ing over the frigate, and continued so to do till they were all safe on shore. Before dinner the Duke of Athol had spied the eagle; but (as he told several friends in Scotland) he did not chuse then to take any notice of it, lest they should have called it a Highland freit in him. When he came upon deck after dinner, he saw the eagle still hovering about in the same manner, and following the frigate in her course, and then he could not help remarking it to the Prince and his small retinue, which they looked upon with pleasure. His grace, turning to the Prince said, "Sir, I hope this is an excellent omen, and promises good things to us. The king of birds is come to welcome your royal highness upon your arrival in Scotland." When they were near the shore of the Long Isle, Duncan Cameron was set out in the long boat to fetch them a proper pilot. When he landed he accidentally met with Barra's piper, who was his old acquaintance, and brought him on board. The piper piloted them safely into Erisca (about July 21st), a small island lying between Barra and South Uist. "At this time," said Duncan Cameron, "there was a devil of a minister that happened to be in the island of Barra, who did us a' the mischief that lay in his power. For when he had got any inkling about us, he dispatched away expresses with informations against us. But as the good luck was, he was not well believed, or else we would have been a' tane by the neck." When Duncan spoke these words, "a devil of a minister," he bowed low, and said to me, "Sir, I ask you ten thousand pardons for saying so in your presence. But, good faith, I can assure you, sir (asking your pardon), he was nothing else but the devil of a minister." When they landed in Eriska, they could not find a grain of meal or one inch of bread. But they catched some flounders, which they roasted upon the bare coals in a mean low hut they had gone into near the shore, and Duncan Cameron stood cook. The Prince sat at the cheek of the little ingle, upon a fail sunk, and laughed heartily at Duncan's cookery, for he himself owned he played his part awkwardly enough. Next day the Prince sent for young Clanranald's uncle (Alexander MacDonald of Boisdale), who lived in South Uist, and discovered himself to him. This gentleman spoke in a very discouraging manner to the Prince, and advised him to return home. To which it is said the Prince replied, "I am come home, sir, and I will entertain no notion at all of returning to that place from whence I came; for that I am persuaded my faithful Highlanders will stand by me." Mr. MacDonald told him he was afraid he would find the contrary.... The royal standard was set up at Glenfinnan (August 19th), the property of Clanranald, at the head of Lochschiel, which marches with Lochiel's ground, and lies about ten miles west from Fort William. The Prince had been a full week before this, viz., from Sunday the 11th, at Kinlochmoydart's house, and Lochiel had been raising his men who came up with them just as the standard was setting up.... September 4th. In the evening he made his entrance into Perth upon the horse that Major MacDonall had presented him with.... September 16th. The Prince and his army were at Gray's Mill upon the Water of Leith, when he sent a summons to the Provost and Town Council of Edinburgh to receive him quietly and peacefully into the city. Two several deputations were sent from Edinburgh to the Prince begging a delay till they should deliberate upon what was fittest to be done. Meantime eight or nine hundred Highlanders under the command of Keppoch, young Lochiel, and O'Sullivan, marched in between the Long Dykes without a hush of noise, under the favour of a dark night, and lurked at the head of the Canongate about the Nether Bow Port till they should find a favourable opportunity for their design, which soon happened. The hackney coach that brought back the second deputation, entred at the West Port, and after setting down the deputies at their proper place upon the street, drove down the street towards the Canongate, and when the Nether Bow Port was made open to let out the coach, the lurking Highlanders rushed in (it being then peep of day) and made themselves masters of the city without any opposition, or the smallest noise. (The Lyon in Mourning, Robert Forbes, edited from his Manuscript by Henry Paten, 3 vols., University Press, Edinburgh, 1895. I, 201.) 197. Escape of Prince Charles at Moy Hall Gib The peril which the Pretender narrowly escaped at Moy Hall on February 17th-not 24th, as erroneously dated in Gib's account is a good example of the dangers to which he was constantly subjected, and of the devotion of his adherents. Gib's "accompts" are mostly made up of household expenses, with occasional interruptions in the shape of narrative, Copy (exact and faithful) of the Accompts of James Gib, who served the Prince in station of Master-Household and provisor for the Prince's own Table. 24 Monday. At Moy hall. N.B. This is the day in the morning of which Lord Loudon thought to have surprized the Prince, and to have taken him prisoner in his bed at Moy or Moy-hall. Old Lady Macintosh, living in Inverness, and getting notice of Lord Loudon's design, dispatched a boy (Lachlan Macintosh) about fifteen years of age, to try if he could get past Lord Loudon's men, and to make all the haste he could to Moy to warn the Prince of what was intended against him. The boy attempted to pass by Lord Loudon and his command, but found that he could not do it without running the risque of a discovery; and therefore, as he said, he lay down at a dyke's side, till all Lord Loudon's men passed him, and, taking a different road, came to Moy about five o'clock in the morning. And though the morning was exceedingly cold, the boy was in a top sweat, having made very god use of his time. He said that Lord Loudon and his men (to use his own words) were within five quarters of a mile of Moyhall. Immediately the Prince was awaked, and having but about thirty men for a guard, he marched two miles down the country by the side of a loch, till his men should conveen. There was not the least suspicion entertained of any danger, otherwise there would have been a much stronger guard about the Prince's person; and there is no doubt to be made but that Lord Loudon had got certain information of the small number of men who were to mount guard upon the Prince that night, which had induced him to try the experiment. Lady Macintosh (junior) was in great pain to have the Prince save off from Moy when she heard the alarm. The Prince returned the same night (Monday) to Moy and slept there. Mr. Gib, upon the alarm, having been sleeping in his cloaths, stept out with his pistols under his arm, and in the close he saw the Prince walking with his bonnet above his nightcap, and his shoes down to his heels; and Lady Macintosh in her smock petticoat running through the close, speaking loudly and expressly her anxiety about the Prince's safety. Mr. Gib went along with the Prince down the side of the Loch, and left several covered waggons and other baggage at Moy, about which Lady Macintosh forbad Mr. Gib to be in the least anxious, for that she would do her best to take care of them. And indeed she was as good as her word; for upon the Prince's return to Moy, Mr. Gib found all his things in great safety, the most of them having been carried off by Lady Macintosh's orders into a wood, where they would not readily have been discovered, though Lord Loudon and his men had proceeded to Moy. But they were most providentially stopt in their march, which happened thus. A blacksmith and other four, with loaded muskets in their hands, were keeping watch upon a muir at some distance from Moy towards Inverness. As they were walking up and down, they happened to spy a body of men walking towards them, upon which the blacksmith fired his piece, and the other four followed his example. The Laird of Macleod's piper (reputed the best of his business in all Scotland) was shot dead on the spot. Then the blacksmith (Fraser) and his trustly companions raised a cry (calling some particular regiments by their names) to the Prince's army to advance, as if they had been at hand, which so far imposed upon Lord Loudon and his command (a pretty considerable one), and struck them with such a panick, that instantly they beat a retreat, and made their way back to Inverness in great disorder, imagining the Prince's whole army to be at their heels. This gallant and resolute behaviour of the five, which speaks an uncommon presence of mind, happened much about the same time when the boy (Lauchlan Macintosh) arrived at Moy to give the alarm. (The Lyon in Mourning, ed. cit., II, 134.) 198. After Culloden John Fraser The brutalities perpetrated upon the conquered by the victors at Culloden are shown in the account, given by Mr. Fraser, of the execution of prisoners, with its attendant outrages. An account of the Signal Escape of John Fraser taken from the Copy Printed at Edinburgh. John Fraser, Ensign in the Master of Lovat's regiment, was shot through the thigh by a musket bullet at the battle of Culloden, and was taken prisoner, after the battle, at a little distance from the field, and carried to the House of Culloden, where a multitude of other wounded prisoners lay under strong guards. There he and the other miserable gentlemen (for most of them were gentlemen), lay with their wounds undressed for two days in great torture. Upon the third day he was carried out of Culloden House, and with other eighteen of his fellow prisoners flung into carts, which they imagined were to carry them to Inverness to be dressed of their wounds. They were soon undeceived. The carts stopt at a park dyke at some distance from the house; there they were dragged out of the carts; the soldiers who guarded them, under command of three officers, carried the prisoners close to the wall or park dyke, along with they ranged them upon their knees, and bid them prepare for death. The soldiers immediately drew up opposite to them. It is dreadful to proceed! They levelled their guns! They fired among them. Mr. Fraser fell with the rest, and did not doubt that he was shot. But as those gentlemen who proceeded thus deliberately in cold blood had their orders to do nothing by halves, a party of them went along and examined the slaughter, and knocked out the brains of such as were not quite dead; and observing signs of life in Mr. Fraser, one of them with the butt of his gun struck him on the face, dashed out one of his eyes, and beat down his nose flat and shattered to his cheek, and left him for dead. slaughter thus finished the soldiers left the field. In this miserable situation, Lord Boyd riding out that way with his servant, espied some life in Mr. Fraser, who by that time had crawled to a little distance from his dead friends, and calling out to him, asked what he was. Fraser told him he was an officer in the Master of Lovat's corps. Lord Boyd offered him money, saying he had been acquainted with the Master of Lovat, his colonel. Mr. Fraser said he had no use for money, but begged him for God's sake to cause his servant carry him to a certain mill and cott house, where he said he would be concealed and taken care of. This young Lord had the humanity to do so, and in this place Mr. Fraser lay concealed, and by God's providence recovered of his wounds, and is now a living witness of as unparallel'd a story in all its circumstances as can be met with in the history of any age. The Mr. Fraser is well known and his veracity attested by all the Inverness people. N.B. — Mr. David Chisholm, Presbyterian Minister at Kilmorack in the shire of Inverness, when in Edinburgh at the General Assembly in May 1758, told that said Fraser or MacIver still lives at a place called Wellhouse in said parish |