chiefs. At a subsequent period of the campaign, the wife of the chief of the MacIntoshes raised the clan in behalf of Charles, while MacIntosh himself served as an officer in a militia raised for the defence of Government. It is, altogether, rather to be wondered at, that, fifty-seven years after the expulsion of the House of Stuart, when the popular feeling of loyalty might be expected to have fairly settled down in a new channel, so many honourable and prudent men should have been found to peril their lives in advocating its rights with the sword. The generation which had transacted and witnessed the Revolution was completely gone; and Prince Charles was but a remote descendent of the party who suffered on that memorable occasion. If time alone could not extinguish his claims by prescription, as it does all others, the changes which had taken place upon the face of society, and upon the polity of the state, might at least be allowed to have done so.. An attempt had already been made without success, and to the effusion of much blood, in the same unhappy cause; and heaven and man had long seemed to have united in affixing to it the fatality of disaster and sorrow. One powerful cause has been assigned in recent times for the support which Charles met with in 1745,-selfishness in his adherents. Memoirs and papers lately brought to light, display the interested diplomacy of both parties, and are accepted by a portion of the public as completely subversive of the theory of romance which has gradually been reared above the simple history of this insurrection. This is by no means a liberal view of this portion of our history. From the nature of the human heart, selfish motives will mix with the purest and most generous of our emotions; and to suppose the Jacobites superior to such considerations, would be to believe them something more than mortal. After all, the chief insurgents only stipulated for prospective advantages, for rewards which they were to win by their swords, and at the risk of their lives and fortunes. Such they would assuredly have merited, in case the enterprise had succeeded. To deny that they would not, is just as unreasonable as to say that the soldiers of the King's army were unworthy of their ordinary pay. They stood well enough as they were, without Charles; and they only proposed to better their condition, and at the same time gratify the wishes of their hearts, by endeavouring to redress his injuries. Take it as it may, this cannot be considered the chief or even the secondary motive for insurrection. Jacobitism was a generous sentiment, arising from a natural love of abstract justice, and nourished by the disposition, equally natural, to befriend the oppressed and unfortunate. The London mob, at the Revolution, however convinced of the impropriety of James's measures in the days of his power, could not behold him brought back from Rochester, a fallen and captive monarch, without tears and acclamations. No more could that part of the Scottish nation, which remained unattached to Government and in possession of their ancient prejudices,-whose minds were susceptible of the more generous impres sions, and who could still stand up for a friend though his back were at the wa'"-see the youthful and gallant Charles soliciting their friendship in the way he did, without at once bestowing it. 66 Instead of allowing the Jacobites to have been influenced by considerations of interest, it may rather be said that they were perhaps the only part of the nation over whom such things had no power. They sacrificed fortune, and favour, and all that men hold dear on earth, for the sake of a mere emotion of their feelings, for the associations of the times that were past, or at least for principle which they believed to be right; whilst the Whigs alone were the men with whom the suggestions of prudence and expediency had any weight, and who could reasonably hope for advantage, national or individual, from the issue of the contest. It is true that many persons must have been deluded by the hope of place and wealth, and also that there were many men of broken fortunes, who entered into it from mere recklessness, or because they had no considerations of interest to prevent them. Yet, when we think on the many honourable gentlemen who joined the Chevalier's banner on no other account but because they considered him the rightful heir of the throne -when we think upon the many high-spirited youths who rushed to it with the hope of military glory and lady's love-when we consider that the great mass acted upon principles of ancient honour, and from a feeling of the most noble and generous sympathy-and, more than all, when we recall the innumerable legends, displaying in such splendid style the disinterested and devoted loyalty of the actors, we cannot help characterizing the whole affair, as public sentiment seems to have already characterised it, as a transaction unprecedentedly chivalrous, and which did honour to the nation." CHAPTER XIX. INVASION OF ENGLAND. When first my brave Johnnie lad cam to the town, Jacobite Song. WHEN Charles had spent six weeks at Edinburgh, without obtaining a third of the accessions which he expected, and when all hope of more seemed at rest for the present, he resolved, with the consent of his council, to prosecute the march to London, though his force was still miserably inadequate to the object, and the whole English nation was by this time serried in arms to oppose him. He had procured several shiploads of arms and ammunition, along with some money and ar few officers of experience, from France; and he still entertained hopes of a descent being made from the same quarter, upon some part of the English coast. He had great reliance upon the cavalier gentry of England, who had recently sent him assurances of their support in case he marched to London; and he placed the greatest confidence in the energies and hardihood of his present force. Upon these grounds the greater part of his council concurred with him in advising an immediate march, and some even went the length of trusting entirely to the troops which had already achieved so great a victory. But there was a strong minority who pleaded that he should remain and fortify himself where he was, holding out Scotland against England, and who only consented to an invasion of the latter country with the greatest reluctance. Towards the end of October, orders were given to call in all the various parties which had been posted at different parts of the country, and the Chevalier had a grand review of his whole united force upon the beach betwixt Leith and Musselburgh, now known by the name of Portobello Sands, where, by a somewhat remarkable co-incidence, his present Majesty attended a similar ceremony in 1822. 3 2 During the last half of October, the army had not lain at Duddingston, 4 but in more comfortable lodgings within and around the city. On the 26th, the main body left Edinburgh, and pitched a camp a little to the west of Inveresk Church, where they had a battery pointing to the southwest. At a still later period of the month, they removed to a strong situation above Dalkeith, having that town on their left, the South Eske in front, the North Eske in rear, and an opening on the right towards Polton. 5 |