might seem to justify this unheard-of cruelty; and, accordingly, a story was circulated, concerning an order said to have been issued by Lord George Murray, commanding the Highlanders to give no quarter if victorious. But not one of the insurgent party ever saw such an order; nor did any of them hear of it, till after the battle.

In this decisive action, the victors did not lose much above 300 men, in killed and wounded. Lord Robert Ker, captain of grenadiers, was slain at the head of his company.

The loss of the vanquished army was upwards of 1000 men. The Highlanders on the right wing, who charged sword in hand, suffered most severely. These were the MacLeans, and MacLauchlans, the MacIntoshes, the Frasers, the Stewarts, and the Camerons. The chief of MacLauchlan was slain in the action, together with MacLean of Drimnin, MacGillivray of Drumnaglass, several of

dabbling their feet in the blood, and splashing it about one another, looked like so many butchers."-Letter, Scots Mag. April, 1746. "The road from Culloden to Inverness," says Johnstone, was every where strewed with dead bodies. The Duke of Cumberland had the cruelty to allow our wounded to remain amongst the dead on the field of battle, stript of their clothes, from Wednesday, the day of our unfortunate engagement, till three o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, when he sent detachments to kill all those who were still in life; and a great many who had resisted the effects of the continual rains, were then despatched. He ordered a barn which contained many of the wounded Highlanders, to be set on fire; and having stationed soldiers round it, they with fixed bayonets drove back the unfortunate men who attempted to save themselves into the flames, burning them alive in this horrible manner, as if they had not been fellow-creatures."—Memoirs, p. 147.]

the Frasers, and other persons of distinction. Lochiel was wounded, but borne from the field by his two henchmen. In short, the blow was equally severe and decisive, and the more so, that the heaviest of the loss fell on the high chiefs and gentlemen, who were the soul of the Highland army.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

Claims of the Jacobite Prisoners to Clemency-Severity of the Duke of Cumberland-Ravages committed by his Troops-his Return to London, and Cessation of Cruelties in the Highlands-Escape of Prince Charles—his Remarkable Wanderings, in various Disguises—his Embarkation at Lochnanuagh, and Arrival at Morlaix, in Brittany, on the 29th of September, 1746.

[1746.]

It was not to be expected that the defeat of Culloden should pass over, without fatal consequences to those who had been principally concerned in the insurrection. A handful of men had disturbed the tranquillity of a peaceful people, who were demanding no change of their condition, had inflicted a deep wound upon the national strength, and what is seldom forgotten in the moment when revenge becomes possible, had inspired universal terror. It was to be expected, therefore, that those who had been most active in such rebellious and violent proceedings, should be called to answer with their lives for the bloodshed and disorder to which they had given occasion. They themselves well knew at what bloody risk they had played the deadly game of insurrection, and expected no less forfeit than

their lives. But as all concerned in the rebellion had, in strictness, forfeited their lives to the law, it became fitting that Justice should so select her victims, as might, if possible, reconcile her claims with the feelings of humanity, instead of outraging them by a general and undistinguishing effusion of blood. Treason upon political accounts, though one of the highest crimes that can be committed against. a state, does not necessarily infer any thing like the detestation which attends offences of much less general guilt and danger. He who engages in conspiracy or rebellion, is very often, as an individual, not only free from reproach, but highly estimable, in his private character; such men, for example, as Lord Pitsligo, or Cameron of Lochiel, might be said to commit the crime for which they were obnoxious to the law, from the purest, though, at the same time, the most mistaken motives-motives which they had sucked in with their mother's milk, and which urged them to take up arms by all the ties of duty and allegiance. The sense of such men's purity of principles and intention, though not to be admitted in defence, ought, both morally and politically, to have limited the proceedings against them within the narrowest bounds consistent with the ends of public justice, and the purpose of intimidating others from such desperate courses.

If so much could be said in favour of extending clemency even to several of the leaders of the insurrection, how much more might have been added in behalf of their simple and ignorant followers, who came out in ignorance of the laws of the

civilized part of the nation, but in compliance with the unalienable tie by which they and their fathers had esteemed themselves bound to obey their chief.1 It might have been thought, that generosity would have overlooked such poor prey, and that justice would not have considered them as proper objects of punishment. Or, if a victorious general of subordinate rank had been desirous to display his own zeal in behalf of the reigning family at the expense of humanity, by an indiscriminate chastisement of the vanquished foe, of whatever degree of intellect and fortune, better things might have been expected from a Son of Britain-a Royal Prince, who, most of all, might have remembered, that the objects whom the fate of war had placed at his disposal, were the misguided subjects of his own royal house, and who might gracefully have pleaded their cause at the foot of a father's throne which his own victory had secured.

Unfortunately for the Duke of Cumberland's fame, he saw his duty in a different light. This Prince bore deservedly the character of a blunt, upright, sensible man, friendly and good-humoured in the ordinary intercourse of life. He was a brave

1 This idea of patriarchal obedience was so absolute, that when some Lowland gentlemen were extolling with wonder the devotion of a clansman, who had sacrificed his own life to preserve that of his chief, a Highlander who was present coldly observed, that he saw nothing wonderful in the matter-he only did his duty; had he acted otherwise, he would have been a poltroon and a traitor. To punish men who were bred in such principles, for following their chiefs into war, seems as unjust as it would be to hang a dog for the crime of following his master.