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Commentaries, &c. known by the name of the Lockhart Papers, to which we have so often referred in the course of this work, surrendered himself to Sir John Cope at Berwick, and was by him, in the month of October, carried under a strong guard up to London. His son, George Lockhart, a young man of twenty, was at the same time in the pretender's army-was the person who carried the tidings of Sir John Cope's defeat into Edinburgh, and by being always foremost in every measure proposed for advancing the cause, made himself so obnoxious to the House of Hanover, that notwithstanding his extensive connexions, and the powerful interest that was made for him, George II. could not be prevailed upon to pardon him, and he died at Paris in 1761, a few months before his father. Mr. Lockhart's surrender of himself to Sir John Cope, after an engagement so advantageous to the cause of the Stuarts, which there cannot be a doubt had his best wishes, must have been prompted by a conviction that the pretender's means were in no degree equal to the attainment of his object, and, in case of the complete failure of the enterprise, with the hope of saving his estate; while on the other hand, should the pretender, contrary to all probability, succeed, the zeal of the son would atone for the calculating prudence of the father. Of this government seems to have been perfectly aware, and Mr. Lockhart was accordingly confined to Yorkshire, where he remained a prisoner at large till after the Rebellion was completely suppressed.*

At the same time Charles and his council, notwithstanding appearances in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, flattered themselves all along with expectations of powerful re-enforcements from the north; and now that they could boast of a victory so signal, and gained with so very trifling a loss, they made sure of every man among the clans that was able to carry arms, and a day or two after the battle a special messenger was despatched to the Isle of Skye, to assure Sir Alexander Macdonald, and Macleod of Macleod, that though they had not joined Charles on his landing, he did not impute their conduct to any want of affection to his person, or zeal for his cause; that their services in the

* Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. pp. 450, 451.

field would now be more useful than ever, and he was ready to receive them as the best, while they should find themselves the most favoured of his subjects.

From Skye the messenger proceeded to Castle Downie, the seat of lord Lovat, who, when he was told of the battle, declared the victory to be unparalleled in history, and exclaimed, that as sure as God was in heaven his right master would prevail;* and he set himself immediately, with that cautious policy for which he was so notorious, to raise the men of his own clan, and to influence his neighbours to do the same. By this time, however, commissions had been forwarded to the lord president for raising twenty independent companies, and, though on the part of administration there was the most scandalous delay in forwarding him the money that was absolutely necessary for giving them all the effect they were naturally calculated to produce,† he

* Home's History of the Rebellion.

+ "My Lord,

"This day I had the honour of your lordship's of the 12th, referring to one of the 10th, in which your lordship gave me more particular directions. The letter referred to, is not yet come to hands; and it was by the greatest accident that the other, which was in a packet not to be concealed had it met with any to look after it, came safe. The cause of this difficulty, and the cause why I write in this minute form of concealment, is, that after Sir J. Cope left this country, Mr. Gordon of Glenbucket, whom your lordship has often heard of, with some Highlanders, and some zealots of the shire of Banff, have gone a recruiting to re-enforce the posse that are gone southward; and though they meet with small success, yet they infest the roads, and make communication 'twixt this and Edinburgh unsafe, if not unpracticable; which is one of the reasons why I have so earnestly pressed for some ship or armed vessel, to keep the communication open. I hope your lordship has received my note of the 13th, 10 at night, because it came safe to Aberdeen, and was forwarded by sea, after Sir J. Cope had sailed. In it I acknowledged the receipt of the commissions sent me, and acquainted your lordship with my purpose of disposing of so many of them as I should judge necessary, to such persons as were most likely to bring a body of men immediately together for his majesty's service. I am now working on that plan, and am in hopes of having such a body in readiness, by the time that arms and money, or credit, to bring them together to act, can reach us. Your lordship has again mentioned, that Mr. Pelham has promised to answer my bills towards necessary expenses; but you could not be informed till you got my last, that such is the state of this country from the confusion of the times, and the stop of communication, that all coin is locked up, and none can be commanded. I cannot

had the address to engage some of the most effective of the clans on the side of the government, and so to entangle others, that their movements were disjointed, tardy, and ineffective.

Lovat himself seems to have been one of the first whose zeal for the pretender he attempted by these commissions to damp: "The moment," says he, in a letter to Lovat, "I received authority to dispose of the commissions for some independent companies, you may be sure your lordship came into my eye, and though I had been forgetful, the care of your good friend my lord Stair, would not have permitted it to have been long so, for a note from his lordship, which came just after to me, made kind mention of your lordship, and pointed at your second son, as your eldest was destined to another course of life. I should have wrote to your lordship then on the subject, but that Macleod was going to you, and I charged him with mentioning it; but finding that he has not brought me, as I expected, your lordship's resolutions, and being under a necessity of reporting

command a shilling that is owing to me, and even bank bills are of no currency. I do as well as I can in respect to small expenses, but sums of any value cannot be compassed; and therefore once for all, unless some vessel is sent, with a proportion of cash and credit, which by the open communication which will thereby be preserved, may be effectual, the new companys cannot speedily be of half the use they otherwise might be of. The state of the southern country, since the Highlanders passed the Forth, your lordship will be acquainted of, from thence. Ours is, that though numerous emissarys have been employed amongst the northern clans, no men have as yet been prevailed with to be mad enough to join them, since they passed the Corryyarig, to their very great disappointment, and I hope the independent companys will be a mean to secure our tranquillity, if not to do more; as there are madmen in all countrys, your lordship will easily believe, it will require some skill and industry to produce even this effect. Glenbucket, whom I have named, and who is said to have a major generall's commission, has been for 10 days busy in Bamffshire levieing troops, which, if I be not much misinformed, desert him daily he has hitherto found no gentlemen of fortune to join him; and his numbers are not said, even by his own people, to exceed 300. In Badenock, MacPherson of Clunie, who lately had a company in Lord Loudon's new regiment, and who was seized by the rebells, as he says by surprise, when they passed the Corryyarig, is said to have listed with them, and I am afraid the report is true. When our new independent companys can be brought to act, we shall have nothing further of this kind. Ceremony can find no room in such a morsel of paper. I therefore take very respectfully my leave," &c.— Culloden Papers, pp. 407, 408.

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soon what I have done or am a doing, I am obliged to give your lordship the trouble of this, to beg to know how you like the proposal, and if you do to have a list from you of the persons' names to whom you would have the commissions for captain, lieutenant, and ensign given. My labour for the best part of thirty years is lost if I need to employ many words to convince you, that I wish your family heartily well. I have heard no news, but from Aberdeen, that Sir John Cope, who weighed Sunday night, had a fair wind all Monday, which was supposed there to have brought him into Leith roads. As to the reports that are coined and spread to animate either party, they make no impression on me, no more than they ought to make on any wise man. One of them, however, I will mention from a letter of the Lyon's, who came home last night from his expedition to Aberdeen, which will show your lordship how senseless and impertinent their tales with which they attempt to keep up their spirits are. He says, that in his way home, he was assured by ladies, who had it from J. Hamilton in Strathboggie, that your lordship's Stratherrick men were immediately to join Glenbucket, and that as your own health was bad, and the master of Lovat but young, you had sent for your cousin Inveralachie to command these, and to raise your other men. If such silly stories pass upon any body, it must be upon those who do not know what you have done for the present government, and the value you have for your honour, and for the estate of Lovat. As to Inveralachie's part of it, though I am not personally well known to that gentleman, yet the character of prudence and discretion which I have had of him from Sir Arthur Forbes, lord Strichen, and several other of his friends, satisfy me that he is not giddy enough to enter into the views which Mr. Hamilton might present him with: so that from this ridiculous instance, one may easily see what stress is to be laid now-a-days on private history and on reports."

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Though the lord president mentions the above as merely idle reports, if they were not the truth itself, they were unquestionably very near it, as the reply of Lovat, artful and cautious as it is, evidently shows:-" My dear lord, I received just

• Culloden Paper's, pp. 221, 222

now, it being very late, the honour of your letter of this day's date, for which I give your lordship my most sincere thanks. I am very glad, my lord, that your health is good in spite of your vast fatigue: long may it be so, and I presume to assure your lordship of my affectionate respects and my son's, in which Inveralachy, who came here just before dinner, and Gortuleg join us.

"I give your lordship ten thousand thanks for having me in your eye when you had it in your power to do great and good service to my family. I shall always have a grateful remembrance of it, and your lordship cannot but remember, that these thirty years past I had as strong an attachment to your lordship's person and family as any man in Scotland, and never swerved from that till I was unhappily deceived and engaged to act against my zealous worthy friend, your brother Culloden, in the affair of his election, which I did, and will repent of all my life, and I have been very sufficiently punished and chastised for it. But these unhappy jars being over, I am fully convinced that your lordship bears good will, and has very good wishes for the prosperity of my family, and this makes me still look on your lordship as one of my best friends.

"I am very much surprised and angry at my cousin Macleod that did not tell your lordship my resolutions about the independent company, and explain my reasons for my resolutions, which he knows very well, and which I told him twenty times more fully than I can tell it in a letter. I therefore refer still to my cousin Macleod to tell your lordship my resolutions and my reasons for them; I am vastly obliged to my worthy friend, the great earl of Stair. This is not the first mark of his friendship for me, of which I will retain a grateful sense as long as I live. If I did not know that my friend, the Lyon, takes pleasure sometimes in telling and retailing clatters and stories, I would be very angry at him for writing to your lordship such a ridiculous, silly, foolish lie of me, which has no more foundation than if he had said I was going to join Kuli Khan; for Glenbucket and I had a quarrel ever since Glenbucket went to Stratherrick with Fraserdale, and threatened the Stratherrick people to bring down the force of Badenoch upon them if they did not pay their rents to Fraserdale. As to my cousin Inver

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