November 4, 1746, Charles wrote to d’Argenson, ‘there are three prisoners
in London, sir, in whom I take a warm interest. These are Sir Hector
Maclean, Glengarry, and my secretary, Mr. Murray of Broughton. All three
hold French commissions, the first was born at Calais.... I implore you,
sir, to take every means to secure their exchange, and will regard it as
a personal obligation.’
These gentlemen, however, were not naturalised French subjects, like
Nicholas Wogan, who, after fighting when a boy at Preston in 1715, and
after losing an arm at Fontenoy, took part in the campaign of 1745, and
later saw Cumberland’s back at Laffeldt fight. Nicholas may have been
exchanged, in 1746, as a French prisoner; for Murray and Glengarry this
plea was unavailing. The Prince, however, did his best for both men, and
ill they rewarded him.[125]
Glengarry told Bishop Forbes the same story in 1752. He was the bearer of
a letter from the Chiefs, imploring the Prince not to come over without
arms, money, and auxiliary forces.[126] But he could not find Charles,
who was incognito, ‘lurking for a spring.’ Towards the end of 1745
Alastair was captured, as we saw, while conveying a piquet of the Royal
Scots to join the Prince. He pined in the Tower, he says, for twenty-two
months, and was then released. His fortunes were frowning. His father lay
in Edinburgh Castle, a written information having been laid against him
by a number of the gentlemen of his clan who had been out in the Rising.
His lands and cattle had been destroyed and driven away by the English
soldiery. Men squatted on what farm they chose, and could only pay rent
enough to ‘subsist’ his father. The French Government made demands on him
for money advanced to him while in the Tower, and stopped his pay. His
grant from the Scots Fund (1,800 livres) was inadequate. The Prince could
not procure for him a regiment. In these gloomy circumstances Alastair
took a step which nobody can blame in itself. He attempted to reconcile
himself to the English Government. The following letter is from a friend
sincerely anxious for his success:—[127]
(State Papers, Domestic, Scotland, Bundle 38 (1747), No. 6.)
‘Roterdam, Oct. 17, 1747.
‘Sir,—I take this opportunity of my worthy friend an officer of
the Royals of informing you how I have had severall letters on
the following Subject from Mr. Macdonell Junior of Glengary who
desires me to charge you with this letter. He has frequently
and seriously reflected on the many good Advices given him
by you and Maj. White when he was Prisoner at the Tower, to
abandon that party and the service of France. I am thorrowly
convinced that he is determined so to do if it is agreeable
to the Ministry, and that he will give the Duke of Argyle and
them all the assurances that a man of honour can give of his
behaving as a peaceable Subject, if they will allow him to
wait upon them in London. Let me beg of you for God’s sake to
persuade these great men to accept of this young Gentleman’s
offer, by which at once you’ll detach him from that party that
has given birth to all the Calamitys that both his Clan and
Country has suffered this age past: as I shall be some months
here before my affair is Negociated you’ll have time to send me
answer, which I pray God may be favourable. Please write me as
soon as you can. I am with my Compliments to your family,
‘Sir, your most obedt. oblidged humble Sert.
‘WILL: BAILLIE.
‘P.S.—The young man depends very much on the Duke of Argyle’s
interest.
‘To Major Macdonald at London.’
On September 20, 1748, Glengarry wrote from Amiens, telling James that
he ‘waited an opportunity of going safely to Britain,’ on his private
affairs. In December he asked James to procure for him the colonelcy
vacant by the death of Lochiel. Young Lochiel, a boy, had been appointed.
James could do nothing, and was too poor to send money. But, on
Glengarry’s request, he dispatched ‘a duplicate of your grandfather’s
warrant to be a peer’—Lord Macdonnell and Aros. Glengarry often signs
‘Mackdonell,’ without Christian name.[128]
On June 8, 1749, Glengarry explained his circumstances to Cardinal York
and to Lismore, James’s agent at Versailles. ‘I shall be obliged to
leave this country, if not relieved.’ Presently he went to London, with
Leslie, a priest suspected of treachery by the Jacobites.[129] Leslie
says, ‘Glengarry did not intend to appear publicly’ in London, ‘but to
have advice of some counsellors about an act of the Privy Council against
his returning to Great Britain.’ He was so poor that Leslie pledged for
him, to Clanranald, a watch of Mrs. Murray’s of Broughton, wife of the
notorious traitor. He had already ‘sold his sword and shoe-buckles.’
This must have been the very nadir of his fortunes, and four years later
Campbell of Lochnell told Mrs. Archibald Cameron that now, in 1748 or
1749—the lady could not remember which—Glengarry offered his service,
‘in any shape they thought proper,’ to the English Government and Henry
Pelham.[130] Without pausing to discuss the value of Mrs. Cameron’s
evidence (given on January 25, 1754) we return to what is actually
known of Glengarry in 1749. He had left London, probably little the
better for his visit. On September 23, 1749, Glengarry wrote to Lismore
from Boulogne. He has been in London, by advice of his friends, ‘ces
Messieurs croyant que je ne ferai point de difficulté de me conformer aux
intentions du Gouvernement, mais étant toujours determine de ne me point
égare[r] des principes de mes Ancêtres, ne du devoir que je dois a mon
Roy je [de?] me lui tenir, je puis retire [retirais?].’ If not relieved,
he must return to England.[131] We know what his protestations of
loyalty were worth. We do not know what occurred to Glengarry, in London,
at this time.
Starving in July or August 1749, Glengarry appears (according to Æneas
Macdonald, the banker) to ‘have plenty of cash’ at the end of the year
(December). In October his father had been released from Edinburgh
Castle, a point of no evidential importance, as several other gentlemen
were also simultaneously set free. His estates were not forfeited, though
remonstrances on this head were addressed to the English Government. They
exist in the State Papers.
Before Æneas Macdonald met Glengarry in December, and earlier in the
winter of 1749, Young Glengarry and Archy Cameron went North, and helped
themselves to the Treasure of Cluny, the gold of Loch Arkaig.[132] On
January 16, 1750, Glengarry reported his journey to Edgar, and accused
Archibald Cameron of taking 6,000 louis d’or, and damping all hearts
in the Highlands.[133] Cameron, on his side, appears to have accused
Glengarry of obtaining the money by forging a letter from James. James,
writing to Charles about Cameron’s charge, leaves a blank for the
name (March 17, 1750). But Æneas Macdonald supplies the name of Young
Glengarry (October 12, 1751).
That Young Glengarry was concerned in the looting of the treasure in
winter, 1749, is certain from his own admission to Charles, corroborated
by the confession of Cameron of Glenevis to Colonel Crawfurd, in October
1751. In that confession appears the earliest charge of treachery against
Glengarry, who, Cameron vows, must have betrayed him (p. 153). At about
the same time (November 30, 1751, February 14, 1752) Holker (of Ogilvie’s
French Scots Regiment) and Blair anonymously warned young Edgar against
Glengarry. He is a friend of Leslie, ‘an arrant rogue,’ and is ‘known
to be in great intimacy with Murray’—of Broughton, the traitor, an
acquaintance which is proved by Murray’s own ‘Memorials,’ already cited.
Even if we discount Mrs. Cameron’s story, with those of Archy Cameron and
Glenevis, as Camerons were at feud with Macdonnells, we have no reason to
suspect hostile animus in Young Edgar, Blair and Holker.[134] They remark
(February 14, 1752) that ‘Mr. Macdonald of Glengarrie says that he is
charged with the affaires of his Majesty,’ in London.
Now, what was, in 1751 the real situation of Young Glengarry? He had left
Rome in September 1750. In January 1751 he was in Paris, and wrote to
Edgar, asking for money. He was confined to bed by a severe cold.[135]
At an uncertain date, probably April 1751, he was residing publicly in
London, for he thence announced to Charles his approaching marriage ‘with
a lady of a very Honourable and loyall familie in England,’ after which
he will repay his share of the Loch Arkaig gold. On this head he has
satisfied James. He discloses the embezzlements of Cluny![136] On July
15, 1751, he wrote from London to James, and to Edgar, with political
and loyal observations. Yet, in 1751, Glenevis believed, for very good
reasons, that Glengarry was already an informer. If the suspicions of
Glenevis were correct, Glengarry was an informer in 1751, the date
assigned by Pickle to the beginning of his own service is about 1750.
Thus, in 1751, Glengarry was tolerated in London by the English
Government, though still professing loyalty to James. As late as October
1754 he had not ‘qualified’ or taken the oaths. He must, therefore,
have made his peace with England—otherwise! He had resigned his French
commission. Moreover, while his accomplices in the Loch Arkaig affair,
the Camerons, were arrested, Glengarry, the ‘unqualified,’ was allowed to
go about London, and travel to France and Scotland, though the English
Ministry knew that he was at least as guilty as Glenevis and Downan.
The inferences are obvious. Government had a motive for sparing
Glengarry. Again, quite apart from the Pickle letters, Glengarry is
assuredly betraying one or the other party. To James he poses as an
active conspirator. To the English Government he poses as, at least, ‘one
peaceable subject,’ for they allow him to live, and love, in London, and
to go where he pleases. He was in Edinburgh in April, 1752, and dined
with Bishop Forbes. Later, he seems to have gone to Lochaber, which
Government knew, from an Informer.
We now come to the Elibank Plot, to kidnap the Royal Family. It flickered
from November 1752 to summer, 1753. Glengarry, writing from Arras on
April 5, 1753, gives Edgar, James’s secretary, a veiled account of the
affair. ‘The day was fixt,’ on, or for, November 10, 1752, but the
English shuffled, and did not act. ‘The concert in Novr. was,’ says
Glengarry, ‘that I was to remain in London, as I had above four hundred
Brave Highlanders ready at my call, and, after matters had broke out
there to sett off directly for Scotland, as no raising would be made
amongst the Clans without my presence.’[137] He then alludes to ‘my leate
illness at Paris,’ which has left him ‘still very weake’—a phrase used at
the same time by Pickle.
Now the Pickle letters begin on November 2, 1752, and Pickle speaks
of himself, to his English employers, in precisely the same terms as
Glengarry uses about himself when writing to Edgar. Pickle says that,
among his Jacobite friends, he explains his supplies of English money as
remittances from ‘Baron Kenady.’ Now, in Lord Advocate Craigie’s letters
of 1745,[138] we read ‘in most things Young Glengarry is advised and
directed by Baron Kennedy,’ a Baron of the Scottish Exchequer. Thus, if
Pickle is Glengarry, he would naturally represent his chief adviser,
Baron Kennedy, as the source of his supplies. He announces (Boulogne,
November 2, 1752) ‘you’l soon hear of a hurly burly,’ and he must make
a long journey, first to Paris, then South, as he writes on November 4
to Henry Pelham.[139] The hurly burly is the Elibank Plot. ‘I will see
my friend’ (Henry Pelham) ‘or that can happen.’ To Pelham he says, ‘I
will lay before you _in person_ all I can learn.’ Pelham knew Pickle
_personally_, and could not be deceived as to his identity, as to his
being a Chief, as he represented himself. In December 1752 Pickle, in
London, informed against Archibald Cameron and Lochgarry, whom Charles
had sent to Scotland, also against Fassifern and Glenevegh (Glenevis) as
agents for Charles with the Southern Jacobites. Pickle has seen Charles,
and, in town, Lord Elibank, who ‘surprised me to the greatest degree by
telling me that all was put off for some time.’ He has promised Charles
‘to write nothing to Rome,’ which Glengarry actually did, in April 1753.
In later letters to his English employers, Pickle speaks much of a severe
illness, at Paris, which ‘nearly tripped up his hiells,’ and left him,
like Glengarry at the same date, ‘very weake.’ He had caught a cold, with
a relapse at the masked ball of the Lundi Gras, where he met the Prince.
‘They now believe Pickle could have a number of Highlanders even in
London to follow him.’ Nothing can be transacted in the Highlands without
his knowledge, as his Clan must begin the play.’[140] The scheme is a
night attack on the Palace of St. James’s. Pickle has often discussed it
with his friend, the Earl Marischal, Frederick’s ambassador to the French
Court.[141]
Here, then, are the following points shared in common by Pickle and
Glengarry. (1.) Both in November 1752 are engaged in a deep Jacobite
Plot. (2.) Both are expected to lead a force of Highlanders, ‘even in
London.’ (3.) No rising can take place among the Clans without each of
them. (4.) Both are in correspondence with Rome. (5.) Both suffer from a
severe illness at the same time, and are left very ‘weake’. (6.) Both are
friends of Baron Kennedy. (7.) Both frequently visit the Earl Marischal
in Paris.
That Glengarry visited the Earl in 1753 I cannot prove by independent
evidence. But I can show, by independent evidence, that he, as well as
(by his own statement) Pickle, did so at an approximate date. Glengarry
had known the Earl since 1744. Here is another spy’s undated testimony
(1752-1754) to Glengarry’s familiarity with the Earl Marischal in Paris,
about this date, when Pickle haunts the old exile.[142]
‘Macdonald of Glengarry, goes by the first of these names, lives at a
_Baigneur’s_ in the _Rue Guenegaud_, and keeps one Servant out of Livery,
and two in Livery. When he first came to Paris he kept a _Carosse de
Remise_ by the month, but now only hires one occasionally to make his
visits, which are chiefly to
Lord Ogilvie
Mr. Ratcliffe
Mrs. Carryl of Sussex
Mrs. Hamilton (Lord Abercorn’s Cousin who has changed her Religion and
lives with Mrs. Carryl)
The 3 Messrs. Hayes (who are cousins and lodge at the _Hotel de
Transylvanie, Rue Conde_)
Macloud } at Roisins, a Coffee House in the Rue Vaugirard
Fitzgerald }
Lord Pittenweemys, the Earl of Kelly’s Son, at the _Hotel d’Angleterre,
Rue Tarrane_
Sir James Cockburn, at the _Caffe de la Paix_, in the _Rue Tarane_.
Lord Hallardy } at a _Baigneur’s_ on the Estrapade where
Mr. Gordon } they keep themselves conceal’d,
Mr. Mercer }
L. Cromarty }
Frequently to the Jesuits’ College.
‘_And never fails going to Lord Marshal_, whose Coach is often lent him
when he has none of his own.
‘N.B.—Tuesday 9th. Janry. Macdonald waited in his own Coach from ten
o’clock at night till past eleven, in the _Rue Dauphine_, when a Person
took him up in a Chariot, who, by the description, is believed to be
Lord Marshal. It is about that time that the Pretender’s Son is suppos’d
to have been in Paris.’
Thus Glengarry undeniably frequented the old Earl Marischal, no less than
Pickle did, and the English Government knew it. Yet they did not arrest
him, as they arrested Glenevis, Downan, Fassifern, Archy Cameron, and
tried to arrest Lochgarry, on all of whom Pickle had informed. Moreover
Glengarry, in Paris, is not starving, but has a servant out of livery,
and two in livery, keeps or hires a carriage, or uses that of the Earl
Marischal.
I respectfully submit that these seven common notes of Pickle and of
Glengarry cannot possibly be explained, except on one of two hypotheses.
Either Pickle is Glengarry, or he is audaciously personating Glengarry,
not only by letter, but bodily. For he promises to visit Henry Pelham ‘in
person,’ and Henry Pelham, with the English officials and police, cannot
but have known the aspect of Glengarry, a man who, for twenty-two months,
was an important state prisoner in the Tower, and had, later, lived
openly in London, though, as we shall see, under surveillance.
That point I prove thus: on August 12, 1753, Charles, in hiding at Liège,
and elsewhere in the Netherlands, desired, as he notes in a draft, an
interview ‘with G.’[143] In August, or September, 1753, Pickle sent
in accounts of his interview with Charles, in whose company he had
travelled from Ternan to Paris. The Prince asked Pickle to allow arms to
be landed on his estate, which Pickle refused, ‘nobody knowing as yet in
what manner the forfeited estates would be settled.’[144] Pickle himself
is now in England.
Now we know, from a report in the State Papers, that, in 1753, the
English Government received intelligence from a spy on Glengarry. ‘Mr.
McDonald of Glengarry has been several times in France within these three
weeks, and is suspected to be an agent for the Young Pretender, who, it
is believed, has been lately in Paris, incog. N.B.—The above-mentioned
Mr. McDonald lodges at the second House on the right hand side of the way
in Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, and is a young, fair, full-made
man.’[145]
Thus, just when Charles wishes to meet ‘G,’ Glengarry is coming and
going from France to England, suspected by a spy to be a Jacobite
agent, while Pickle is reporting to the English Government on his own
simultaneous journeys and interviews with the Prince. Yet the English
Government, though independently informed of Glengarry’s movements, and
his familiarity with the Earl Marischal (whom they know to be intriguing
for the Jacobites with Prussia), arrest Clanranald, arrest Fassifern, but
never touch Glengarry!
This is not the limit of their favours. Far from incommoding Glengarry,
Henry Pelham promises that Government will remit all their large claims
on his estate. For this, as least, we have Glengarry’s written word, as
has been shown already in ‘The Last Days of Glengarry.’[146]
The Celtic believers in Glengarry’s innocence may explain why, when
Pelham was arresting Jacobites all over Scotland, in 1753, he not only
allowed Glengarry, who had not ‘qualified,’ and against whom he had
copious information, to go free, but also ‘promised an absolute discharge
of the heavie claims the Government has against me.’ He made similar
promises to Pickle, who complains of their non-fulfilment. And, on the
hypothesis of Glengarry’s guilt, his motive is now transparent. In
addition to payments of ready money, sorely needed, his estates escaped
forfeiture, _and he was promised remission of the fines_. These facts, of
course, were unknown before I had access to Glengarry’s MS. Letter Book.
My hypothesis colligates the new facts as well as the old, which is the
note of a good working hypothesis.
To the seven common points between Pickle and Glengarry, in 1752-53,
we now add an eighth: both have been disappointed by Henry Pelham’s
promises, broken after his death. Such coincidences cannot be fortuitous,
and Glengarry’s friends must explain why he, a known Jacobite agent, was
so endeared to Henry Pelham.
At this time, the autumn of 1753, James Mohr Macgregor made his absurd
‘revelations,’ about an Irish plot to invade Scotland. He, his chief,
Balhaldie, and a Mr. Trant, were particularly concerned. Government had
also news, from Pickle, Count Kaunitz, and other sources, of Frederick’s
tampering with the Jacobites, through the Earl Marischal, the friend both
of Pickle and of Glengarry. It would have been natural to arrest and
examine Glengarry, who, as Government knew, was a familiar friend of the
Earl Marischal. In place of doing that—they consulted Pickle! The Duke of
Newcastle wrote a paper of Memoranda, proving his agitation, and making
a note that Henry Pelham should collogue with ‘the person from whom he
sometimes receives information.’[147] That person was Pickle.
Here are Pickle’s answers!
(_Private intelligences concerning some particular persons._)
‘He says Mr. Trent told him there was a Collection already made
for the Pretender of about £40,000, and that his friends here
said he should [not] want for money, tho’ it were £200,000.
‘Mr. Trent and he were very familiar formerly, but as he is
here grown a great man, he does not see so much of him. Trent
is not gone, but is expected to go every day. This Mr. Trent is
son of Olive Trent [once mistress of the Regent d’Orléans, and
complained of by Bolingbroke].
‘He does not know, nor believe, any one has come from Lord
Marshal hither lately with authority. He is sure no Arms have
come to Scotland this year, if there had, he must have known
it. [James Mohr said arms had come.] He says Sullivan’s Brother
has been twice at Rome lately, but does not know his errand.
‘Bohaldie [James Mohr’s Chief] was an Agent of the Pretender
with the late Lord Temple (Sempil?), but the Irish got him
turnd off, and he is sure Lord Marshal would never trust him,
because he will never believe him. [James Mohr had alleged that
the Earl was engaged with Balhaldie.]
‘_MacGregor was a Spy of both sides, and will never be trusted._
‘When he [Macgregor] escaped to Bulloigne he was very poor, but
Lord Strathallan etc took compassion upon him, and he knows the
Old Pretender sent him £20.’
This report damaged poor James Mohr; he was dismissed, and, in
a few months, died a destitute exile. General Stewart of Garth
claims our sympathy for James, who ‘rejected an employment which he
considered dishonourable in itself, and detrimental to the good of his
country.’[148] Alas! his employers rejected James!
We now reach the crucial point of the hypothesis that Pickle _personated_
Glengarry. ‘Whoever Pickle was, it was clearly his intention to personate
Glengarry,’ says Mr. A. H. Millar.[149] Now on this point, I need
scarcely recapitulate what is said at the beginning of this chapter. On
September 14, 1754, we find the bereaved Pickle, an orphan now, but also
a Chief, by his father’s death, in Edinburgh with Young Lochgarry, who
cannot but have known Young Glengarry, his Chief. For this presence of
the orphan in Edinburgh, we have not only his written word, but that of
Bruce (‘Cromwell’), the ‘Court Trusty’ who accompanied him. We have his
testimony to Pickle’s enhanced pride. He it is who tells us how ‘the Army
people make up to Pickle, thinking to make something of him,’ how General
Bland (unconscious of guile) suspects _him_, as a friend of Pickle’s;
how Pickle is going North, to his estates, and how the Governor of Fort
Augustus, hard by, is ‘to try his hand upon Pickle.’[150]
All this Pickle himself confirms, in two letters of one of which only
the briefest analysis has hitherto been given.[151] But these dull
confirmatory letters may be relegated to an appendix. Briefly, we
learn from his letters how Pickle has hurried to Edinburgh, for some
reason of his own, on the news of a death which coincides with that
of Old Glengarry. Coincidently, too, Pickle’s family affairs are in
great disorder. He writes again from Edinburgh (October 10, 1754), and
this letter is in his feigned hand.[152] In his second epistle from
Edinburgh Pickle confirms all that Bruce, the Court Trusty, has said
about his approaching journey North, whence Colonel Trapaud, Governor
of Fort Augustus, gives a bad account of Glengarry as swindling his
wadsetters.[153] Pickle also confirms Bruce’s account of the jealousy of
General Bland.
That Young Glengarry, as well as Pickle, was a week’s distance from
town after his father’s death (September 1, 1754) I now confirm by the
following letter to himself, where he is supposed to be interested in Old
Lochgarry. It is probably from the Major Macdonald who, while he was a
prisoner in 1747, persuaded him to conform to the English Government.
‘London: Sept. 12, 1754.