chiefly to have in view,’ to quote Colonel Crawfurd. The gross
oppressiveness of the proceedings, the unexplained delays, the series
of charges ‘dropped out,’ the bullying and cajoling of prisoners under
examination, the unconcealed political motive, and the rewards of farms
which, we learn, were given to the informers, are all characteristic of
justice in Scotland after Culloden. The improbability of the charge,
against ‘a sensible careful man,’ must be set against the mystery of the
disappearance of the papers. In that disappearance the ‘uprooters’ had,
of course, no less interest than the accused. After nearly two years _sub
squalore carceris_, Fassifern was condemned for suborning the forgery of
papers not in evidence. In fact, after all the schemes for his uprooting,
he was (in cricketing phrase) ‘given out’—several of the Fifteen
dissenting—‘for obstructing the field.’ What is the legal name for this
offence?
This affair had lingered on from May 1753 to January 1755 before the
Fifteen, the Lords of Session. It is probable that a jury, disgusted by
the military methods of extorting evidence, would have made short work
of the case, and acquitted Fassifern. Of this temper in a jury we have a
curious contemporary instance. Sir Walter Scott printed for the Bannatyne
Club the trial, in June 1754, of Duncan Terig, or Clerk, and Alexander
Bain Macdonald, for the murder of Sergeant Davies, of Guise’s regiment,
in 1749, on Christie Hill, in Braemar. There was really no doubt of the
guilt of the accused. Scott, who knew one of their counsel, says that
they themselves were convinced of the fact. But two Highland witnesses
told a story of the murdered sergeant’s ghost, which appeared to them in
1750. By making fun of this apparition, the advocates for the defence,
Scott says, secured an acquittal in face of the evidence.
Probably the jury had another motive—namely, indignation at military
extortion of evidence. A certain Ensign Small has been mentioned. He
seems to have been an astute and energetic man. We find him everywhere
in the Cumberland Papers. He it was who, soon after Culloden, arrested
the Barisdales in a cave, and took their swords. In 1749 he arrested
Barisdale on his return from France. He pursued Lochgarry (after Dr.
Cameron’s arrest) into England, and searched the vessels leaving the
ports of the East Coast. We find him in the Islands, mixing with the
people in disguise, and reporting their murmurs and their curses on the
Chiefs and the Prince. In Knoydart he notes that the commons have lost
their taste for a rising. Small was rewarded by a factorship on the
forfeited estates of Cluny and Robertson of Strowan, and exerted himself
to procure the condemnation of the murderers of Sergeant Davies.
Now on June 14, 1754, Mr. Alexander Lockhart, one of the counsel for the
accused, laid a complaint against Small before the Court of Session. By
Small’s instigation, Lockhart said, Terig and Macdonald were charged
with the crime. Small had sought out and privately examined witnesses,
‘giving them an obligation to stand between them and any hazard they
might incur thereby’—such protection was very necessary. ‘He endeavoured
to intimidate such as would not say such strong things as he wished, or
expected.’ Lockhart asks ‘how far these practices’ (the very practices
employed to ‘uproot’ Fassifern) ‘should be tolerated?’ Moreover, Small
had been swaggering with a sword, had stopped Lockhart in the Parliament
Close, had insulted, challenged him, and shaken a stick over his head:
‘which, if he meant to resent, he would be at no loss to find out where
the said James Small lived.’
Small replied that, after doing his best to bring Clerk and Macdonald to
trial, his character had been blackened by Lockhart before the jury, as
having pursued the accused for private reasons of malice. As an officer
and a gentleman, believing in his heart that the accused were guilty
(which they undoubtedly were), he had resented the license of Lockhart.
Small was found guilty of contempt, bound over to keep the peace, and
obliged to apologise.
Meanwhile General Bland, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, justified
Ensign Small in a letter to the English Ministry. Lockhart, the
General denounces as a ‘famous foul-mouthed Jacobite advocate.’ He
had ‘concerted’ his abuse of the Ensign in court ‘with his Jacobite
fraternity.’ The Ensign had very properly ‘taken him by the nose, and
called him a scoundrell. He took it quietly.’ If Lockhart is not warned,
his bones will be broken. The General has used his influence with the
judges to secure easy terms for the loyal Ensign.[103]
The docile judges, ‘the Fifteen,’ had accepted evidence extorted
by military violence in what was really a political case, that of
Fassifern. But it is clear that the jury, in the case of the Sergeant’s
murder, had resented such intimidation, as denounced by Lockhart, and
this resentment, rather than the ghost story, probably procured the
acquittal of two undeniable robbers and murderers, Terig, or Clerk, and
Macdonald.[104]
Another curious instance of the methods of Government occurs in the case
of James Mohr. It was generally suspected that Government connived at
his escape from Edinburgh Castle in the disguise of a cobbler (November
16, 1752). The Government, however, broke the lieutenants of the guard,
deprived the sergeant of his stripes, and whipped the porter.
But we find a remarkable letter of General Churchill’s,[105] saying that
‘James Mohr had been taken up on the abduction charge,’ and was extremely
anxious to make disclosures. That his recent behaviour cannot allow him
to be believed unless he is allowed to suppose ‘his life is at stake.’
That ‘should your Grace think proper to employ him, the great difficulty
is to bring about his liberation without raising a suspicion of the
Cause, _nor can it be so effectually done as by giveing private orders to
a Party of the Troops employed in escorting him to favour his escape_.’
If this suggestion was acted on later, if James was allowed to escape
from Edinburgh Castle that he might become a spy, as he did, the
lieutenants, the sergeant, and the porter were very scurvily treated. The
game of justice was not played with much scrupulousness by the English
Government.
IX
A GENTLEMAN OF KNOYDART
The modern autobiographical romance of adventure has perhaps been
overdone. The hero is always very young and very brave; he is mixed up
with great affairs; he is a true lover; he marries the heroine, and he
leaves his Memoirs (at six shillings) to posterity. Stereotyped as is the
method, and mechanical as are most of the novels thus constructed, it is
interesting to compare with them a set of genuine Memoirs, which actually
are what the novels pretend to be.
Colonel John Macdonell, the author of the Memoirs, was of the Scottos
family, a branch of the House of Glengarry. Indeed, in the male line the
chiefs of Clan Donald are now represented by the head of the Scottos
branch, not to enter on the old controversy as to the chiefship of Clan
Ranald. Our Colonel was born in 1728, and was therefore a boy of eighteen
in 1746. He had already been conversant with great adventures; he had
seen Rome and his King, had been thrice wounded in one engagement of the
Italian wars, and had relinquished his excellent prospects in the Spanish
service to fight for the White Rose. An emissary between the Duke of
York (not yet Cardinal) and the Prince, the bearer of a treasure in gold,
our hero arrived in the Highlands just after Culloden. Robbed by the
wicked Mackenzies, associated with the last rally of the loyal clans,
betrayed by a cousin to a Hanoverian dungeon, young Macdonell must needs
fall in love, at this juncture, with his future wife. He insults his
enemies, cows the traitor who denounced him (or another traitor), marries
his lady, retires to Canada, and, dying in 1810, leaves his Memoirs to
his children.
What more can be asked from a hero? ‘Oh, Colonel Macdonell and Mr.
Robert Louis Stevenson, which of you imitated the other?’ the critic is
tempted to exclaim. But, if the real Colonel John ‘does it more natural,’
the fictitious David Balfour ‘does it with the better grace.’ The good
Colonel never, of course, discourses to us about his contending emotions,
or dilates, like Mr. Balfour, on the various trains of casuistry which
meet in his simple soul. He never describes a place, nor a person,
not even when he meets his King, the Duke of York, or the Duc de
Fitzjames; he only describes action, vividly enough. He leaves out the
love-interest, with the merest allusion; and thus, though the Colonel
played a heroic part in romantic occurrences, he did not write a romance.
He arranges his recollections ill, ignoring essential facts, and, later,
dragging them in very awkwardly. His Memoirs are such as an elderly
warrior of his period would naturally pen; they illustrate the chaotic
condition of Highland morals and manners in 1745-54, and introduce us to
figures familiar in the Prince’s campaign of Scotland.[106]
Scotus, Scottos, or Scothouse, the estate of the Colonel’s family, lies
in the south of Knoydart, and on the north side of the entrance to Loch
Nevis, just opposite to the Aird of Sleat in Skye. On the north of
Knoydart, and on the south shore of Loch Hourn, is Barisdale, the seat of
the Colonel’s cousin, Col of Barisdale, the tallest man and the greatest
robber, ruffian, and traitor of Clan Donald. Universal testimony, from
that of the Chevalier Johnstone to the Whig Manuscript of 1750, applauds
the family of Scottos as brave gentlemen, honest in the midst of ‘a den
of thieves’ (says our Whig author), loyal when loyalty had most to tempt
or discourage it. Our Colonel’s father was a younger son of old Scottos.
He resided at Crowlin; concerning his means of life we learn nothing,
but the Colonel was always well supplied with money in his boyhood. The
clan were Catholics, and John’s father, in 1740, sent the boy, then aged
twelve, to be educated at the Scots College in Rome. He was accompanied
by a lad of fourteen, Angus Macdonald, of the Clan Ranald family. From
Edinburgh they sailed to Boulogne, and in Paris were entertained by Mr.
George Innes, head of the Scots College and brother of Thomas Innes, the
first really critical writer on early Scottish history. From Paris the
pair of boys went, partly by water, partly in a _calèche_, to Avignon
and Marseilles, whence they embarked for Toulon. Here they met with the
following adventure, which may be given as an example of the Colonel’s
style in narrative, though it had no sequel. Most of his adventures led
to nothing, unlike the course of fiction:—
‘One night, as we walked through the streets and were cracking nuts,
my comrade, who was somewhat roguish, observed a Monsieur with a large
powdered wig, and his hat under his arm, going past us; he took a
handful of nuts from his pocket and threw them with all his force at the
Frenchman’s head, which unfortunately disordered his wig. Monsieur turned
upon and collared him; by good luck a Spaniard was of our party, who
instantly ran to the relief of my comrade and gave the Frenchman a severe
drubbing. We then adjourned to a tavern, when our Spaniard, calling for a
bottle of wine, brought me to a private room, and after bolting the door,
to my great terror and surprise, drew a stiletto with his right hand from
his left bosom, and made me to understand by signs that with that weapon
he would have killed the Frenchman, if he had proved too strong for him.
He then took a net purse out of his pocket wherein there appeared to be
about a hundred Spanish pistoles, and made me an offer of a part: I
made him a low bow, but, not standing in need of it, would not accept of
his liberality, for I thought I had enough, being always purse-bearer
for myself and companion. My friend made sometimes free with my pockets,
merely to try if I should miss anything, and was happy to find that I
made a discovery of his tricks by immediately missing what he took in
that way.... I bought out of our stock two large folding French knives,
by way of carvers, in case of any sinister accident.’
Such an accident of travel presently occurred. A Mr. O’Rourk of
Tipperary, on his way to study at Rome, introduced the boys to a certain
Mr. Creach, late of the Irish brigade in Spanish service. Mr. Creach,
finding Master Macdonell alone in his room, tried to rob him. Macdonell
flew at the man; Angus Macdonald entered; the pair threw Creach on the
ground, and John had his ‘carver’ out, with a view to cutting Creach’s
throat, when O’Rourk interfered with this wild Celtic justice. Arrived in
Rome, the boys found that the fame of their exploit had preceded them and
done them good service, as they were reckoned lads of spirit.
John, though the youngest pupil in the lowest class of the seminary, was
advancing rapidly in his studies when, in the winter of 1743, Prince
Charles rode out of Rome to a hunting-party, and, disguised as a Spanish
courier, continued his course as far as Antibes. France had invited him,
though, when he arrived, she neglected him. John now conceived that,
in the event of the Prince’s landing in England, ‘My clan would not be
the last to join the young Charles.... This set my brains agoing, which
were not very settled of themselves. I got disgusted with the life of a
student, and thought I would be much happier in the army.’
John, therefore, contrived to get ‘introduced to King James by noblemen
attending on that Prince, who inquired of me particularly about my
grandfather and granduncles [Glengarry and Barisdale, apparently], with
all of whom he had been acquainted personally in the year 1715,’ when
Glengarry distinguished himself so brilliantly, avenging the fallen Clan
Ranald, at Sheriffmuir. A recommendation for John was sent to General
Macdonnell (of the Antrim family), then commanding the Irish of the
Spanish forces in Italy, and, though the Cardinal Protector demurred
to John’s change of service, our hero was equipped with a sword by the
Rector of his College. ‘Presenting me with the sword, his eyes filled,
and he told me that I should lose that sword by the enemy, which was
verified in seven or eight months after.’ The Rector had the second sight!
Mr. Macdonell, a sage of sixteen, was now horrified by the ethical ideas
which he surprised in the conversation of the young Italian gentlemen
who rode with him to join the Spanish army. They assured him that his
military value depended on his emancipation from the prudish notions of
‘a parcel of bigots,’ but he was destined to refute this theory. General
Macdonnell admitted his young clansman to his own table, and put him in
the way of seeing fire. He thus describes his first view of that element;
probably his emotions are common to recruits:—
‘I’ll tell you the truth, I felt myself rather queer, my heart panting
very strong, not with bravery, I assure you. I thought that every bullet
would finish [me], and thought seriously to run away, a cursed thought!
I dare never see my friends or nearest relations after such dastardly
conduct. My thoughts were all at once cut short by the word of command,
“Advance quick!” We were at once within about one hundred paces of the
enemy, to whom we gave so well directed a fire, that their impetuosity
was bridled. The firing on both sides continued until dark came on, which
put a stop to the work of the evening. The enemy retreated some distance
back, and we rejoined our own army. I went to Genl. McDonnell, who asked
me if I had smelled powder to-day; I told him I had plentifully. “What,
Sir,” said he, “are you wounded?” “No, please your Excellency.” “Sir,
you will never smell powder until you are wounded.” I got great credit
from the officers commanding the party I belonged to for my undaunted
behaviour during the action, but they little knew what past within me
before it began.’
The smell of powder was soon in our hero’s experience. The Neapolitan
general who commanded on alternate days with the French leader, withdrew
his troops from a strong position on the heights above Velletri, which
was attacked by Prince Lobkwitz and the famous General Brown, with
forty-five thousand Austrians. There was daily fighting, and General
Macdonnell was stopped by his superior officer while in the very act of
driving the Austrians from the deserted heights, which they, of course,
had occupied. An Austrian surprise cut off Macdonell’s regiment from the
main force, and he thus describes what occurred:
‘For my own share I was among the last that gave way, but when I once
turned my back, I imagined that the enemy all aimed at me alone, and
therefore ran with all my might, and thought there was a weight tied to
each of my legs, till I had outrun everyone, and looking behind, saw the
whole coming up. I halted and faced about, every one as he came up did
the same, we soon formed a regular line, and resolved to revenge our dead
comrades and to fight to the last; but found our situation to be as bad
as before.... Reduced to extremity we offered to capitulate on honourable
terms, but could obtain no condition except surrendering at discretion,
rather than which we resolved to fight while powder and ball remained
among the living or the dead. Our officers and men fell very fast. I
among the rest got a ball through my thigh which prevented my standing; I
crossed my firelock under my thigh and shook it, to try if the bone was
whole, which finding to be the case, dropped on one knee and continued
firing. I received another shot, which threw me down; I made once more an
attempt to help my surviving comrades, but received a third wound, which
quite disabled me. Loss of blood and no way of stopping it soon reduced
my strength, I however, griped my sword to be ready to run through the
first enemy that should insult me.
‘All our ammunition being spent, not a single cartridge remained amongst
the living or the dead, quarters were called for by the few that were
yet alive. Many of the wounded were knocked on the head, and I did not
escape with impunity. One approached me; at first I made ready to run him
through, but observing five more close to him, I dropt the sword, and was
saluted with _Hunts-foot_,[107] accompanied with a cracking of muskets
about my head. I was only sensible of three blows and fainted; I suppose
they thought me dead. On coming to myself again, I found my clothes were
stripped off, weltering in my blood, and no one alive near me to speak
to, twisting and rolling in the dust with pain, and my skin scorched by
the sun. In this condition a Croat came up to me with a cocked pistol
in his hand, and asked for my purse in bad Italian. I told him that I
had no place to hide it in, and if he found it anywhere about me to take
it. “Is that an answer for me, you son of a b—ch?” at same time pointing
his pistol straight between my eyes. I saw no one near, but the word
_quarter_ was scarcely expressed by me, when I saw his pistol-arm seized
by a genteel young man dressed only in his waistcoat, who said to him,
“You rascal, let the man die as he pleases; you see he has enough, go and
kill some one able to resist.” The fellow went off. Previous to this a
Croat, taking my gold-laced hat and putting it upon his own head, coolly
asked me how he looked in it. He then with his sabre cut off my queue and
took it along with him.’
A civilised scalp!
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutall, ph. sc._
_The Duke of York and Prince Charles_
_circ. 1735_]
The Austrians, after all, lost the day, and a certain Miles Macdonnell
rescued our hero, and had him carried into hospital. Recovering, he
returned to Rome, and was welcomed in a flattering manner both by his
King, who presented him with a sum of money, and by the young Duke of
York. After seeing some service on the Po, young Macdonell obtained
leave to go to France and join a detachment which was to aid Prince
Charles in Scotland. At Lyons they heard of the Prince’s defeat of Hawley
at Falkirk, but at Paris the news was worse, and of all the Jacobite
volunteers (who were Irish) John Macdonell alone persevered. He urged
that, as the Prince’s affairs went ill, ‘It was ungenerous not to give
what aid we were capable of, but I could not prevail on any of them to
be of my opinion.’ In fact, it was now plain that France did not mean to
lend any solid assistance to the Cause. The Duke of York since Christmas
had been waiting at Dunkirk and Boulogne, expecting permission to sail
for England with a large force, but delay followed delay. Young Macdonell
now went to Boulogne, where he met the Duke, and was introduced by him
to the Duc de Fitzjames and to Lally Tollendal. Here the good Colonel’s
memory deceives him, for he avers that Lally wished to take him to
Pondicherry. Now Lally was deep in the Scottish rising, and did not leave
France for India till ten years after 1746.[108] Young Macdonell, in
these weeks of hope deferred, lived with the Duke of York at Boulogne,
Dunkirk, and St. Omer. Finally, he set sail from Dunkirk with several
Irish officers on the very day of Culloden, April 16.
Here the Colonel is guilty of an artistic blunder in his narrative. It
is plain, from his later statements, that the Duke of York made him
the bearer of a letter, and a sum of 1,500_l._ or 2,000_l._ in gold,
to Prince Charles. But we do not hear, till later, of the money or the
missive. The little company with Macdonell rounded the Orkneys, landed
in Loch Broom, and at once heard the fatal news of Culloden. Macdonell’s
uncle, Scottus, had fallen with twenty of his men, ‘and nobody knew what
was become of the Prince.’ Colonel Macdonell never gives dates, but he
must have arrived in Loch Broom between May 8 and May 12, 1746. On May 8,
a meeting of chiefs was held at Murlagan, and a tryst appointed at Loch
Arkaig, in Lochiel’s country, for May 15.[109] Our hero heard something
of this at Loch Broom, and determined to join the rallied clans. He first
went to Laggy, at the head of Little Loch Broom, where he found Colin
Dearg Mackenzie of Laggy, with several other Mackenzie gentlemen, and
sixty of the clan. ‘We thought ourselves as safe [he and his friend,
Lynch, an Irish officer,] as in the heart of France.’
Now began the purely personal romance of the Colonel. The Mackenzies
entertained him and Captain Lynch at dinner in a dark and crowded room;
he noticed that men gathered suspiciously behind him, and he remembered
that they had remarked on the weight of his portmanteau. He therefore
rose more than once from table to inspect that valise, but, while the
company were drinking the Prince’s health, Colin Dearg walked out.
Absent, too, was the portmanteau, when the guests left the table, but
Colin explained that he had packed it on the back of our Colonel’s horse.
There, indeed, it was, but when the Colonel stopped at Dundonell, and
opened his valise in search of a pair of shoes, a canvas bag containing
1,000_l._ was missing. A gentleman of the Mackenzie clan had slashed open
the portmanteau and stolen the money of the Prince whose health they were
drinking! It was the affair of the Loch Arkaig hoard on a smaller scale.
The situation of our injured hero was the more awkward, as Dundonell,
where he found, himself, was the estate of a Mr. Mackenzie, nephew to
the thief, Colin Dearg. Mr. Mackenzie was absent; Mrs. Mackenzie was
at home, but in bed. However, she saw Macdonell, who told her what had
occurred, and entrusted to her another bag of five hundred guineas: ‘If
killed, I bequeath it to your ladyship. God be with you! I wish you a
good morning.’ Accompanied by Lynch, Macdonell now returned to Laggy. He
dared not use force against Colin Dearg, for, if he fell, Colin would win
his own pardon by producing a letter from the Duke of York to Charles,
which our hero was carrying, though he now mentions it for the first
time. Accused by Macdonell of taking the money, Colin Dearg denied all
knowledge of it, and, as he was attended by a tail of armed clansmen,
Macdonell had no resource but in retreat.