Part 39

Eight years afterwards (in 1736), when inquiries were made by the Chevalier concerning the temper of the people, and the state of the clans, it was stated that the most leading men among the clans were Cameron of Lochiel and Sir Alexander Macdonald. The Cameronians were, it was stated, well armed, and regularly regimented among themselves, but "so giddy and inconstant" that they could not be depended on; only that they were strongly enraged against the Government. "The leading men among the loyalists were reported much diminished; nor was it easy, from the necessity of concealing their sentiments, since the last rising, to make any estimate of the amount of those who would enter into any second scheme." Considering Cameron of Lochiel as thus empowered to give information of the first movements of James, the Jacobites in the Highlands were in continual communication with Cameron; yet, perhaps considering that those who engaged in the last insurrection, being nearly superannuated, would rather wish well to the cause than engage again, he still kept the fervent spirits of that political party whom he thus regarded in an equable state,--ready to act, yet willing to wait for a favourable occasion. In 1740 Donald Cameron signed, nevertheless, the association of seven carried by Drummond of Bochaldy to Rome; but when the Court of France, after the disaster at Dunkirk, withdrew its aid, he was one of those who sent over Murray to dissuade Charles from coming to Scotland, unless accompanied by a body of foreign troops:--so true were his professions of fidelity, and so finely was that fidelity tempered with prudence. Holding these opinions, which were amply verified by the result of the Rebellion of 1745, when Donald Cameron received a letter from Prince Charles, written at Borodale, and desiring to see him immediately, it was in sorrow and perplexity that he received the summons. He sent his brother, the unfortunate Dr. Archibald Cameron, to urge the Prince to return, and to assure him that he should not join in the undertaking. But the Prince persisted in the resolution he had formed of persevering in his attempt, and gave to Dr. Cameron the same reply that he had already given to others, and then, addressing himself to Macdonald of Scothouse, who had gone to the coast to pay his respects to the Prince, he asked him if he could go to Lochiel and endeavour to persuade him to do his duty. Young Scothouse replied, he would comply with the Prince's wishes, and immediately set out for Achnacarry. Such a message from such a quarter could not be resisted, and Lochiel prepared to accompany young Scothouse to Borodale. Lochiel's reluctance to assent was not, however, overcome: his mind misgave him. He knew well the state of his country, and he took this first step with an ominous foreboding of the issue. He left his home, determined not to take arms. On his way to Borodale he called at the house of his brother, John Cameron of Fassefern, who came out and inquired what had brought him from home at that early hour? Lochiel replied that the Prince had arrived from France, and had sent to see him. Fassefern inquired what troops the Prince had brought? what money? what arms? Lochiel answered that the Prince had brought neither money, nor arms, nor troops, and that he was therefore resolved not to be concerned in any attempt, and to dissuade Charles from an insurrection. Fassefern approved of his brother's decision, but recommended him not to proceed to Borodale, but to communicate his resolution by letter. "No," rejoined Lochiel; "it is my duty to go to the Prince, and unfold to him my reasons, which admit of no reply." "Brother," returned Fassefern, "I know you better than you know yourself; if the Prince once sets his eyes upon you, he will make you do whatever he pleases."

Lochiel, nevertheless, proceeded to Borodale.

The gallant chief found the Prince surrounded by those who, like himself, had consented, unwillingly, to join in the ill-starred enterprise. The personal courage of Charles Edward has been doubted; but his determination and fearlessness at this critical moment, afford an ample contradiction of the charge. Whilst on board the ship which brought him to Scotland, it was represented to him that he must keep himself very retired, as the garrison at Inverlochie was not far off, and as the Campbells in the neighbourhood would be ready to take him. "I have no fear about that at all," was his reply. "If I could get six stout trusty fellows to join me," he said, on another occasion, "I would rather skulk about the mountains of Scotland than return to France."

The Prince was in this temper of mind when Lochiel reached him. Upon his arrival at Borodale, the Prince and he immediately retired to a long and private conference.

The conversation began, upon the part of Charles, by complaints of the treatment which he had received from the Ministers of France, "who had long," he said, "amused him with vain hopes, and deceived him with promises:" "their coldness in his cause," he added, "but ill agreed with the confidence which he had in his own claims, and with the enthusiasm which the loyalty of his father's brave and faithful subjects had inspired in him." Lochiel acknowledged the engagements of the chiefs, but remarked that they were not binding, since his Highness had come without the stipulated aid; and, therefore, since there was not the least prospect of success, he advised the Prince to return to France, and reserve himself and his faithful friends to some more favourable opportunity.

This counsel was extremely distasteful to Charles Edward; already had the young and gallant Prince declared to one of the Macdonalds, who had urged the same opinion, that he did not choose to owe the restoration of his father's throne to foreigners, but to his own friends, to whom he was now come to put it in their power to have the glory of that event. He therefore refused to follow Lochiel's advice, asserting that there could not be a more favourable moment than the present, when all the British troops were abroad, and kept at bay by Marshal Saxe. In Scotland, he added, there were only a few regiments, newly raised, and unused to service. These could never stand before the brave Highlanders; and the first advantage gained would encourage his father's friends to declare themselves, and would ensure foreign aid. He only wanted "the Highlanders to begin the war."

"Lochiel," to use the words of Mr. Home, "still resisted, entreating Charles to be more temperate, and consent to remain concealed where he was, till he (Lochiel) and his other friends should meet together and concert what was best to be done." Charles, whose mind was wound up to the utmost pitch of impatience, paid no regard to this proposal, but answered, that he was determined to put all to the hazard. "In a few days," said he, "with the few friends that I have, I will erect the royal standard, and proclaim to the people of Britain that Charles Stuart is come over to claim the crown of his ancestors, to win it, or to perish in the attempt: Lochiel," continued he, "who my father has often told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from the newspapers the fate of his Prince; and so shall every man over whom nature or fortune hath given me any power." Such was the singular conversation on the result of which depended peace or war; for it is a point agreed among the Highlanders, that if Lochiel had persisted in his refusal to take arms, the other chiefs would not have joined the standard without him, and the spark of rebellion must have instantly expired.

To the details of this interview are added others, which somewhat reflect upon the disinterestedness of Lochiel. They rest, however, upon hearsay evidence; and, since conversations repeated rarely bear exactly their original signification, some caution must be given before they are credited: yet, even if true, one can scarcely condemn a man who is forced into an enterprise from which he shrinks, screening himself from all the consequences of defeat, and striving to preserve an inheritance which he might justly regard as a trust, rather than a property. It must also be remembered that Donald Cameron was at this time only nominally the proprietor of the patrimonial estates. The following is the extract from Bishop Forbes's diary, from which the information is supplied:--

"Leith, Thursday, April 9, 1752.

"Alexander Macdonnell, the younger, of Glengary, did me the honour to dine with me. In the course of conversation, I told young Glengary, that I had oftener than once, heard the Viscountess Dowager of Strathallan tell, that Lochiel, junior, had refused to raise a man, or to make any appearance, till the Prince should give him security for the full value of his estate, in the event of the attempt proving abortive. To this young Glengary answered, that it was fact, and that the Prince himself (after returning from France) had frankly told him as much, assigning this as the weighty reason why he (the Prince) had shown so much zeal in providing young Lochiel (preferably to all others) in a regiment. 'For,' said the Prince, 'I must do the best I can, in my present circumstances, to keep my word to Lochiel.' Young Glengary told me, moreover, that Lochiel, junior, (the above bargain with the Prince notwithstanding,) insisted upon another condition before he would join in the attempt, which was, that Glengary, senior, should give it under his hand to raise his clan and join the Prince. Accordingly Glengary, senior, when applied to upon the subject, did actually give it under his hand, that his clan should rise under his own second son as colonel, and Mac Donell, of Lochgary, as lieutenant-colonel. Then, indeed, young Lochiel was gratified in all his demands, and did instantly raise his clan.

"Glengary, junior, likewise assured me that Cluny Mac Pherson, junior, made the same agreement with the Prince, before he would join the attempt with his followers, as young Lochiel had done, viz. to have security from the Prince for the full value of his estate, lest the expedition should prove unsuccessful; which the Prince accordingly consented unto, and gave security to said Cluny Mac Pherson, junior, for the full value of his estate. Young Glengary declared that he had this from the young Cluny Mac Pherson's own mouth, as a weighty reason why he, Cluny, would not part with the money which the Prince had committed to his care and keeping."

Lochiel, after these arrangements with the Prince, returned to Achnacarry, in order to prepare for the undertaking. A deep sadness pervaded his deportment when he began thus to fulfil his promise to the Prince; but having once embarked in the enterprise, he exerted himself with as much zeal and perseverance as if he had engaged in it with the full approbation of his judgment. We cannot wonder at his dejection, for his assent was the assent of all the clans. It was a point agreed among the Highlanders, that had Lochiel not proceeded to take arms, the other chiefs would not have joined the standard without him; and the "spark of rebellion," thus writes Mr. Home, "must instantly have expired." "Upon this," says an eye-witness of the Rebellion, "depended the whole undertaking; for had Lochiel stood out, the Prince must either have returned to France on board the same frigate that brought him to Scotland, or remained privately in the Highlands, waiting for a landing of foreign troops. The event has shown that he would have waited for a long time."

From henceforth the career of Lochiel was one of activity and of exertions which it must have been almost melancholy to witness in one whose heart was sorrowing and foreboding. He arranged his papers and affairs as a man does before setting out on a journey from which he was not to return, and he summoned his followers to give aid to a cause which as Mrs. Grant remarks, "a vain waste of blood adorned without strengthening." He sent messengers throughout Lochaber and the adjacent countries in which the Camerons lived, requiring his chieftains to prepare and to accompany their chief to Glenfinnin. Before, however, the day appointed had arrived, a party of the Camerons and the Macdonalds of Keppoch had begun the war by attacking Captain John Scott, at High Bridge, eight miles from Fort William. The chief glory of this short but important action is due to Macdonald of Keppoch; the affair was over when Lochiel with a troop of Camerons arrived, took charge of the prisoners, and carried them to his house at Achnacarry.

On the nineteenth of August (old style), Lochiel, followed by seven hundred men, marched to Glenfinnin, where Charles was anxiously awaiting his approach. When the Prince landed from one of the lakes in the glen, Lochiel was not to be seen; and the adventurer, entering one of the hovels, waited there two hours, until the sound of the bagpipes announced the approach of the Camerons. These brave men who were thus marching to their destiny advanced in two lines of three men deep, whilst between the lines were the prisoners taken at High Bridge, unarmed, trophies of the first victory of the Jacobites. The Camerons were reputed to be as active and strong and as well skilled in the use of arms as any of the clans of Scotland, and as little addicted to pilfering as any Highlanders at that time could be; for Lochiel had taken infinite pains to make them honest, and had administered justice among them with no little severity. "He thought," says a writer of the time, "his authority sufficient to keep his clan in subjection, and never troubled his head whether they obeyed him out of love or from fear." Lochiel had not been able to prevail upon any of his brothers-in-law to accompany him, although they wished well to the undertaking, and, in some instances, afterwards joined it. One member of his family made, however, a conspicuous figure in the vale of Glenfinnin.

This was the celebrated Jenny Cameron, daughter of Cameron of Glendessery, and a kinswoman of Lochiel. She is reported to have been a widow, and upwards of forty, according to one account,--to another, of fifty years of age. Her father, whose estate did not exceed in value one hundred and fifty pounds a year, had endeavoured to improve it by dealing in cattle, a business frequently followed even by men of good family in the Highlands. He had been some time dead, and the estate had devolved upon his grandson, a youth of weak intellect, to whom Miss Cameron acted as curatrix or guardian. The young man, although then of age, left all matters of business entirely to his aunt; and she came, therefore, to the standard of Prince Charles, as the representative of her nephew.

Her appearance, if we are to accredit contemporary statements, must have been extremely singular. Having collected a troop of two hundred and fifty men, she marched at the head of it to the camp at Glenfinnin. She was dressed in a sea-green riding-habit, with a scarlet lappet, laced with gold; her hair was tied behind in loose curls, and surmounted with a velvet cap, and a scarlet feather. She rode a bay gelding, with green furniture, richly trimmed with gold; in her hand she carried a naked sword instead of a riding-whip. Her countenance is described as being agreeable, and her figure handsome; her eyes were fine, and her hair as black as jet. In conversation she was full of intelligence and vivacity. The Prince, it is said, rode out of the lines to receive her, and to welcome the addition to his army, and conducted her to a tent with much ceremony. It was reported that Mrs. Cameron continued in the camp as the commander of her troop, and accompanied the Prince into England. But this account is contradicted by Bishop Forbes. "She was so far," he says, "from accompanying the Prince's army, that she went off with the rest of the spectators as soon as the army marched; neither did she ever follow the camp, nor was ever with the Prince but in public, when he had his Court in Edinburgh."

The Prince remained at Glenfinnin two days, and was observed to be in high spirits. Here he was presented by Major Macdonell with the first good horse that he had mounted in Scotland. Charles Edward then marched his little army to Lochiel, which is about five miles from Glenfinnin, resting first at Fassefern, the seat of Lochiel's brother, and then proceeded to a village called Moidh, belonging to Lochiel.

From this time the fate of Lochiel was inevitably bound up with that of the Prince. At the siege of Edinburgh he distinguished himself at the head of his Camerons in the following manner:--When the deputies who were appointed by the town council to request a further delay from Charles set out in a hackney coach for Gray's Mill to prevail upon Lord George Murray to second their application, as the Netherbow Port was opened to let out their coach, the Camerons, headed by Lochiel, rushed in and took possession of the city. The brave chief afterwards obtained from Prince Charles the guard of the city, as he was more acquainted with Edinburgh than the rest of the Highland chiefs; and his discipline was so exact that the city guns, persons, and effects were as secure under his care as in the time of peace. There was indeed some pilfering in the country, but not more than was to be expected in the neighbourhood of an army of undisciplined Highlanders.

Lochiel remained in Edinburgh while the Prince continued there, and witnessed the brief splendour of the young Chevalier's Court: it is thus described by an eye-witness:--"The Prince's Court at Holyrood soon became very brilliant. There were every day, from morning till night, a vast affluence of well-dressed people. Besides the gentlemen that had joined or come upon business, or to pay their court, there were a great number of ladies and gentlemen that came either out of affection or curiosity, besides the desire of seeing the Prince. There had not been a Court in Scotland for a long time, and people came from all quarters to see so many novelties. One would have thought the King was already restored, and in peaceable possession of all the dominions of his ancestors, and that the Prince had only made a trip to Scotland to show himself to the people and receive their homage. Such was the splendour of the Court, and such the satisfaction that appeared in everybody's countenance."

At the battle of Falkirk, Lochiel was slightly wounded, as well as his brother Archibald. Throughout that engagement, as well as during the whole of the unhappy contest of 1745-6, Lochiel distinguished himself by his clemency, gallantry, and good faith. An incident which happened after the battle of Falkirk, shows the respect paid to the head of the clan.

While Charles Edward was standing at an open window at his house in Falkirk, reading a list of prisoners just presented by Lord Kilmarnock, a soldier in the uniform of one of King George's regiments made his appearance in the street below. He was armed with a musket and bayonet, and wore a black cockade in his hat, as it appeared, by way of defiance. Upon perceiving this, Charles directed the attention of Lord Kilmarnock, who was standing near him, to the soldier. Lord Kilmarnock ran down stairs immediately, went up to the soldier, struck the hat off his head, and set his foot on the black cockade. At that instant a Highlander came running across the street, and laid hands on Lord Kilmarnock, and pushed him back. Lord Kilmarnock pulled out a pistol and presented it at the Highlander's head: the Highlander drew out his dirk and pointed it at Lord Kilmarnock's heart. After remaining in this position a few seconds they were separated: the man with the dirk took up the hat and put it on the head of the soldier, who was marched off in triumph by the Highlanders.

This little scene was explained to some of the bystanders thus: The man in the King's uniform was a Cameron, who, after the defeat of the Government army, had joined his clan. He was received with joy by the Camerons, who permitted him to wear his uniform until others could be procured. The Highlander who pointed the dirk at Lord Kilmarnock's breast, was the soldier's brother; the crowd who surrounded him were his kinsmen of the clan. No one, it was their opinion, "could take that cockade out of the soldier's cap, except Lochiel himself." Lochiel accompanied the Prince in his disastrous expedition to Derby.

At the end of February 1746, he was sent with General Stapleton to besiege Fort William. He left that enterprise when summoned by Charles Edward to assemble around his standard on the field of Culloden. On the eventful fourteenth of April, the day before the battle, Lochiel joined the Prince's army: that night, the Highlanders, who never pitched a tent, lay among the furze and trees of Culloden Wood, whilst their young leader slept beneath the roof of Culloden House.

The following extract from the Duke of Cumberland's orderly-book shows how closely that able general and detestable individual had studied the habits of those whom it was his lot to conquer; and mark also his contempt for the "Lowlanders and arrant scum" who sometimes made up the lines behind the Highlanders.

"Edinburgh, 12 Jan. 1745-6. Sunday Parole, Derby.

"Field-officer for the day: to-morrow Major Willson. The manner of the Highlander's way of fighting, which there is nothing so easy to resist, if officers and men are not prepossessed with the lyes and accounts which are told of them. They commonly form their front rank of what they call their best men, or true Highlanders, the number of which being allways but few, when they form in battallions they commonly form four deep, and these Highlanders form the front of the four, the rest being Lowlanders and arrant scum; when these battallions come within a large musket-shott, or three-score yards, this front rank gives their fire and immediately throw down their firelocks and come down in a cluster with their swords and targets, making a noise and endeavouring to pearce the body, or battallions before them. Becoming twelve or fourteen deep by the time they come up to the people, they attack. The sure way to demolish them is at three deep to fire by ranks diagonally to the centre where they come, the rear rank first, and even that rank not to fire till they are within ten or twelve paces; but if the fire is given at a distance you probably will be broke, for you never get time to load a second cartridge; and if you give way, you may give your foot for dead, for they being without a firelock, or any load, no man with his arms, accoutrements, &c. can escape them, and they give no quarters; but if you will but observe the above directions, the are the most despicable enemy that are."

On the following day when the army, being drawn up on Drumossie Moor, waited in vain till mid-day for the approach of the enemy, Charles addressed his generals and chiefs, and proposed to attack the Duke of Cumberland's camp at Nairn that evening.

His proposal was, unfortunately for his brave followers, not seconded by the powerful voice of Lord George Murray. Lochiel, who was not a man given to much elocution, recommended delay, and urged that the army would be at least fifteen hundred stronger on the following day. The return of the army to Culloden, fatigued and famished, between five and six o'clock on the following morning, was the result of that ill-advised attempt. At eight o'clock the alarm was given at Culloden House by one of the clan Cameron, that the Duke's army was in full march towards them.