of this--to Rob Roy--most obnoxious erection, he
lurked with MacAleister in the cavern near Loch Lomond; the same
place which, as we have said, sheltered the gallant King Robert I.,
after the battle of Dalree, where the famous Brooch of Lorn was torn
from his shoulder. It is near Craigrostan and Inversnaid, on the
eastern bank of the loch.
The entrance is near the edge of the water, and is partly concealed
by great masses of rock, like a fallen Cyclopean wall, which have
been shaken by the volcanic throes of nature from the crags above.
Amid these masses, the wild foxglove, the purple heather, the green
whin, and dense brushwood of every kind flourish, serving to conceal
the access, which is every way one of peril and difficulty.
Here he was perfectly secure, though he could hear drums beating in
Inversnaid; and sometimes he ventured at night to leave it, and visit
his wife and children, who resided under Greumoch's care, in an
obscure hut among the mountains of Breadalbane; and on these
occasions he twice narrowly escaped being taken when returning to his
retreat.
Once, when travelling with three followers, in a solitary and
sequestered place near Loch Earn, a beautiful sheet of water, from
the shore of which the mountains start in bold and rocky grandeur, he
suddenly found himself face to face with seven horsemen, in red
uniforms, with conical grenadier caps, on the blue flaps of which the
"white horse" of Hanover was embroidered. In fact, they were seven
horse grenadiers of Captain MacDougal's troop, which was then
attached to the garrison of Inversnaid.
The tattered yet warlike aspect of MacGregor, the well-known red and
black checks of his tartan, his powerful figure and ruddy-coloured
beard, made them certain that he was Rob Roy, the outlaw, and with
shouts of "MacGregor!--MacGregor Campbell!" some drew their swords,
while others took pistols from their holsters and prepared for an
attack.
Rob turned to seek safety in flight; but the soldiers fired, and his
three companions fell mortally wounded. Infuriated by this, he
sprang up the steep rocks, where their horses could not find footing,
and taking the pistols from his belt, fired repeatedly, with calm and
stern determination, sending shot after shot at his baffled pursuers,
who remained on the narrow roadway by the loch side, trampling his
dying clansmen under their horses' hoofs, and brandishing their
swords while they menaced and reviled him.
So good was his aim that he killed three of the soldiers and wounded
four of their horses. On this, the remainder galloped off, and left
him to pursue, after nightfall, the secret way to his wild abode.
He reached it in safety, but by some means the horse grenadiers,
patrols of whom were constantly abroad, succeeded in tracking him to
its vicinity; thus, a day or two after the last affair, when he and
MacAleister were issuing forth about dawn, in search of such food as
the mountains afforded, they suddenly found themselves beset by a
party, commanded by Captain MacDougal in person.
With a loud hurrah, the troopers, who were about thirty in number,
put spur to their horses, and dashed in single file along the narrow
footway on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond; but one, who outrode all
the rest, speedily came up with Rob Roy.
"The thousand guineas are mine!" he shouted, and raising himself in
his stirrups, he dealt so furious a blow with his long and ponderous
cavalry sword at MacGregor, that he beat down his guard, and would
inevitably have cleft him to the teeth by the next stroke, but for a
circular iron plate which he wore within his bonnet. The blow,
however, brought him to the ground, and as he fell he exclaimed--
"To your gun, MacAleister!--to your gun, if there is a shot in it!"
"A witch, and not your grandmother, wrought your nightcap!" cried the
astonished trooper, when finding that his sword rung on MacGregor's
head; and he had his hilt drawn back to deal the fallen man a deadly
forward home thrust, when a ball from the long Spanish musket of the
faithful henchman pierced his heart. He fell from his saddle
lifeless and bleeding, and was dragged by his terrified horse (for
one foot hung in a stirrup) down the steep bank towards the water,
where steed and corpse disappeared together.
MacAleister now assisted his foster-brother to rise, and escaping
MacDougal and the rest of his troopers, they made a long detour, and
reached their gloomy cavern unseen and in safety.