Part 41

A severe retribution awaited the offender, who intended, it is said, to enter into a mercantile concern at Glasgow with the money thus procured. He was taken prisoner in the house of Stewart of Glenbuckie, by a party of soldiers from the garrison at Inversnaid. He was carried to London, arraigned upon the Act of Attainder in 1745, in which his name was included, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. His wife, who then resided at Lisle, hurried to London to proffer fruitless petitions for mercy. Whatever may have been Dr. Cameron's errors, his death was worthy of the name he bore, and he sustained his fate with calmness and resignation. Seven children were left to deplore his loss. The Chevalier St. George, kindly passing over his fault, wrote of him in these terms. "I am a stranger to the motives which carried poor Archibald Cameron into Scotland; but whatever they may have been, his fate gives me the more concern, as I own I could not bring myself to believe that the English Government would carry their rigour so far." The French Government settled a pension of one thousand five hundred livres upon Mrs. Cameron, and an annual allowance of two hundred livres to each of her sons, who were in their service. The unfortunate Dr. Cameron was buried in the Savoy in London. The family of the man who betrayed him is said, in the Highlands, to have been visited with a severe retribution, having, ever since, had one of its members an idiot. Such is the notion of retributive justice in the Highlands.

The death of this brother, and still more the stain upon the honour of Dr. Cameron, must have added greatly to the burden of sorrow which fell so heavily upon Lochiel. His son was, however, spared for some years, and was cherished by the Scots as the representative of their ancient chiefs. He was, it is true, what they called a "landless laird," yet the clansmen paid him all the honours due to the eldest son of Lochiel. He received a good education, and was prevented by his friends from taking any part in the various schemes set on foot at certain intervals for the return of Charles. He married at an early age. Government was at that time engaged in levying men for the American war, and found it convenient to use the influence of the clans for that purpose; Lochiel was offered a company in General Fraser's regiment, the seventy-first, provided he could raise it among his clan. Poor and broken as they were, the clansmen, true to their bond of fidelity, mustered around their landless laird; and Lochiel marched at the head of his company to Glasgow, in order to embark for America.

It happened that whilst here, he was taken ill of the measles, a disorder which prevented his marching. It was therefore arranged that the first lieutenant should take his place. When, on the point of marching to Greenock in order to embark, the clansmen discovered this, they laid down their arms, declaring that they had not engaged with King George, but with Lochiel; and they refused to move. The chief hearing of this dilemma, ill as he was, arose, dressed himself, and went down to his people. He harangued them, and represented that unless they went on board, their conduct would be imputed to disaffection, and might injure, if not ruin his interests. The men immediately took up their arms, huzzaed their chief, and began to march. The result is melancholy. Enfeebled by this effort, Lochiel again took to his bed; the day on which he had made this fatal exertion was a raw November morning. He never recovered from that exposure, but died in a few days afterwards.

Most of the company of Camerons perished in the contest which ensued. Thrice during the American war was General Fraser's regiment renewed. Such was the devotion of this gallant race of men to their chief; and such were the services which those whose fathers had fought at Culloden, devoted to the cause of the English Monarch.

Late in the eighteenth century, the estates of Lochiel were restored to the grandson of Lochiel; and the descendants of that race, in which so much honour, such disinterested exertion, such kindness and heroism existed, are again the Lords of Achnacarry.

FOOTNOTES:

I am indebted to a MS. account of Cameron of Lochiel for the most interesting facts in the following memoir. It was communicated to me by R. Chambers, Esq., and was written by Mrs. Grant of Laggan. In her letters unpublished, she declares the source of her information to have been some papers in the possession of a Scotch clergyman, "which," says Mrs. Grant, "it appears he did not give to John Home, who would scarcely have asked the favour, keeping very shy of his old brethren."

Brown's History of the Highlands, part ii. p. 141.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Brown's Highlands.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

"The credit of this feat," writes Mrs. Grant, "rests merely on the country tradition: and the silence concerning it, in the publications and records of those times, is accounted for, first, by the shame which the commanders of the party felt at being thus surprised and outwitted by an inferior number of those whom they had been accustomed to style barbarians and to treat as such."--MS.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Sketches of the Highlands, vol. i. pp. 60, 61.

Brown's Highlands.

Reay, p. 88.

See Culloden Papers.

Stewart's Sketches, vol. i. p. 86.

Reay, p. 271.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Conjectured to be Lord Lovat.

Appendix to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, p. 177.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Appendix to Home's History of the Rebellion, No. II.

See Appendix, No. II.