THE DOOM OF THE STUARTS. FROM the commencement of the troubles of the Stuarts to the last effort on their behalf, the Highlanders were their firm, and it may be said, almost their only friends. The lowland Scotch, incensed at the attempt of Charles I. to impose the English liturgy upon them, were among the earliest to proclaim the solemn league and covenant, and to join the English Parliament against him; but the Highlanders under Montrose rose in his cause, and created a powerful diversion in his favor...Again, when Charles II. attempted a similar measure, and aroused a similar spirit in the Lowlands, the Highlanders, under the notorious Claverhouse, maintained the royal ordinance; and afterwards, under the same commander, fought for James II. against his successful rival William III. In George I.'s reign, in 1715, they once more, under the Earl of Mar, waved the standard of the Pretender, which they were compelled to lay down at Preston. -no Finally, they made their most brilliant but fatal attempt in 1745, under Prince Charles Edward. Landing at Moidart, he erected his standard in Glen Finnan. The Highlanders rose around him, and soon set forward with him on the most daring and adventurous enterprise that ever was undertaken, other than to hurl his Hanoverian rival from the British throne, and place his own father upon it... Their success speedily astonished all Europe. They marched to Edinburgh, and took possession of it. The Prince occupied Holyrood, the ancient palace of his ancestors, and proclaimed his father king. He marched out, and defeated the English forces at Prestonpans with a facility that appeared miraculous. His victorious army, amounting to less than 6,000 men, marched forward to invade England... The people of London soon heard with consternation and amazement that they had taken Carlisle, occupied Penrith, Kendal, Lancaster, Manchester; and finally, in only thirteen days from leaving Edinburgh, that they were quartered in Derby. Nothing could exceed the terror of the metropolis. The moneyed men were struck with a deadly panic; numbers got together what property they could, and fled; several vessels lay at the Tower Quay, ready to convey the king and his treasures to Hanover It is true that an army of 30,000 men lay at Finchley, and that the Duke of Cumberland, with another army, was hovering near the Highlanders on the borders of Staffordshire but such was the opinion of the desperate valor of the Scotch, that the crown of England was considered again imperilled. Dissension and temerity, however, arose in the Pretender's camp, and the hope that the discontented among the English would recruit their ranks was bitterly disappointed. A retreat was resolved and acted upon, a retreat as remarkable in point of strategy as their march had been. With the Duke of Cumberland now hotly pursuing, they pushed on without loss or molestation. At Falkirk, mustering 8,000 men, they routed 13,000 English under General Hawley. The Highland chiefs, who severally had the control of their own clans, and could, therefore, act independently, still considered it prudent to retreat, contrary to the sanguine Prince's judgment. They reached Inverness, the troops worn out with their long and wonderful march, and famished for want of provisions. They had had no pay for six weeks, and many dispersed to their homes, seeking refreshment and rest. It was plain that they had lost heart. These circumstances all pointed to the course which their chiefs counselled -to assume a strong position in the mountains, and avoid a general engagement. Charles, however, goaded to rashness by the evident failure of his half-accomplished hopes, was resolved to risk all on a single die. He harassed his men by a miserable night-march in a vain attempt to surprise Cumberland's camp, and when they had thrown themselves down on Culloden Moor to sleep, the Duke was upon them... Five thousand in number, the English artillery swept them down by whole ranks, and routed the remainder. The fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed for ever. Howitt. NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHYSICS. THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY. THE difference of the degrees in which the individuals of a great community enjoy the good things of life has been a theme of declamation and discontent in all ages; and it is doubtless our paramount duty, in every state of society, to alleviate the pressure of the purely evil part of this distribution as much as possible, and, by all the means we can devise, secure the lower links in the chain of society from dragging in dishonor and wretchedness: but there is a point of view in which the picture is at least materially altered in its expression... In comparing society on its present immense scale, with its infant or less developed state, we must at least take care to enlarge every feature in the same proportion. If, on comparing the very lowest states in civilised and savage life, we admit a difficulty in deciding to which the preference is due, at least in every superior grade we cannot hesitate a moment; and if we institute a similar comparison in every different stage of its progress, we cannot fail to be struck with the rapid rate of dilatation which every degree upward of the scale exhibits, and which, in an estimate of averages, gives an immense preponderance to the present over every former condition of mankind, and, for aught we can see to the contrary, will place succeeding generations in the same degree of superior relation to the present that this holds to those passed away... Or we may put the same proposition in other words, and, admitting the existence of every inferior grade of advantage in a higher state of civilisation which subsisted in the preceding, we shall find, first, that, taking state for state, the proportional numbers of those who enjoy the higher degrees of advantage increases with a constantly accelerated rapidity as society advances; and, secondly, that the superior extremity of the scale is constantly enlarging by the addition of new degrees. The condition of a European prince is now as far superior, in the command of real comforts and conveniences, to that of one in the middle ages, as the latter to the condition of one of his own dependants. |