The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) Part 6

To do Huntlie justice, being present when he received the news, he said, "Now ther's no help for it, we must all ruin with him: would to G.o.d he had comed sooner." There seem'd still some faint hopes to remain, which were, that since his Majestie had stopt at Fetteresso, and keept himself incognito there for two days, till Captain Cameron had informed Mar of his arrival, his reason for it could only be that he wanted to know the state of his affairs before he'd go forward to Perth; for what other reason could have hinder'd him to [have] declared himself at Aberdeen, or from going straight to Perth? And by all that could be learned since, we found we judged right; for it's said, that if his affairs were on a bad foot, he was resolved to return without loss of time, and leave his poor subjects the freedom of making terms for themselves; a very just and reasonable thought. Whatever was in it, as his declaring himself at Fetteresso, and afterwards going up to Perth, put a stop to all thoughts of terms on our side, so it's not to be doubted that the Government, however inclinable they might [have] been before, could ever entertain or allow of any such proposals from those inclined to mercy, or the moderate people of their own side....

My Lord Mar, who, as we first supposed, would [have] met his Majesty privately, spread the news at Perth of the King's happy landing, and brought a numerous train with him to Fetteresso, out of a view, I believe, to put it out of his Majesty's power to go back, having already published his being there; and to confirm him of the certainty of his affairs succeeding, by the approbation of those villainous, weak, miserable, deluded dependers of his Lords.h.i.+p, who he brought along with him.

... Thus that unhappy Prince, entirely a stranger to his own affairs, as much as he had dropt out of another world, or from the clouds, as things stood, was brought in eminent danger of his life, without its being possible that it could have any other effect but that of the certain ruin of his friends, and driving the nail to the head, and riveting the misery of those who had so generously sacrificed all to serve him. It's certain that he was made believe that his affairs in general were on a good foot, at least, very retrievable; that there were twice as many in Perth as there really were; and that there was no more needful to be done but the taking of Inverness, which entirely depended on Huntlie; and when that was done, the King would have a great army from all places of the Highlands before the Duke of Argyle could attack Perth. As for powder, I suppose it was never spoke of, since there was no want of it at Fetteresso; that the news of his Majestie's arrival would no sooner spread but all would return, and great numbers who had joined them would come from different corners.... The King was carried triumphinglie up to Perth.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] The Marquis of Huntly.

[55] It should be the 22nd of December.

E. COLLAPSE OF THE REBELLION (1716).

+Source.+--_The History of the Rebellion rais'd against His Majesty King George I. by the Friends of the Popish Pretender_, p. 365, by the Rev. Mr. Peter Rae. Second edition. (London: 1746.)

... His Grace[56] having received positive orders from Court, to march forthwith against the rebels, he resolved to surmount all difficulties, and to march as soon as the artillery, and some of the Dutch forces at Edinburgh, and the regiments of Newton and Stanhope, who were quartered at Glasgow, could come up to join him; which they did, two or three days after.... The news of these preparations and march were not grateful to His Majesty at Scone, spoiling the ceremony of his coronation, and meeting of his Parliament: Instead of which fine things, the only matter now under consideration was, how to provide for their own safety; and the grand question debated was, whether to maintain the place, and fight the Duke of Argyle, or retreat.... The Pretender, finding that time was not to be lost, retired that evening from Scone to Perth, where having supped at Provost Hay's, he rested some hours; and next morning[57]

about ten o'clock, the rebels abandoned Perth, marching over the Tay upon the ice, and, leaving their cannon behind them, took their rout towards Dundee. About noon the Pretender himself, with the Earl of Mar, followed his flying adherents with tears in his eyes, complaining that instead of bringing him to a Crown, they had brought him to his grave....

The rebels having retired from Dundee to Montrose, his Grace, on the 3rd,[58] sent a detachment towards Aberbrothick[59] within eight miles of that place; and on the fourth, in the morning, ordered Major General Sabine, with 3 battalions, 500 detached foot, and 50 dragoons, to march to Aberbrothick. The same day his Grace detached Colonel Clayton with 300 foot and 50 dragoons, to march by the way of Brechin; giving orders to the one as well as the other to summon the country people to remove the snow on the roads, which, being then very deep, made their march very heavy and tedious. His Grace having divided the rest of his army into two bodies, for marching with the greater expedition; and the rebel army having marched in two columns, on the 5th, in the morning, General Cadogan with the infantry marched towards Aberbrothick, and at the same time the Duke himself, with all the cavalry, proceeded by the Upper Road towards Brechin; the whole army being to join the next day at Stonehive,[60] intending on Tuesday hereafter to be at Aberdeen, to which place they supposed the Pretender was gone.

But by this time the Pretender was out of their reach; for having received advice at Montrose, on the 4th of February, about four in the afternoon, that part of the King's army was advancing towards Aberbrothick, he ordered the clans who remained with him to be ready to march, about eight at night, towards Aberdeen, where he a.s.sured them a considerable force would soon come to them from France. At the hour appointed for their march, the Pretender ordered his horses to be brought before the door of the house in which he lodged, and the guard which usually attended him to mount, as if he designed to go on with the clans to Aberdeen; but at the same time he slipped privately out on foot, accompanied only by one of his domesticks, went to the Earl of Mar's lodgings, and from thence, by a byway to the water-side, where a boat waited and carried him and the Earl of Mar on board a French s.h.i.+p of 90 tuns, called the _Maria Teresa_ of St. Malo. About a quarter of an hour after, two other boats carried the Earl of Melford and the Lord Drummond, with Lieutenant-General Sheldon and ten other gentlemen on board the same s.h.i.+p, and then they hoisted sail and put to sea; and notwithstanding of his Majesty's s.h.i.+ps that were cruising on that coast, got safely off, and in seven days landed at Waldam, near Graveling,[61]

between Dunkirk and Calais. The Earls Marischal, Southesk, the Lord Tinmouth, General Gordon, with many other gentlemen and officers of distinction, were left behind to s.h.i.+ft for themselves, who kept with the army, and continued their march towards Aberdeen, the foot marching on before with General Gordon, and the Earl Marischal, with about 1000 horse, keeping the rear to prevent surprise....

The same day the King's forces advanced to Montrose, the remains of the rebel army arrived at Aberdeen, where General Gordon showed them a letter from the Pretender, in which he acquainted his friends that the disappointments he had met with, especially from abroad, had obliged him to leave that country; that he thanked them for their services, and desired them to advise with General Gordon, and consult their own security either by keeping in a body or separating, and encouraging them to expect to hear farther from him in a very short time.... And we are told, that upon reading of the letter, many of the people threw down their arms, crying out they were basely betrayed, they were all undone, they were left without king or general. On the seventh, in the morning, the van of the rebels marched from Aberdeen, as did their rear about two in the afternoon, and their main body lay at Old Meldrum that night; but about 200 of their horse, amongst whom were many of their chiefs, with Irish and other officers who came lately from France, went toward Peterhead in order to s.h.i.+p themselves off in s.h.i.+ps which they knew were waiting for them there....

Their main body marched straight west, through Strath-Spey and Strath-Don to the hills of Badenoch, where they separated: The foot dispersed into the mountains on this side of Lochy, and the horse went Lochquhaher, agreeing, however, to meet again upon notice from the Pretender. And here being advised that two French frigates were come for their relief, and would lay in Pentland Firth till they should hear from them, the Lord Duffus, Sir George Sinclair, General Eckline and others, about 160 gentlemen in all, well mounted on horseback, made a sally from the hills, and crossing the s.h.i.+re of Murray,[62] came to the seaside near Burgh, where they got several large barks which carried them to the Orkneys, Arskerry,[63] and other of the islands, from whence most of them found means to get into the frigates which carried them safe to France. Other s.h.i.+ps coming afterwards carried the rest to Gottenburg, in the Swedish dominions, where some of them took on in that king's service.... There were yet with the rebels in Scotland many of their chiefs, as the Marquis of Tullibardine, the Earls Marischal, Southesk, Linlithgow, and Seaforth, who having broke his submission, joined them again in their flight to the northward, the Lord Tinmouth, Sir Donald M'Donald, and several others of the heads of the clans, who sheltered themselves for some time in the mountains from his Majesty's troops who pursued them through the north; and from thence some made their escape to the Isle of Sky, the Lewis, and other of the north-western islands till s.h.i.+ps came for their relief to carry them abroad; and some of them afterwards submitted to the Government, as we shall hear below....

The Duke of Argyle having thus gloriously finished the most laborious and hard campaign that ever was known, he left the command of his Majesty's troops to Lieutenant-General Cadogan and returned to Edinbourgh the 27th of February, and in a day or two after set out for London, where he arrived on the 6th of March.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Of Argyle.

[57] January 30.

[58] Of February.

[59] Arbroath.

[60] Stonehaven.

[61] Gravelines.

[62] Moray.

[63] Eriska.

F. HARSHNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT (1716).

+Source.+--_Culloden Papers: comprising an Extensive and Interesting Correspondence from the Year 1625 to 1678 ... the Whole published from the Originals in the Possession of Duncan George Forbes, of Culloden, Esq._, p. 61. (London: 1815.)

No. LXXII.

An anonymous letter, written by Mr. Duncan Forbes to Sir Robert Walpole, most likely in August 1716--a copy is extant (from which the present is taken) in the President's handwriting.

Sir, ... When the late Rebellion was happily ended by the Pretender's flight, his deluded followers found themselves all in chains, or obliged to surrender and sue for mercy, or to fly their country with him. Every man concerned in that odious work certainly deserved death, and the punishment due by law; but humanity and prudence forbade it. It was not fit to dispeople a country; nor prudent to grieve the King's best friends, who mostly had some concern in those unfortunate men; or expedient to give too just grounds of clamour to the disaffected.

It will be agreed on all hands, that the proper rule in this case would have been, to have punished only as many as was necessary for terror, and for weakening the strength of the rebels for the future; and to extend mercy to as many as it could conveniently be indulged to with the security of the Government; and this maxim every thinking Whig had then in his mouth, however offended at the insolences of the rebels. In place of a course of this kind, the method followed was, 1st, to try all the criminals in England; 2dly, to detain in prison all those in custody in Scotland, except some who had interest with certain great men to obtain a previous pardon, to the manifest dishonour of the Government; 3dly, to attaint a vast number of Scots n.o.blemen and gentlemen; 4thly, to put it out of his Majesty's power to grant any part of estates forfeited; and 5thly, to appoint a Commission for enquiry, and levying the rebels'

goods and chattels. The necessary consequences of this procedure in general are two; first, it makes all those who had the misfortune to be seduced into the rebellion, with their children, relatives, and such as depend on them, forever desperate; and it's hard to tell what occasions may offer for venting their rage. We see that want and hard circ.u.mstances lead men daily into follies, without any other temptation; but when those circ.u.mstances are brought on by adherence to any principle, or opinion, it's certain the sufferers will not quit their attempts to better their condition, but with their lives. 2d, as there are none of the rebels who have not friends among the King's faithful subjects, it is not easy to guess how far a severity of this kind, unnecessarily pushed, may alienate the affections even of those from the Government. But in particular, as this case relates to Scotland, the difficulty will be insurmountable. I may venture to say, there are not 200 gentlemen in the whole kingdom who are not very nearly related to some one or other of the rebels. Is it possible that a man can see his daughter, his grandchildren, his nephews, or cousins, reduced to beggary and starving unnecessarily by a Government, without thinking very ill of it; and where this is the case of a whole nation, I tremble to think what dissatisfactions it will produce against a settlement so necessary for the happiness of Britain.

If all the rebels, with their wives, children, and immediate dependants, could be at once rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonis.h.i.+ng; but time would commit it to oblivion, and the danger would be less to the Const.i.tution, than when thousands of innocents, punished with misery and want for the offences of their friends, are suffered to wander about the country, sighing out their complaints to Heaven, and drawing at once the compa.s.sion and moving the indignation of every human creature.

THE SCOTTISH CAPITAL.[64]

+Source.+--_A Journey through Scotland, in Familiar Letters from a Gentleman here, to his Friend Abroad_, p. 65, by J. Macky. Second edition. (London: 1729.)

The High-Street of Edinburgh, running by an easy ascent from the Netherbow to the Castle, a good half mile, is doubtless the stateliest street in the world, being broad enough for five coaches to drive up abreast; and the houses on each side are proportionately high to the broadness of the street; all of them six or seven story high, and those mostly of free stone, makes this street very august.

Half way up this street stands St. Giles's Church, the ancient cathedral of this city, in the form of a cross; but since the Reformation it is turned into four convenient churches, by part.i.tions, called the High-Kirk, the Old-Kirk, the Tolbooth-Kirk, and Haddock's Hole. A-top of this church is erected a large open cupola, in the shape of an imperial crown, that is a great ornament to the city, and seen at a great distance. King David erected a copy after this over St. Nicholas's Church in Newcastle, but it does not near come up to it. Besides these four churches of St. Giles's, there is in the same street a little lower the Trone[65] Church, built after the model of Inigo Jones's St. Paul's Covent Garden; a very handsome church at the east end of the lake, called the Collegiate Church, built by Mary of Gelder,[66] Queen to James the Second; a church built by a Lady Yester, a handsome new church in the middle of the Canongate, and two good churches under the same roof at the Grey-Friars. There are also some chapels; but they are converted into halls for trades.

To the south of St. Giles's Church is a fine square, with an equestrian statue of King Charles the Second in the middle. In this square stands the Parliament-House, where their parliaments were kept: Also the Council and Treasury, and all other publick offices. It's a fine modern building of free-stone, finished by Charles the First in 1636.

Underneath this building is kept the lawyer's library[67]; where there is a fine collection of books, of medals, and of ancient coins, the largest of English and Scots coins I ever saw. I could not perceive that the Scots bore the lion rampant in a tressor of Flower-de-Luces[68] on the coins, till the Stewarts.

Joining to this library is the Register, where are kept all the deeds and securities of the nation, as a common bank. Here is also a very good bank for money,[69] whose notes go current all over the nation. There is also a fine room in this square for the meeting of the royal boroughs, adorned with pictures.

In this great street are several stone fountains of water, brought in pipes at three miles distance, disposed at convenient distances to supply the whole city with water; and on each side of this street are lanes, or wynds as they are called here, that run down to the bottom.

This made an English gentleman, that was here with the Duke of York, merrily compare it to a double wooden comb, the great street the wood in the middle, and the teeth of each side the lanes.

These lanes lead you to a street below, called the Cowgate, which runs the whole length east and west of the other, but is neither half so broad or well built. The High Street is also the best paved street I ever saw. I will not except Florence. One would think the stones inlaid; they are not half a foot square; and notwithstanding the coaches and carts, there is not the least crack in it.

South from the Cowgate lies the High-School for Latin, and in its yard is kept a fine bagnio, in a handsome neat house, built for the Company of Surgeons; and in their hall is the picture of the late Duke Hamilton, Earl Finlater in his Chancellor's robes, and of all the eminent surgeons of the town, to the number of about forty, all originals, by Sir John Medina. There is also a pretty garden before and behind the house.

Directly north from this, on the other side of the Cowgate, is the Physicians Hall and garden, where they have a n.o.ble museum, founded by Sir Andrew Balfour, physician. The learned and industrious Sir Robert Sebald has very much augmented it. It contains a treasure of curiosities of art and nature, foreign and domestick, as appears by Sir Robert's account, printed in four books in 1697.

A little further to the south of the Cowgate is the University, which consists only of one college: The Magistrates of Edinburgh are governors of it; it hath a princ.i.p.al or warden, and four philosophy regents or professors. There is also a professor of Divinity, of Civil Law, of History, Mathematicks, and Hebrew.