Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Captain Downes and two lieutenants of the 15th Regiment were killed; Captains Moore and Heighington, of the 14th, were wounded; Munro of Culcairn had his thigh broken.

Next day, seeing the futility of further resistance, the Spaniards, 274 in number, surrendered as prisoners of war; and with them General Wightman began his march of more than 150 miles for Edinburgh, while the Highlanders dispersed to places where the troops as yet could never follow them.

The Marquis of Tullibardine, and the Earls of Seaforth and Marischal, after long concealment, and though £2,000 were offered for each of their heads, escaped to the Continent in safety; and thus ended, says Salmon (in his "Chronological Historian"), "this mighty Spanish invasion, which had so much alarmed the three kingdoms."

James soon after left Madrid, where his presence was no longer useful to the Spanish monarch; and Cardinal Alberoni shortly afterwards fell from the high station he had so long occupied, and passed

561

the rest of his days in retirement, principally in Italy; and to the end of his life one of his most favourite topics of conversation was his plan, in 1719, for restoring the House of Stuart to the throne of Great Britain.

Traces of the conflict in Glenshiel are still to be seen. Gun-barrels and bullets are frequently found in the valley, especially behind the manse, where the Spaniards, before surrendering, blew up their magazine; and near a small cascade which flows into the glen there is still to be seen the green grave of the Dutch colonel, whom one tradition. affirms to have fallen by the hand of Rob Roy.

Several of the cannon-balls fired by the ships at the castle of Island Donald were long used by the country people as weights for butter and cheese; and it is related that, not content with demolishing the fortress, the commanders of the frigates landed their crews, and after wantonly burning the church of Kilduich, pillaged the poor villagers, as if Scotland had been a foreign and hostile country.

CHAPTER CVII.

THE EXPEDITION OF GENERAL WADE, 1724.

IN the Caledonian Mercury, a newspaper old as the days of the Restoration, but now extinct, or represented by the well-known Scotsman, under date December 28th, 1734, will be found the following obituary :

"On Saturday was se'night, died at Balquhidder, in Perthshire, the famous Highland partisan, Rob Roy."

Such is the simple notice of the death of that famous Highland cateran and outlaw, with whom history, romance, and the drama have made us so familiar. Yet it was only some ten years before the Red Macgregor departed this life in peace, dying in bed, with his claymore in his hand, and a piper playing beside him, and was buried at the end of the pretty little church of Balquhidder, that the danger arising to good government from having a rude and warlike race mustering some 50,000 fighting men, more especially in the northwestern parts of Scotland, impressed upon the Ministry of George I. the necessity of forming roads to open up the country of the clans, of erecting a chain of forts, of launching an armed galley on Lochness, and of raising those paid companies which (though numbered first as the 43rd, and

subsequently as the 42nd Foot) are still named "The Black Watch," from the hue of their tartan, and of disarming the Highlanders, or certain tribes of them; and these arduous tasks were assigned to George Wade, a brigadier of Anne's wars, and a field-marshal of 1743.

There were ordered, for the primary measure of disarming the clans in the neighbourhood of Brahan. Castle, four regiments of infantry-Colonel Henry Graves' (now 10th Foot), Major-General Whethara's (now 12th Foot), George Grove's (now 19th Foot), and the Scots Fusiliers (now 21st Foot)—with six companies of the Black Watch.

Save the last-named, these troops were reviewed by George I., on Salisbury Plain, on the 30th of August, 1722. He harangued them in his broken English, in the same terms as if they had to penetrate into the passes of Khoord Cabul, or the Hindoo Coosh, instead of the northern portion of the United Kingdom, for which they began their march, a long, and certainly arduous journey, by the rough roads of those pre-railway times ("Records of the 10th, 12th, 19th, and 21st Regiments").

To rest and refresh them, they were quartered in various Lowland towns during the summer of 1724,

after which they began their march for that district which was more a terra incognita to Englishmen than Khiva or Bokhara are now-the country of the clans, while His Majesty's ship Rose, a sixth-rate, of 20 guns and 377 men, took General Wade from Leith for Inverness; but as the weather proved rough, he landed on the coast of Angus, and took horse for the army by the long bleak moors of Nairn and the future field of Culloden; while his soldiers, in their quaint uniforms, with cross-belts and Kevenhuller hats, or conical Prussian caps, their long queues, and pipe-clayed inexpressibles, all veterans of the Flanders wars, doubtful of the reception awaiting them, toiled on by the dark wastes of Rannoch, and the Black Mount, where other roads and ways there were none save the old Fingalian war-paths-by stupendous mountains, whose heads are veiled in mists; by deep and solemn valleys, where the whistle of the curlew or the rush of a torrent alone woke the echoes-amid the same scenery from which the infantry of Hesse had shrunk some thirty-seven years before, when they declared that beyond the gorge of Killycrankie must lie the end of the world; and where the picturesque dress of the people seemed as strange to the eye as the language was uncouth and guttural to the southern ear.

They could not forget, too-this "handful" of Englishmen that they were in a hostile land, where, had the tribes been united in purpose, they might have been cut off to a man; but they were allowed to march without molestation past even the mouth of Glencoe, where the bones of some who had perished in the massacre there, but thirty years before, lay whitening amid the purple heather. "How could the humble dweller in those lonely regions become an object of kingly vengeance, or his bleak hills a thing for kingly ambition?" it has been asked.

But it should be borne in mind that the Highlanders, a source then of detestation to their Lowland countrymen, were viewed by the English as veritable savages, even as cannibals; and in those days English officers deemed service along their frontier as a perilous and profitless exile, as the legionaries of Rome did their campaigns in Britain, or as our linesmen of the present day do their outpost duty amid the kraals of the Kaffirs; and even the letters of the gentle Wolfe, at a period subsequent to Wade's Expedition, teem with remarks to this purpose.

There had been already formed a camp at Inverness, and there the newly-arrived regiments found the battalion of Lieutenant-General Piercy Kirke (now the 2nd, or Queen's), into which, on the ensuing

Christmas-day there came, by exchange from Tyrrell's Dragoons, a certain Captain Peter Garrick, who was afterwards the father of our great actor. The Scots Fusiliers-the regiment of General Macartney, who acted as Lord Mohun's second, and was accused of basely murdering the Duke of Hamilton in the famous duel in 1712-went no farther north than Aberdeenshire, where they were quartered in the small towns, to enforce the payment of the obnoxious malt tax, which was the source of such dangerous riots in other parts of Scotland.

General Wade, having issued summonses in writing to the clans of eighteen parishes, followers of the attainted Earl of Seaforth, marched, on the 25th of August, with all his available forces, to Brahan Castle, the chief fortress and rendezvous of the Mackenzies, a noble old Highland stronghold situated on the northern side of the Conan river, amid the most beautiful scenery; and the worthy general, in his reports, does not conceal that he had serious and anxious misgivings as to how his request would be obeyed. He then halted his troops to receive "the submission of a highspirited people, who had resisted as long as resistance was possible."

The Edinburgh mails had, prior to this, brought him many letters of fierce and bitter menace, to intimidate him from putting the "Disarming Act" into execution; and by the Jacobites papers were dispersed through the Highlands, denying the authority of the British Parliament, and urging the men of the clans to retain their arms as men of honour, and as means of defence, lest they should be massacred in cold blood, as the Macdonalds had been in Glencoe, by the warrant of William III.

"The Mackenzies had stipulated," continues the general in his report to the king, "that they should deliver up their arms at the fortress of Brahan, as it was the seat of their chief, William, Earl of Seaforth, then exiled in France for his share in the rising of 1715. They had no objection to perform this unpalatable task in presence of the infantry of the line, but begged that none of Reicudan Dhu (the Black Watch), who were specially recruited from and officered by Campbells, Grants, and Munroesnoted Whig clans-should be present to see their humiliation; for they (the Mackenzies) had always been reputed the bravest, as well as the most numerous of the northern clans, and thought it more consistent with their honour to resign their arms to your Majesty's veteran troops, to which I readily assented," adds this fine old English officer.

He thus kept the six companies of the Black Watch out of view, by detaching them to secure the western passes, and endeavoured, as far as was

Wade's Expedition.]

AT BRAHAN CASTLE

563

consistent with his duty, to meet the wishes of the posed value at the barrack of Kilcumin, now men of the Mackenzie clan. known as Fort Augustus.

Fifty gentlemen of that name first gave up their swords, pistols, dirks, and other weapons; and then came their followers. Under the stately trees or the grand old avenue which had seen their forefathers so often depart to battle, they came by parishes, marching four abreast, but slowly and reluctantly, in their picturesque native dress, bringing a quantity of arms in bales and bundles slung on the backs of horses. These men were all Mackenzies, save those who were among the two tribes in alliance with them, the Macraes and the Macclellans, to whom was always assigned the guardianship of the Caber Faih, or banner of Seaforth. In all, 784 weapons only, of different kinds, most of which were little better than old iron, were given over to the troops; for the wary Mackenzies, and Donald Murchison, the faithful factor and adherent of the exiled Seaforth (great grandfather of the famous late Sir Roderick Impey Murchison) took especial good care that all the really serviceable weapons-the good muskets, well-tempered claymores, steel pistols, dirks, and Lochaber axeswell oiled and carefully rolled in thick bull-hides, were buried in secret places, awaiting the time when King James's son should come to claim his own again.

In perfect good faith, the worthy General Wade took the useless weapons as being those of Seaforth's country, a district sixty miles in length by forty in breadth. Wade was simply enforcing the "Disarming Act." That a Highlander considered it a disgrace to be seen without arms, and that arms were deemed a portion of his national dress, mattered nothing to him.

The Mackenzies, with mental reservations, no doubt, now drank to the health of the king. The fifty gentlemen of the tribe dined with the officers | of the staff, and they all separated with great politeness, and assurances of good faith on both sides; though at that very crisis the Jacobite chiefs were projecting another rising for King James, and the restless Bishop Atterbury had obtained, from some source unknown, 80,000 livres, to be expended in ammunition among the disappointed clans who writhed under "the Hanoverian yoke."

The unsuspecting general, pleased with his apparent success in disarming the men of Seaforth, now sent missives to the Macdonells of Glengarry, the Chisholms of Strathglass, the Grants of Glenmoriston, and the Macleods of Glenelg, who gave him all their useless arms, just as the Mackenzies had done, and were duly paid for them their sup

The Macintoshes, the shattered tribe of Glencoe, the Macdonells of Keppoch, of Moidart and of Arisaig, brought theirs to Inverness; while the Macphersons and Gordons marched to the barrack of Ruthven, in Badenoch, for the same purpose. The men of the Isles, taken next in detail, were ordered to disarm at the long-since disused barrack of Bernera, on the Sound of Skye; and the men of Mull before the officer commanding a detachment of infantry in Duairt Castle, the stronghold of the clan Gillian; but in every instance no means were left untried to delay or evade or defeat the end the Government had in view, by there, as elsewhere, selling to the general only rubbish, the good weapons in every clan being secreted for the time that was coming.

The powers of General Wade would seem to have been discretionary, as it is recorded that Macpherson of Inveresshie and his sons were permitted to retain their arms, as the younger meant to assume the then Whiggish name of Grant. All this time the troops remained in tents near the Highland capital, and the important service of disarming was performed by detachments, sent thence into different parts of the country, a perilous and arduous service, as they had to traverse old drove-roads and forest paths in Indian file; but no straggler was ever cut off, and there is not one instance recorded of the Seidaran Dearg, or Red English soldiers, being waylaid or assassinated.

In the camp bread was regularly served out, and biscuits for the haversacks of those parties who marched into the glens on disarming duty; and, to the surprise of the English, who had been taught to expect starvation in a land of savages, the camp, according to Wade's report, was plentifully supplied with provisions, while the town of Inverness provided a hospital for the sick.

The soldiers were so healthy that only ten men died; but when the Highland winter set in with its usual severity, the troops went into warmer quarters in the forts and towns, while the oth Foot began its long march, of some 200 miles, for England. But for the powerful influence of the Campbells, the Munroes, the Grants of Strathspey, and other Whig clans, and by the system of putting one-half of the country in opposition to the other, this mock disarming could never have been achieved by a force so slender. Self-interest made some of the clans Whigs, while Jacobites at heart, and this was particularly the case with the Frasers and Grants.

In the spring of the new year, 1725, the com- To the clans in Braemar, Athole, Perthshire, panies of the Black Watch, having completed their Breadalbane, and Menteith, to the Macgregors on drill and exercise, were dispatched by General the shores of Loch Lomond, and the fierce Macnabs Wade to various stations, with orders "to prevent in Strathfillan, summonses were sent, and parties the Highlanders from returning to the use of of Wade's troops had orders to march from the arms, as well as to hinder their committing de- nearest garrisons to the places appointed for the

MUSKETRY EXERCISE, EARLY PART OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

predations in the Low Country." The company | collection of arms.
of the famous Lord Lovat held the mountain
passes between the wild shores of Lochalsh and
Inverness; that of Grant of Ballindalloch, those
between the Ness and Dunkeld; and that of Sir
Duncan Campbell, of Lochnell, from Dunkeld to
the mountains of Lorn; while the other three com-
panies, under lieutenants, held Fort William,
Kilcumin, and Ruthven, in Badenoch.

The wildest tribes were those who dwelt upon the Lowland frontier; and Wade was compelled to report that they altogether withheld their weapons, or did not yield them in such numbers as the more northern clans. The whole that were collected, after so much trouble, diplomacy, and expense, amounted to only 2,685 weapons of every kind, and these were stored up in the castle of Edinburgh and the barrack of Bernera.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small]

of an expedition into Africa, the Spaniards assembled a powerful armament in the Bay of Gibraltar; but perceiving that their intentions were discovered, they relinquished their projected attack, and the fortress remained unmolested till the latter end of 1726.

Under the Conde de las Torres, 20,000 men were assembled in the neighbourhood of Algeziras, ten miles distant from Gibraltar. On the 20th of January these forces openly encamped on the plain below the sunny white town of San Roque, and began the erection of a battery on the beach, to protect their camp.

Admiral Edward Hopson was then at anchor in the bay with a formidable British fleet; but as he

had formed their depôt, to this blockading camp. ammunition from Algeziras, where the Spaniards to Gibraltar from Minorca, was under the same Brigadier-General Kane, who had been ordered embarrassment as the admiral. The operations of the Spaniards, however, tending fast towards the Spanish inhabitants to quit the town, and fora direct attack upon the garrison, he ordered all pain of being summarily sunk. bade their galleys to anchor under his guns, on

assailed by the Spaniards twenty-one years before. Gibraltar was much stronger now than when Several works, says Major Drinkwater, had been erected on the heights above the lines. were known as Willis's Batteries; the Prince's Lines These

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »