The author of this narrative was Daniel Munro, minister of the parish
of Tain. His origin was probably humble, as in Scott’s _Fasti_ it
is stated that owing to his knowledge of the Irish (_i.e._ Gaelic)
language, he was educated on the Church’s charitable funds, and held a
bursary from the Synod of Ross at Marischal College, and the University
of Aberdeen. Munro was minister of the parish of Auldearn, near Nairn,
from 1736 to April 1745, when he was translated to Tain, where he
remained until his death in 1748. Of his life and work I have found
little record. Andrew Henderson, the author of the Edinburgh _History
of the Rebellion_, who knew this country well, says that he was ‘an
uncouth man, a monster of impiety, wickedness, and ill nature.’ He
further states that he was turned out of his church for ‘fighting and
other immoralities.’[61]
This ‘Account’ is a very meagre one. The important fact in the history
of Ross in the ’Forty-five was that the head of the house of Seaforth
forsook the family tradition and took active part with the Government
against the old royal family. It was a heavy blow to Prince Charles
when Lord Macleod, eldest son of Lord Cromartie, who went to Glasgow to
see the Prince in January 1746, informed him at supper that Seaforth
had furnished two hundred men for the service of the Government.
Charles turned to the French minister and gasped, ‘Hé, mon Dieu, et
Seaforth est aussi contre moi!’
Kenneth Mackenzie, known as Lord Fortrose (which was really a Jacobite
title), would have been the sixth Earl of Seaforth but for the
attainder. His wife was Lady Mary Stewart, eldest daughter of the
Earl of Galloway. She held Jacobite principles and raised many of her
husband’s clan for the Prince, while most of Fortrose’s men eventually
deserted to the Jacobites.
The principal operations in Ross and Sutherland began after Inverness
had been taken by the Jacobite army. Lord Loudoun then retired to
the shores of the Dornoch Firth. Lord Cromartie was sent in pursuit.
Loudoun had boats, and when Cromartie approached him, he crossed the
Firth to Dornoch. The Jacobites had to go round by the head of the
Firth, whereupon Loudoun returned in his boats to the southern shore
at Tain, and went back to Sutherland when Cromartie came to Ross.
Cromartie was superseded by the Duke of Perth. Land operations seeming
to be useless, a flotilla of boats was secretly collected at Findhorn
and taken to Tain under shelter of a dense fog. On March 20th, 1746,
Perth crossed over the Meikle Ferry, and completely defeated Loudoun
at the bloodless battle of Dornoch. Lord Loudoun, along with Duncan
Forbes, Sir Alexander Macdonald, Macleod of Macleod, fled to the Isle
of Skye, while the chief of Mackintosh was taken prisoner.
On March 25th, the _Hazard_, a sloop of war which had been captured by
the Jacobites at Montrose four months previously and sent to France,
when returning with money, stores, and recruits, was forced to run
ashore in the Kyle of Tongue by four men-of-war. Lord Reay, the Whig
head of the Mackays, took possession of the wreck and its contents,
including 156 prisoners and £12,000, the money being sorely needed by
the army. Lord Cromartie and his son, Lord Macleod, were sent with a
force of 1500 men to expostulate with Lord Reay, and if possible to
recover the spoil. In this they naturally failed, but they continued
the march as far as Thurso, beating up for recruits and levying the
land cess upon the inhabitants.[62] On the way back, Cromartie and his
son paid a visit to the Countess of Sutherland at Dunrobin. There, on
the day before the battle of Culloden, they were made prisoners by the
clever trick of a certain Ensign Mackay, while their followers, then at
Golspie, were beaten and dispersed in an action sometimes called the
battle of the Little Ferry.