The History Of Scotland - Volume 10: From Glencoe To The Jacobites E-Book

Andrew Lang

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 284

Beschreibung

This is volume 10, covering the time from Glencoe to the Jacobites. In many volumes of several thousand combined pages the series "The History of Scotland" deals with something less than two millenniums of Scottish history. Every single volume covers a certain period in an attempt to examine the elements and forces which were imperative to the making of the Scottish people, and to record the more important events of that time.

Leseprobe

The History Of Scotland – Volume 10

From Glencoe To The Jacobites

Andrew Lang

Contents:

Parliamentary And Ecclesiastical Settlement. Massacre Of Glencoe. 1689.

The East India Company. The Darien Disaster. 1693-1702.

The Eve Of Union. 1702-1705.

The Union. 1705-1707.

Jacobite Movements. 1707-1708.

Jacobites And Wild Whigs. 1708-1714.

THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND – VOLUME 10, Andrew Lang

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

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Germany

ISBN: 9783849604707

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PARLIAMENTARY AND ECCLESIASTICAL SETTLEMENT. MASSACRE OF GLENCOE. 1689.

EVERY vice of treachery and greed which Thucydides ascribes to the influence of Revolution was now displayed by the prominent politicians of Scotland. The desires of the Club might, in themselves, be even applauded. They professed to wish for modern constitutional Government, not ignobly, if prematurely, and they won it for a few years. But the private designs of several of their leaders were mere self-seeking, notably in the case of Skelmorley, as Sir James Montgomery is usually styled. By a reversal to the methods of Charles II., William, as soon as Parliament adjourned, issued a proclamation, forbidding the lieges to leave Scotland and go with their grievances to the new king. Ross, Annandale, and!" Polwarth, " the heads of the Mobile," that is, of the mob, were recalcitrant. They agitated in the country, framing an address which was signed by most of the barons and burghs, the Provost of Aberdeen signed when he was drunk. They tried to bring the Westland Whigs to Edinburgh, by way of a "demonstration," and the Cameronian regiment, three weeks before its gallant stand at Dunkeld, mutinied for pay. Polwarth told Lockhart that matters would never mend in Scotland till it came to throat-cutting. They desired a Republic, in Lockhart's opinion: place, and revenge on the detested Dalrymples, was what they really desired. By September, multitudes of all parties had flocked to Court to bewilder the king. The egregious Crawford outdid the preachers and prophets in the quoting of texts. " I dare not question but that God hath begun to put His feet in our waters, and that He will not draw in His arm, which He hath bared, until He make His enemies His footstool, . . . that He will find out carpenters to fray all these horns which push at His ark, and that in due time He will level all these mountains that are in Zerubbabel's way." 

Meanwhile he was evicting many scores of conformist ministers on the information of their parishioners, which caused sympathy and excitement in the breasts of English Churchmen. The evicted said that they were punished for being Episcopal; the other party averred that they suffered for purely political causes, they would not pray for the new king and queen. The lists of the expelled show that Episcopal conformity was strong in St. Andrews, in Fife, and in Teviotdale. A Cockburn at Ormiston did not match the Presbyterian ardour of his ancestors at the Reformation. Dundee and Perth ministers were conformist: they had preached with joy on Dundee's fatal victory, were tried, and were acquitted, which is curious. There was nearly as clean a sweep made of conformists now as in 1638, as great an extrusion as of Presbyterians under the Restoration. The most marked results of these troubles were, perhaps, the pamphlet styled 'Scots Presbyterian Eloquence,' the replies to that, and a crowd of other tracts. The defenders of the Kirk argued that Sheild's notorious works were as anti-Presbyterian as anti-Episcopalian: Sheild represented, of course, the extreme left wing, semi-detached, of the Presbyterians. "'The Hind let Loose' was never the standard of our principles, nor approved by our party," says the Kirk's defender, 

These paper bullets of the brain flew about in a later strife. Meanwhile Crawford and his party were sorely exercised by fears that William, moved by Burnet, now Bishop of Salisbury, would be too lenient to Episcopalians. In September, Polwarth carried to Court the Address manufactured by the Club. Polwarth was to return to Scotland in a milder mood; not so Ross, Annandale, and Montgomery. A Vindication of the Address was written by Fergusson the Plotter, who, merely for love of plotting, it seems, had turned the coat he wore under Monmouth and sided with the Jacobites. This pamphlet was excessively vexatious to William, and Annandale, Ross, and Sir James Montgomery saw that they had hopelessly lost the Royal favour. In August 1690 Annandale betrayed his associates, and his confession tells the story of their doings during the adjournment of the Estates. Montgomery proposed, he said, that they should apply to their rightful king over the water, "who, no doubt, would give us what preferments and employments we pleased," a very appropriate argument. Montgomery drew up a Commission for Annandale himself as Royal Commissioner to a Parliament under James, with fantastic instructions; and they plotted with Nevile Payne, one Simpson, and Williamson, to have these papers conveyed to James for signature. Simpson was a double spy, employed by Bentinck (Earl of Portland) for William, and he came and went with information from both parties to their enemies. Montgomery's brother betrayed Montgomery's intrigue to Burnet, and Williamson was seized at Dover. This may have been a blind to secure the safe departure of Simpson, who carried the papers for James to France, while nothing was found on Williamson. At all events, thus matters turned out, and the younger Montgomery was reconciled to the Church and is out of the story. James took the bait of the conspirators, very foolishly; Burnet was laughed at; and stories of Jacobite plots were ridiculed. 

Annandale and Montgomery then returned to Scotland, hoping to blend all the discontented into a majority against William. Obstruction and a forced dissolution was their plan, and as William again and again adjourned Parliament, the discontents increased. But though details were still unknown, the general lines of the plot did not escape the Presbyterians, who could trust nobody much, but trusted Melville, who in 1690 succeeded Hamilton as Commissioner, more than they relied on Montgomery and King James. Among the Articles signed by James was an exception of Burnet, Melville, Mackay, Sir John Dalrymple, and two others, from a general amnesty. Atholl, Arran, Breadalbane, Balcarres, and other gentlemen were " peached " by Annandale as cognisant of his conspiracy, but " all of them did exceedingly blame us," he says, " for thinking that it was possible to do King James's business in a Parliamentary way," the natural mistake of such constitutional zealots. To have kidnapped William would have been far more romantic and quite as feasible. Yet we must, in fairness, confess that these intriguers were in advance of their age, and recognised the beauties of Parliamentary obstruction as a means of obtaining office.

The leaders of the Club, when they met at Edinburgh in January 1690, made a volte-face, and took up the cause of the expelled and impoverished Episcopalians. Montgomery went to Hamilton, to the Duke, hoping, no doubt, to win that waverer. The representatives of Government placed all their hopes on a visit of William to Scotland, and on a " half-dress " coronation, as nobody could afford full-dress robes. But William was no more crowned at Scone than James had been. The English Parliament was about to sit, and the Dutch monarch never found time to visit his kingdom of Scotland. The Club gave out that Parliament would never meet; but William, in fact, was determined that the Scottish House should not sit while the English Parliament was sitting, for sympathy would be excited at Westminster with the Scottish Episcopalians. Hamilton was suspected of treating with the wild western Whigs, because he engaged some Cameronian gardeners!

The Government, reckoning up votes in February, thought themselves almost secure of a small majority, in which they were not to be disappointed, for Polwarth had deserted the Club and, in February, was corresponding with the king. "The Club is now broken to pieces," wrote Dalrymple. On February 25 William gave his instructions to Melville as Commissioner. He was to " touch " and pass the Acts of 1689 for restoring Presbyterian preachers to their kirks. He was to abolish Patronage, which was against William's wishes, as an interference with men's property. He was to settle the question of Church Government A beginning was made of Breadalbane's plan to buy up the clans. William showed clearly his desire that General Assemblies should be convoked by the authority of the State, not called together by the preachers whenever they wished to agitate.

Meanwhile Montgomery was working at the impossible task of uniting the Jacobites and the constitutional extremists on the basis of hatred of Melville, of the Dalrymples, and of the nominations of judges in the Court of Session. He would have a Habeas Corpus Act, and freedom of speech in Parliament, which do not read like violent demands. He was also for abolishing the Royal Supremacy and restoring the Kirk as in her palmiest days, the notion being that, if William would not make, James would promise, these concessions. Supplies would be refused, the army would disband, and the clans would come down on the country. The Jacobites had scruples about taking the parliamentary oaths; but some did risk their souls, others kept out of the way. The Government created six votes in an ingenious way: they spent the secret service money granted by William for that purpose, and they met Parliament. Crawford made a speech about Nehemiah and Ezra, and the first contest was over a disputed election. The six votes made "by dividing the office of Clerk Register into six" just furnished a majority of that number. Several Jacobites stood aloof, others joined the party which had the majority, the rest " made a miserable figure " as they listened to Dalrymple and Montgomery " scolding like watermen." Montgomery was for none of a Dutch sort of Presbyterianism "called Erastianism," but for the Kirk in the glory of 1648, and this found favour, says Balcarres.

The Supremacy Act and the Act restoring outed preachers were touched and passed on April 25. The Lords of the Articles, these venerable grievances, were abolished at last, and Parliaments were to choose committees of equal numbers from each Estate, plus officers of State who might debate, but might not vote, unless they were, by election, of the Committee of the Lords. With a sensible relief we say farewell to the old Lords of the Articles, who facilitated the despatch of business, but deprived "plain Parliament" of the constitutional development which now advanced so rapidly that, by 1707, members of the Scots Parliament had little to learn from the House of Commons at Westminster.

On May 26 the Estates fixed the national creed. The Westminster Confession was read, there it stands in the Acts of Parliament; but the Catechisms were left out, " the House grew restive and impatient, and could stand out no longer," says a pamphleteer.

There was now a short adjournment (May 30 to June 4). During the interval Montgomery received "a great black box with papers," from James in Ireland. Annandale, Arran, Ross, and Montgomery opened it, took out some documents which they did not wish Balcarres and the genuine Jacobites to see, sealed up the envelopes afresh, and summoned Linlithgow, Balcarres, and Breadalbane. Annandale assured them that the seals had not been tampered with, so it appeared strange that they bore his own seal. The Jacobites and the Club traitors now understood each other, and "never were men in greater confusion than all of us," for the Jacobites found that the traitors had got from William all the best that James could promise, and that they had aimed at a constitutional revolution. The Jacobite commissions were burned: for the defeat, by Sir Thomas Livingstone, of a small Highland force, surprised in their sleep at Cromdale Haughs, on May 1, had already damped the more romantic hopes of the friends of King James. The imbecility of the Jacobites as conspirators was thus made plain to the world, and it was left to Annandale, Montgomery, and Ross to betray their associates with various circumstances of ignominy. While the Kirk, after the brief adjournment, was being restored, shorn of the Covenant and of civil penalties attending excommunication, Ross and Montgomery were trying to save their heads by babbling to Melville about their Jacobite intrigues. "What a parcel of rogues in a nation! "

The Estates met again to fix the model of the new Presbyterian Establishment. William had communicated his ideas to Melville. The Act, as drafted, styled Presbyterial Government "the only Government of Christ's Church in this Kingdom." William preferred " the Government of the Church in this Kingdom established by law." He asked for secure power to his Privy Council; Synods and General Assemblies might meet when they pleased, provided that they first applied to him or the Privy Council, "and have his allowance accordingly." A Royal Commissioner should always be present, with power to stop any roamings into matters " relating to the Civil Government ": the Commissioner must refer these to the Privy Council. William again expressed his scruples about infringing rights of patronage, while declaring vacant the parishes of the rabbled ministers. For Episcopalians who took the Oath of Allegiance he desired the indulgence extended to Dissenters in England.

The Act as passed restored the Kirk as in 1592. It was to be organised and instituted by the survivors of the preachers outed in 1661; only sixty of them ("The Sixty Bishops") still survived. The benefices of the conformists outed before April 1689 and of those outed for not obeying the proclamation that they should pray for the new king and queen were declared vacant. The Sixty, with any helpers whom they might select, were to do the purging of inefficient, scandalous, and erroneous preachers. All this new settlement was as Erastian as the decree of Parliament for a Thanksgiving Day for the battle of the Boyne, and for monthly fasts during the king's absence in Ireland. If to appoint holidays, as for August 5 and May 29, was the sin of Uzziah, then sinful were the Parliamentary feasts and fasts.

On July 19 an Act rescinded certain Acts as " useless or hurtful." Among these were "All Acts enjoining civil pains upon sentences of Excommunication" This was a joyful day. " The excommunicatory fever," as Erastus called it, which broke out under Knox in May 1559, was for ever cured: the preachers might bind and loose what they would, or could, in heaven, but though they might vex men with excommunication of a spiritual sort, they could no longer compel the State to ruin them on earth. Nothing at all was said about the Covenant, that solemn oath binding on all generations. The Cameronians and various dissenters later might renew it as often as they pleased, but the thing was practically dead.

The victory of the Boyne, the confessions of Ross who was put into the Tower and of Annandale (August 31) who was the most explicit of these traitors, and the establishment of a strong fortress at Inverlochy where Colonel Hill commanded, reduced the hopes of the Jacobites. Ferguson and Cochrane (of Argyll's expedition) were taken in England, but could not be extradited to Scotland and tortured, as Carstares had been, and as William desired. The pair were discharged. But Nevile Payne, an English playwright and conspirator, had been taken in Scotland, and was to be, probably, the last victim of judicial torture (witches apart) in that country, though it was in 1690 intended to torture one Mure or Ker for child murder. The list of questions put to Payne (who is said to have been a country gentleman, and is confused by Macaulay with another Payne, a friend of Coleman, who was executed at the beginning of the Popish Plot) was drawn up in August. It was hoped that he would incriminate English accessories to Montgomery's conspiracy and throw light on dealings with France. In England, Mary herself examined the shamefaced caitiffs, who " mumbled " their avowals. Payne was not tormented till December 10, "gently," and next day, for two hours, "with all the severity that was consistent with humanity," says the Bibleloving Crawford, who could only suppose that the victim was sustained by his religion Catholic. "My stomach is truly so far out of tune by being a witness to an act so far cross to my natural temper, that I am fitter for rest than anything else," wrote Crawford. Several of the Council objected to the cruelty, and withdrew. Payne was never proved guilty, but was kept a prisoner to the end of his days, some ten years later. He had been thought a coward by Lockhart: he proved himself to be no less courageous than Mitchell and Mackail of the Covenanting party.

The Government, when the Estates rose, looked forward nervously to "losing in the General Assembly of October what they had gained in Parliament." Lord Carmichael, a man of sense, was to be Royal Commissioner. Hints were given to the Assembly that their sitting should be brief. Melville warned Kirkton, the historian of the sufferings, that moderation was indispensable, and he appealed in the same sense to Gilbert Rule, Fraser of Brae, and " Dainty Davy," Mr. David Williamson, famous in song for an adventure in which his alleged presence of mind, when in hiding from the dragoons, extorted the applause of Charles II. If the new Assembly played the old game of resistance to the State, the Church party in the English Parliament might, by way of reprisals, refuse supply. The king himself, in a letter to the Assembly, insisted that they should be moderate.

At this period the long strain of persecution by the two last Stuart kings had done its work. The old irreconcilable temper was broken; the old impossible claims of the Covenant were dropped. Crawford had spoken about Nehemiah, and Ezra, and the rebuilding of the Temple, but this rebuilding did not match that of 1638. Among the "outed" survivors of 1661, the remnant of the former generation, were Protestors who had warred with Resolutioners, Resolutioners who had wrangled with Protestors. Gaunt and grey they met, and there was a moment when it seemed as if they would renew their ancient bickerings, but time had tamed them, and common-sense was heard. Now there was present in the Assembly no crowd of enthusiastic ruffians, such as Baillie describes in 1638, come to behold and applaud the fall of the prelatical Jericho. The brethren kept out all who were not of their own party, however, " forbidding the keepers of the doors to admit any without a leaden ticket in the shape of a heart." Not now was the Royal Commissioner (like Hamilton in 1638) in fear for his liberty and even of his life. The Commissioner, and Kennedy the Moderator, did not quarrel about the Kirk's right or the king's right to appoint times of meeting. They agreed, apparently, on the momentous dates in private; Carmichael then appointed the time, and Kennedy, "without taking notice of what the Commissioner had done, himself adjourned them to the same time," as is still the practice. One day when Cunningham was acting as Moderator he asked the Commissioner what the next day of meeting should be, and then "corrected himself in his prayer."

After acknowledging the Founder of Christianity as the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church, he is said to have added, "Thou knowest, O Lord, that when we own any other it is only for Decency's sake."

Carstares "Cardinal Carstares," as he was called had come down from London. William's Scottish adviser a man both wise and pawky, he kept all in fair order, while allowing scandalous and inefficient and erroneous Episcopalians to be tried and deprived on what they declared to be trivial charges and tainted evidence. The party in power were more anxious to empty Episcopal pulpits than careful about how they were to be filled again. But the outed conformists were not picturesque, and their cause has never been popular. They did not go about in armed conventicles, they had not the chance, though in the North there were places where their flocks backed them m et artnis. They never murdered a Moderator on Magus Muir. In Edinburgh they held their quiet meetings, where they did what they had not dared to do publicly under the Restoration, they used the English Prayer-Book. That noble and beautiful Liturgy thus stole back into Scotland, under the shadow of persecution, affording to a little flock a shelter against the absurdities which too often accompany "conceived prayers," unpremeditated petitions.

When the Assembly appointed a day of fasting for " defections," the friend of Leighton, Charteris, told his flock that " the defection has not been from the truth, or from the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, but from the life of God and the power of religion, and from the temper and conversation which the Gospel requires in us." As to Episcopacy, that was no defection: defection lay in "a factious, schismatical, and uncharitable temper."

" The Societies," Cameronians, observed the whole of these tame proceedings with sorrow, and sent five men with an address to the Moderator and Assembly. Three zealots Lining, Boyd, and Sheild, author of 'The Hind let Loose,' and chaplain of the Cameronian regiment now came in and were reconciled to the Kirk. A long paper exonerating their consciences as to the grounds of defection was not publicly read, being thought to contain injurious and uncharitable reflections; a shorter paper, with their reasons for coming in, was accepted. The five deputies requested the Assembly, in very becoming terms, to read the longer paper, which represented their ideas about all manner of sins committed in compromising with the ungodly. They had never meant to separate from the reformed covenanted Church, but only from the defections of many of her members. Schism on one side, sinful union on the other, were Scylla and Charybdis an expression which they did not employ. In addition to past backslidings, the Covenants (like the hobby-horse,) "were forgot," "not mentioned by many." The king and queen, they said, had not been warned of " the guilt and danger of tampering with and patronising Prelacy in England and Ireland." The five envoys were promised some satisfaction in a proclamation for a General Fast, but did not like it when they got it. Sheild, Lining, and Boyd were regarded with disfavour by Cameronian extremists, tampering with these three men had been sinful, "a step of defection, and cause of mourning "; Cleland, who fell at Dunkeld, was unpleasantly spoken of; the raising of the Cameronian regiment was looked on as sinful and scandalous. No better were owning of civil courts, and payment of cess " for the maintenance of the Prince and Princess of Orange, now become the head of the Malignants, Prelatics, Indulged, Toleratists, and Sectarians in these lands."

Meanwhile the Cameronians had no ordained minister; how they at last obtained one is told later. Their extreme ideas were expressed, till far into the eighteenth century, in the declarations of the Cameronian party and in the dying confessions of eminent saints. The Remnant were so adverse to "the idolatrous occupants upon the throne" that the Jacobites often had hopes of an alliance with the Cameronians. But the anachronism of the Covenant, with its associated ideas, tended to become a mere sentiment, and is still dear even to many members of the " cauldrife and Erastian establishment." One joyous task was left to the Sixty Bishops: they thoroughly purged the garner of scandalous and erroneous ministers, who, naturally, were as a rule conformists. The purging was resisted in some parts of the country north of Tay. William had not been allowed to carry the amendments in the Act which he suggested in May: patronage, in spite of the king, had been abolished (July 19); the purgers of the Kirk were not subjected to the approval of the Privy Council; Episcopalians taking the Oath of Allegiance were not " indulged " like Dissenters in England; and Christ's Church was not delimited as " the Government of the Church in this Kingdom established by law."

Melville gave his reasons for failure on these points. He ceased to be Commissioner in 1691.

The results of the General Assembly, it is plain, were not, and could not be, agreeable to William. Some compensation for abolished patronages was assigned, but was very seldom paid or even demanded. The mode of electing preachers was not absolutely democratic; but as patronage, unluckily, was restored in the following reign, the details of the method practised in the brief interval are explained later. The universities, especially St. Andrews, suffered loss of scholars relatively distinguished, and Edinburgh lost Dr. Gregory in Mathematics, Mr. Douglas in Oriental Languages. After 1690 there was an interruption in the meetings of the Assembly, and we return to secular affairs.

The surprise which scattered the Highlanders at the haughs of Cromdale had hurt them little, save by the loss of Lowland officers whom they did not want. The Lowland officers of Dundee, as all the world knows, reaped undying honour in French service, especially when they captured and held " the Island of the Scots." The story, in Aytoun's verse, is familiar to most schoolboys. Among these eighty gentlemen only six bear Highland names.

By October 22, 1690, Tarbet could tell Melville that though the Highlanders had practically suffered no losses by the sword, the methods of Colonel Hill, commanding in the new fort at Inverlochy, had "broken their combination." While an English officer commanded a fortress and garrison at Inverlochy, the Macdonalds, Camerons, and Stewarts could not entirely trust each other. By December 18, Lochiel, Sleat, and Keppoch were reported as being ready to come in, but not Glengarry. Tarbet wanted to satisfy them with money, for they were dangerous, being as fit as ever to wage a guerilla war or to join in a French invasion. No less than; 10,000 would be well spent if it staved off a new campaign. Tarbet still wrote to Melville, who found, at the end of 1690, that he had lost William's favour, perhaps because of his concessions to Presbytery, but the reason is doubtful. Meanwhile Hill, commanding at Inverlochy, was in May 1691 ordered to use severity, and force the Highlanders to come in; but he was old, he knew the difficulties, his garrison was ill paid, and he did not love his task. The Government wavered in its resolution, and Hill was not driven to a mountain campaign against the clans.

The Appin and Glencoe men (June 3, 1691) professed readiness to take the oaths at Inveraray, the Earl of Argyll being their feudal superior. In June, Breadalbane (Campbell of Glenurchy) was entrusted with the task of reconciliation. At heart probably a Jacobite, he had doubled in and out among the plots and betrayals, but as a near neighbour of the predatory Macdonalds and Camerons it was his private interest to secure peace and quietness among them. Hill "expected more hurt than good" from his interference. Lochiel, Breadalbane's cousin, knew him better than he trusted him, and regarded the gold "in a chest at London," destined to pacify the clans, as likely to remain in Breadalbane's possession. None the less, in the end of June some chiefs met, as an agent for William, the peer whom they knew best as an agent for James. Breadalbane had arrived and seen some chiefs by June 26. On June 30, at Achallader, Buchan, commanding for James, and Barclay, signed a truce to last till October 1, and so, says Breadalbane, did the Chiefs. But there appear to have been " Private Articles," secret clauses. The truce was only to hold if there were no invasion or general rising, and if James approved. If William and Mary refuse the terms as publicly announced, Breadalbane is to join the insurgents with 1000 men, which "he promises both on oath and honour "! The document was sent to James. If this document be genuine, and two copies were presented to the Privy Council, one from Livingstone, one from a nephew of General Buchan, Breadalbane was playing a double part, and this charge was brought against him, though it was rejected by Dalrymple and William.

All this time William was abroad, in Flanders, campaigning, accompanied by Sir John Dalrymple, and to Flanders went letters in which Hill spoke his mind about Breadalbane, who was not ignorant of this fact. Livingstone, too (August 4), had spoken very freely of Breadalbane's methods. But William accepted the truce (August 27), either not knowing about or not believing in the secret clauses. He offered indemnity to all who came in by January 1, 1692; others would underlie the utmost extremity of the law. By the end of October, Hill reported that the Highlanders "would not settle with my Lord Breadalbane upon any account; ... he is, saving his title, no better man than some of themselves." There was, indeed, an appearance of failure in Breadalbane's negotiations, as we learn from the letters which Sir John Dalrymple, now Master of Stair, and in constant attendance on William, wrote to the Earl from camps in Flanders or from town. But the clans felt the weight of the proclamation issued in August, offering terms to all who came in before January 1, 1692. The alternative was fire and sword, and they were too disunited to resist. Who knew what his neighbour was doing? In March 1690 William had commissioned Tarbet to offer as much as £2000, and any title under an earldom, to Sleat, Dowart, Lochiel, Glengarry, Clanranald, or the uncle of Seaforth, if they would come in. They all remained honourably free from titles, and probably Breadalbane offered none. Still, on one side was money, and King James's permission to treat; on the other was war to the knife.

Macaulay supposed that Dalrymple was throughout averse to reconciling the clans that his eager desire was even to crush them, once for all; but it is clear, from Dalrymple's letter to Breadalbane (Approbiax (sic}, June 15/23, 1691), that he would have much preferred to see Breadalbane successful. Dalrymple persevered in this strain, and refused to believe the charges of double dealing against Breadalbane. "The best cure of all these matters is that the chiefs do take it [the oath] as quickly as can be" (September 18/28). From London, on November 24, Dalrymple wrote that he had not heard from Breadalbane since October 10, and feared that a conference with the chiefs had been unsuccessful. On December 2 Dalrymple foresaw ruin to the clans if they were obdurate, but that ruin would bring "no advantage" to Breadalbane and his friends. Lochiel, " your doited cousin," was giving trouble: " I think the clan Donell must be rooted out, and Lochiel."

The terms to " root out " and " extirpate " appear from their use in former proclamations against clans, by the native kings, not to mean extermination, but the reducing of a clan with lands and a chief to the position of "a broken clan," landless and chiefless. The Macgregors, with their "name that is nameless by day," are an example of a clan " rooted out." " To destroy them by fire and sword," said the Parliamentary Commission which investigated the Glencoe Massacre in 1695, "is the actual style of our commissions against intercommuned rebels." The Commission distinguished this old traditional kind of proceeding from the "barbarous murder" which was actually committed. "Leave the Macleans to Argyll," says Dalrymple on December 2. Macleans and Macdonalds, in Kintyre, had often been " left to Argyll "; it was the regular process, much like our modern "punishment" of some barbarous tribe in the dark places of the Empire. The plan was a "survival," in 1691, but it was perfectly recognised as legal, and did not at all imply " extirpation " in the sense of " extermination." To execute the process on the great clans Donald and Cameron was, however, a really impossible extension of what might be tried on the Macleans in their island of Mull, but, in December, Dalrymple's letter shows that Breadalbane meant to make the attempt. Dalrymple's scheme of reconciliation was not a mere bribery of the chiefs; ancient feudal claims of superiority by Argyll, old grounds of many a sanguinary feud, were to be regulated under any scheme. Argyll, as well as the chiefs, must consent; if not, "that destroys all that is good in the settlement, which is, to take away grounds of hereditary feuds " (December 3).

Macaulay perceived that Dalrymple's aim, thus expressed, was thoroughly statesmanlike, but avers that "to the last moment he continued to flatter himself that the rebels would be obstinate. . . ." This is certainly incorrect up to December 3; Dalrymple would have preferred a peaceful settlement. But failing that, then Breadalbane's "scheme of mauling them" must be undertaken "with no delay." If the "scheme of mauling" means merely "a punitive expedition," it was in order, though planned on an impossibly extensive scale. The great clans could not be cooped up and massacred, like the Maclans of Glencoe, who dwelt in a valley four miles long, hemmed in by perpendicular cliffs, with rare passes, easily manned, such is the local situation in Glencoe. Buchan's and Leven's regiments, with petards and guns, were, by the first plan, to take and garrison Glengarry's castle on Loch Oich, an operation of war. " Therefore look on, and you shall be satisfied of your revenge." Of the whole state of things William was duly informed. Tarbet had discoursed the king on all these matters "of the settlement" and William certainly consented to the regular and usual alternative of " a punitive expedition."

This was barbarous, but not more barbarous than what was done when even the shellfish on the western shores were destroyed by Cumberland's soldiers in 1746.