than Col Macdonell of Barisdale. According to a curious tract, ‘The Life
of Archibald Macdonell of Barisdale, who is to Suffer for High Treason
on the Twenty Second of May, at Edinburgh, By an Impartial Hand,’[52]
Col of Barisdale was son (? grandson) of the second brother of Alastair
Dubh Macdonnell of Glengarry, the hero of Sheriffmuir, being thus a
cousin of Glengarry. He was a man of prodigious muscular force, six feet
four inches in height. He is said to have caught and held a roedeer;
and, on one occasion, to have heaved a recalcitrant cow, probably
stolen property, into a boat. There lay, in the present century, on
the gravel-drive before Invergarry House, a large boulder, and beside
it a short pin of iron was fixed into the ground. Only a very powerful
man could lift the boulder on to the pin, a few inches in height, but
Barisdale could heave it up to his knees. So write, from tradition, the
two ‘Stuarts d’Albanie,’ in ‘Tales of the Century’ (1847). They add that
Barisdale’s courage did not match his strength, and that he yielded in
single combat to Cluny.
Returning to our ‘Impartial Hand’ (by his minute local knowledge a
native of Ross or Moray), we find him nowise partial to Barisdale.
‘Colonel Ban,’ as he calls him, married a Miss Mackenzie of Fairburn,
and, having a small estate in Ross-shire, could raise two hundred of the
clan. He thus, says Murray of Broughton, declared himself independent of
Glengarry, his chief, an indolent drunkard. Being acquainted with the
Mackenzie estates, he used his knowledge in the surreptitious acquisition
of cattle. He would then throw the blame on the Camerons; and that, says
our author, is precisely the cause of the bad name for cattle-stealing
which the Camerons have unhappily acquired. One day Barisdale, with his
Tail, met Cameron of Taask, with _his_ Tail, and was charged by Cameron
with his misdeeds. Words grew high, claymores were drawn, and a finger of
Cameron’s left hand was nearly lopped off. The intrepid chieftain, acting
on the Scotch proverb, ‘Better a finger off than aye wagging,’ tore the
injured limb from his hand, bound the wound with a handkerchief, ‘and so
fell to work on Barisdale,’ whom he sliced on the pate. ‘The skin and a
lock of his hair hung down,’ and their devoted tenants, anxious observers
of the fray, separated the infuriated chieftains. Barisdale was presently
arrested on a charge of theft, but his Tail perjured themselves manfully,
and he got off on an alibi.
The neighbours, finding the hero so stubborn, paid him ‘black meal’
(_sic_), in return for which he promised to protect their herds. But his
genius pointed out to him a more excellent way, and Barisdale became
the Jonathan Wild (as Waverley says) of Lochaber and Knoydart. He was a
thief-catcher, and also an accomplice of thieves, as interest directed
or passion prompted.[53] He kept his tenantry, or gang, in rare order,
and ‘had machines for putting them to different sorts of punishment.’
One machine was merely the stocks, where, outside of the chieftain’s
drawing-room windows (which commanded a fine view of the sea), many a
poor thief sat for twenty-four hours, with food temptingly placed just
out of his reach. Thus Barisdale struck terror, inspired respect, and
accumulated wealth.
A more cruel engine than the stocks had Barisdale, a triumph of his own
invention. In ‘The Lyon in Mourning,’ Mackinnon, who helped Prince
Charles to escape from Skye, says that Captain Fergusson (noted for his
ferocity) threatened him with torture. ‘The cat or _Barisdale_ shall make
you speak,’ said the Captain. The engine is described as one in which no
man could live for an hour. The Impartial Hand’ gives this account of it:
‘The supposed criminal’ (that is, any man who would not give Barisdale a
share of his booty) ‘was tied to an iron machine, where a ring grasped
his feet, and another closed upon his neck, and his hands were received
into eyes of iron contrived for that purpose. He had a great weight upon
the back of his neck, to which, if he yielded in the least, by shrinking
downwards, a sharp spike would infallibly run into his chin, which was
kept bare for that very purpose.’ Barisdale was also apt to waylay
herring-fishers, and make them pay, as toll, a fifth of what they had
captured, alleging certain seignorial rights.
‘It is well known,’ says the author of 1754, ‘that, from the month of
March to the middle of August, some poor upon the coast have nothing but
shell-fish, such as mussels, cockles, and the like, to support them.
Poverty reigns so much among the lower class that scarce a smile is to be
seen upon their faces.’ Barisdale also reigned upon the coast.
Such was life in the Highlands in the golden days of the Clans, before
sheep, Lowlanders, evictions, emigration, and deer forests brought, as
we are told, discontent and destitution. The poor lived on mussels and
cockles, some tenants eked out a scanty livelihood by stealing their
neighbours’ cows, and the genial Barisdale kept all in good order. For
Barisdale’s prowess we are not obliged to rely on the ‘Impartial Hand’
and the Gartmore MS. alone. In ‘The Highlands of Scotland: a Letter
from a Gentleman at Edinburgh to a Friend in London,’ we meet our Col
again. This manuscript[54] is in the King’s Collection, 104, in the
British Museum. The author is an _enragé_ Whig and Protestant, but a
close observer. From him we learn how cattle-stealing paid; for at first
blush it looks like the practice of those fabled islanders ‘who eke out a
livelihood by taking in each other’s washing.’ The business was extended
over a wide area; the Macdonells did not merely harry the Mackenzies and
Rosses.
Speaking of Knoydart, our author says: ‘Coll. Macdonell of Barisdale,
cousin-german of Glengarry, took up his residence here, as a place
of undoubted security from all legal prosecution. He entered into a
confederacy with Lochgarry and the Camerons of Loch Arkaig, with some
others as great villains in Rannoch. This famous Company had the honour
to introduce theft into a regular trade; they kept a number of savages
dependent on them for the purpose, whom they out-hounded’ on predatory
expeditions.
They robbed from Sutherlandshire to Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and
Argyle. When the thieves were successful these gentlemen had a dividend
of the spoil. When unsuccessful, the thieves lived on the country which
they traversed. To denounce them was ill work. A gentleman, known to
our author, was nearly ruined by Barisdale & Co. He caught two of the
Macdonalds, who were hanged. Fifteen years later his son, going to Fort
William, vanished. The tribe, says our author, demanded ‘blood for blood.’
By these devices Barisdale compelled his neighbours to pay, in blackmail,
‘above double their proportion of the land-tax in Seaforth’s, Lovat’s,
and Chisholme’s country.’ He captained a kind of ‘Watch.’ But Barisdale’s
‘Watch’ was expensive and unsatisfactory to his subscribers. As early as
1742 we have found Cluny setting up an opposition in business. Cluny’s
Watch is described at great length by the author of a kind of memoir
of the chief, written in France in 1755-1760. The writer’s object is
to show how much Cluny lost by his loyalty to the Stuarts, and how
much he deserves the encouragement of Louis XV. He established, for
the discouragement of theft, ‘a watch or safeguard of his own trusted
followers.’ The nobility and gentry ‘were surpris’d at Cluny’s success,
and enveyed so much his happiness, that they applyed to him with one
accord, to take them under his protection, and cheerfully offered to join
in a voluntary subscription....’ Among the subscribers are the Duke of
Gordon, the Earl of Airlie, the Earl of Aberdeen, Forbes of Culloden,
the Mackintosh, Grant of Grant, and even the Duke of Argyll. These facts
attest the extent of Barisdale’s raids.
Cluny was highly successful, rescuing ‘even those who had never applyed
to him.’ The subscriptions amounted to 20,000 livres, and the Dukes of
Atholl and Perth, with Seaforth, were about to join. It was now that a
preacher, thundering against theft, was interrupted by a listener who
‘desired him to save his labour upon that point, for Mons. de Cluny alone
would gain more souls to heaven in one year, than all the priests in the
highlands could ever do in fifty.’
The English Ministry, hearing of Cluny’s fame, now sent him, unasked, a
captain’s commission in Loudon’s regiment, worth 6,000 livres yearly. But
he threw up his new commission when he joined Prince Charles. Cluny’s
spirited behaviour, says MS. 104, ‘took the bread out of their mouths,’
the mouths of Barisdale & Co. But ‘Barisdale, by the former trade (theft)
and the latter expedient (blackmail), lived at a very high rate, and
mortgaged a large sum of money on Glengarry’s estate,’ where he was a
wadsetter.
Cluny’s opposition may have led to his duel with Barisdale, as reported
by the Stuarts d’Albanie. Barisdale was, as we have seen, like Lochgarry,
a wadsetter of Glengarry’s; that is, he received from Glengarry certain
lands, redeemable after a specified interval of time, in exchange for
money paid, or bills, or perhaps for cattle, which he was skilled
in procuring. We do not find that the chief, Glengarry, could or did
exercise any authority in controlling the excesses and depredations of
his independent cousin Col. For this he is blamed by the author of the
Gartmore MS., but his Mackenzie following made Col too strong for his
chief.
Ignorant, perhaps, of the character of Barisdale, unwilling, at least, to
dispense with his aid, Prince Charles visited him in August 1745, made
him a colonel, and gave a major’s commission to his son, young Archibald
Macdonnell of Barisdale, a lad of twenty in 1745. Our ‘Impartial
Hand’[55] declares that Coll, though at Prestonpans, was not under fire,
which seems improbable. Barisdale may have been with the Prince in the
second line (fifty yards behind the first, says the Chevalier Johnstone),
or, in the oblique advance of the first line, Lochiel and James Mohr may
have routed the English before Barisdale could engage. But, in a letter
of Thomas Wedderburn to the Earl of Sutherland, we read (September 26,
1745), ‘Three troops that were making their way for Berwick were pursued
by Barisdale, and 150 men, who all stript to their shirts, on foot, who
overtook the dragoons, I suppose by turning a hill and gaining ground
that way, and made them prisoners, for which Barisdale was made a knight
bannarett’[56]—knighted, that is, like Dalgetty, on the field.
After Prestonpans, according to the Impartial one, confirmed by the
‘Culloden Papers,’ and by Broughton’s ‘Memorials,’ Barisdale, by
Sheridan’s advice, was sent north, to work on Old Lovat. Sheridan
reckoned that no man was likely to have so much influence with that
subtle schemer as the bluff Barisdale, with ‘his devouring looks, his
bulky strides, his awful voice, his long and tremendous sword, which he
generally wore in his hand, with a target and bonnet edged broad upon
the forehead.’ Barisdale, thus accredited, worked both on Lovat and Lord
Cromarty, who raised his peaceful tenants by threats of burning their
cottages and cattle.[57] Cromarty might have reported, like a Highland
recruiting officer in later days, ‘The volunteers are ready; they are
all lying bound hand and foot in the barn.’ Many of the Highlanders did
not want to fight, though they fought so well. Barisdale also sent ‘the
bloody cross,’ we are told, through the Frazers, who marched reluctantly
under the Master of Lovat, a St. Andrews student, himself as reluctant as
he was brave. At Falkirk, Barisdale is said to have been with the second
line, and later ‘he set out to collect the public money, the greater part
of which he kept to himself.’
Just before Culloden, Barisdale was engaged in the not uncongenial duty
of reducing the shires of Ross and Sutherland. In the latter county
Lord Reay, with the Mackays and the Earl of Sutherland, were for King
George; Lord Loudon also was quartered with his force in Ross-shire. Lord
Cromarty, with the Mackenzies, Mackintoshes, Mackinnons, Macgregors, and
Barisdale’s Macdonnells, did little, retiring to his own house. Barisdale
was anxious to burn the house of Ross of Balnagoun, but Lochiel, who had
arrived with Lord George Murray, intervened. At Dornoch, Barisdale went
to church, where the Rev. Mr. Kirk, a gentleman connected with the Duke
of Argyll, had the courage to pray for King George. Barisdale leaped up,
swaggered, fumed, and, it is rather absurdly said, threatened to put
Mr. Kirk in his famous engine of torture. The chivalrous Duke of Perth
protected Mr. Kirk, saying that all brave men were his friends, and
asked the clergyman to dinner.[58] Lord George Murray, finding Cromarty
incompetent, and Barisdale mainly occupied in burning granaries, now took
the command, and Loudon crossed the Firth into Sutherland. Perth then led
the Prince’s forces across the Firth, and Loudon hastened to withdraw
into central Sutherland.
Neither side was anxious to come to blows. Macdonnell of Scotus, a man
‘brave, polite, obliging, of fine spirit and sound judgment,’ says the
Chevalier Johnstone, had a son with Lord Loudon, and was reluctant to
engage. Later, to his intense joy, he took this son a not unwilling
prisoner. Meanwhile Barisdale, on March 20, captured the Castle of
Dunrobin. The Earl of Sutherland fled, under cover of a fog, and escaped
to an English ship. The Countess stayed at home; she was a daughter of
the Earl of Wemyss by his third wife, was a young lady, of twenty-eight,
and had a young nephew, Lord Elcho, with the Prince. According to the
‘Sutherland Book’ (i. 420), one of Barisdale’s officers threatened her
with a dirk, and, some one jogging his elbow, she was actually scratched.
To this the Countess, as we shall see, herself bears witness. But it is
by no means certain that the lady, coming of a Jacobite family, was an
unwilling prisoner of the Prince’s men. It was irksome to her, no doubt,
to see her rooms littered with hay on which the Highlanders slept, and
to observe the robbery of her plate. But the two following intercepted
letters, from the Cumberland Papers, display the Countess as an adorer of
Prince Charles, and Barisdale as a _preux chevalier_.
_Letter from The Countess of Sutherland to the Young
Pretender, written with MacDonell of Barisdale’s
own Hand._
‘March 26, 1746.
‘The treatment I mett with Friday Last oblidges me to presume
to oCoast your Royall Hyness For a protection to prevent the
Lyke Usadge in the Future. However my Lord Sutherland Acted,
It’s known over the most of this Kingdome my particular
attachment to your Royall Hyness’ Family, and were itt
ordinaire in one of my sex to go to the Field to Fight For
my Prince and Country, I would make as aerly ane appearance
as anie, and hade not my Coch horses and sadle horses being
caryed away I woud presume the Honnaire to waith of your
Royall Hyness. Least my letter be too tediouse I will only
give one Instance of my usadge, a man holding a drawn durk to
my brest gave a scrach of a wound which merk itt well beare:
but this day Barisdale coming here, being my aquaintance, in
his presence I sent a gentleman to all the men of my Lord
Sutherland’s that were in arms desiring them to disperse and
return to their homes in order a proper Draught be made of them
For your royall Hyness service. My success I can not determine
as I can not Depend upon much assistance, but if matters were
further att my Disposall all the Fensable men in Sutherland
woud be on your Royall Hyness armie as I am quite affrighted.
From the Hylanders I beg to petition your Royall Hyness
protection how Soone pasable and I always am and ever will,’ &c.
On March 27, 1746, from Tarbat House Lord Cromarty writes in answer to
the Countess of Sutherland, acknowledging her letter, and promising
protection to all her people who submit.
Then we have Barisdale’s _billet_ to the lady:
_Col McDonell to Lady Sutherlande_
‘Ardmore: March 27, 1746.
‘My Faire Prisoner,—I presume these with the offer of my most
Respectfull humble Duty to my Lady Sutherland, my Regiment
is ordered back againe to Sutherland For which I am verrie
sorrie, if anie hardships must be used, itt shoud in the Least
Fall to my Shaire. I will have one Certaine pleasure in Itt
that it well give the oportunity of being For once more my
Lady Sutherland’s Saife guard. I Forwarded your Ladyship’s
letter by one Captt Lewlessnent, and sent itt Inclosed to
his Grace, and held Forth my Lady Sutherland’s zeall For our
Cause, and the Friendship she particullarlie expected From
him, and represented the Horses taken away, and pleaded For
her Interest to have them, att Least my Ladys Favourites,
returned. I go this Day to Inverness myself and shall talk to
His Royall Hyness in regard to what my Lady Sutherland woud
Exspect off Favours From our side, and what is Actuallie Deue
to her. After my return, shall have the pleasure of waitting
off your Ladyship att Dunrobine, and allways will be Nott onlie
your Lady’s prisoner in the strictest Confinement, but your
Ladyships most obdtt. and most humble sertt. while
‘COL. MCDONELL.’[59]
An odious tale is told by the ‘Impartial Hand,’ about Barisdale’s conduct
to his wife’s young sister. We do not trust the Impartial one where
we have not corroboration, and, to his fair prisoner, Lady Sutherland,
Barisdale certainly displays a tender gallantry. But she may not have
regretted that her Barisdale was occasionally absent. Cumberland was
approaching, and, on the eve of Culloden, Lord Cromarty was captured
in ‘The Battle of Golspie,’ while dallying over his _adieux_ to ‘his
favourite Amazon,’ the Countess of Sutherland, as the Impartial one
invidiously declares.
The Countess must have managed her diplomacy adroitly, for the
Whig author previously cited says, ‘It is a pity the present Earl
of Sutherland should be such a weak man, but his lady behaved very
honourably, though her brother (nephew) the Lord Elcho, was engaged in
the Rebellion.’[60] The lady’s letter to Prince Charles was not known to
our author.
Barisdale, leaving his fair prisoner, marched south, and halted at
Beauly, on the night before Culloden. ‘He might easily have reached the
field, had he been any way resolute or brave.’ But like the Master of
Lovat and Cluny, Barisdale came up too late. The fugitives passed through
Inverness, under his eyes, and Barisdale also made off.
He was at the Meeting of the Chiefs at Murlagan, on May 8, when it was
determined to rally in a week, and a treaty was made, that all should
hold together, in spite of the Prince’s defection.[61] When the week
ended, nobody came to the tryst but Lochgarry, who retired at once,
Lochiel, and Barisdale, with three or four hundred of their clans.
But the Rev. John Cameron, in ‘The Lyon in Mourning’ (i. 88) accuses
Barisdale of promising to return next day, as a blind, and of sending
instead two companies of infantry in English service, to capture Lochiel.
They were recognised by their red crosses, and Lochiel escaped, ‘which
was owing to its not being in Barisdale’s power’—to catch him, ‘rather
than to want of inclination,’ says Mr. Cameron. Murray of Broughton
represents Barisdale as accusing his cousin and enemy, Lochgarry, of
treachery, and believes that both were equally guilty, but Lochiel
was as incapable of suspecting as of being guilty of treason. In his
Letter to the Chiefs, of May 26, he says that Clanranald’s men refuse
to leave their own country, that Glengarry’s men have yielded up their
arms (induced thereto, we shall see, by Old Glengarry), that Lochgarry
promised to return, but did not, and that, ‘trusting to Lochgarry’s
information, we had almost been surprized.’ But he never hints at a
suspicion of Barisdale.[62]
On June 10, says the ‘Impartial Hand,’ Barisdale and Young Barisdale
both surrendered to Ensign Small, in a cave. But Barisdale, it is known,
got a protection, on his promise to deliver up Prince Charles. He laid
several schemes to this end, and had two companies to seize the Prince at
Strathfillan. Sheridan, however, ‘who had a talent for reading men with
as great freedom and judgement as others do books,’ warned the Prince,
who kept out of Barisdale’s clutches.[63] So says the Impartial Hand.
His story of the protection for Barisdale was true, as witness the
following letters from the Cumberland Papers, at Windsor Castle.
_From G. Howard to Col. Napier, A.D.C. to D. of C._
‘July 5th....
‘A person passed me here yesterday morning whom I took to be
lawful Prey, but, to my great concern, he produced a Pass-port
for himself and 4 servants with their arms &c., syned by Sir
E. Faulkner: it was dated only the day before yesterday. The
person was McDonald of Barisdale, who is so particularly
zealous for hanging our officers. I asked him if he had seen
H.R.H. (Cumberland). He said no, but that a friend got him his
Protection.’
_Lord Albemarle to Duke of Cumberland_
‘July 26th.
‘The Complaint is universal against Barisdale, therefore I
shall not renew his protection, but drive and burn his country
to punish him for having made such a bad use of your goodness.
Glengarry is much commended for his behaviour.’
Finally, Barisdale had already induced several Macdonnells to lay a
written information against Old Glengarry, their chief.
How did Barisdale, who had played a part so conspicuous, manage to obtain
a protection from Sir Everard Faulkner? That is the point which we shall
later find him explaining with singular candour. Protected he was, and,
in pursuit of information, he had the singular impudence to venture, with
his son, in September 1746, on board the ship which was to carry the
Prince, Lochiel, Lochgarry, and other gentlemen to France. They could
not but be aware that Barisdale had made his submission, and was come
on no good errand. Lochgarry was his bitter enemy. They therefore put
Barisdale and his son in irons, shut them down under hatches, carried
them to France, and there imprisoned these gentlemen of Knoydart on a
charge of treason. Mr. Fraser Mackintosh, a very innocent writer, thus
describes the high-handed outrage: ‘Barisdale was so unpopular with
the Camerons, that, without the slightest warrant, they took it on
themselves to deport Coll Macdonnell, and his son Alexander [Archibald?]
to France.’ Mr. Fraser Mackintosh attributes this unwarrantable action to
‘the Camerons,’ with whom Barisdale was generally ‘unpopular.’ But, of
course, the seizure was warranted by Charles, Prince Regent, who is said
to have knighted Barisdale on a stricken field. The seizure was more than
justified, and was not due to poor Col’s ‘unpopularity.’
Col languished in a French prison till 1749. In March he ventured back
to Scotland, finding himself, after his release, very ‘unpopular’ in
Flanders. He was promptly culled like a flower by his old captor,
Ensign Small, and was brought before Erskine for examination. Erskine
writes that he found the tall bully ‘under visible terror.’ France had
imprisoned him. England was likely to give him what ‘he wad be nane the
waur o’’—a hanging. His house was left unto him desolate; he would flirt
no more with fair captive Countesses: no one trembled at his frowning
brows: it was Barisdale’s turn to tremble, as he did. He was locked up in
Edinburgh Castle, where, at least, he was safe from avenging dirks. He
there penned the following explicit confession, in hopes of a pardon, and
pay as a spy. Perhaps Cumberland refers to Barisdale’s earlier services
in this capacity, in a letter of August 2, 1749. Cumberland speaks of
‘the goodness of the intelligence’ now offered to Government. ‘On my part
I bear it witness, for I never knew it fail me in the least trifle, and
have had very material and early notices from it.’[64]
Here, then, follows Barisdale’s confession to the Justice Clerk in
Edinburgh. It entirely disposes of Mr. Fraser Mackintosh’s suggestion
that the Camerons seized Barisdale because he was ‘unpopular.’
_Narrative given in by Barrisdale to the Justice Clerk_