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 CHAPMAN AND HALL'S SERIES 
 
 OF 
 
 ORIGINAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 FICTION, BIOGRAPHY, AND GENERAL LITERATURE.
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL'S SERIES. 
 
 Works already Published. 
 
 CAMP AND BAEEACK-EOOM ; or, The British Army as it is. 
 By A Late Stapf-Sergeant op the 13th Light Infantry. 
 Cloth, 9s. 
 
 FATHEE DAECY : an Historical Eomance. By the Author of 
 " Two Olb Men's Tales," " Mount Sorel," &c. 2 vols, cloth, 18s. 
 
 THE LITE OF GEOEGE CANNING. By Egbert Bell, Author of 
 " Lives of the Poets," &c. Cloth, 9s. 
 
 THE FALCON FAMILY: or, Young Ireland. A Satirical Novel. 
 Second Edition. Cloth, 9 s. 
 
 LONG ENGAGEMENTS : a Tale of the Affghan Eebellion. 
 Cloth, 9s. 
 
 THE LIFE OF MOZAET, including his Correspondence. By Edward 
 Holmes. Cloth, 9s. 
 
 THE WHITEBOY; a Story of Ireland in 1822. By Mrs. S. C. Hall. 
 2 vols., cloth, 18s. 
 
 MOUNT SOEEL; or, The Heiress of the De Veres. A Novel. 
 By the Author of " Two Old Men's Tales," &c. 2 vols., cloth, ISs. 
 
 In the Press. 
 
 THE BACHELOE OF THE ALBANY; or, The Home Department. 
 By the Author of " The Falcon Family." 1 vol.
 
 LIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT, 
 
 AND 
 
 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 OF CULLODEN. 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES. 
 
 BY JOHN HILL BURTON, 
 
 ADVOCATE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF DAVID HCME. 
 
 ,, , ■-,•- j».; 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND, 
 
 MDCCCXLVII.
 
 C» WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND. 
 
 » ' • 
 
 ^ \ 1 
 
 • • • • < <
 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 '< 
 
 CQ It Tras once suggested to the author, "by one whose 
 ""^ power of drawing a rapid and picturesque sketch of cha- 
 f_ racter and events rcaHscd the idea upon the spot, that it 
 
 CO 
 
 ^ would be difficult to find a life presenting so many promi- 
 ^nent topics for the biographer's pen as that of Lord Lovat. 
 c^At one time a mountain brigand, hunted from cave to 
 ij-cave — at another a laced courtier, welcomed by the first 
 ^ circle in Europe. In summer a powerful baron, with nearly 
 <^ half a kingdom at his back — in winter, dragged ignomi- 
 ^ niously to the block. By turns a soldier, a statesman, a 
 Highland chief, a judge administering the law of the 
 land, and, if tradition speak truth, a Jesuit and a parish 
 priest. Uniting the loyal Presbyterian Whig with the 
 CathoHc Jacobite, and supporting both characters with 
 equal success. — It was believed that these strange vicissi- 
 tudes in fortune, and contrasts in character, if simply 
 told, and offered to the reader alon^r with the means of 
 
 264400
 
 vi INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 estimating liis genius, his versatility, and Hs remarkable 
 influence over other men, might furnish a volume capable 
 both of pleasing and instructing. On further consideration, 
 the author thought he could direct such a record of cha- 
 racter and events to a moral purpose of no small moment. 
 Contemporary with Lovat, horn and reared near the same 
 spot, and closely entwined with the more memorable inci- 
 dents of his career, was one whose character and history 
 were as different from his, as the sunshine from the shade. 
 Closely as external circumstances brought them together, 
 the contrast was not entirely innate, but represented dif- 
 ferences in the moral soil out of which they respectively 
 grew, and the moral atmosphere which each of them 
 inhaled. If Lovat's history be a type of the old reign of 
 fraud and force, rendered the more conspicuous by pro- 
 truding into an era of transition, Forbes is a character as 
 strongly marked in its sohtary anticipation of an age still 
 further advanced in integrity and humanity. These twa 
 characters thus bring into one focus the extremities of 
 distant ages, and show side by side distinct periods in the 
 history of civilisation. Judge Jeffreys and Sir Samuel 
 Romilly, separated from each other by nearly a century 
 and a half, arc not a greater contrast in all that seems 
 to mark the moral influence of different ages of society, 
 than these two men, who breathed the same mountain 
 air, fought side by side in the same battles, and sat at the 
 same board. It was beheved that the united picture, if 
 correctly drawn, might prove a useful chapter of that
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. vii 
 
 pliilosophy wliich history teaches through example ; and 
 that biography presents few opportunities of showiuo- 
 so clearly the extent to which man is capable of im- 
 provement, — the fruit and flowers that may be reared 
 where weeds and desolation are seen; the wealth of the 
 elements that he at the disposal of the moral and social 
 reformer. To accomplish this end, it Avas necessary to 
 let facts convey to the mind their own impression and 
 their own moral. In the life of Forbes, the author may 
 have shown, in the tone of his narrative, a partiality for 
 the character of a good man, which few will be inclined 
 to censure. In the memoir of Lovat, there is a more strict 
 adlierence to pure narrative ; for indeed it was felt, that 
 in addition to the picture which the bare statement of 
 facts presented, any denunciations, or rhetorical appeals 
 to the moral indignation of the reader, would be but 
 gilding refined gold, or painting the hly. It has been 
 the author's object from the beginning, to place very 
 little faith in previous narratives, whether traditional or 
 contemporary, but to take his materials from authentic 
 documents ; and the reader will not probably feel, that 
 this restriction of the medium through which they are 
 seen has divested the character and career of this ex- 
 traordinary man of any of their marvels. 
 
 Of the various biographical accounts of Lovat, by con- 
 temporary authors, the least Inaccurate is a little book of 
 eighty-eight pages, pubHshed in 1746, with the title " Me- 
 moirs of the Life of Lord Lovat." This rare tract has 
 been seldom, if ever, cited by late writers; while a
 
 VlH INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 work called " Memoires de la Viedu Lord Lovat," pub- 
 lished at Amsterdam in 1747, whicli is a mere translation 
 of it, has been referred to as an original authority. During 
 the time of his impeachment, the wonder-loving world of 
 London were supplied three times a week in halfpenny 
 numbers, with " The Life, Adventures, and many and 
 great Vicissitudes of Fortune, of Simon Lord Frazer of 
 Lovat, from his Birth at Beaufort in Scotland, in 1668, 
 to the time of his being taken by Captain Millar, after 
 Three Days' Search, in a Hollow Tree." This narrative, 
 now very rare in its original form, was thought worthy of 
 being immediately reprinted in octavo, as the work of 
 " The Rev. Archibald Arbuthnot, IMinister of Kiltarlity, 
 in the Presbytery of Liverness." This book, on which little 
 or no dependence can be placed, is a forgery — that is to 
 say, it was never written by a minister of Kiltarlity, a cir- 
 cumstance proved by many pieces of internal evidence, of 
 which one shall suffice. When describing Simon's imprison- 
 ment of the Dowager Lady Lovat, in the Island of Aigas, 
 the author says, " Having mounted her upon a pad of her 
 own, and himself upon a stout horse, with only one ser- 
 vant to attend 'em, they rode away towards the sea side ; 
 where, having disposed of his horses, he took boat, which 
 carried him, his lady and servant, to a little obscure 
 Island called Aigis." Now, not only is Aigas an island 
 in a river, at some distance from the sea, but it is the most 
 conspicuous object in that parish of Kiltarlity, of which the 
 person who thus describes it as an island out at sea, is
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. IX 
 
 called the minister ! The •well-known book called " Me- 
 moirs of the Life of Simon Lord Lovat, written by him- 
 self in the French Language, and now first Translated 
 from the Original Manuscript"" (1797), is occasionally 
 referred to in the following pages. It is not, of course, a 
 book to be implicitly rehed on ; but it is one from which 
 truths may, by a certain process, be extracted. It is a sort of 
 ignis fatuus, leading hopelessly astray, if its character is mis- 
 taken ; but serving to those who knew its real nature to 
 indicate the true character of the spot, and to warn the 
 traveller of the precarious nature of the ground. The lan- 
 guage and sentiments at once testify to the authenticity of 
 the book, and there are some expressions, such as the use 
 of the term " Royal University of Aberdeen," to express 
 the Bang's College there, which indicate that it is a trans- 
 lation. The internal evidence of the genuineness of this 
 book was kindly confirmed to the author by the Reverend 
 Alexander Fraser of Kirkhill, to whose great grandfather, 
 the Rev. David Eraser, the original manuscript was com- 
 mitted. 
 
 In the composition of the following pages, a lai'ge mass 
 of manuscripts have been consulted, of which the author 
 has printed only such small portions as suited his imme- 
 diate purpose. He may, perhaps, take an opportunity of 
 printing some of the papers which could not be appropri- 
 ately woven into his memoir, in a volume of documents 
 under the auspices of one of the book clubs. In the 
 course of some late genealogical inquiries, many docu-
 
 X INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 ments of curious and varied character were discovered, to 
 which the author was with great liberaHty allowed access. 
 They are cited by the term " Lovat Documents." When 
 the printing of the work had made considerable progress, 
 a very curious MS. was kindly communicated to the author 
 by Ms friend Mr. Richard Gordon, called " The full and 
 Impartiall Account of the whole Transactions of the present 
 Simon Lord Lovat, from the beginning of his Troubles in 
 his own Country, and the most remarkable Steps of his 
 acting Abroad, written by Major James Fraser." It is 
 written in a round, school-boy hand, and from the blunders 
 made in proper names it is evidently a copy; but it is be- 
 yond any doubt a transcript of a genuine narrative. The 
 portion relative to Lovat's proceedings abroad, which took 
 place under Major Fraser's own eye, appeared to the author 
 to be so curious as to justify a considerable alteration of the 
 book while in type. 
 
 Nearly all the new documents used in the Hfe of Forbes, 
 and a few of those relatinsr to Lovat, were found at CuUo- 
 den House, where the family papers of the time, pubhc and 
 private, were placed before the author in a large heap, 
 without any reserve. In making use of these papers, and 
 in the suggestion of other sources of information, the 
 author has to acknowledge his great obligations to the 
 Rev. John Macnab, whose zeal for the memory of the 
 Lord President prompted him on this occasion to offer the 
 aid of his abilities and knowled2:c, althous-h he had him- 
 self contemplated a larger work on the same subject, wliich
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XI 
 
 it is hoped he may yet see reason to pursue to a success- 
 ful conclusion. 
 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder being in possession of two let- 
 ters, addressed to his distinguished relative Dr. Gumming 
 by Lord Lovat, very politely placed them at the disposal of 
 the author, who has also to record his thanks for similar 
 favours to Mr. Cosmo Innes, sherifFof Moray, Mr. Edward 
 Fraser, advocate, Mr. John Clerk Brodic, writer to the 
 signet, Mr. WilHam Fraser, whose extensive knowledge of 
 antiquities is likely to be better known to the world than 
 it has hitherto been, to Mr. Carruthers of Liverness, to 
 Mr. David Laing, and to Mr. Robert Chambers, who com- 
 municated to him a curious collection of MS. notices of 
 Lord Lovat, by Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SIMOK FRASER, LORD LOVAT. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER I. 
 His Birth— Tlie History and Feuds of his Family — His Education 
 — Compact witla a Fencing-master — Enters the Army — Journey 
 to London with his Cousin the Chief, and its Result — Death of 
 the Chief— Disputed Succession — The Heiress —The Seizure of 
 Lord Saltoun 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Gathering of the Clan — Seizure and Forced Marriage of the 
 Dowager Lady — The Island of Aigas — The Testimony of the 
 Witnesses — The Indignation of the Athol Family — Arming of 
 the Adverse Clans — "War in the Eraser Countr}- — Denunciations 
 of the Privy Council — Journey to St. Germain's and to Loo — 
 Interviewwith William III.— Partial Pardon— Prosecution by 
 the Athol Family — His Bonds to the Gentlemen of his Clan — 
 His Flight — His Brother John and the Outrages on his Clan... 2G 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 His Escape to France — State of the Jacobites there — Tlie Exiled 
 Court, and its Intrigues — Interviews with Louis XIV., and his 
 Plan of Operations — Colbert and Gualterio — Projects for a 
 Landing — Suggestion of the Plans regarding the Highlands — 
 Lovat's Commission — Sir John Llaclean — Journey through 
 
 England— Rencounter with a Yorkshire Justice 53 
 
 c
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 State of Scotland — Causes of National Jealousies — The Succession 
 and Act of Security — Secret Movements of the Jacobites — 
 Opening of the Queensberry Plot — Its Secret History — Lovat's 
 Escape in the midst of it — Queensberry's Situation — Dispute 
 between the Two Houses — Fergusson the Plotter — Lockhart of 
 Carnwath — The intercepted Letters — Perilous Journeys — Re- 
 ception in France — His long Imprisonment — Inquiry whether 
 he became a Jesuit and a popular Preacher — The Marchioness of 
 Frezelitre 71 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Causes of the Eeturn in 1715 — Legal Schemes of the Mackenzies 
 for obtaining the Estate and Title — Meetings of the Clan — A 
 Messenger sent to Lovat — The Jlessenger's Adventures— Nego- 
 tiations with the Court of St. Germain's — They escape together 
 — Adventures in London — Lovat's Pardon — His Achievements 
 in the Rebellion — His Rewards — Receives the Title and Estates 
 — His various Litigations — The Dangers of the Litigants — The 
 Outrages of the Clan 105 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Lovat Territories — Stratheric— The Aird — The Mountain 
 Districts — The Produce — The Fortalices — The Chief and his 
 People — Their mutual Rights and Privileges — Lovat's peculiar 
 Character as a Chief — Origin of the Coercive Power — The He- 
 retlitary Jurisdictions — His Regalitj'- — His Sheriffship— Lovat 
 on the Bench — His Use of his Judicial Powers— Ividnapping.,.. 137 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 His Pomp — The Coach, and a Journey in it — Social Life at Castle 
 Dounie — The Guests — Lovat at Table — His Letters— His Cha- 
 racter as an Author — Family Matters — Black John of the Dirk 
 — The two Jlarriages — Legends— His Children, and his Conduct 
 to them — The Brigadier — Character of Lovat in the Female 
 World— The Story of Lady Grange — Elucidations of Lady 
 Grange's Character — Convivialities with her Lord 170 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 His political Career — Battle of Glenshiel — A successful Negotia- 
 tion — Loyalty — A Favourite at Court — His Loyalty questioned 
 — A Scene— A Vindicatiou— Its Sincerity tested — His Intrigues
 
 CONTEXTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ■with the Jacobites — His Dukedom — His simultaneous Zeal for 
 St. James's and St. Germain's — Deprived of his Independent 
 Company and his SheriflTship — Lord Tim,vald — Dr. Patrick 
 Gumming 193 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Beginning of the Rebellion — Misgivings about the Prince's Poor 
 Landing— The Lord Advocate and Duncan Forbes — Preston 
 Pans — The Determination of Lovat — The Gathering of the Clan 
 — Attack on CuUoden House — Correspondence with Dimcan 
 Forbes — Duncan's Advice and Threats — Lovat's Conduct to his 
 Son — Imprisonment — Escape— Doubts and Dissatisfaction — A 
 cold Collation for the Prince — Their first Meeting after the 
 Battle of Culloden— The Flight— The Seizure -The Sorrows 
 of the Clan — The Journey — Anecdotes — Hogarth— The Tower 
 — The Impeachment — The Closing Scene 221 
 
 DUNCAN EORBES, OF CULLODEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Birth — Origin and History of his Family — Grey Duncan — I\Ia- 
 ternal Training — Education — College Life in Edinburgh — Trial 
 of Captain Greene for Piracy— Studies in HoUand— His Mar- 
 riage — His Wife — Her early Death — Profession of the Law — De- 
 fence of Culloden Castle — Capture of Inverness — Appointed the 
 Lord Advocate's Assistant — Opposition to the Government in 
 their Conduct to the Rebels — Letter to Sir Robert Walpole — 
 Convivial Habits — Enters Parliament — His Friends — Drum- 
 mond, Walpole, Lyttleton, Mansfield, Dr. Clark, Colonel Char- 
 teris, &c 269 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Political Events — The Disarming Act— State of Parties— Forbes 
 made Lord Advocate— The Malt Tax— The Shawfield's Moh in 
 Glasgow — The Lord Advocate's Proceedings— Robert Wodrov/ 
 — Remarkable Exercise of Power by the Lord Advocate — "War 
 with the Brewers of Edinburgh— Sir Robert Walpole— Illness
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 —A Journey to the Highlands — Abolition of the Scottish Se- 
 cretaryship — The Lord Advocate and the Origin of his Multifa- 
 rious Duties — Proposals as to theKevenue Laws 311 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Domestic Matters — His Brother John — His Succession to the 
 Estates — His Son — His Son's Tutor, Murdoch — Forbes as an 
 Author — The Porteous Mob — The Lord Advocate's Inquiries — 
 The Proceedings in the House of Lords — The Scottish Judges — 
 The Opposition in the Commons to the Measures against Edin- 
 burgh — The dangerous Aspect of the Discussion — The Part 
 taken by Eorbes, and its Effect — Made Lord President of the 
 Court of Session — State of the Bench — Influence of his Charac- 
 ter and Exertions — Paper on the Scottish Peerage — The State 
 of the Records — War against the Consumption of Tea 339 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Anticipation of a Eisingin the Highlands — His Scheme for raising 
 Highland Eegiments — Outbreak of the Rebellion — The President 
 proceeds to the North — His Interposition with the Clans — Sir 
 John Cope — Lord Loudon — The President's solitary Exertions 
 — Want of Support from Government — Retreat to the Isle of 
 Skye — Return — Despondency — Intercession for the Rebels — 
 Disappointment — Death 367
 
 SIMOX FEASER 
 LORD LOVAT. 
 
 1676—1747, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 His Birth — The Ilistory and FcucTs of his Family — His Education — 
 Compact with a Fencing-master — Enters the Army — Journey to 
 London Avith liis Cousin the Chief, and its I'esult — Death of tlie 
 Chief — Disputed Succession — Tlie Heiress — The Seizure of Lord 
 Saltoun. 
 
 Simon Fraser was born about the year 1676.* He 
 was tlie second son of Thomas Fraser, fourth son of Hujrh, 
 ninth Lord Lovat. Simon's mother was Sybilla, a daugliter 
 of Macleod of Macleod. His birth placed him in no very- 
 close vicinity to the honours and estates which he subse- 
 quently acquired. His father had three brothers older 
 than himself. One of these succeeding to their father in 
 1646, transmitted the succession on to his son.f This grand- 
 son, who succeeded as eleventh lord, had two sons and a 
 daughter. The former, like their granduncles, died young 
 and left no issue ; the daughter lived and was married, but 
 
 • There are discrepancies in the autliorities, but his own statement 
 at his trial, and the inscription on his coffin, are relied on as the best. 
 t Pedigree laid before the House of Lords. — Lovat Documents. 
 
 B
 
 2 THE LIFE OF 
 
 slie proved to be an obstacle that, as we sliall afterwards 
 find, was removeable. 
 
 A biographer must always make out a pedigree. He 
 who has the good fortune to commemorate the holder of a 
 hereditary title has less than the ordinary occasion to pre- 
 sent his readers with a finished tree, for the peerages will 
 generally be found to give all its authentic branches at 
 least. But established rule demands a brief sketch of the 
 history of the house of Eraser, The family was undoubt- 
 edly of Norman origin. It is a circmnstance worthy of 
 notice, that when the great families at the head of the 
 Highland tribes have been traced far back, they have 
 generally been found to be of Teutonic race. The chiefs 
 of the Macdonalds, Macleods, and ]\Iackintoshes, were of 
 Norwegian blood. Those of the Erasers, Gordons, Camp- 
 bells, Cumins, and many others, were Norman. It seems 
 as if the Celtic people — energetic, brave, and enduring as 
 they were, as followers — required, like some oriental races, 
 the leadership of captains issuing from races better fitted 
 for orCTanisinsr and commandino-. In some instances the 
 foreign family adopted a purely Celtic patronymic, from 
 the name of the sept of which they were the leaders. 
 In other cases, such as the Gordons and Erasers, the sept, 
 probably absorbing various small tribes, and admitting to 
 its bosom many stray members owning strange varieties 
 of uncouth Celtic denominations, took the name of the 
 leader; hence, we find the purest Erse spoken by people 
 enj oying the Norman names of a Gordon or a Cumin. But 
 whether the chief adopted the name of the tribe, or the tribe 
 that of the chief, the unyielding influence of old national cus- 
 toms and peculiarities prevailed over the higher civilisation 
 of the leaders, and their families gradually adapted them- 
 selves in speech and method of life to the people over whom
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 3 
 
 they held swav. Tlie same phenomenon was exhibited in 
 Ireland, where " the degenerate EngHsh," who, living 
 from generation to generation among the native Celtic 
 Irish, had adopted the customs and costume of those they 
 were expected to civilise, eHcited the ceaseless denuncia- 
 tions of the English government, and the penal wrath of 
 Parliament. David I. had passed his youth in England ; 
 had " rubbed oif the rust of Scottish barbarity," as Wil- 
 liam of Malmesbury complacently says ; and had married 
 an Enghsh woman. His education and tastes attached 
 him to the gallant race, who, wherever they went, were 
 first in arms and arts, and mingled the sternest powers of 
 man -svith his finest social enjoyments. He courted the 
 presence of the lordly Normans. They had nearly ex- 
 hausted England ; and the new territory opened to them, 
 if less rich and fertile, was still worth commanding. The 
 charters and other law documents, anterior to the war of 
 independence, are full of high-sounding Norman names, 
 many of which subsequently disappeared from the Scottish 
 nomenclature— Morevilles, De Viponts, D'Umfravilles 
 De Quinceys, D'Angains, &c. It was chiefly in the fer- 
 tile plains of the south, and in the neighbourhood of the 
 English border, that they were most thickly congregated ; 
 but some of them had found their way far north, to the 
 wild districts beyond the Grampians, where the greatness 
 of the estate was some compensation for its barrenness. 
 But wherever their lot was cast — amons: the Saxons of 
 INIid-Lothian, the Celts of Inverness, or their brother Norse- 
 men of Caithness — these heroes, who united the courage 
 and fierceness of the old sea-king to the polished suavity of 
 the Frank, became the lords of the land, and the old inha- 
 bitants of the soil became their subordinates. Leaders of 
 this description, some of them with estates both in Eng- 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE LIFE OF 
 
 land and Scotland, could not be expected to feel any deep in- 
 terest in the independence of tlie latter country, and of all 
 perversions of the term patriotism, that which applies it to the 
 conduct of the Norman adventurers in the early part of the 
 ■war between Scotland and the Edwards, is certainly among 
 themost preposterous. It is from that war that we must date 
 the commencement of Scottish nationality. If, anterior to 
 that epoch, there was a feeling of rivalry and jealousy on 
 the part of the Saxon population of Scotland, it would not 
 be against their brother Saxons of the south, but against 
 those haughty Normans who were encroaching on them 
 both. The Normans who had just migrated northwards — 
 Bruce and Balliol were Norman knio-hts — would not 
 participate in this feeling. But the war of twenty years 
 worked a change; and gradually taught those who lived 
 at one end of the island to consider those who belonn-ed 
 to the other as their enemies, without regard to race or 
 origin. Sir Simon Fraser, who died in 1291, had sworn 
 fealty to Edward I., and taken his seat in the Parliament 
 of Birmingham.* His son, " the flower of chivalry," be- 
 came one of the martyr heroes of the war of independence, 
 and attested his sincerity on tlie scaffold. After the battle 
 of Bannoc Burn, the severance had been completed; and 
 the two countries hated each other as cordially as " natural 
 enemies" are bound to hate. Many of the adventurers had 
 become naturalised Scotsmen, but others had lost their 
 northern domains, and after the reign of Bruce the tribes 
 of lordly adventurers ceased to flock to the throne of a hos- 
 pitable monarch. A few intermarriages brought members 
 of the English aristocracy to Scotland, but the occurrence 
 was comparatively rare. 
 
 Among those who had established themselves before 
 • Anderson's History of the Frasers. 11.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 5 
 
 this revolution were the Friselles or Frascrs, whose earhest 
 settlements were in East Lothian and Tweeddale. With 
 many other noble families in Scotland, they looked to some 
 great family of the high noblesse of France, bearing a name 
 nearly akin to their own, as the roof tree of their house; 
 just as the American finds his stock in some British family 
 bearinsf his name. Friselle has a French sound, and the 
 punning spirit of the heralds gave the Frasers for their 
 achievement a field azure seme, with seven /raises or straw- 
 berries. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the 
 Frezclier familv in France. The time at which the Frasers 
 changed their position from Lowland barons to Highland 
 chiefs, is not exactly known. Their territories in the 
 north belonged in the early part of the thirteenth century 
 to the Byssets, whose name also speaks of an origin cer- 
 tainly not Celtic, and more likely to be Norman than 
 Saxon. A strange tragedy, which casts a blot on " the 
 age of chivalry," put an end to the dominion of the Byssets, 
 and made room for the Frasers. At a tournament on the 
 border, the chief of the Byssets encountered Patrick, Earl 
 of Athol, and was overthrown. Soon afterwards the young 
 victor v/as murdered in the town of Haddington, and the 
 house in which the deed was done was burned by the as- 
 sassins. Bysset was charged with the murder. The south- 
 ern nobilitv rose in arms af>-ainst the northern chief, and the 
 king, who seems to have thought him innocent, could only 
 preserve him from their vengeance by forfeiting his estates 
 and banishing him from Scotland. He had probably no 
 further concern with the murder than his inability to re- 
 strain the fiery spirit of his Celtic followers, burning for 
 vengeance. Of the refinements of chivalry they would 
 form no more appreciation than American Indians, and 
 we shall find that in much later times, abstaining from
 
 6 THE LIFE OF 
 
 avenging tlie calamities of a chief, was almost the only 
 restraint to which their leaders could not make them 
 submit. 
 
 The first of the race of Fraser, who appears to have 
 
 superseded the Byssets in Invernesshire, was a Simon; 
 
 and after the practice of the Celts, his descendants were 
 
 called Mac Shimi, or son of Simon. On the tombstone of 
 
 his son, who died in 1764, the object of this memoir 
 
 is called JMac Shimi the XXXVIII; a numerical rank, 
 
 ■which would allow an average of only thirteen years for 
 
 each reign, calculating from the time when the family 
 
 seems to have actually resided in the north, and which, if 
 
 thirty years were allowed for each generation, would 
 
 carry the origin of the house back to the year 620. 
 
 The rise of the family was gradual and progressive, 
 
 their territories from year to year becoming broader by 
 
 intermarriages and other means of aggrandisement. The 
 
 date when they became lords of parliament, cannot be 
 
 assigned ; their dignity was held by tenure, not by 
 
 writ, and is found in existence in the middle of the 
 
 fifteenth century. Their wide estates, including flat, 
 
 fruitful land, as well as those Highland districts in which 
 
 the people lived by plunder or the chase, gave them a 
 
 mixed character ; — and the Baron of Lovat was at one time 
 
 a lord of parliament, partaking in the counsels of the 
 
 monarch ; at another the mountain chief retired within his 
 
 fastnesses, and more absolute and independent at Stra- 
 
 therick than the king at Ilolyrood. They had their 
 
 exaltations and reverses. On the accession of Mary, the 
 
 Lord Lovat was appointed justiciar north of the Forth, 
 
 or the king's chief judge, both in matters civil and 
 
 criminal, throughout that district of Scotland. Such an 
 
 elevation appears to have been viewed by his Highland
 
 SLAIOX LORD LOYAT. 7 
 
 neiglibours in some sucli spirit as that in wliicli a band 
 of poachers look on one of their number Avho becomes a 
 gamekeeper, and his lands ^vere ravaged by the clan 
 Cameron and the Macdonalds. The Erasers appear to 
 have reached the summit of their greatness before the 
 outbreak of the civil war, called " the great rebellion." 
 The strono; -handed rule of Crom-\vell, whose huire fortress 
 at Inverness frowned over the Lovat territories to the 
 right and to the left, was not favourable to the ac!r<:rrandise- 
 ment of Highland chiefs, yet the restoration found tliem 
 still a great and powerful house. At the funeral of the 
 tenth lord, in 167?, wc are told that " The Earl of 
 Murray brought 400 men from JVIurray, with their 
 drums covered with black. There were 1000 Frasers, and 
 Beaufort their colonel. There were a erreat number of armed 
 men, Mackenzies, Monros, Rosses, Mackintoshes, Grants, 
 Macdonalds, Camerons. There were 800 horse, of which 
 there were sixty from the town of Inverness. There 
 were eighty churchmen at this interment; among these 
 were twenty-two Frasers, Avith the bishops of Murray, 
 Ross, and Caithness. In a word, the confluence of people 
 •was truly grand."" And to this confluence the officiating 
 clergjonan preached from the text " Know ye not that 
 there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in 
 Israel."* 
 
 The son of this lord, a boy six years old at the time of 
 his death, had a large black spot on his upper lip, whence 
 he was called Mac Shimi Bal dhu; or, the black-spotted 
 son of Simon. All great families had their omens 
 and marks, with portentous legends attached to them. 
 At the time of this child's birth, it is recorded that round 
 
 * The history of the most- ancient, most noble, and illustrious family 
 of the Frasers. — MS. Advocates' Lihrary.
 
 8 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the old mansion, and the still older priory of Beauly 
 " a wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;" and a voice called 
 on him who would dare to look into the future fate of the 
 mighty race of Mac Shimi, to enter the sacred roof and take 
 from the altar the scroll on which their weird was in- 
 scribed by no mortal hands. The " Tutor of Lovat," 
 who appears to have been the same with our hero's father, 
 was the person who dared to seize the mystic scroll. It 
 was reported to the clansmen to be written in an ancient 
 and obsolete character on a venerable shred of parchment, 
 and to predict a train of evils coming from the rival sept 
 of the Mackenzies, only to be obviated by the Erasers 
 remaining united, and placing trust in each other. The 
 annalist proceeds to say that in his latter years the ninth 
 lord was oppressed with a deep melancholy, and that on 
 his death-bed he would frequently caress his boy, saying, 
 with tender sadness, " Oh, poor Hugh, what art thou by 
 thy black spot and mark marked for?" 
 
 " With this great man," says the affectionate annalist, 
 " the hopes of the Frasers died. While he lived they 
 enjoyed tranquillity, peace, and plenty, and feared no at- 
 tacks from their neighbours, nor intestine divisions among 
 themselves. Never was grief more sincere than upon this 
 occasion. Every eye was full of tears and every heart 
 full of terror."* 
 
 Thomas of Beaufort, born in 1631, the father of our 
 hero,f appears to have been a man of too ordinary a nature 
 
 * MS. history as above. 
 
 + This exprussion, so iiscful in any biographical work, and so par- 
 ticularly serviceable where other people are mentioned possessing the 
 same name with tliat of the man whose lite is specially commemorated, 
 ■was long in universal use, and in the latter end of its services fell under 
 the stigma of vulgarity. It has now been so long disused as to have 
 almost tlie respectability of antiquity, and it is lioped that its employ- 
 ment on this occasion will not recall the condemnatory epithet. The 
 author engages to use it sparingly.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 9 
 
 to afford materials for tlie family annalists. Tlie chro- 
 nicler already cited, says lie gave mucli of liis time to the 
 ninth lord on his death-bed, and " entertained him with 
 history and divinity." 
 
 His title, " Thomas of Beaufort," appears to liave 
 rested on a sort of family courtesy. Beaufort, otherwise 
 called Castle Dounie, did not belong to him while his 
 nephew and grand-nephew hved. It was the chief seat 
 of the family; and we are told that Thomas had a small 
 house in Tanich, in the parisli of Urray, in liosshire, 
 where it is likely that Simon was born.* 
 
 So illustrious a birth could not occur vv-ithout its 
 prognostic. We are told that at the propitious mo- 
 ment many swords hanging in the old hall of his an- 
 cestors leapt from their scsibbards, indicating how mighty 
 a man of war had been added to the race. He was edu- 
 cated at Kino-'s Collcixe, that one of th.e two seats of learn- 
 ing in Aberdeen, which has been from time immemorial, 
 and is to this day, the favourite haunt of the Celts. His 
 biographers say he made gi'cat and rapid progress in his 
 studies. This is invariably said in the biographical dic- 
 tionaries of scholars and philosophers ; it is not so frequent 
 an attribute of men whose subsequent history is such as 
 we are about to record. Yet one can easily believe that 
 Simon, with his brain ever at work, and his ambition 
 ever on the stretch, would let no one outstrip him. AVhen 
 it suited him to deal in the lofty and magnanimous, he 
 was prompt with scraps from the Latin classics. His 
 subsequent full and free i;se of the French indicates an 
 aptitude for languages seldom equalled, and his tone oi 
 writing and speaking was that of a scholar, always when 
 he thouirht fit that it should be so. 
 
 He was taken from college to hold a company in a 
 * MS. history of the Frasers.
 
 10 THE LIFE OF 
 
 regiment raised in the service of William and Mary, by 
 Lord Murray, son of tlie Marquis of Athol. His own 
 account of this transaction may be taken as true, and affords 
 an excellent forecast of his subsequent career. His cousin. 
 Lord Lovat had married a daughter of Lord Athol, and 
 her brother naturally desired that the young lord should 
 assist him in recrviiting. Simon, who had no toleration 
 for any treachery which was not of his own devising, 
 speaks of this proceeding against the exiled sovereign 
 as " an infamous commission," furthered by one who 
 " not daring to attack the Erasers in an open and decisive 
 manner, endeavoured to tarnish their reputation by ruin- 
 ing that of tlicir chief." " Lord Lovat was soon convinced 
 that every gentleman of his clan was in the highest de- 
 gree scandalised at the affront he had put upon them in 
 accepting this infamous commission. He therefore wrote 
 to his cousin, Simon of Beaufort, who was at that time 
 at the Royal University of Aberdeen, entreating him to 
 quit his studies, though he had just taken his degree of 
 master of arts, and was entering upon the science of civil 
 law."* 
 
 The object of sending for Simon was to inform him 
 that a captain's commission in the regiment was at his ser- 
 vice, if he would give his influence to persuade the clan 
 to become recruits. But Simon's virtue was incorruptible 
 — he rejected the bait with lofty scorn. He told the 
 head of his house " that he had for ever lost his honour 
 and his loyalty, and that possibly he would one day lose 
 his estates, in consequence of the infamous steps he had 
 taken — that for himself, he was so far from consenting ta 
 accept a commission in the regiment of that traitor Lord 
 IMurray, that he would immediately go home to his clan, 
 and prevent any one man from enlisting into it." Accord- 
 
 * Own Life, xi. Confirmed so far by the MS. history above cited.
 
 SmON LORD LOT AT. 11 
 
 ingly, lie used his influence so successfully, " tliat Lord 
 Lovat could not raise three men for his new company." 
 
 Simon, however, at last accepted the commission, and 
 exerted himself with ardour in the service of which it was 
 the reward. We have seen with what virtuous indigna- 
 tion he rejected the proposal of entering openly into the 
 service of the revolution monarch. The reader will be 
 curious to know how his unsuspicious innocence was cir- 
 cumvented. The solution shall be given in his own words, 
 
 *' Lord Murray observing' the inviolable loyalty of tbe Laird 
 of Beaufort to King James, and knowing at the same time of 
 what consequence it would be to gain him over in tbe business 
 of recruiting his regiment, intimated that be was desirous of 
 speaking to bim in bis closet. There he swore to tbe laird 
 that bis design in accepting tbe regiment from IGng William, 
 was that he might have a regiment well trained and accoutred 
 to join King James in a descent he had promised to make 
 during the ensuing summer."^ 
 
 Thus Simon's honour revolted ao^ainst takinff arms in 
 
 support of King William, but he had no objection to 
 
 entering his service, with the intention of betraying 
 
 his tl'ust and doing the work of the enemy. It appears, 
 
 however, by his own account, that he was in various 
 
 ways overmatched ; and as he was then but a very young 
 
 man, there is a modest candour in his exposure of the 
 
 superior craft of the man with whom he had to deal. 
 
 " Simon bad no sooner eno-aged in this re2:iment than he led 
 to it a complete company, almost entirely made up of the 
 young gentlemen of bis clan. Murray, however, broke bis 
 word with bim in tbe affair of tbe company, and obliged liim 
 to sit do\\n for some time with a commission of lieutenant of 
 grenadiers. In a word, Simon did not obtain a company in 
 tbe regiment till after having brought to it three hundred 
 recruits, and was then obliged to make a compensation in 
 money to tbe captain, who made room for bim. He did not 
 fail to be extremely disgusted at having suffered himself to be 
 
 * Own Life, p. 15.
 
 12 THE LIFE OF 
 
 over-reached by Lord Murray, whose treachery he conceived 
 to be of a very infamous nature,"* 
 
 But the most monstrous instance of Murray's treachery 
 remains to be told : lie compelled the regiment to take 
 the oath of abjuration " against King James and the 
 pretended Prince of "Wales !" If there be any truth in 
 the story of the closeting, and the avowal of devotion to 
 the Jacobite cause, his lordship must have felt that there 
 was a dash of the ludicrous in the reason he assigned for 
 taking this step. It was to prove the utter groundlessness 
 of a report that there were Jacobites among the officers of 
 the rerriment ! 
 
 In connexion with this period of liis life, there is extant 
 a legal document, so very unlike others of that class in its 
 purport, that it woidd be hazardous to make any sug- 
 gestion as to the circumstances in Avhich it originated, or 
 the motives of the parties to so unusual a solemnity. It is 
 a bond by which a fencing-master engages, during all the 
 days of his life, to teach Simon his art; and the price of 
 this life of slavery is the sum of 8/. Far from having been a 
 mimicry of the pomp of legal forms, which the reader 
 might suppose such a thing to be, it seems to have been 
 the ground of litigation, for it was enrolled in the books 
 of a court, for execution, and the copy from which it is 
 here printed is a certified extract : 
 
 " At Edinburg-li the fifteenth day of .July, 1696 years, it is 
 condescended, agreed, and finally ended between the parties 
 following-, viz., Captain Simon Fraser, of Beaufort, and Wil- 
 liam Machry, fencing-master, and indweller In Edinburgh, 
 upon tlie one and other parts, that is to say, the said William 
 Maclirv, for the causes underwritten, binds and obllges^hlni all 
 the days of his lifetime, to teach, learn, and instruct the said 
 Captain Simon Fraser. In the whole art of the sword, broad 
 and small, as well on horse as foot, in so far as the said Cap- 
 
 ♦ Own Life, p. 16.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 13 
 
 tain Fraser shall be capable ; and that he shall not conceal 
 from him any point or practice of the same, but shall use his 
 utmost endeavours to render him accomplished in the same art. 
 For the -which causes, and on the other part, the said Captain 
 Simon Fraser binds and oblif^es liim, his heirs, executors, and 
 successors whatsoever, thankfully to content and pay to the said 
 "William Machry, his heirs, executors, or assignees, all and haill 
 the sum of eiiiht pounds sterling money, and that betvilxt and 
 the term of Whitsunday next to come, together with the sum 
 of one pound ten shillings sterling of liquidated expenses of 
 failv; together also Avith the due and ordinar [annual-rent] 
 thereof, after the said term of payment, yearly, termly, and 
 proportionally, during the not payment; and both parties 
 obliges them to perform their parts of the premises, under the 
 pain of two pounds sterling money in name of penalty, attour 
 performance, consenting for the mair security to the registration 
 hereof in the books of Council and Session, or any others com- 
 petent, that horning on six davs, and all other execution need- 
 ful, may pass hereon in form as effelrs."* 
 
 In 1696,*tlie young; lord went to London with his bro- 
 ther-in-law, Murray, to be presented at court. It appears 
 that Simon managed to be one of the party, being, pro- 
 bably, led by a disinterested desire to watch over the for- 
 tunes of his chief, whom he describes as a youth of " con- 
 tracted understanding," and facile disposition. We are 
 told that the young chief went with the expectation of 
 being presented as the colonel of the regiment, but that 
 Murray found his own services in that command so highly 
 valued at court, that he must not think of discontinuing 
 them. Simon recommended his chief not to submit to 
 this indignity, but to resign his commission as lieutenant 
 and colonel. We may judge how disinterested was the 
 advice, when the resignation was accompanied by a desire 
 that the vacant commission should be given to Simon. 
 The resignation was graciously received, but not the ac- 
 companying suggestion. The commission was given to 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 14 THE LIFE OF 
 
 another Murray, and tlius Simon and the house of Athol 
 were at war. 
 
 The young lord, having devoted much of his time and 
 iittention to the taverns of London, an occupation In which 
 he would be disinterestedly aided by his cousin, now paid 
 the penalty In a broken constitution, and found his health 
 and strength falling Avlth alarming rapidity. He then 
 turned his face northwards, accompanied by his faithful 
 cousin. 
 
 So far as family matters were concerned, this expedi- 
 tion, by Simon's own account, was very successful, for 
 *' Lord Lovat declared that he regarded him as his own son. 
 And as Lord Athol had urged him to execute some papers 
 at his marriage, which might, perhaps, be prejudicial to 
 the claims of Simon, as his male heir, he obliged the young 
 laird [that is Simon] to send for an attorney, and made 
 an universal bequest to him of all his estates, in case he 
 died without issue male, leaving the ordinary dowries to 
 his daughters, and annulling and abjuring whatever he 
 might at any time have done, in opposition to the ancient 
 claims of his house In favour of male heirs." 
 
 The death of this, the eleventh Lord Lovat, occurred 
 on the 4th of September, 1696, immediately after his 
 return from London. Simon's account of his settlement 
 of the estate is substantially confirmed, though he was 
 charged at the time Avlth showing to one of the judges a 
 settlement in favour of himself, which being pronounced 
 by the legal functionary to be a forgery, he withdrew and 
 destroycd.=5= In subsequent proceedings two family set- 
 tlements were produced. The one was the deceased lord's 
 contract of marriage, dated the 18th of May, 1685, in 
 which the estate is destined to the issue male of the mar- 
 • Account of the Scotch Plot.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 15 
 
 rlage, In default of whom, " to tlie heirs ■whomsoever of 
 the marriage/' with a preference to the eldest daughter. 
 By the other, and later deed, he was found to have re- 
 voked this settlement, stating that it had been extracted 
 from him, by taking advantage of his easy temper, and ig- 
 norance of the affairs of his family. He therefore deter- 
 mines to restore the old male line, and settle his estates 
 on Thomas Traser, of Beaufort.* The date of this deed, 
 the 26th of March, 1696, corresponds with Simon's visit 
 to London, and the only error in his statement is, that he 
 speaks of the deed being in favour of himself, instead of 
 his father. 
 
 It is creditable both to his discretion and his filial duty, 
 that this the first remarkable instance of liis influence over 
 other minds, should have taken this direction. At the 
 same time he did not entirely forget himself, for there is 
 extant a bond by Lord Lovat, dated at London, the 26th 
 of March, 1696, by which he binds himself and his repre- 
 sentatives to pay 50,000 merks Scots — equal to 2757/. 15^. 
 sterling — to his cousin, " for the special love and affection 
 I bear to my cousin, Master Simon Fraser, eldest lawful 
 son to Thomas Fraser, of Beaufort, and for certain onerous 
 causes and others moving me." Although this document 
 professes to have been written " by Philip Dyer Scrivener, 
 in St. Martin's parish," it is prepared in the proper Scot- 
 tish style of the day, and must have been drawn up under 
 the eye of a competent Scottish lawyer.f No one can 
 deny that Simon was an able man of business. 
 
 Thomas of Beaufort immediately assumed the title oi 
 Lord Lovat, and Simon, his elder brother Alexander hav- 
 ing died, took, according to the Scottish custom of a baron's 
 
 » «• 
 
 ■ Information for Simon Fraser, of Lovat, against Hugh Macken- 
 zie," — a law paper. 
 t Lovat Documents.
 
 16 THE LIFE OF 
 
 eldest son, the title of The Master of Lovat.* This did 
 not, however, pass undisputed. The previous lord had 
 left a daughter who was heiress by the marriage contract, 
 and was supposed to have a title to represent the peerage. 
 Lord jMurrav, now Earl of Tullibardinc, the brother of the 
 widow, and uncle of the heiress, was Lord High Com- 
 missioner of Scotland, an officer whose functions resembled 
 those of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the present day. 
 He had the authority of a monarch in right of his office, 
 and sometimes greater power in virtue of his abilities. 
 Such a person was a formidable opponent, as justice was 
 then administered ; and he had made up his mind to fight 
 the battle of his relation. Simon tells an improbable story 
 of his own spirit and courage in a personal interview with 
 this formidable person, in the midst of his state and autho- 
 rity. By this account, the potentate had brought to the 
 meeting a barrister and an attorney, to record the resigna- 
 tion, which, overawed and dazzled, Simon was to have 
 assented to. But Simon forgets, in telling the story, 
 how useless his own resignation would be, while his father 
 was yet alive. It may easily be believed that Simon was 
 not a man to be either dazzled or confused ; but his ac- 
 count of his magnanimous answer must be held as a spe- 
 cimen rather of what he could pen than of what he could 
 speak. In either view it is sufficiently curious for in- 
 sertion. 
 
 " I do not know what hinders me, knave and coward as you 
 are, from running my sword througli your body. You are well 
 known for a poltroon, and if you had one grain of courage, you 
 would never have chosen your ground in the midst of your 
 
 * It has been generally said that Thomas, being a man of peaceable, 
 moderate disposition, never assumed the title of baron, tliougli liis son 
 took that of master. But this is not correct. Several documents, 
 some of tliem quoted in tliese pages, are extant, to which Thomas ap- 
 pends the signature " Lovat."
 
 SIMOX LORD LOVAT. 17 
 
 ^ards, to insult a gentleman of a better house and of a more 
 honourable birth than your ov.n ; but I sliall one day have my 
 revenge. As for the paltry company that I command in your 
 regiment, and which I bought dearer than any company was 
 bought before, it is the greatest disgrace to which I was ever 
 subject, to be for a moment under your command, and now, if 
 you please, you may give it to your footman."* 
 
 We shall afterwards find that the legal question about 
 tte succession to the peerage was discussed in a protracted 
 litigation. It became one of those " leading cases," as 
 they are termed, where legal principles and practices are 
 torn up by the roots, that every fibre may be anatomised. 
 
 In the mean time, a series of stirring incidents prevented 
 this matter from coming under the calm arbitration of the 
 law. In the first instance, if we may beheve ordinary 
 biographies of him, the master's sagacity discovered a 
 very simple and effectual method of ending the strife, 
 could he have accompHshed it — a matrimonial union with 
 the heiress. His rank in the clan, his talents, and his 
 plausible manners, so far gained over her young heart that 
 she agreed to elope with him. The management of this 
 project was undertaken by a clansman, Fraser of Tenechiel, 
 who conducted the young lady forth one winter niglit, in 
 such precipitate haste, that she is said to have walked 
 barefooted. The clansman, however, seized with sudden 
 apprehension or remorse, conducted her back to her 
 mother. From that time, it was sagaciously judged that 
 Castle Dounie was no safe asylum for the heiress, and she 
 was removed to the stronghold of the Athols at Dunkeld. 
 Afilictions and misfortunes subsequently attended the 
 steps of this unhappy woman ; yet must she, in her mo- 
 ments of deepest distress, have looked back with thank- 
 fulness to that misgiving in the conductor of her plot, 
 
 * Own Life, 35. 
 C
 
 18 THE LIFE OF 
 
 •which rescued her from the fate of being the life com- 
 panion of the man she then loved. 
 
 Our hero in his memoirs says, that the heiress was des- 
 tined for a member of the Athol family, by a " project 
 of that grey-headed tyrant, the Marquis of Athol, and of 
 the Earl of Tullibardine, his eldest son, the true heir to his 
 avarice and his other amiable quahties, to possess them- 
 selves of the estates of Lovat, and to enrich their family, 
 which was hitherto rich only in hungry lords."* If such 
 a design was entertained, it was soon abandoned, and a 
 sort of treaty was conducted with Lord Saltoun, the head 
 of a branch of the Fraser family in Aberdeenshire. Such 
 matters were, like royal marriages, conducted on states- 
 manlike principles regarding the balance of power and 
 the state of clan politics. It was thought a dangerous 
 project to force one who was not a Fraser on the clan, 
 and Saltoun was supposed to be a fitting instrument for 
 counteracting the rising influence of Simon. By what a 
 series of tumults and conflicts this, like many other pieces 
 of diplomacy, was finally baflled, we shall shortly see. 
 
 There were factions among the Frasers, as there will 
 be among the best governed nations. Two of the tribe 
 at least were in favour of a union between the heiress and 
 
 * The marquis, of course, receiyes a consideraLle portion of that 
 holy indignation -with which Simon, in his memoirs, visited all his 
 enemies. " For a month before his death, Lord Athol was in the 
 most deplorable condition, blaspheming God and crying that he was 
 already in Hell and surrounded Avith devils, for having oppressed the 
 Stewarts of Athol and the Frasers, and for having shed the innocent 
 blood of the Campbells. The clergymen of the neighbourhood, all of 
 whom came in their turn, to endeavour to compose him, were terrified 
 from approaching his bed, he crying out that he had nothing to do with 
 them, and that he was already encompassed with devils. And in this 
 infernal kind of madness the marquis died, an exemplary judgment of 
 God, which ought to make those tremble who oppress the just and 
 destroj' the innocent [to wit, himself, Simon Fraser], for sooner or later 
 their punishment is certain; and, if they are spared in this world, it is 
 only to aggravate their torments in the world to come." Own Life. p. 41.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 19 
 
 the house of Saltoun, and made their wishes known to him. 
 This treason, Simon treats with a sort of pious horror, 
 and Hke an old supporter of Sahuasius and divine rio-ht. 
 " Robert the prime, author of these misfortunes," he says, 
 " died under the visible judgment of God; and his fellow 
 knave, Thomas Fraser, may yet be overtaken with the 
 just punishment of his crimes." Simon, finding that these 
 elements of strife were in a position to give him employ- 
 ment suitable to Ms taste, left Edinburgh and his post 
 in the army, and presented himself to the clan. One of 
 his first operations was the preparation of a threatenino- 
 letter to Lord Saltoun and his son, signed by his father, 
 with the peerage title, and by twenty other gentlemen, cer- 
 tainly the most conspicuous and important men of the clan, 
 but not by himself Although it does not show the plausibi- 
 lity and diffuse eloquence of many of his other writings — 
 he was then but a young man — this clan state-paper does 
 credit to his diplomatic abilities.* The most emphatic 
 sentence is this: "We have put on a full resolution to 
 defend our lands, possessions, goods, lives, wives, children, 
 liberties, and privileges of free subjects which lie at the 
 stake, against all invading and insulting avarice, ambition, 
 and oppression, pro aris etfocis contra omnes mortales — the 
 king's majesty, his authority and laws only excepted." 
 Through this letter we can trace a deep plot for getting 
 possession of the person of the heiress. Allusion is made 
 to a rumour that she is to be married to Lord Saltoun's 
 son, in order that the clan may be conciHated by a 
 Traser being put at its head. They tell him not to have 
 any reliance on the sincerity of the Athol family, unless 
 they will consent to put the heiress or " the child," as 
 she is called, into the hands of Saltoun; and he is re- 
 » It is printed at length. State Trials XIV., 356. 
 C2
 
 20 THE LIFE OF 
 
 commended to demand her person. One cannot help be- 
 lieving that this advice was given that the lady might 
 be put into hands where she would be more accessible 
 than she was when in the guardianship of the powerful 
 house of Athol. Indeed, Saltoun is very plainly told 
 that she must, when in his hands, be put at the disposal 
 of the clan, " and when he hath got the child, we advise 
 that nothini]^ be done without the unanimous consent of 
 the friends here, otherways we assure my Lord Saltoun, 
 by these, that it will occasion a rupture that neither this 
 nor the next and perhaps no succeeding age will ce- 
 ment." 
 
 Lord Saltoun, though his seat in Aberdeenshire lay rather 
 farther north than Inverness, belonged to a part of the 
 country where the Highlanders and their habits were 
 perhaps less known than in any other part of Scotland, 
 unless it mi^ht be the eastern district of Fife, or the Enar- 
 lish border. The Highlander is as distinct a being from 
 the Lowlander, as the Italian from the German, or the 
 Arab from the CafFre; and there is probably no part of 
 the world where the crossing of a frontier so completely 
 chano-es the livinsf world in which the traveller moves, as 
 the crosslnf>; of the Hisrhland line. The southern extre- 
 mity of the territory occupied by the Celtic races, is the 
 northern bank of the Firth of Clyde. Thence stretching 
 northwards, they occupy generally tlie western and more 
 mountainous part of the country; and wherever the coast 
 stretches eastward, it is the farther from the districts oc- 
 cupied by the Celtic race. Lord Saltoun's estates lay 
 far to the east, in Aberdeenshire; and it is likely that 
 he was but little acquainted with the habits of his name- 
 sakes beyond the Highland line. He probably did not 
 know that they were a people among whom the wishes of
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 21 
 
 tlie clan went muck further tlian the law of property and 
 succession; or, as Simon himself emphatically expresses it, 
 " The Hirrhland clans did not consider themselves as bound 
 by the letter of the law, like the inhabitants of the low 
 country, but to a man would regard it as their honour and 
 their boast, to cut the throat, or to blow out the brains of 
 any one, be he who he would, who should dare to disturb 
 the repose of their laird." 
 
 In an evil hour, Saltoun ventured among these people, 
 desiring in the simphcity of his heart to settle all differ- 
 ences regarding the succession, and to show all parties 
 how right and necessary a thing it was that the law 
 should have its course. The dowager lady, the object of 
 his visit, still occupied the family mansion, and probably 
 retained the allegiance of the cultivated district by which it 
 was surrounded ; but Thomas and his men reigned supreme 
 in the wilds of Stratherick. Saltoun was about to leave 
 Castle Dounie, when it occurred to our hero to gather 
 together a few armed followers, and meet him on the 
 way. The thought seems to have been a sudden one: 
 he probably had no concerted plan, but was prepared to 
 improve the chances which fortune might cast up. He 
 gives a long history of engagements to hold amicable in- 
 terviews, made by Saltoun and broken; and of that noble- 
 man having intended to evade a promised meeting on 
 the road, by starting early on his journey. It was, if we 
 may believe Lovat's account, simply with the ^dew of 
 covmteractino; this manoeuvre, and forcincr on an inter- 
 view, wherein he might encounter his intriguing oppo- 
 nent, and abash him with his own honest countenance, 
 that very early on the 6th of October, 1697, our hero 
 set forth from the wilds of Stratherick, at the head of a 
 band of trusty followers. Proceeding northvrard, he
 
 22 THE LIFE OF 
 
 passed tlirougli tlie town of Inverness, and across the 
 noble bridge wliicli spans the rapid river. " The inha- 
 bitants," he tells us, " observing their alert and spirited 
 appearance, lifted iip their hands to Heaven, and prayed 
 God to prosper their enterprise." It is not improbable, 
 that the inhabitants, having from long experience a whole- 
 some dread of visits from the Strathericlc men, held up 
 their hands in pious thankfulness, on discovering that 
 they themselves, and their goods and effects, were not the 
 immediate object of the expedition. 
 
 The young chief and his followers encountered Lord 
 Saltoun and Lord Mungo Murray at the wood of Bun- 
 chrew, the ancestral estate of Duncan Forbes, wdiere 
 he was probably then living, a boy ten years old. The 
 rough banks in the neighbourhood, where huge boulders 
 of conglomerate lie like the stones with which a race 
 of giants might have fought, would afford excellent ground 
 for an ambuscade,'"' Saltoun and his party were all taken 
 prisoners. We have no description of the encounter, but 
 such as Simon himself has been pleased to furnish, in his 
 Memoirs and Letters. The latter, written on the im- 
 pulse of the moment, are more to be relied on than the 
 former. ■ The following pretty clear narrative, appears to 
 liave been written just after the first feelings of triumph 
 had subsided, when alarms were shadowing themselves 
 forth, and before the young aggressor had chosen the 
 desperate line of conduct he afterwards adopted. 
 
 * Very near thn same spot, a savage conflict occurred in the four- 
 teenth century. The Monroes of llosshire liaving made a very suc- 
 cessful raid in tlie Lowlands, Avere returning nortlnvards Avith the cattle 
 they had seized. It was an old rule of Highland international law, that 
 the plunderer, passing with his acquisitions througli tlie territory of 
 any cliief, who by virtue of the mountainous character of his property, 
 was entitled to be considered a brotlier in trade, should receive a per 
 centage or tax on the booty, whicli lias been elegantlj'- translated as 
 Eoad Collop. A question arose on this occasion, between the Macpher-
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 23 
 
 " Ther hapened ane unlukie accident, that is like, if God 
 and good friends do not prevent it, utterly to extirpat not only 
 my father's family, but ye ^rhole name of Fraser. What they 
 are and were in this and preceding' governments I believe you 
 suficiently know. The thing is this. Notwithstanding that we 
 are all convinced, that my Lord Athole does desire to mary ye 
 pretended aires to one of his grand childeren, yet to divide our 
 name in factions, he did give out y' he desired to give ye aires to 
 my Lord Fraser of Saltoun his son. This Saltoun being a very 
 ■worldly man, was very greedy of the thoughts of it, and my 
 father being informed y* he did desig-n to prosecute ye matter 
 ■w*out asking ye consent of ye name, wrote a letter to him, and 
 fifty gentlemen subscribing it with him, to forbid Saltoun to 
 medle in y^ affair w^out ye consent of ye name, and particu- 
 lourly not to come to this country till he was calld, otherwayes 
 y* he would make a breach y* he could not make up. Not- 
 withstanding of this fair advertesment, he came and intruded 
 upon us, and made it his whole bvisiness to calumniat me 
 to my friends, and to tell that I hade no right, and that I gave 
 over all my pretensions to him. All the people I spoke to 
 cried out against me upon this head. So y* I found not only 
 my interest but my reputation at the stake, quh made me write 
 a line to my Ld Saltoun to meet me in ye head of ye countery, 
 to give answer to all y^ I had to say to him in fair and honor- 
 able terms. Insted of keeping ye appointment, he took horse 
 mediately and sixteen horsemen well armed and mounted, and 
 as I came about two miles from Inverness, I was surprised to 
 hear of his coming. I had eight horsemen with me, all with- 
 out pistoUs save one, and myself, and my father with a small 
 partie of foot had crossed Lochness to meet w'^ Saltomi. I was 
 
 sons and the Monroes, as to the proper amount of the tax, and the 
 opposing parties meeting among the rocks near Bunchrew, a fight took 
 place, remarkable even among Highland conflicts, for the exterminat- 
 ing spirit in which it was conducted on both sides. It is worthy of 
 remark, by the way, that many of the most savage Celtic wars were 
 occasioned by pecimiary matters. It is, perhaps, from an adaptation 
 of this warlike spirit to modern habits and institutions, that the High- 
 landers have been found, during the last eighty years, to be the most 
 inexhaustible litigants in the country, and a prodigious blessing to the 
 Parliament house. The ferocity of the combat about the Eoad CoUop 
 was evinced by a collection having been made not many years ago of 
 the bones of the slain, which, after the lapse of four centuries and a 
 half Avere found to be of considerable number. — Andersoiis History, 
 p. 54, et seq.
 
 24 THE LIFE OF 
 
 SO insenced against Saltoun and his calumnies, and slig-liting' to 
 meet wth me or my father, that I was resolved to dye or be fit 
 sides w'^ him. So I was w'^ these eight gentlemen rideing to 
 the meeting — Saltoun apears with his sixteen horse. So I told 
 those was w^ me I desire to fight him, and accordingly we 
 went on, and q" they were w%in pistoll shot, we desired them 
 to stand and fight. So ther was none of y"^ y^ would stir save 
 Saltouu y*^ coked one of his pistols. So we cryed out that they 
 behoved to fight or be taken, and accordingly I came and tooke 
 Saltoun's pistoles from liim, and all the rest stood stupifyed w^ 
 y^ amies before y"\ They were so many more in number, y*^ 
 we could not venter in among them to disarm them, but stood 
 Av% our armes presented till we sent for some foote, and than 
 made y'" all prisoners, and keeps y™ in a house, every one se- 
 perate from another. I know y'^ this unhapy accident may 
 mine not only me but ye whole name who have unanimously 
 joined with me. But I hope y* your clemency y* was always 
 ready to preserve ye people y* you were among, will now be 
 aparent to preserve this poor name and family, and all ye rela- 
 tions y"^ will venter w'' y"'. My Lady Lovat and I is upon a 
 treaty, and has written to you to send no forces against us, 
 because I told her y* my pledges were my security, and y^ they 
 would certainly suffer before me or mine. Upon all my honor 
 this is ye true accompt of ye matter, and I thro myself at your 
 feet, hoping y* you will give me your advice, and doquliat lyes 
 in your power q'' is much, to preserve ye lives of 1500 y*- are 
 ready to dy w'^ me, who am yours whili I live. 
 
 " Sim. Fraseu."* 
 
 This letter appears to have been intended for Sir John 
 
 * This letter is printed literatim from the autograph. It affords 
 a fair specimen of Simon's method of epistolary correspondence, and 
 may stand, in its spelliuir, as a type of the whole. It is some- 
 times a difficult point to decide, whether, when documents are quoted, 
 the precise orthoji;raphy of the original should be given. Tlie author's 
 notion is, that whatever maybe said for the propriety of printing very 
 ancient documents, which mark a great difference in orthography and 
 perliaps in tlie structure of the language, literatim, the same exactness 
 in documents comparatively recent, wlierc there are only slight differ- 
 ences in spelling, only tends to interrupt the reader; while tlie system is 
 verj' troublesome to correctors of the press, as the compositors generally 
 look on the old spelling as a mistake wliich tlicy are bound to correct. 
 In futm-e, tlien, it is not to be a rule that the letters referred to in these 
 pages shall be given in their original spelling.
 
 1 
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 25 
 
 Hill, governor of Fort William, to Avliom, in a contem- 
 porary note, he say?, " I \:i\\ keep no body of men at all 
 together, but a few prettie fellows,* to guard myself and 
 the prisoners."']- 
 
 But if he made this resolution, he did not adhere to it. 
 The successful raid was to him like the first taste of 
 blood to the lion's whelp. New outrages that he had 
 never dreamed of, took shape before his excited appetite. 
 He had committed an aggression for which he would 
 suffer, whenever his opponents had the means of avenging 
 it; so he resolved to strengthen his hands, and drag his fol- 
 lowers deeper into lawless violence. 
 
 * In the Ilighlands, " a pretty fellow" means a strong powerful-made 
 man. 
 
 7 Autograph ilS.
 
 26 THE LIFE OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Gathering of the Clan — Seizure and Forced Marriage of the 
 Dowager Lady — The Island of Aigas — The Testimony of the Wit- 
 nesses — The Indignation of the Athol Family — Arming of the Ad- 
 verse Clans — War in the Fraser Country — Denunciations of the Privy 
 Council — Joiirney to St. Germaius and to Loo — Interview with Wil- 
 liam III. — Partial Pardon — Prosecution by the Athol Family — His 
 Bonds the Gentlemen of his Clan — His Flight — His Brother John 
 and the Outrages on his Clan. 
 
 Before tliese outrages, tlie Erasers seem to have been 
 enjoying a degree of repose and tranquillity, wliicli, in 
 their hot mountain blood must have been felt as an un- 
 wholesome stagnation. It would be to the delight of their 
 fierce natures that one mornino; the war coronach was 
 heard along Stratherick and Strathglass, and the crossterie, 
 or fiery cross, passed on. This mysterious symbol of haste 
 and danger bears the type of a hoary antiquity, which 
 lias bafiled the research of antiquaries. It seems, indeed, 
 to have arisen from rites older than the days of Christia- 
 nity. The burning cross of wood, to give it the proper 
 mystical efficacy, had to be dipped in the blood of a 
 slaughtered goat. The form of the symbol was Christian, 
 but the oblation has an ancient pagan character; and it is 
 not unlikely that the priests of the new and purer worship, 
 unable totally to supersede the ancient idolatrous cere- 
 monies, were content to blend them with the gentler ordi- 
 nances of Christianity. In the insurrection of 1745, when
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 27 
 
 all other and most urf]jent methods for raisin 2^ men had 
 failed, the fiery cross exercised a traditional sway over 
 their feelings, which was responded to, when coercion, 
 threats, and promises had been used in vain.* 
 
 From a hundred who appear to have congregated on 
 the first day, five hundred men-at-arms were now at the 
 disposal of the young chief. His next achievement — it is 
 said, indeed, to have been performed on the same day 
 with the capture of Lord Saltoun's party — was the seizure 
 of Castle Dounie, where the dowager lady resided. The 
 lady was kept prisoner in her own castle. The other 
 captives were taken first to the tower of Fanellan, where, 
 when they looked forth from their window in the morning, 
 they beheld a huge gallows erected, in a situation to com- 
 mand their particular notice. They were subsequently 
 taken to the island of Aigas, where they were kept in a 
 *' creel house," or a cottage made Avith poles and wythes, 
 a sort of large wicker-ware cage, such as the fabric of 
 some of the most miserable of the Highland huts still con- 
 sists of; the natural position of the island rendered further 
 means of protection mmecessary. Lord Saltoun's health 
 sank imder this treatment, and he was dismissed ; we are 
 not distinctly told in what manner. A few days after- 
 wards Lord Mungo Murray was allowed to follow him; 
 the conspirators were occupied with other projects. 
 
 The whole of these wild acts were evidently the results 
 of a series of impulses. They were the unpremeditated 
 
 * The indictment says, " Likeas, that thev might raise and promote 
 their foresaid manifest insurrection and rebellion, they sent the fiery 
 cross through the country, a sign and symbol used amongst them to 
 gather their complices in armes, for making insurrections and rebellions 
 and other unlawful convocations." St. Tr. xiv. 361. At Lovat's im- 
 peachment, the passage of the fiery cross tlirough the country was at- 
 tested by some of the witnesses.
 
 28 THE LIFE OF 
 
 work of savage nature, let loose, and unexpectedly encoun- 
 tering no opposition. It is useless to apply to them tlie 
 laws of sedate calculation, or rational cause and effect. 
 Lovat became sedate and calculating in afterlife, but lie 
 was then in his wild youth. No rational theory will 
 account for his next step — the forcing the dowager lady 
 into a marriage with him, and committing violence on her 
 person. We have the particulars of this transaction 
 chiefly in the indictment brought against the father and 
 son, and the recorded testimony of tlie witnesses. In the 
 former it is thus told : 
 
 " Not only the said Thomas and Simon Frasers and tlieir 
 said complices refused to lay down arms and desist from 
 their violence when commanded and cliarged by the Sheriff of 
 Inverness ; but going on in their villanous barbarities, they 
 keeped the said lady dowager in the most miserable captivity, 
 and when nothing that she could propose or promise would 
 satisfy them, the said Captain Simon Fraser takes up the most 
 mad and villanous resolution that ever was heard of ; for all 
 in a sudden, he and his said complices make the lady close 
 prisoner in lier chamber under his armed guards, and then 
 come upon her with the said Mr. Robert iMunro, minister at 
 Abertarff,* and three or four ruffians, in the night-time, about 
 two or three In the niorning-, of the month of October last, or one 
 or other of the days of the said month of October last, and having 
 
 dragged out her maids, Agnes McBryar and Fraser, 
 
 he proposes to the lady that she should marry him, and when 
 she fell in lamenting and crying, the great pipe was blown up 
 to drown her cries, and the wicked villains ordered the minister 
 to proceed. And though she protested with tears and cries, 
 and also offered all promises of any thing else, and declared 
 she would sacrifice her life sooner than consent to their pro- 
 posal, nevertheless, the said minister proceeds, and declares 
 them married persons, and Hugli Fraser, of Klnmonavlc, and 
 the said Hutcheon Olg, both of them thieves and murderers, 
 are appointed for her waiting maids. And though she often 
 swarved [fainted], and again cried out most piteously, yet no 
 
 * One of the parties indicted.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 29 
 
 relenting. But the bag- pipe is blown up as formerly, and the 
 foresaid ruffians rent off her clothes, cutting her stays v.ith 
 their dirks, and so thrust her into her bed."* 
 
 Amelia Reoch, one of her servants, gave testimony 
 bearino- out the whole of these circumstances, with a 
 minuteness that admits not of being repeated. Her 
 picture of tlie effect on the victim is touching. She 
 says: 
 
 " Next moraing she went into the lady's chamber, and saw 
 her head hang over the bed, and nothing upon it except her 
 handkerchief ; the deponent did see all the lady's face s\Yollen, 
 and she spoke nothing, but gave her a broad look ; and the 
 deponent thought my lady was not sensible for a day or two 
 thereafter, for she did not know Lord Mungo her brother, the 
 next morning, when he came to see her. And when the ser- 
 vant told her, ' here is your brother at the bedside,' the lady 
 asked 'what brother?' Albeit, she was looking him in the 
 face with fair daylight. Depones, that when she and the other 
 servants were carried by force tlie first night out of my lady's 
 chamber, the lady stood up and held out her arms and cried ; 
 and when Dumballoch's lady came the next morning to the 
 room, and called her madam, my lady answered, ' call me not 
 madam, but the most miserable wretch alive.'"* 
 
 Another witness, Leonard Robertson, of Straloch, evi- 
 dently not a Highlander, said that he had negotiated 
 articles of stipulation for the dowager and Lord Mungo; 
 that the dowager signed them; but that, instead of her 
 beino- released in terms of the neg;otiation, the sentinels 
 were doubled, and ho himself imprisoned. " That, com- 
 plaining to Captain Simon, the deponent was permitted to 
 pay a visit to my lady, whom he saw in a very disconso- 
 late position, and softly spoke in his ear, ' For Christ's 
 sake take me out of this place, eitlier dead or alive;' and 
 that he observed my lady's face all swollen, and she fell 
 * St. Tr. xir. 356. t Somers's Tracts, xii. 4-14-5.
 
 30 THE LIFE OF 
 
 into a swoon the time the deponent was with her. And 
 the lady suspecting that he had not fully heard what she 
 had spoken to him, sent her servant, Mrs. Mac Bryar, 
 with commission to repeat the same words to him, which 
 she did. And the deponent thinks Captain Simon had 
 at least 300 men with him at that time, all well armed, in 
 and about the house of Castle Dounie, and that he heard 
 at the time some person lamenting, and the bagpipe played 
 about the same ^time, but knows not whether it was to 
 drown the voice or not." 
 
 " And further depones, that the next time he saw my lady 
 was, that the Laird of Culloden and the deponent came to the 
 water-side near the Isle of Aigas ; and Captain Simon having 
 come over to them by boat, the deponent desired to see my 
 lady, which he shunned, telling him, that my lady did not de- 
 sire to see him : and the deponent replied, that it was not done 
 like a comrade, seeing that it was reported at Inverness, that my 
 lady was dead, or near expiring. Captain Simon answered that 
 he should be soon cleared of the contrary ; and returning into 
 his boat, he caused bring out my lady in their sight, but so 
 weak that she Avas supported by two, and then carried her 
 back again to a little house upon that island."* 
 
 The Island of Aigas, in which Simon successively im- 
 prisoned his victims, is an excellent natural gaol. The 
 river Beauly, a powerful and abundant stream, here passes 
 from the level glens of Strathglass where it meanders 
 slowly through marshy meadows, through a succession of 
 torrents to the town of Beauly, where it meets the sea. The 
 water cuts its way through conglomerate rocks, which meet 
 its surface so precipitously, that in very few places could a 
 person struggling at the edge of the torrent find a footing 
 on the shore. At Aigas the waters are divided by a pro- 
 montory, on either side of which the river rushes deep 
 and furious. Wherever it is not a foaming torrent, it 
 * Somers's Tracts, xii., 443-4.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 31 
 
 eddies into inky, hopeless pools, overtowered by mural 
 precipices. At the upper part of the island the banks are 
 not precipitous, and there, where the waters are wider 
 and less furious, a boat may pass across. Tlie Bcauly 
 •water is subject to great inequalities, and the people in 
 the neighbourhood say, that in dry seasons there are por- 
 tions of it fordable; but it is difficult for one contem- 
 plating its black tumultuous waters at other times to be- 
 lieve how this could be. And here was placed the forlorn 
 woman, to listen to the 
 
 " Riv^er roaring to the blast, 
 
 Around its dark and desert isle."* 
 
 * The -wTiter of this little book had an opportunity of testing the 
 strength of local tradition in'connexion with this circumstance. Loiter- 
 ing one day in the neighbourhood of Aigas and the rapids on tlie river, 
 called the Falls of Kihnorac and the Dliruim, he askeds everal of the 
 peasantry if they had any tradition, of the island being the place where 
 the famous Lord Lovat had confined his wife. They all professed ig- 
 norance of any such transaction, and the good-humoured landlord of a 
 small public-house, close to the island, in his own simple ^va.y, exhibiting 
 the general feehng of attachment to a kind, considerate landlord, volun- 
 teered the remark, that at all events the present Lord Lovat was the 
 last man in the world to do any thing of that kind. This confirmed an 
 opinion previously formed, that tradition, unless supported by adventi- 
 tious aid, rarely keeps togetlier for longer than a century. Probably 
 dynasties of kings or great chiefs, with their succession of professional 
 bards, whose duty it was to commemorate the dynasty and its acts, may 
 have been able to keep up the memory of their actions somewhat exag- 
 gerated by continuity for many generations. But the ordinary tradi- 
 tions which are conveniently scattered through all mteresting districts 
 for the benefit of tourists, are revived by contemporary literature, if not 
 based on it. Commemorations of Ossian and JFingal are perpetually 
 encountered in all parts of Scotland, but we may be certain that none 
 of them are older than the days of .lames IMacpherson. Rob Roy has 
 become very ubiquitous since the pubhcation of Scott's novel. If he had 
 made the seizure of Lady Lovat the subject either of poetry or prose, it 
 would have assumed a bright place in local tradition. At Loch Catrine 
 one may now behold the interesting phenomenon of a stratum of tradi- 
 tion in the course of formation. The guides point out to unsuspecting 
 citizens the place where Fitzjames's gallant grey fell, the rock on which 
 he blew his horn, the place of the combat, &c., with a precision that does 
 credit to their professional training. They are beginning to believe that 
 all these incidents have passed to them through a long train of tradition; 
 and fifty years hence it will be difficult for the traveller to determine 
 ■whether the poem is founded on the tradition, or the tradition on the 
 poem.
 
 32 THE LIFE OF 
 
 There is no appearance of exaggeration or conspiracy in 
 tlie evidence of the witnesses, and although the trial was 
 conducted in a manner utterly at variance with all sound 
 principles of criminal jurisprudence, it is impossible to 
 disbelieve the truth of their statements, and of the gene- 
 ral charsfes a2:ainst the criminal. In his Memoirs, he 
 denies them all in a very lofty manner. He says, that he 
 never went near the dowager lady himself, and that he 
 had no reason to believe that those employed in the duty 
 of imprisoning her, had committed any act of improper 
 violence. 
 
 " Meanwhile, the whole country knew that the master of 
 Lovat, at the age of about twenty years, well educated, at the 
 head of an ancient house, and of a brave and respectable clan, 
 might have aspired to any match in the kingdom. Indeed he 
 ranked among his ancestors, on the female side, three daugh- 
 ters of the royal house of Stuart, together with the daughters 
 of the most ancient peers, and the first nobility in Scotland. 
 He had no reason therefore to commit the smallest violence 
 upon a widov,', Avho was old enough to be his mother, dwarf- 
 ish in her person and deformed in her shape, and with no 
 other fortune than a jointure of two hundred and fifty pounds 
 a year, which itself was dependent upon his good pleasure as 
 master of Lovat." 
 
 The accumulation of improbabilities — old age, dwarf- 
 ishness, and deformity — -wound up with the allusion to 
 the dowager's source of income, is not calculated to give 
 much assistance to the denial. Moreover, while the re- 
 corded evidence contradicts the statement that there Avas 
 no violence, there are other documents wliich contradict 
 the master's assertion, or rather insinuation, that he did 
 not consider himself married to the dowager lady. His 
 father wrote to the Duke of Argyle, thus : 
 
 " We have gained a considerable advantage, by my eldest 
 son being married to the dowager of Lovat; and if it please 
 God they live some years together, our circumstances will be
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 33 
 
 rery good. Our enemies are so galled at it, that there is 
 nothing malice and cruelty can invent, hut they design and 
 practise against us; so that ue are forced to betake us to the 
 hills and keep spies at all arts;* by which among many other 
 difficulties, this is one of the greatest, that my daughter-in-law 
 being a tender creature, fatigue and fear of bloodshed may put 
 an end to her, which would make our condition worse than 
 ever. They'll have us impeached for a convocation and making 
 prisoner of the Lord Saltoun, Lord Mvmgo Murray, with a 
 half dozen more gentlemen; for which we were charged by the 
 sheriff, compeared before him, were fined, obtained a discharge 
 of onr fines, and secured the peace. Also, they'll have my son and 
 his complices guilty of a rape, though his wife was married to 
 him by a minister, and they have lived always since as maa 
 and wife. My Lord, if all our enemies had descended to the 
 blackest cell in Hell, and there had studied the most wicked 
 and cruel revenges that malice or that place could invent 
 against us, it need not surprise any, considering that their 
 design of appropriating the estate and following of Lovat to 
 themselves, is made liable to more difficulties by that match.""!" 
 
 Indeed in Simon's own correspondence at the time, 
 the marriage is amply acknowledged. He says to John 
 Forbes, of Culloden, that the 
 
 " Lords at Inverness, with the rest of my implacable enemies, 
 does so confound my wife that she is uneasy till she see them. 
 I am afraid that they are so mad with this disappointment, that 
 they will propose something to her that is dangerous, her 
 brother having" such power with her:' — and again, " I am very 
 hopeful in my dear wife's constancy if they do not put her to 
 death."j 
 
 If we are to believe some of his biographers, his vic- 
 tim became attached to him, and viewed tlic restoration 
 to her kindred as a sacrifice. This is not impossible. 
 Simon, if plain, was eloquent and pleasing, even fascinat- 
 ing; and like one who resembled him in personal and 
 moral unloveliness, John Wilkes, he was almost irresist- 
 
 * That is, at all points of the compass. f Carstares' State 
 
 Papers. 434. ^ Culloden Papers, 23, 24. 
 
 D
 
 34 THE LIFE OF 
 
 iblo wlien lie laid regular siege to tlie female heart. He 
 niiglit say with Richard, 
 
 " Was ever woman m this humour woo'd, 
 
 Was ever woman in this humour won ? 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " To take her In her heart's extremest hate, 
 
 Witli curses in her mouth — tears in her eyes. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " And I no friends to hack my suit withal 
 But the plain devil, and dissembling' looks. 
 And yet to win her — all the world to notliing !" 
 
 This version of the story is not without some support 
 from documents, which show that the lady would not 
 join in the criminal charges against her persecutor. The 
 Earl of Argyle, whose testimony must, however, be taken 
 with caution, as he was a partisan of the Frasers, says, 
 writing to Principal Carstares "I do assure you he 
 [Simon Eraser] is content to sist himself at the bar, and 
 take his fate ; and, which is more, he will adduce no wit- 
 nesses, but refer all to the Lady Lovat's own oath if she 
 did not voluntarily marry, sent for the minister herself, 
 and, which is more, if what passed betwixt them in con- 
 sequence of the marriage, was not as much her inclina- 
 tion as his." * 
 
 But whether she were reconciled or not, was afterwards 
 to the master a matter of indifference. He treated the 
 forced ceremony as a youthful frolic ; and the victim of it 
 lived to see him twice married, and rising to the pinnacle of 
 fortune, as one who could ovcrstride the laws of both God 
 and man. Her days seem not to have been shortened by her 
 hardships, for she lived till the year 1743, and died just 
 too soon to see the signal downfall of her oppressor. 
 
 It will readily be believed that when these things tran- 
 * Carstares' State Papers, 432.
 
 SIMOX LORD LOVAT. 35 
 
 spired, justice panted to be avenged. Not onlyliad tlie law- 
 been outraged — that was in itself a secondary matter — but 
 one of tlie greatest houses in Scotland had been injured, in- 
 sulted, stabbed in its honour to tlie very heart. But how 
 "was any public spirited magistrate or active officer to 
 penetrate into the country of the Frasers, a duty which, 
 fifty or sixty years later, could not have been accomplished 
 ■with much safety or satisfaction? Some intrepid individual 
 bad made a niglit journey to Aigas, and left a " citation" in 
 tbe fork of a cleft stick, on the coast opposite to the island ; 
 the king's messenger, whose ostensible duty was a public 
 denunciation and capture, setting as secretly and appre- 
 hensively about his business, as a poacher setting a trap 
 in a well- watched preserve. As this had very little effect, 
 another method was adopted. An old act of Parliament 
 contained provisions curiously indicative of the feebleness 
 of the executive in Scotland, by which Highlanders who 
 had committed offences might be cited to deliver them- 
 selves up to justice, by proclamation at the market cross 
 of the nearest Lowland town. The messenger's trumpet 
 sounded at Elgin, was just as likely to be heard in the 
 Aird, as the paper in the cleft stick to be respected. 
 
 But the Marquis of Tullibardine had the whole power 
 of the executive at his disposal, and after these necessary 
 preHminaries of empty threats, he had recourse to military 
 operations. This was always a formidable business in the 
 Highlands, for whatever might be the cause, the violent 
 interference of the law in any pro\ance, was felt as an 
 aggression on the Highlands in general, and was resisted 
 with that unanimous impulse which used to animate the 
 inhabitants of the Savoy, the Mint, or any of the otlier privi- 
 leged places in large cities, when their precincts were in- 
 vaded by the officers of the law. A sagacious statesman of 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the day, the Earl of Argjle, observed to his friend, Dr. Car- 
 stares, 
 
 " If Tullibardlne be allowed to go on, and that if he be not 
 stopped as I propose, I protest I believe it may occasion a deal 
 of bloodshed ; for if one begin, all the Highlands will in ten 
 days fly together in arms. And if my advice be took, I shall 
 vindertake there shall not be the least disturbance. This I 
 desire you will say to E. Portland, that I may be exonered in 
 giving my advice, since I am most particularly concerned in 
 Highland affairs."* 
 
 But from old experience in dealing with the High- 
 landers, government had learned a policy which suited 
 temporary purposes at all events, however little it tended 
 to the general pacification and civilisation of the people. 
 This was, not to trust entirely to a Lowland government 
 force, but to arm one clan against another. It seemed a 
 crafty device for the extermination of these troublesome 
 tribes, and a real practical adaptation of Swift's para- 
 doxical project for abolishing pauperism, by making the 
 poor feed upon each other. But practised as it had been 
 for centuries, down from the celebrated battle of the 
 antagonist clans on the Inch of Perth, yet it never seemed 
 to weaken the strength or abate the ferocity of these war- 
 like vagrants, but rather seemed to nourish their thirst of 
 blood, to make arms and warfare more familiar and indis- 
 pensable, and to add every year to the terrors of this 
 formidable people, who, in the very bosom of fast civilising 
 Europe, were as little under the control of enlightened 
 social institutions, and as completely savage in their 
 habits, as the Bosgesman of the East, or the Black-foot 
 Indian of the West. 
 
 When Higliland outrages were too overwhelming for 
 the ordinary ministers of the law to cope with them, 
 
 * Carstares' State Papers, 433.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 37 
 
 recourse was generally had to that mysterious body the 
 Privy Council. Accordingly from the year 1697 down- 
 wards, we find the affairs of the Frasers perpetually 
 recurring, and forming the chief occupation of the ad- 
 visers of the Crown. The first document discharged 
 against them consists of " Letters of Intercommuning," a 
 species of interdiction, the terms of which sufficiently ex- 
 plain the object. This document bears date the 18th of 
 November, 1697, and the following are its main in- 
 junctions: 
 
 " We hereby most strictly prohibit and discharge all our 
 lieges and subjects whatsoever, specially those neighbouring 
 ■R-ith the said Beauforts, elder and younger, and their complices, 
 that they in no ways visit, assist, abet, or aid with meat, drink, 
 or any other provisions, or any other manner of way what- 
 soever, the said Beauforts, or any of their complices, certifying 
 all such as shall presume to do or act in the contrair, they shall 
 be held and repute as partakers, art and part, with the said 
 rebels, and punished accordingly, with all rigour. And farther, 
 we do hereby command and charge all our said subjects to with- 
 di'aw and withhold from and drive out of the way of the said 
 rebels aU mamier of help, comfort, and relief; as also all their 
 horses, cattle, and other goods, whereby they may be in any 
 ways helped, comforted, or relieved, under all highest pains. 
 Likeas, in furder detestation of the said crimes, and for the 
 better punishing thereof, we do hereby, with advice foresaid, 
 promise to any of our good subjects, or even to any of the com- 
 plices of the said Beauforts, who shall bring in the said Beau- 
 forts, or any of tliem, dead or alive, the sum of two thousand 
 merks of reward."* 
 
 On the 18th of February, 1698, a commission was 
 issued to Lieutenant-Colonel Dalzell and other military 
 commanders, to " search for, seize, and apprehend the 
 said Thomas and Simon Frasers, and their accomplices, 
 traitors and rebels foresaid, and brini^ them in dead or 
 
 * Eecords of the Scots' Privy Council MS. 
 
 264400
 
 38 THE LIFE OF 
 
 alive." The form in wliicli tlie neiglibouring clans were 
 hounded out upon tlie Frasers was as follows : 
 
 " As also to call and require the sheriffs of the sheriffdoms of 
 Perth, Moray, and Inverness, with such a numher of the he- 
 ritors, fencible men, and their tenants, under such leaders as 
 are in use to command them in such cases, or such a number of 
 the said men, with their leaders, v,ithin any of their said respective 
 shires as tlie said lieutenant-colonel shall find needful, to come 
 forth in arms in feir of weir, and join and assist him in execu- 
 tion of the premises, or to act separately by themselves, by and 
 according to such orders and directions as they or any number 
 of them shall receive from the said lieutenant-colonel, who is 
 hereby sufficiently empowered to grant the same as he sees 
 cause, until the said traitors and rebels be Q^ectually subdued 
 and reduced, and the persons of the said Thomas and Simon 
 Fraser brouerht in dead or alive." 
 
 •*&' 
 
 Authority is further given for garrisoning places of 
 
 strength, declaring, 
 
 " That whatever slaughter, mutilation, blood, fire raising, or 
 other violence, shall happen to be acted, done, and committed 
 by all or any of the foresaid persons, hereby authorised to march 
 against tlie said rebels, or to join and assist in seizing, reducing, 
 and bringing them in dead or alive, as said is, the same shall be 
 held as laudable good and warrantable service to His Majesty 
 and his government, and the actors and accessories thereto, 
 shall be, and are hereby fully indemnified and secured theranent 
 to all intents and purposes."* 
 
 On the whole, the force brought against him cannot 
 have been very large; but in Simon's ov,-n history of his 
 conflicts and escapes, the whole aifuir assumes the aspect 
 of a very considerable campaign, in Avhich his enemies, 
 spoken of as " the several regiments of cavalry, infantry, 
 and drao'oons," are alwavs defeated and baffled in an un- 
 accountable manner by some handful of Frasers. He 
 had individuals among his followers, who, like David's 
 mighty men, performed signal acts of valour against 
 * Privy Council Records.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 39 
 
 great odds, and conspicuous among these was Alister More, 
 a name, whicli being translated, means " Alexander tlie 
 Great," a name characteristic of his gigantic stature. His 
 master says he "was " the tallest man in Scotland, and not 
 less celebrated for his brave exploits, than for his prodi- 
 gious height."* After one of the exploits of his band, 
 Simon luxuriates in the following grandiloquent lan- 
 guage. " The Erasers, after this enterprise, had some 
 respite from the encounter of large armies ; but they 
 were daily harassed with flying parties from Inverness 
 and Inverlochy, alias Yort William. These were in small 
 numbers, and the master had always timely notice of 
 their approach, so that he gave himself little trouble 
 
 * It is to be feared that this partisan subsequently made a very 
 paltry fifjure for so great a hero. An " ^Vlexandcr Jlacdonald, alias 
 Alister More," being to be tried for theft and robbery, tlie Privy 
 Council were requested to give a safe conduct to certain witnesses, Avho 
 themselves might be amenable to the law if they ventured out of their 
 fastnesses, to come southwards to give evidence against him. He was 
 tried at Aberdeen and sentenced to be executed on the 23rd of January, 
 1702, and he petitioned the Council that " tliey would be pleased to ex- 
 tend that pity and mercy to the petitioner which the said lords have 
 formerly done to others, as great criminals as the petitioner, since the 
 happy revolution." He gives a very impressive account of bis state of 
 mind in a manner which does great credit to his acuteness, or to that 
 of the counsel Avho drew his petition. " The petitioner hath not had 
 those due and serious thoughts of death and eternity which were neces- 
 sary for the petitioner in bis condition, and was then most untit and 
 unprepared to die, especially seeing there Avas no minister upon the 
 place to exhort him that could speak his own language. AVhereby 
 the petitioner was a singular object of the said lords' clemency and 
 pity. And, therefore, most earnestly entreating the said lords for his 
 Saviour Jesus Christ's sake to take his lamentable condition to their 
 serious consideration." He pleads his blind compliance, in following 
 those on whom he depended, and the misfortunes of his education, 
 " having been brought up in great ignorance." He says that " not- 
 withstanding thereof his greatest enemies had not hitherto, nor could 
 they accuse him of blood murder, or any such barbarity" — an assurance 
 very questionable, considering the master he served. His heroic ser- 
 vices for Lovat probably transpired in the meantime, for we find " liigh 
 treason" added to the previous ignominious charges against him. He 
 must have given the council much trouble, from the multitude of minutes 
 in Avhich he figures. He appears to have been in the end banished to the 
 Plantations by his own desire.
 
 40 THE LIFE OF 
 
 about tliem. He might If he pleased have cut them in 
 pieces wherever they appeared. But as the regular troops 
 had always displayed a clemency for his country, and a 
 regard for his person, he treated them with as much 
 mildness as was consistent with the safety of his clan."* 
 He gave one of his conflicts a name to adapt it to history 
 — The Battle of Altnigolr. According to his own ac- 
 count, it was a complete victory; and the enemy, not only 
 routed, hut surrounded, had to sue for mercy in the most 
 abject terms. Strangely enough, he admits that he was 
 not inclined to grant it; that he had resolved to put to 
 death these people who had Invaded his territory, and 
 sought his life, having " no other complaint against him, 
 than that he was born the true and legitimate heir to the 
 estate of Lovat ;" and that it was, by the advice of the 
 seniors of the clan that they were spared. But he had 
 resolved to gratify a classic fancy on the occasion, and 
 ' '• in conformity to an example he had read in the Roman 
 History," he drew up his men on either side, and made 
 the captives pass beneath the yoke. He did not at the 
 same time neglect a ceremony more purely Celtic. Every 
 people have their own peculiar ceremony of ratification, 
 sometimes characteristic of their habits and temper. The 
 Chinaman's ceremonial of an oath is the breaking of a 
 china saucer: a practice savouring of a brittle, puny race, 
 with little that is formidable in their nature. The Sikh 
 is pledged on a cow's tail. The Highlander s most solemn 
 and abiding oath was that which lie took on the point of 
 his drawn dirk. The worthy Simon himself must tell us 
 the terms of the oath which he demanded on this occa- 
 sion. " They renounced their claims in Jesus Christ, 
 and their hopes of heaven, and devoted themselves to the 
 
 * Own Life, 77.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 41 
 
 devil and all tlie torments of Hell, if they ever returned 
 into the territories of Lord Lovat, or occasioned him 
 directly or indirectly the smallest mischief."* 
 
 In the meantime, another branch of the "war against the 
 Clan Fraser and their chief, was conducted in the Court of 
 Justiciary in Edinburgh, all the more bitter and exterminat- 
 ing in its verbal announcement, that it had no real effect ; 
 as the persons who were nominally tried, condemned, and 
 punished in the Old Tolbooth, in the High-street of Edin- 
 burgh, were living at freedom among their own hills, and 
 putting the royal power at defiance. A weak executive 
 makes up in threats where it fails in execution. Its pu- 
 nishments are terrific and exterminating, but they are 
 launched at random, and only a certain per centage of them 
 strike home. Durin"; the reiajn of the British Solomon, 
 probably about three-fourths of the great Highland families 
 were at some time or other under the proscription of the 
 law; but they treated the executive Hke a fighting enemy 
 — one day they might be in its hands, and then it would 
 fall heavy upon them ; but another day they were the vic- 
 torious party, and able at all events to make good terms. 
 Tlrus the law made war, instead of administering justice; 
 and compensated by its cruelty when it could act, for its 
 general inefficiency to exercise a wholesome control. The 
 plan of trying and convicting an accused person when he 
 had not been seized was the climax of these feeble and 
 irregular operations. It made arrangements for a rapid 
 execution of the law, whenever it was able to lay hands on 
 the criminal. He miglit never be caught; but were he in 
 custody but for an instant, all tedious preliminaries had 
 been gone through, the executioner had his warrant, and 
 the rope was ready. In a country where so many of their 
 
 * Own Life, 95.
 
 42 THE LIFE OF 
 
 captures were what is commonly called catching tartars, 
 such an arrangement presented great temptations to the 
 executive, who could never feel secure of long possession 
 of the person of a Highland chief or border freebooter. 
 Yet this method of trial in absence was contrary to the 
 genius of the law, and had been condemned by its oracles, 
 especially in cases of treason. So strictly did the old law 
 demand the presence of the body of the accused, that even 
 when the spirit of vitality and consciousness was gone, it 
 summoned before it the deserted clay, and in some in- 
 stances of posthumous judicial vengeance, the charnel- 
 houses were ransacked, that the mouldering^ bones of the 
 departed traitor might attest the zeal of the law, for open 
 and even-handed justice, and for giving the accused an 
 opportunity of defending himself. The method of trial 
 in absence was first adopted by the cruel ministry of 
 Charles II., for the purpose of making a general legal war 
 of extermination on the covenanters. Even in those arbi- 
 trary times it was not quite safe for a court of justice, on its 
 own sole authority, to make so great an innovation, and 
 by an Act of Parliament in 1669, the proceedings of the 
 Court of Justiciary against the insurgents were ratified, 
 " and in respect it were against reason and justice, that 
 when any person or persons are accused of high treason, 
 for rising in arms against his. majesty or his authority, 
 when they are cited to undcrly the law before the justice, 
 if they do not appear, that their absence and contumacy, 
 which ought to be an aggravation, if any can be, of so 
 high and horrid a crime, should be an advantage to them," 
 it is provided that after the proof and verdict of the jury, 
 " the decree and sentence of forfeiture ought to proceed, 
 and be given and pronounced in the same manner as if 
 the person accused had compeared and were present." At
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 43 
 
 the revolution, the part of this act which confirmed the 
 sentences against the covenanters was repealed; but the 
 general enactment was allowed to remain. It was an in- 
 strument that might be of great service against the multi- 
 tudes of Jacobites who were prowhng among the moun- 
 tains or wandering abroad. The virtue of the revolution 
 parhament could not resist the temptation, but it is just 
 and right to observe that this is the only instance in which 
 advantage appears to have been taken of this dangerous 
 power after the revolution. 
 
 On the 27th of June, 1698, proceedings commenced in 
 the Court of Justiciary against Thomas and Simon Eraser, 
 and several men of their clan, " for hio-h treason, in 
 forming unlawful associations, collecting an armed force, 
 occupying and fortifying houses and garrisons, imprison- 
 ing and ravishing persons of distinguished rank, and con- 
 tinuing in arms after being charged by a herald to lay 
 them down." It has been said by an eminent constitu- 
 tional lawyer, that to call private crimes against indivi- 
 duals, and private warfare between clans, high treason, was 
 a perversion of the law.* But the law, like the sybil, 
 raised its terms the more the party evaded closing with it. 
 Denunciations of hi^Ai crimes were one of the means of 
 intimidating into submission to the punishment of lower 
 crimes. Whatever the conduct of the Erasers may have 
 been in its earlier stages, when they resisted the officers of 
 the law and the troops, they certainly came under the law 
 of treason, and many were subjected to it for less cause. 
 Indeed, the same method, of an accusation of treason, was 
 a favourite bolt discharged against all contumacious per- 
 sons. Sir Walter Scott makes Oldenbuck JMonkbarus 
 enter into a very amusing legal-antiquarian argument to 
 * See Arnot's Criminal Trials, 94.
 
 44 THE LIFE OF 
 
 prove that there is not and never was such a thing as the 
 unjust and barbarous system of imprisonment for debt in 
 Scotland. True, he who did not pay his just debts when 
 demand was made in the king's name, was " denounced 
 at the horn," and might thereafter be imprisoned; but the 
 imprisonment was for rebelHon in resisting the king, not 
 for refusal to pay a paltry private debt. Thus, all sort of 
 transgressions had in Scotland a capacity of swelling into 
 the stately portentous bulk of high treason. 
 
 Some characteristic portions of the evidence adduced 
 have already been laid before the reader. The Lord 
 Advocate abandoned those parts of the charge which 
 related to the private offences against the dowager lady 
 and her relations, probably for the purpose of keeping 
 within the act, which limited trials in absence to charges 
 of high treason. The proceedings ended on the 6th of 
 September, when Simon and his followers were con- 
 demned to be executed as traitors, " their name, fame, 
 memory, and honoiu's to be extinct, and their arms to be 
 riven forth and deleted out of the books of arms, so that 
 their posterity may never have place, nor be able hereafter 
 to bruik or enjoy any honours, offices, titles or dignities; 
 and to have forefaulted all their lands, heritages, and pos- 
 sessions whatever." If this sentence have at the present 
 day a somewhat barbarous sound, let us remember that 
 if it had been administered in happy England, the forfeit- 
 tire would have extended not only to his own descendants, 
 but to the descendants of all collaterals claiming through 
 the convict, and that the sentence would have contained 
 this provision, " you must be hanged by the neck, but 
 not till you are dead, for you must be cut down alive : 
 then your bowels must be taken out and burnt before your 
 face, then your head must be severed from your body.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 45 
 
 and your body divided into four quarters, and these must 
 be at the king's disposal." 
 
 But we must go back to the seat of war in the Aird 
 and Stratheric. 
 
 Soon after the mountain campaign against the Frasers 
 commenced, Simon removed his father, who was nearly 
 seventy years old, to the Isle of Skye, where the old chief 
 sought refuge with his brother-in-law at Dunvegan Castle, 
 a place where he was nearly as secure from the hand of 
 the royal executive, as if he had passed over to the West- 
 em side of the continent of America. Tlicre he died in 
 the year 1699, and his son pauses to drop some natural 
 and redeeming expressions of regret for the bereavement. 
 There is no man without his virtues : Simon's affection 
 for his parent was sincere, though if we were able to ana- 
 tomise its elements, we would perhaps find that no small 
 portion was a feudal veneration for the head of his clan; 
 a reflex attachment to the holder of those powers and 
 honours, Avhich he was himself about to inherit. This 
 filial devotion was remembered by his clan and kindred, 
 and an Alexander Chisholm, examined as a witness in 
 the peerage case in 1826, stated that his father, who was 
 page to our hero, '^ told him that he accompanied Simon 
 Lord Lovat to the Isle of Skye to visit the tomb of 
 Thomas Eraser, of Beaufort, wdio died at Dunvegan."* 
 
 He now, in his intercourse with the world, assumed 
 the title of Lord Lovat. His claims to the honours of the 
 peerage were not very widely acknowledged, nor had he 
 much occasion to bring them before the notice of society 
 at large. Among his clan, this dignity was a trifle — 
 something like a foreign order of knighthood held by a 
 monarch — few of them would know what it was, and 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 46 THE LIFE OF 
 
 none of them would think that either its existence or its 
 absence could much afiect the importance of Mac Shimi 
 their chief. 
 
 After the first hot fury of the chase was over, he seems 
 to have led a harassed and miserable life, never free from 
 danger and hardship, yet never breathing the healthy 
 excitement of warfare. His supplies were probably of a 
 predatory character. Not that the tenants on the Fraser 
 estates would be likely to pay their rent very regularly to 
 the heiress. In much later times, for years after the re- 
 bellion of 1745, many of the highland districts transmitted 
 their " mails and duties" pretty regularly to the legitimate 
 chief, while the commissioners of forfeited estates, and 
 others having ostensible possession, found that difficulties 
 of a multifarious and unaccountable, but always insuper- 
 able kind prevented them from extracting any pecuniary 
 return from the broad lands at their disposal. Among 
 the fertile meadows of the Aird, and in the neighbourhood 
 of Inverness, the heiress, backed by her powerful connex- 
 ions, might probably turn a portion of the land to some 
 pecuniary account; but it would be in vain to look for 
 punctual tenants bringing stocking soles filled with coin 
 on rent day, from Glen Strathfarar and Stratheric. But 
 on the other hand, such a tenantry had no rent to give to 
 any one, and their acknowledgments in kind or in services, 
 sucli as road making and building, however much they 
 might add to the state splendour and hospitality of a settled 
 feudal establishment, were sometimes not conveniently 
 available to one who was hiding himself in the earth, or 
 fleeing from his enemies. There is no doubt that he was 
 at that time at the head of a very accomplished set of 
 villains. One of his followers, Donald Gromogh — a good 
 name for a ruffian ! was a distinguished freebooter. He
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 47 
 
 was included in tlie indictment against liis master, and no 
 doubt appreciated the honour. It has been the cause of 
 much reproach against our hero, that he should have con- 
 certed with such a companion, but we must not confound 
 a hiijhland freebooter with a lowland thief. It was a 
 gentleman's profession when exercised on a large scale, or, 
 as a neighbouring and nearly contemporary poet ex- 
 presses it: 
 
 " We never thought it wrong' to ca' a prey 
 Our auld forebears practised It a' their days, 
 And na'er the warse for that did set their claes : 
 But never heard that e'er they steeled a cow 
 Sic dirty things they wad hae scorned to do, 
 But tooming faulds or scouring o' a glen, 
 Was ever deemed the deed o' protty men."* 
 
 Few of the Stratheric men would sit down to mutton 
 that had not been the produce of their own industry, — 
 as captors, not as shepherds. All the arts of peaceful in- 
 dustry were held in very small repute beyond the Gram- 
 pians. To steal even vestments was considerably more 
 creditable than to make them ; and the Gaehc language 
 has a form of phraseology which marks the contempt of 
 the people for those who ministered to domestic comfort, 
 by accompanying a reference to them with a sort of apo- 
 logy for the disgusting character of the subject: thus: 
 *' By your leave — a weaver." " Saving your presence — 
 a tailor." 
 
 AVe come now to some events showinfj the stao;o;eriu£r 
 and uneven pace of justice in that age, and its Hability to 
 be tugged from side to side by faction and private influ- 
 ence. Lovat, like a sagacious statesman, suggested to 
 a great western power — that of Argyle, that the house 
 of Athol was aggrandising itself to a formidable extent; 
 * Ross's Fortunate Sheoherdess.
 
 48 THE LIFE OF 
 
 that it was necessary for the preservation of the old sway 
 of the house of Argyle, that this rival should be checked 
 and humbled; and finally, that If the Marquis of Tulli- 
 bardine were to mediatise the secondary power of the 
 Trasers, and bring them luider his own subjugation, as 
 he intended to do, the balance of power in the Highlands 
 would be seriously shaken. On this Argyle exerted him- 
 self to procure a pardon, a circumstance which is attested 
 by other evidence than Lovat's own.* At Argyle's re- 
 commendation he took a journey to London, with the 
 secrecy necessary to one who had sentence of death hang- 
 ing over his head. King WilHam Avas then on the con- 
 tinent, whither Lovat passed over, and had address 
 enough to pay two visits witli 'equal encouragement; the 
 one to the exiled court at St. Germalns, the other to Ivln2: 
 William at Loo. He says he got the latter to append 
 the sign manual to an ample and complete pardon for 
 " every imaginable crime." 
 
 He attributed the curtailment of the pardon, as it sub- 
 sequently passed through the proper offices, to the 
 treachery of a relative, to whom he had intrusted it for that 
 purpose. We shall find it stated, however, in quotations 
 from the privy council records, that the king had refused 
 to extend the pardon to offences against private parties 
 for which the accused person was a fugitive; and tliis 
 distinction is quite characteristic of the steady, just prin- 
 ciples of that monarch. Tlie pardon, though it covered 
 all his offences against the state, for which he had been 
 convicted, left him still responsible for those against the 
 dowager lady and the Athol family, for which he had 
 not yet been put- on trial. 
 
 IModified as it was", Lovat tells us that the pardon gave 
 * See Culloden Papers, p. 25.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 49 
 
 great offence to his enemy Tullibardine, who immedi- 
 ately resigned his office, and was thus accosted by King 
 "WilHam on the occasion: " I always knew you for a 
 fool and a coward — I now see that you are an absolute 
 madman. I not only receive your commission, but I 
 forbid you for ever to enter into my councils, or to con- 
 cern yourself with any of my affairs."* Such a sentence, 
 put into the mouth of the phlegmatic and sedate Wil- 
 liam, may be received as one of the many instances in 
 which the writers of dialogues and conversations draw 
 their materials from their own temper and fcehngs, rather 
 than the characters they desire to represent. 
 
 He had thus a prosecution for his violence to the 
 dowager, still hanging over him. He says, that conscious 
 of his innocence, and desirous to be free of this weight, 
 which was literally round his neck, he took steps for 
 bringing on a trial. This was certainly a bold measure, 
 if the statement be true. He found, however, that the 
 court had predetermined his condemnation, and that be- 
 fore " such wicked and abandoned judges," the " inno- 
 cence of an angel of light would be of no avail." Ho 
 therefore fled again to his mountains. He was cited 
 before the court on the 17th of February, 1701, and 
 was outlawed for not appearing. On the 19th of Febru- 
 ary, 1702, a petition Was presented by the dowager lady, 
 for letters of intercommuuing. It states, that notwith- 
 standing the proceedings against him — 
 
 " Such was the insolence and presumption of the said Cap- 
 tain Simon, that he not only converses openly in the country 
 as a free liege, to the contempt of all authority and justice, but 
 likewise keeps in a manner his open residence within the Lord- 
 ship of Lovat, where, and especially in ^fi-atheric, he farther 
 presumes to keep men and arms attending and guarding his 
 
 * Own Life, 111. 
 E
 
 50 THE LIFE OF 
 
 person, and for stenting and levying contributions upon the 
 petitioner's vassals and tenants; and proceeding yet to farther 
 degrees of unparalleled boldness, causes to make public pro- 
 clamation at the Kirks, within the bounds, on the Lord's day, 
 that all the people be in readiness with their best arms, and 
 de facto, he hath levied in a threatening, violent, and disorderly 
 manner, upwards of five or six thousand marks within the fore- 
 said bounds, and behaves himself more imperiously than if he 
 were Lord and proprietor tliereof ; and in effect, the tenants 
 and others are thereby so harassed and disabled, that they could 
 make no payment of their rents."* 
 
 The letters of Intercommuning are granted accordingly, 
 nearly in the same form as those already quoted. 
 
 Another petition from the lady dowager and her daugh- 
 ter, presented on the 14th of August, 1702, gives us a still 
 more lively picture of his proceedings : 
 
 " It being boldly asserted on the captain's behalf that he was 
 able to defend himself against the rapt by due course of law ; 
 notwithstanding, whereof, after his majesty's advocate had set 
 him a day of tryal for the rapt, and had given him previously 
 out letters of exculpation ; yet being conscious of his horrid 
 guilt, and that the probation was but too clear against him, he 
 fled the town the very morning of tlie tryal, and was declared 
 fugitive, and went up to Loudon, in hopes that those who pro- 
 cured the first remission would have procured a second, which 
 his late majesty out of his great piety declared he would never 
 remit or indemnify. "Whereupon he repaired to the north of 
 Scotland, and skulked up and down, at first in the countries of 
 Aird and Stratheric, which belongs to the petitioners, and en- 
 deavoured by fair means to obtain from the petitioners' vassals 
 and tenants a contribution, which many of them out of fear 
 of his ill, and some out of kindness to him granted. And 
 being farther emboldened by this, their complyance he did stent 
 upon each roomc in both countries by military' execution upon 
 such as were refractory, and in the mean time threatened the 
 petitioners* factors and doers with present death, if they offered 
 to raise any of the petitioners' farms from their teuants."f 
 
 * Privy Council Records, MS. f Ibid.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 51 
 
 Some documents still extant, sliow tliat just before the 
 accession of Queen Anne, Simon hud been taking a very 
 peculiar and probably ingenious method of securing his 
 interest with his clan. Selecting some of the more im- 
 portant gentlemen of the tribe, whose position was inter- 
 mediate between the chief and the common men — the 
 duinhe wassails, angHcised demi vassals — he granted 
 bonds to them, individually obliging himself, with his 
 brother John then his apparent heir as his surety, to pay 
 to them a certain sum of money, with this peculiar clause 
 attached to each, that it was "to stand in force upon 
 condition, the said (naming the person) stand faithful to our 
 interest, and no otherwise." Two of these bonds — one 
 to Fraser of Struy, the other to Eraser of Kinmonavie, 
 are dated 7th of March 1702, the day before the death 
 of Queen Anne. On the former, a claim which Lovat 
 himself had for some time resisted was brought against 
 the estate of Lovat, after the rebellion of 1745 ; and in 
 bar of the claim it was pleaded for the crown, that " the 
 Lord Lovat in the seventeen hundred and two, granted 
 many such bonds as this, with the like quahty annexed 
 to them— to wit that they should stand in force if the 
 creditors therein stood faithful to his interest and no 
 otherwise, which were all reduced, it appearing they 
 were granted without any onerous cause, and on account 
 of certain unlawful associations entered into with Lord 
 Lovat." This is confirmed by his own admission, when 
 he was defending the action raised against him by Struy, 
 
 ** Your petitioner," he said, " in order to engage them the 
 more into that interest, granted a variety of bonds to a great 
 many Highland gentlemen, such as were supposed to have lead 
 and interest in the Highlands, amounting in the whole to very 
 considerable sums of money, and amongst others he granted 
 sundry of these bonds to these persons who lay under the same 
 
 £2
 
 52 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sentence of forfeiture wltli himself, as imagining that because 
 of their circumstances they would be easier wrought upon to 
 join with him in his designs."* 
 
 The bond to Struy is for 4000 marks — that to Kin- 
 moiiavle, for 1 000. Probably the difference marked the 
 respective grades of influence of the two clansmen.f 
 The idea of binding chief and follower to each other by 
 such legal chains, appears to have been imitated from the 
 old Scottish practice of bonds of manrent, by which in 
 older days political leaders associated themselves together, 
 and adopted a legal form to enable them to break the law. 
 Such a bond was entered into for the murder of Darnley. 
 Lovat in his memoirs makes no allusion to this stroke of 
 policy, by which he left during his sojourn abroad a 
 silent representative working on the selfish interests of 
 the chief men of his clan. How he fulfilled his obliira- 
 tions we shall hereafter see. 
 
 * Petition for Lord Lovat, February 1745. t Lovat documents.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT, 53 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 His escape to France— State of the Jacobites there — The Exiled Court, 
 and its Intrijjues — Interviews with Louis XIV., and his Plan of Ope- 
 rations — Colbert and Gualterio — Projects for a Landing — Suggestion 
 of tlie Plans regarding the Highlands — Lovat's Commission — Sir 
 John Maclean— Journey through England — Rencounter with a York- 
 shire Justice. 
 
 On the accession of Queen Anne, the Athol family 
 became all-powerful, and Simon, following the counsels 
 of Arg-yle, as well as his own sagacious calculations, con- 
 cluded that Scotland was not a country where it would 
 be safe for him to abide. It would not be easy to divine 
 what complex and conflicting schemes were then unwind- 
 ing themselves in his busy head. Dynasties and govern- 
 ments were in that precarious position, "with fear of 
 change perplexing monarchs," which gave room for the 
 boldest projects being securely built by far-seeing men, 
 and the wildest schemes opening themselves in a prac- 
 ticable and probable form to the sagacious. Simon liad 
 good reason to beHeve that liis great enemy, Tullibardine, 
 was favourable to the exiled house. This suo-gested se- 
 veral engines to be used against him as circumstances 
 might occur. In the first place, if he could prove that 
 he held any correspondence with the Court of St. Gcr- 
 mains, his enemy was in his power. On the other hand, 
 as the accession of Queen Anne opened new prospects 
 for the Stuarts, it was possible that at no distant day that
 
 54 THE LIFE OF 
 
 race might again be in settled possession of tlic throne. 
 When the tendency of events pointed distinctly in that 
 direction, the time would come for treating Athol as a 
 revolutionist, and an enemy to the legitimate line. In the 
 mean time, as Britain could not be the sphere of his own 
 operations, and he must be doing something, it was 
 clearly his most direct policy to repair to the Court of 
 St. Germains. 
 
 The apphcations to the privy council state that "he 
 withdrew out of the country with a considerable sum of 
 money, which he had levied in the estates." He left be- 
 hind a very effective lieutenant in the person of his brother 
 John, about whose conduct a whole torrent of petitions 
 was for some time afterwards poured in upon the privy 
 council. Of these a few specimens may not be wthout 
 interest. On the 4th of Auirust, 1702.it is stated that 
 though the great leader has fled the country, 
 
 " Yet he hath left John Fraser his brother, and several other 
 fugitates lately intercommuued as said is, who with some other 
 loose and broken men, to the number of thhty or thereby, who 
 for these three mouths by gone have gone up and down the 
 countries of tlie Aird and Stratherie belonging to the pe- 
 titioners, threatening the petitioners' chamberlains with death 
 if they should offer to uplift the petitioners' rents from the 
 tenants, and threatening in like manner the tenants if they 
 should pay. And for effectuating thereof, the said John Fraser 
 hath kept a party of men as in garrison in the town of Beau- 
 ly, the heart of the country of Aird, who exact free quarters 
 from the tenants. Llkeas he and his complices liave taken up 
 from the tenants and possessors to the number of 200 custoiu 
 wedders and lambs, and broke up the petitioners' meal gurnels 
 in Beauly, and had taken out thereof about sixty bolls of meal. 
 And further, about the 6th of July last, Fraser younger, of 
 Buchubbln, and two more of the said John Fraser, his com- 
 plices, came to the house of Moniack, where Mr. Heu Fraser, 
 one of the petitioners' chamberlains dwelt, and having by a false 
 token got him out of his house, did not only reproach him for
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 55 
 
 serving' the petitioners, but beat him with the butts of their 
 guns, and had murdered him if he had not made his escape. 
 And because he complained to the commissioners of justiciary 
 of this their mckedness, they sent him a message that if he per- 
 sisted in this complaint, they shoidd destroy him and all his re- 
 lations." 
 
 The petition proceeds to state that the Court of Justiciary 
 had ordered a party of the Grants to repair to the spot, 
 but that they were too small a body to be efficacious ; and 
 the council are requested to send such a body of troops as 
 may be sufficient to suppress " such flagrant vlllanles and 
 unaccountable Insolencles," The council recommend the 
 commander-in-chief to send two detachments, one to 
 Stratheric and one to the Aird. 
 
 Ten days afterwards another petition is presented, 
 stating that 
 
 " John Fraser, the captain's brother, to be avenged of tlie 
 petitioners' factors for the appUcation to the Commissioners of 
 Justiciary, did convocate in the country of Stratheric fifty 
 broken men, and with these came to the country of the Aird, 
 upon the fifth instant, and raised as he went through that 
 country, two or three hundred men and women, and with 
 them assaulted the house of Fanellan, where Captain John 
 Mackenzie, one of the petitioners' baillies, hved, and where 
 the ten men of Captain Grant's company resided, and desired 
 them to surrender themselves prisoners to them. And because 
 they refused so to do, they set fire to the said house, and burned 
 the same to ashes, and whole office-houses thereabout, which 
 forced Captain Mackenzie and the soldiers with him, and Hugh 
 Fraser of Eskadale, another of the petitioners' baillies, and 
 George Mackenzie, a servant of Prestenhall's, to render them- 
 selves, who were all detained and made prisoners, with Lieu- 
 tenant Campbell, who commanded the party. And after some 
 little time, they dismissed Captain Grant's ten men, but carried 
 the Lieutenant, the two baillies, and George Mackenzie, as it 
 were in triumph through the country to the end of Lochness. 
 And having dismissed the next morning the lieutenant, they 
 cari'ied with them the other three prisoners, abusing them iu
 
 56 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the most barbarous manner, to the country of Stratheric, and 
 whether they be dead or alive the petitioners know not.'* 
 
 To return to Lovat himself. He tells us that before he 
 left Scotland he had conducted a bold and important nego- 
 tiation. 
 
 "He immediately visited the chiefs of the clans, and a great 
 number of the lords of the Lowlands, with William Earl Ma- 
 rlschal, and the Earl of Errol, Lord Constable of Scotland, at 
 their head, and expostulated with them in so spirited a manner, 
 and urged with so much force the interest of the Court of St. 
 Germalns, that he engaged them to grant him a general com- 
 mission on their part and on the part of all the loyal Scots 
 whom they represented, to go into France." f 
 
 It cannot be credited, that with the sentence of out- 
 lawry hanging over him, and his enemy at hand, he should 
 have been able to accomplish a combination on the scale 
 •which he here describes ; but he doubtless liad been able 
 to fathom the views of some of the Jacobites. He pro- 
 ceeded through England to Holland, and by Flanders 
 to France. Marlborough had just commenced his cam- 
 paigns, and the route taken by the fugitive must have 
 been beset by difficulties and dangers, which it would 
 require no little skill in one of so marked and noticeable 
 an appearance to evade. 
 
 He found the little court of St. Gcrmains in a state of dis- 
 union and intrigue. His relation, Sir John Maclean, on 
 whose knowledge and influence he relied for guidance and 
 assistance, had just been disappointed about the choice of 
 a gentleman of the privy chamber, and his views Avere 
 clouded and distorted by virtuous indignation. On the 
 one side Lord Middicton, and on the other the titular Duke 
 of Perth, hated each other with a mortal hatred ; and Lovat 
 
 * Privy Council Eecords. f Own life, 119.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 57 
 
 having from circumstances been thrown into principal con- 
 nexion with the latter, experienced the cordial antipathy 
 of the other. No great imperial court, with its substantial 
 honours and great offices, probably encircled nearlyso 
 much rivalry, irritation, spite, cabal, and intestine dissen- 
 sion, as this poor forlorn court, which had nothing to be- 
 stow upon its votaries but hardships and empty titles. The 
 natural first impression of an exiled court is, that those 
 who, follow it are melancholy, devoted, high-minded men, 
 who, in leaving to the successful party at home the partition 
 of honours and emoluments, have abandoned all ambitious 
 aspirations and aggrandising projects, and are content to 
 be the peaceful worshippers of a principle too sacred to be 
 alloyed by sordid thoughts. But this was far from being 
 the case. These partisans had by no means abandoned all 
 the flesh pots of Egypt. True, the rewards they looked 
 to were distant ; but the distance enlarged their visionary 
 importance. Viscounts' coronets were developing a growth 
 of shadowy strawberry leaves. The baronet beheld his 
 plain helmet assuming the likeness of a noble diadem. 
 The simple esquire saw the angehc vision of supporters on 
 the panel of his coach. Where there was so much to di- 
 vide when the king should regain his own again, there was 
 much natural jealousy as to the persons that should partake 
 in the appropriation, and a desire to limit the nvimber. Un- 
 fortunately indeed for the grandeur and dignity of human 
 nature, along with much that was disinterested and pure, 
 a substratum of selfishness lay at the bottom of many of 
 the most conspicuous acts of apparent generosity performed 
 by the followers of the Stuarts. Men who are steadily 
 pursuing the Hne marked out by their conscientious convic- 
 tions, find no adverse lessons in misfortune. The path before 
 them IS clear and straight, though the block be at the end,
 
 58 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and they tread the scaffold with the heroic pride of martyrs. 
 Not such were the deaths of Kilmarnock and of Cromarty, 
 who repented of their exertions as of a crime, and showed 
 in their contrition that they were not the martyrs of con- 
 science and principle, but that they felt the miserable sting 
 of baffled ambition, while an awakening conscience told 
 them that in the chase after their own selfish aims they 
 had opened the floodgates which deluged a peaceful land 
 with blood. 
 
 Persons with such views, brought together in a country 
 mansion, and made statesmen without having state busi- 
 ness to perform, were necessarily occupied in mischief. 
 Here was a chancellor with no litigation before him but 
 household quarrels; a secretary of state with no state to 
 take charge of; a lord high treasurer Avith about as much 
 revenue as the annual income of an English gentleman to 
 control. Active, stirring spirits, devoted to such panto- 
 mimic statesmanship, must needs find other occupation ; 
 and it could be found only in faction and intrigue. The 
 statesmen who are busiest with the affairs of the pubhc 
 are always those who have least time and least inclination 
 for the less creditable occupation of their craft. They are 
 too much concerned with the public to find leisure to un- 
 dermine each other. 
 
 When Lovat reached France, in July, 1702, the exiled 
 King James had been dead for about ten montlis, and his 
 son James Francis Edward, a boy fourteen years old, was 
 the representative of the misfortunes of his house. The 
 acting regal head of the Jacobites, was his mother, Mary 
 of Modena ; and it was with her that Lovat must treat, 
 if he should be successful in obtaining the confidence of 
 the Jacobites. There is little doubt that he managed to 
 obtain some audiences of this princess, and by degrees to
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 59 
 
 insinuate himself into her confidence. But there ^vas 
 another and a greater royal person in whose hands the 
 destinies of the Stuarts had seemed to be placed. If he 
 could persuade Louis XIV. to fit up one of his grand 
 armaments, for the purpose of fighting the battle of the 
 Stuarts and legitimacy, instead of furthering his o^Yn 
 aggrandisement — how illustrious would be the position of 
 the person who accomplished this movement. The time, 
 however, was scarcely propitious for such an attempt. 
 The career of French calamities had begun. The star 
 that had blazed over Europe so fiercely and so brightly 
 was beginning to grow dim, and sink amidst disaster and 
 defeat — the rumble of broken and retreating armies, and 
 the silent misery of an abject, star^^ng, hopeless people. 
 
 iNTotwithstanding the unapproachable state and cere- 
 mony with which it had been the policy of Louis to sur- 
 round the throne, notwithstanding the difficulty of per- 
 sonal access to him by the highest personages of his own 
 realm, there can be no doubt that Lovat obtained some 
 private interviews with him; and the circumstance is 
 alluded to by French writers as a lasting memorial of his 
 consummate skill in intrigue. He subsequently possessed a 
 valuable sword and some other tokens of reminiscence, 
 which, bestowed on him by the greatest monarch of his 
 age, he treasured with a pardonable pride. 
 
 It was about the time when fimaticismwas beginning 
 to dawn upon the royal mind of France, displacing, by its 
 lurid light, the profligate darkness of his previous life- 
 Several allusions which the reader will find in Lovat's 
 subsequent correspondence, show that he had formally 
 adopted the Catholic faith, and accepted of the ordinances 
 of the church of Rome. He knew how to time such 
 revolutions; and as there could then be no more agreeable
 
 60 THE LIFE OF 
 
 object in the eyes of tlie new zeal of French royalty, than 
 a bosorn freshly lighted up with a sympathetic glow, it is 
 probable that we may date Lovat's adoption of the Romish 
 creed to this juncture. 
 
 The principal medium of his intercourse with the 
 French court was Gualterio the Papal legate, subse- 
 quently raised to the dignity of Cardinal. Lovat's own 
 account of his influence over this great man, is confirmed 
 by contemporary documents, and the circumstance is 
 an addition to many others, which show how singularly 
 lie was in possession of the master key to the affections 
 of great and good men.* 
 
 The main and the novel feature in Lovat's plan, was to 
 place reliance on the Highlanders, who, being the only 
 part of the British population accustomed to the inde- 
 pendent use of arms, were the only portion which could 
 be immediately put in action against the reigning power. 
 There is no doubt that we owe to his representations 
 at that time, the disposition which the exiled court 
 subsequently showed, to trust to the Highlanders as the 
 chief materials of their strength in Britain. He found 
 among the English and lowland Jacobites an idea, "that 
 they were no better than a kind of banditti, fit enough 
 to pillage the lowlands, and to carry off cattle, but inca- 
 pable of forming a regular corps, or of looking in the 
 face of the enemies of the kinc;-." He had himself tested 
 the stuff of Avhicli these hardy and inveterate fighters 
 
 * Gualterio was no ordinary diplomatist and church dignitary. He 
 passed twenty years in the collection of books, of medals, and other 
 arclia'olofrical antiquities, and liavinji eniharked them, along with his 
 own manuscript researches, at Marseilles, tliis heap of intellectual riches 
 was lost in a storm. lie was in the midst of efforts to replace his loss, 
 vhon lie was plundered by the imperial troops, and thus he was twice 
 driven from the worthy niche he desired to occupy in the temple of fame. 
 — yee his Life in JSIoi'eri.
 
 SIMON LORD LOT AT. 61 
 
 ■were made, and could bear effectual witness to their 
 efficiency. 
 
 Heretofore tlie exiled fimily had trusted little to the 
 arm of flesh. Divine right was to them a sacred prin- 
 ciple that Avould develope itself in good time. James 
 himself had seen a government stronger than that of 
 William, melt away like ice before the thaw, when the 
 right time had come for the heir to return to his vine- 
 yard. It was not by secret intrigues, or by military 
 tactics, that he expected to regain his throne ; when the 
 objects of destiny were fulfilled, the true heir would 
 come back to be greeted as unanimously and heartily as 
 in 1660. As calmly and assuredly as the astronomer 
 abides the restoration of the sun's rays, when the echpse 
 is over, did the exile, comfortable in his single-minded 
 bigotry, feel assured that the shadow of usurpation would 
 pass off, and the sun of true legitimate royalty re-illumine 
 the benighted land of Britain; and there is little doubt 
 that he went to his grave believing, that if not in him, 
 yet in his posterity would the gladness be restored, as 
 heartily and sincerely as he believed in the comfortino- 
 atonements of his creed. 
 
 These were not principles adapted to the ideas and mo- 
 tives of Lovat, whose views in all things were essentially 
 practical. In his own expressive language he " affirmed, 
 that while Her Majesty implicitly followed the advice of 
 the people who were at the head of the English parlia- 
 ment, Jesus Christ would come in the clouds before her 
 son would be restored."* Though his operations were 
 not very successful in other respects, we may attribute to 
 them the information and the views which prompted the 
 choice of the north of Scotland as the proper place for st 
 
 * Own life, 270.
 
 62 THE LIFE OF 
 
 descent in 1715. In some measure we must date to tlie 
 same source the whole intercourse of the exiled family 
 with the Highlands, and all tlie projects suggested and put 
 in execution down to the disastrous climax of 1745, when 
 the great projector was himself the engineer " hoist with 
 his own petard." 
 
 In the mean time he declined to treat with any but prin- 
 cipals. He was afraid of his secret being stolen, and would 
 confide it to no one till he obtained access to the prince's mo- 
 ther. He then informed her that he had authority from the 
 heads of clans, and particularly from Stuart of Appin, 
 Sir Ewen Cameron, Sir Donald Macdonald, and others, 
 to say that they would raise 10,000 men, if they were 
 assisted from France with money, arms, and reinforce- 
 ments. He proposed that 5000 Trench troops should be 
 landed at Dundee, where they would be near the Highlands, 
 and might reach the entrance of the north-eastern passes in 
 a day's march, and at the same time be in a position to divert 
 the British troops for a time sufficient to enable the High- 
 landers to rise. This invasion was to be speedily followed 
 by the landing of 500 men, who could easily seize on the 
 fortress of Inverlochy or FortwiUiam, commanding one 
 of the arms of the sea on tlie western coast, which would 
 thus be made a protected gateway leading towards the 
 centre of the Highlands.* We have here the very pro- 
 ject which was entertained and attempted upwards of 
 forty years later. 
 
 With IMiddleton and others, Avho had been accustomed 
 to see every thing managed through the constitutional 
 operations of the great families in England, this plan had 
 a very chimerical appearance Marlborough, and his bro- 
 ther-in-law Godolphin the treasurer, were said to keep 
 * Sir John Maclean's Discovery.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 63 
 
 up an understanding witli St. Germains, which left open 
 the hope that thej might lead such a movement ; on wliich 
 Lovat remarks that it "is so ridiculous a project, that if 
 it's entertained by the Duke of jMarlborough or my Lord 
 Treasurer, they can do it, for no other end but to impose, 
 and put a sham upon my Lord Middleton, or any man that 
 could be guilty of so much simplicity."* Mrs. Fox, a 
 celebrated female intriguer, said to Lady Maclean, " we 
 laugh at your Highland projects — my Lord Middleton 
 and I know better things;"! but independently of other 
 considerations it was the project which promised the 
 largest number of chances in favour of Lovat himself, and 
 he pursued it with untiring perseverance. 
 
 The ex-queen proposed that Lovat should confer on 
 this momentous subject with the Marquis of Torcy, son 
 of the great Colbert, who was then secretary for foreign 
 alFairs. This statesman was subsequently the promoter, 
 on the part of France, of the treaty of Utrecht. He was 
 the Guizot of his day ; partial to peace and broad alliances, 
 and would not be Hkely to receive any project for the in- 
 vasion of Britain with very sanguine favour. Through 
 the Duke of Perth, to whom, at the ex-queen's desire, the 
 project was imparted, the promise of an interview was 
 obtained from de Torcy. At the time fixed for the meet- 
 ing, the French statesman was called to court, but he left 
 as his substitute M. de CalHeres, a veteran diplomatist, 
 older than himself, and not less eminent, as the author of 
 some celebrated Avorks on diplomatic science, and the re- 
 presentative of France at the treaty of Ryswick. Lovat 
 set forth his plan to Callieres, and afterwards had a meet- 
 ing with de Torcy, to whom the substance of it had been 
 communicated. These interviews must have been very 
 
 * Papers relating to the plot, ii. 36. f Ibid iL 14.
 
 64 THE LIFE OF 
 
 curious scenes. The two Frencli statesmen were men of 
 high, personal honour and integrity, whose diplomatic 
 craft was the creature of long experience, and of a sort of 
 professional morality, teaching them that the aggrandise- 
 ment of their own country sanctified every deceit. The 
 young Highlander met the veterans, armed with his own 
 natural craft and unscrupulousness ; and probably, as an 
 ambassador's astuteness might not be expected in a raw 
 mountaineer, he made the most effective dissembler of the 
 three. 
 
 Lovat still persisted in keeping his project a secret 
 from the Jacobite ministry in general. Lord Perth, and 
 his own kinsman Sir John Maclean, were the only indi- 
 viduals among them to whom it was communicated ; and 
 as it was not easy for a Scotsman to hold repeated in- 
 terviews with personages so important, without notice 
 "being taken of them, it was agreed that the meetings 
 with de Torcy and Callieres should be held at the house of 
 Gualterio. After the matter had been seriously taken up 
 by the French ministry, he was requested by the ex- 
 queen, to allow her to communicate the matter to her 
 council at large, " for they had got an inkling of it." 
 Lovat consented, sagaciously remarking to Maclean, that 
 " he thought it in vain to do otherwise, for he believed 
 she had told them of it before." Lovat was in the mean 
 time directed to draw up a list of the names of those by 
 whom he was commissioned, and a note of the number of 
 men they could bring into the field. There was no difiiculty 
 in preparing such a document in a perfectly satisfactory 
 shape. When Sir John Maclean saw it, he expressed his 
 surprise on noticing in it the names of persons with whom 
 Lovat had not long previously told him that he had had 
 no intercourse: to this it was answered, that he knew
 
 SIMOX LORD LOVAT. 65 
 
 their minds, and would answer for tlieir seconding all his 
 proceedings. Sir John then observed that some chiefs 
 were rated at fully double the number of men they could 
 actually command — to which there was the incontroverti- 
 ble answer, that unless the scheme were made to look 
 well, the French court would not move in it. 
 
 There is some reason for believing Lo vat's statement, 
 that the French ministers were disposed heartily to adopt 
 his plan, and that the impediments were thrown in its 
 way by the Jacobites themselves. He says, 
 
 *' He obtained of the court of France to send an army of 
 5000 men to support the loyal Scots. They were, also, to send 
 officers, money, ammunition, and arms, sufficient for such au 
 enterprise. Every thing had already been prepared. Lord 
 Lovat had even received from the Marshal de Vauban, with 
 whom he had communicated several days for that purpose, his 
 grand secret for the construction of folding ladders, with which 
 it was proposed to scale Fort WilUam."* 
 
 Sir John Maclean speaks still more distinctly and 
 
 largely : 
 
 " The money desired for this expedition was 100,000 
 crowns, and the arms were for 20,000 men, both which were 
 promised, but the arms were not sent when Sir J. Maclean 
 came away, nor was there any of the money to be sent, tiU 
 the security of things appeared upon Fraser's return, and then 
 it was to be sent by a French commissary, "f 
 
 The Duke of Berwick was seriously spoken of as the 
 commander of the expedition: he had claims to be the 
 second military leader of his day, and might fitly have 
 measured swords with IVIarlborouo-h — if Marlborousfh had 
 
 O O 
 
 been on the other side. The other person principally 
 spoken of as likely to command, was the Duke of Hamil- 
 
 * Own Life, 141. The promise to raise 5000 men, and the other cir- 
 cumstances here referred to, are in a great measure confirmed by the 
 documents in the " Collection of Original Papers regarding The Scot's 
 jPlot>" -j- Sir J. Maclean's discovery. 
 
 F
 
 66 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ton. Lovat knew very well that this discontented and 
 dubious nobleman would never occupy any so decided 
 position, and he objected to the Duke of Berwick as a 
 leader in Scotland ; " all the Scots' officers in France 
 being discontented with him for favouring the preten- 
 sions of the Irish officers." It is pretty clear that he 
 mshed to be commander-in-chief himself. He went 
 through the ceremony, however, of consulting maps with 
 the military duke. 
 
 While disposed to take advantage of a scheme so well 
 concocted, the French statesmen would not have been 
 wise to divest themselves of all suspicion that there 
 might be rottenness, and perhaps a dangerous rottenness 
 at its heart. The messenger had come in a very ques- 
 tionable shape. His assurances of the adherence of the 
 clans, and of their willingness to rise, were merely verbal. 
 Without throwing any imputation on the purity of his 
 honour, it was just possible that some of the chiefs when 
 called on to fulfil tlie promise, might deny having ever 
 made it. On the whole, it was judged to be expedient 
 that he should return to Scotland to obtain more distinct 
 information. 
 
 It was at first proposed to send along with him a 
 French commissary, but there were obvious difficulties 
 in the way. Such a person could not move a mile from 
 place to place, without being an object of suspicion. The 
 chiefs would be shy of his presence; while on the other 
 hand, as he would be ignorant of the people and their 
 habits, he would never be able to know with certainty 
 whether those he met with were real Highland chiefs, 
 or persons taken from the boards of a theatre to per- 
 sonate the character. At the same time it did not appear 
 safe, so far as the interests of France were concerned, to
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 67 
 
 ipxit no better check on Lovat's proceedings, than the 
 fellowship of some Scottish Jacobite, who might even be 
 induced by party or personal feeling to aid his schemes 
 •whatever they might be. 
 
 At length the French ministry adopted the plan of 
 sending, as his companion, a gentleman of Scottish family, 
 •who was a naturahsed Frenchman, and who would be 
 sufhciently aHve to the Jacobite cause, without forgetting 
 the interests of that country which could alone afford 
 him the privileges and protection of a citizen. The 
 person selected was John Murray, brother of the Laird of 
 Abercaimey. " The most ancient branch," says Lovat, 
 *' and the true head of the family of IVIurray, though 
 the branch of Athol have falsely arrogated to itself a 
 superiority." 
 
 At length he set out by St. Omer for Brussels, having 
 received 400 pistoles to meet the expenses of his journey, 
 a sum scarcely commensurate with the largeness of his 
 projects. He received a paper of instructions, dated 5th 
 May, 1703, ten months after his arrival in France, 
 commencing, " You are with all convenient speed to 
 return to your own country, and to show this paper only 
 to such of the Highlanders as knew of your coming hither, 
 and have sent to us by you, and such others of them as 
 you hope to bring to our interest." It contained no fur- 
 ther definitive assurances as to France, than a statement 
 that they should be sufficiently assisted by friends there, 
 " when the conjuncture is favourable and that then they 
 shall be supplied with every thing that may make them 
 appear effectually for us." They are recommended to 
 act with energy, but at the same time with caution and 
 secrecy.* The instructions were accompanied by a colo- 
 * ilacpherson's Papers, i. 630. 
 
 r 2
 
 68 THE LIFE OF 
 
 nel's commission to Lovat, signed 25tli of February, 
 1703.* Murray also received brief instructions: 
 
 '' When you arrive in Scotland, you are to repair straight 
 to the Highlands, and there you are to be introduced by Lord 
 Lo\at to the several chiefs of clans and gentlemen of interest in 
 that part of the country, of whom you are to inform yourself 
 what they propose, what they are able to do, and at what time 
 they can be in readiness. And if there be diversity of opinions, 
 you are to mark the persons that differ in opinion from the 
 others, &c."f 
 
 State etiquette is the last attribute of power and royalty 
 that an exiled court loses, ^ and these documents being duly 
 superscribed " James R." and " given at our court at 
 St. Germains," are countersigned " Middleton," accord- 
 ing to tlie arrangement by whicli in Britain some minister 
 must take the responsibility, to Parliament and the peoj)le, 
 of every public act of the monarch, and his relation. 
 
 Sir John Maclean, made a journey to Scotland, nearly at 
 tlie same time, and evidently for the purpose of keeping an 
 eye on bis motions. Middleton simultaneously despatched 
 
 * Papers regarding the plot. f Macpherson's Papers, i. 630. 
 
 "l The retention of court etiquettes by dethroned royal families, after 
 tliey are put in positions to which such pomps and ceremonies are un- 
 suited, and among people ■who do not understand them, or have no 
 inducement to he subject to their severe restraints, are sometimes 
 infinitely ludicrous, and even the historical glories attached to Napo- 
 leon's character could scarcely dignify them at Loghouse. A royal 
 lady, living in Britain, had lately occasion to converse with an elderly 
 person of her own sex, of eminent respectability, about some matters of 
 very sublunary business. This old lady, who had every reason to 
 believe that she was doing a considerable favour to the personage she 
 waited on, was somewhat surprised to find but one chair in the room, 
 and that occupied by the personage soliciting her attendance, who was 
 considerably her junior. The conference was long, the old lady 
 became very tired, and resolving to remedy the matter, she had recourse 
 to stratagem. Standing at the window, she held up her hands and 
 uttered a loud cry, as if some extraordinary event had taken place out- 
 side. The personage rushed to the window. There was nothing won- 
 derful to be seen outside, but when she turned her head there was some- 
 thing wonderful, indeed, to be seen within— the old lady seated in her 
 chair.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 69 
 
 James Murray, brother of Sir Davicl Murray of Stanhope, 
 avowedly as a spy on Lovat's motions, for which reason 
 he is called Middleton's " sworn creature, his spy, and a 
 man who had no other means of subsistence."* Maclean 
 landed at Folkstone, in Kent, after a journey of ex- 
 treme hardship, in which his wife was delivered of 
 a child while crossing the Channel in an open fishing 
 vessel. Such were the perils to which political intriguers, 
 in the days when individuals could put the peace of 
 nations in peril, were Hable to. Looking back as we do 
 to the mischiefs they did, we cannot help sympathising 
 in the miseries they endured, and wishing that some 
 better cause had animated them to the exertion. 
 
 Dangers encountered, and real physical hardships sub- 
 mitted to, are yet no index of the goodness of a cause. 
 If any man was ever entitled to appeal to his sufferings, — 
 to the dangers which he encountered, and to the success 
 with which he overcame all impediments, — as a test of 
 honesty, that man was Simon Fraser. The reader has 
 the means of judging of the accuracy of the test. 
 
 He tells us that he encountered great dangers in passing 
 from Calais through En^-land to Scotland. Whatever 
 may have been his precautions, there is no doubt that his 
 journey must have been a perilous one. "While Lovat 
 and Mr. Murray were passing through Northallerton, in 
 Yorkshire, a Frenchman whom they had with them in 
 some servile capacity, had been speaking too freely, within 
 the hearing of a justice of peace, of sound Protestant and 
 revolution principles. At that time, indeed, it only re- 
 quired the sound of a foreign tongue, and the appearance 
 of a traveller, to rouse the most formidable suspicions, and 
 to deprive the inhabitants of larger towns than Northaller- 
 
 * Ownlife, p, 152.
 
 70 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ton of their nightly sleep. The justice headed a body of 
 constables and able-bodied townsmen, and surrounded the 
 inn. Lovat had one of his own clan as an attendant, who 
 warned the plotters of their danger. Murray resolved to 
 stand on his privileges as a naturaUsed Frenchman. Lovat 
 was determined to fight and die unless his fertile ingenuity 
 should render his heroic purposes unnecessary. His clans- 
 man stood with two pistols on the landing of the stair — 
 his duty was with the subordinates; and the justice of 
 peace was to be allowed to pass, that he might be dealt 
 with by the master. When the justice presented himself, 
 Lovat, with all the warm cordiality of the most guileless 
 manner, approached, shook him warmly by the hand, and 
 thanked him for his visit, expressing his great pleasure in 
 seeing an old friend whom he had not seen for two years. 
 He believed the last occasion on which they had met was 
 when he attended a neighbouring horse-race with his 
 brother, the Duke of Argyle. The Yorkshire justice at 
 once succumbed to the bolder genius of one infinitely 
 more Yorkish, He apologised for the abruptness of his 
 intrusion to meet the Duke of Argyle's brother: his hos- 
 pitable zeal must be his excuse. The two new allies spent 
 a roaring night drinking loyal toasts, and the justice was 
 carried oif to bed. We have this anecdote only on Lovat's 
 own authority, but it is characteristic. He is at very un- 
 necessary pains to vindicate his personation of the Duke 
 of Argyle's brother, on the ground that he had some 
 claim to the position, being a relation of that family.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 71 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 State of Scotland — Causes of National Jealousies— The Succession and 
 Act of Security — Secret Movements of the Jacobites — Opening of 
 the Queensberry Plot — Its Secret History — Lovat's Escape in the 
 midst of it — Queensberry's Situation — Dispute between the Two 
 Houses — Fergusson the Plotter — Lockhart of Carnwath — The inter- 
 cepted Letters — Perilous Journeys — Eeception in Prance — His long 
 Imprisonment— Inquiry whether lie became a Jesuit and a popular 
 Preacher — The Marchioness of Frezeliere. 
 
 Scotland was at that time a very formidable neigh- 
 bour to England. The thistle had grown tall and fiery> 
 shooting forth all its spikes, and was not to be touched on 
 any pretence. Matters had changed since the day when 
 the homely monarch of the Scots, having come to his great 
 kingdom of England, brought with him all his kindly 
 Scots attendants, to share in his fortunes, not liking to be 
 surrounded by strange faces, or to waste all his new wealth 
 on aHens. Succeeding sovereigns looked coldly and re- 
 pulsively on a country which furnished more swords than 
 subsidies. A feehng was arising that the two countries dif- 
 fering so much in habits and character, and looking back 
 into so long a vista of strife and rivalry, could have no 
 other union than that of inferiority and subjection — of the 
 dominance of the stronger over the weaker. Several out- 
 lets for Scottish enterprise — the prtsfervidum ingenium Sco- 
 torum, as it was termed by one who witnessed its ener- 
 gies in foreign lands — were blocked up, and new ones
 
 72 THE LIFE OF 
 
 were not opened. The Scottisli gentry were invaluable 
 elements in the foreign armies, especially those which were 
 led to war against the English. Wealth they had not, and 
 sometimes, perhaps, little systematic military education, 
 But they were all great men, — princes on a small scale ; 
 and they had those habits of command, that unlearnable 
 self- estimate which insensibly exacts obedience, a quality 
 worth more than military skill and strategy, in the wars 
 anterior to Turenne and Vauban. These resources were 
 now closed, except to those who chose to become ahens and 
 traitors. The universities and ecclesiastical institutions 
 of foreign countries had been filled by learned scholars 
 and able priests of Scottish birth, but this resource 
 to the national enterprise was also dried up by that 
 haughty government which dictated the alliances and the 
 quarrels of its neighbour in making its own. At the time 
 when poor Scotsmen went abroad to gain their bread, 
 rich foreigners came to Scotland to spend their wealth. 
 France, then the richest country of Europe, as Britain is 
 now, kept up an interest in Scotland, something like that 
 which it has been the object of our politicians to preserve 
 in Portugal, and with a similar aim, but supported with 
 greater earnestness and more eifect. The benefits derived 
 from fellow-citizenship with England were scarcely a 
 compensation for such losses after the throne ceased to be 
 occupied by a native sovereign. The Scots desired to 
 spread their commerce abroad like England, to nourish 
 colonies — those outward badges which they deemed the 
 essential elements of commercial prosperity; and to par- 
 take in the shipping trade. Every attempt, either to 
 participate in the privileges of England ; or to set up inde- 
 pendent establishment, was baffled ; and the Darien scheme 
 into which the people had rushed with the highest en-
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 73 
 
 thusiasm of national emulation mixed ■witli the -wildest 
 frenzy of joint-stock speculation, was crushed without 
 compunction or hesitation, to gratify the interested jea- 
 lousy of the English merchants. By the Eughsh navi- 
 gation act, the Scots were treated as aliens — they could 
 not trade with the colonies or with England herself, ex- 
 cept on the conditions to which foreign vessels were li- 
 mited; and while trade with the alien enemies of Enoland 
 would be treated as an act of hostiHty, heavy duties were 
 laid on Scottish goods passing to the English market. 
 
 There were not wanting fiery spirits to stir up these ele- 
 ments of strife, nor apt opportunities for their interference. 
 By the English act of settlement, arrangements had been 
 made for securing the succession of the throne to a Protest- 
 ant family. The offspring of Charles I., both through his 
 sons and daughters, — whose descendants have increased so 
 widely by alhances with the European thrones, that there 
 is scarcely a CathoUc crowned head in Europe who is not 
 nearer the British throne by direct descent from the 
 Stuart race, than the present royal family, — were passed 
 over; and the descendants of EUzabeth, the unfortunate 
 Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., were found to 
 be the nearest line of collateral relations to Queen Anne, 
 who were unexceptionably Protestant. Her sole descendant 
 was a daughter married to a German elector, and thus the 
 Protestant heir had to be found by going back to an old 
 generation of the British royal family, and passing 
 through two female successions. This was far from being 
 a very obvious quarter to have recourse to, even if it were 
 an understood matter that the descendants of Charles I. 
 were to be excluded. How many people remember that 
 the King of Prussia is a descendant of George I. ; that 
 the King of Holland is a descendant of the Guelfic kings
 
 74 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of England by tlie female side ; and tliat there have tAvice 
 been intermarriages of the same race with the royal house 
 of Denmark ? 
 
 Even so, it may be questioned if, in the year 1702, 
 many people who were not statesmen or genealogists knew 
 much of the son of the Princess Sophia — the grandson 
 of a British princess, who had been married ninety years 
 before to a secondary prince in a remote part of Europe. 
 When, therefore, this settlement had been selected by the 
 Parliament of England as the best, without consulting or 
 treating with the Scottish legislature, it was not by any 
 means so obviously the only rational alternative that could 
 be adopted, as to preclude the Scottish legislature from 
 considering the question of the succession to the crown as a 
 very difficult matter, requiring much and deliberate consi- 
 deration. The dilemma afforded an excellent opportunity 
 for making favourable conditions for Scotland, for no Eng- 
 lish government could feel that it rested on a very secure 
 basis, while that of Scotland had not made arrange- 
 ments for the same line of monarchs occupying the two 
 thrones. But the Scottish statesmen could not see that 
 they were bound to choose the descendants of the Elec- 
 trcss Sophia, just because those of England had chosen 
 to do so; and to show that they were serious in taking 
 advantage of the opportunity afforded them, they passed 
 the " Act of Security." It provided for the assembling of 
 Parliament on the queen's death, and the devolution of the 
 crown on a Protestant successor; with the stipulation that 
 the same person who might succeed to the crown of Eng- 
 land, should not succeed to that of Scotland, unless Eng- 
 land conceded to Scotland a free intercommunication of 
 trade, the privileges of the Navigation Act, and a par- 
 ticipation in the colonial trade. The monarch, fortified 
 
 1
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 75 
 
 behind tlie power of tlie English ParHament, employed a 
 remedy which has almost dropped out of the kno-\vn Hst 
 of royal prerogatives in Britain, by refusing assent to the 
 measure. 
 
 This raised new and more formidable inquiries. It was 
 said, and on pretty sound constitutional authority, that 
 the ancient Scottish monarchs did not possess the preroga- 
 tive of rejecting laws which had passed the three estates; 
 that the form of touching each law as it passed, with the 
 sceptre, was not necessary like the royal assent in Eng- 
 land, to convert a bill into an Act of Parhament, but was 
 a mere acknowledgment from the throne that the act 
 was law. The patriots began to say, that Protestantism 
 in a monarch; was not so essential as a constitutional 
 limitation of his prerogative; and that it were little matter 
 whether their king came from Hanover or St. Germains, 
 if the national independence were protected. This 
 stormy parliament was adjourned without granting a sup- 
 ply. When it was re-assembled it brought back the Act of 
 Security, and experience showed the English government 
 the prudence of permitting the queen to comply with it. 
 The spirit of resistance to the domination or interference 
 of England was gradually becoming more fierce, and 
 incidents occurred which showed that it was not confined 
 to the inflammable populace, or to romantic theorists, or 
 to party statesmen raising a cry to serine an end ; but that 
 it was becoming part of the creed of grave sagacious 
 poHticians, and was entertained on the bench and in the 
 academic chair, as well as in the senate and the market- 
 place. 
 
 It was In the middle of this race of stirring incidents, 
 iust when the royal assent had been refused to the Act of 
 Security, that the " Scottish Plot" was opened up, and
 
 76 THE LIFE OF 
 
 exliibited Lovat holding the mainspring of its move- 
 ments. 
 
 An indemnity having been granted to those who had 
 left the country with the exiled court, on condition of 
 their returning within a time limited, and taking the 
 oaths, it was observed with alarm, that many persons were 
 talcing advantage of this opportunity to return, who were 
 among the most formidable of the Jacobite leaders, and 
 who could not be supposed to be sincerely disposed to sup- 
 port the Protestant line of succession. Among these 
 ominous apparitions were Lovat himself, the two Murrays 
 mentioned above. Sir John Maclean, Robertson of Struan 
 the poet chieftain, — ''a little black man, about thirty years 
 old," as he was described by those who kept their eyes on 
 him; and David Lindsay, secretary to the Pretender's 
 prime minister, Middleton. The fiery Lord Belhaven 
 had just paid a visit to France. He was an opponent of 
 English ascendency, and a cadet of the house of Hamilton ; 
 and his mission could, of course, have no other object but 
 to offer the allegiance of that house to the young prince. 
 Political intriguers, such as the renowned Ferguson, 
 looked busy and mysterious. Mrs. Fox, v/hose name was 
 connected with the plot for which Sir John Fenwick suf- 
 fered, had ventured over to Britain, under a feigned 
 name; and sundry young men of good birth, whose avowed 
 mission to France had been to study medicine, had, either 
 in vanity or carelessness, allowed it to transpire that they 
 had been at the court of St. Gcrmains, and had seen 
 those royal personages who created so dangerous an inte- 
 rest throughout the country. The general movement of 
 these parties was northwards, and was accompanied by 
 incidents such as those which happened to Lovat. Cap- 
 tain Hamilton, an ofEccr stationed at Inverness, wrote to
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 77 
 
 Brigadier-General Maitland, governor of Fortwilliam, on 
 the 23rd of July, tliat a great hunting match had been 
 planned for the 2nd of the month, at which many of the 
 Highland chiefs were to assemble their vassals. 
 
 " The Duke of Hamilton is to be there, the Marquis of 
 Athol: and our neighbour the Laird of Grant, who has or- 
 dered 600 of his men in arms, in good order, with tartane 
 coats, all of one colour and fashion. This is his order to liis 
 people in Strathspey. If it be a match of hunting only, I 
 know not, but I think it my duty to acquaint you, whatever 
 may fall out of any such body of men in arms, particularly in 
 our northern parts."* 
 
 It will be remembered that this was exactly the form'in 
 which the Earl of Mar raised the standard of rebellion at 
 Braemar, in 1715; and we appear to owe the suggestion 
 to the inventive ffenius'of Lovat. At the same time, the 
 British ambassador at the Hague received some myste- 
 rious intimations about large sums forwarded in gold, 
 through a Dutch commercial house, to persons of im- 
 portance in Scotland. 
 
 Lovat appears, on his arrival in Scotland, to have im- 
 mediately repaired to his own " country," where his bro- 
 ther John had been a faithful viceroy in his absence, and 
 to have thence passed along the Highlands, visiting and 
 sounding the heads of clans. All that can be ascertained 
 of his machinations is, that he had interviews with his 
 cousin Stuart of Appin, Cameron of Lochiel, the Laird of 
 Macgregor, and Lord Druramond, at whose castle, accord- 
 ing to Lo vat's own grand way of speaking, " a general 
 
 * Collection of original papers about the Scots Plot, Advocate's Li- 
 brary, fF. 7, 14. This curious collection of papers, printed in 1704, 
 probably for the vindication of the Duke of Athol, has been amply used 
 on this occasion. The author has no doubt of the authenticity of the 
 papers. He has taken occasion to collate such of them as are in the 
 Scots' Privy Council records, and finds them accurately given, with 
 the exception of one or two trifling accidental blunders.
 
 78 THE LIFE OF 
 
 council of war" was held, " of all tlie Scottish leaders 
 most attached to their sovereign." " In this council," he 
 continues, " he proposed to them to take up arms imme- 
 diately, with an entire confidence of being speedily suc- 
 coured from the kingdom of France."* 
 
 To follow Lovat's own account of his progress and in- 
 terviews would be a waste of words. Although he tells 
 us that his project was received with the utmost enthu- 
 siasm, and that the chiefs were unanimously in its favour; 
 yet somehow, without the least abatement of this enthu- 
 siasm, or the least distrust in him, and without any osten- 
 sible cause whatever restraining their unanimous zeal, not 
 one of them is found to move. John Murray's chief field 
 of exertion was the Lowland gentry, whom he confesses 
 that he found intractable; and it is very clear that Lovat 
 met with very early discouragement, as he seems, nearly 
 at the commencement of his proceedings, to have courted 
 intercourse with the Duke of Argyle and Lord Leven, 
 with the view of attempting a plot against the Jacobites, 
 to make up to himself for his disappointment about the 
 plot in their favour.f 
 
 In the month of August, the Duke of Queensberry, 
 then High Commissioner to the ParHament of Scotland, 
 received information through the Duke of Argyle and 
 Lord Leven, that they knew a man who was deep in the 
 intrigues of the Jacobites, and Avho might possibly be pre- 
 vailed on to give some valuable information, but whose 
 name must in the meantime be kept secret. They could 
 only say that he was a man of rank, and that he had been 
 in personal communication with the exiled royal family, 
 and the French ministry. The duke had heard of the 
 
 « Own Life, 163. 
 
 t Examinations before the Committee of Privy Council. Papers re- 
 garding the Plot.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 79 
 
 proposed hunting in the Highlands, and of the sums of 
 money supposed to be sent from Holland. The Scottish 
 parliament, too, had just passed one of their strongest votes 
 upon the national security question ; and, on the whole, 
 the juncture seemed so critical, that even on this imper- 
 fect information he wrote to the queen, detaihng all that 
 he had heard, and asking, 
 
 " If that person shall apply to me and be willing to own 
 what he has said, how shall I use him ? It is strange 
 enough," he continues, " that in his circumstances he should 
 have said so much ; and it can hardly be expected that he will 
 forfeit what he may expect from France, without getting some 
 terms from your majesty."* 
 
 His grace the commissioner was at length informed 
 that the possessor of so much momentous intelligence was 
 ready for a secret audience. At the appointed hour, the 
 massive person of Lovat stalked into the private chamber, 
 and the statesman, reared and hardened in the war of in- 
 trigue and deception, was confronted with the broad good- 
 humoured face of the young Highlander, little dreaming 
 that that uncouth smile and profuse suavity of manner 
 concealed a natural power of dissimulation and intrigue, 
 which the severest education in state craft would fail to 
 impart to ordinary minds. This was late in September, 
 when Lovat had made up his mind that the project of a 
 Highland, rising at that moment at all events, was hopeless ; 
 and when, if he wished to execute any thing for his own 
 advantage, or even to secure his safety, he must transact 
 with the other party. Accordingly he told all and more 
 than all, to the infinite wonder of the commissioner, and 
 his grace's high satisfaction with his own ability in hunt- 
 ing out conspiracies. He was able to produce documents, 
 
 * Original papers about the Plot, 4, 5.
 
 80 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and to make them do double service. He was asked if he 
 had any letters from the court of St. Germains to their 
 principal adherents ? Yes — he had three at least ; but two 
 of them, one to the Duke of Hamilton^ and another to the 
 Duke of Gordon, were unfortunately delivered. He still 
 had 07ie; but the use made of this one was a master-stroke 
 of policy, and deserves special delineation. It appears 
 that, along with his formal commissions, he had been in- 
 tensely desirous of obtaining from the ex-queen a letter of 
 private recognition to some one of her principal adherents. 
 By what means he had accomplished his end it were diffi- 
 cult to say, but he did obtain such a document, in these 
 words, 
 
 " You may be sure that when my concerns require the help 
 of my friends, you are one of the first I have in my view. I am 
 satisfied you will not be wanting for any thing that may be in 
 your power according to your promise, and you may be assured 
 of all such returns as you can expect from me and mine. The 
 bearer wlio is known to you, will tell you more of my friend- 
 sln'p to you, and how I rely on yours for me, and those I am 
 concerned for."* 
 
 This letter was signed with the initial " M." It was not 
 directed to any one; of course this omission was merely to 
 prevent danger to the possessor in case of a seizure. What 
 then could be a better opportunity for a blow at his old 
 enemy Athol, than to direct this letter to him ? And so 
 it was done, though not so ingeniously as to prevent the 
 difference of hand and ink being subsequently discovered 
 when the letter was opened. Queensberry, even through 
 the official gravity of his letter to her Majesty, almost 
 chuckles at his dexterity in having " found the way to be 
 master of that letter." " I have transmitted it," he cou- 
 
 * Original papers about the Plot, 8.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 81 
 
 tinues, " to your majesty without breaking tlie seal, whicli 
 is clear the effigies of the king your majesty's father." 
 
 Lovat does not mention this incident so creditable to 
 his genius, in his autobiography. He admits, however, 
 that he charged Athol with a correspondence with St. 
 Germains, and vindicates liis doing so on a ground which 
 affords as singular an instance of his pecuhar morality as 
 any other that has been recorded either for or against him. 
 It was because Athol was a bitter enemy of the Court of 
 St. Germains, and therefore deserved to be punished ! 
 
 '•' With respect to Lord Athol, he was notoriously the incor- 
 rigible enemy of King- James. His accumulated treasons ren- 
 dered his person odious to all his majesty's faithful servants. 
 Much less, therefore, was Lord Lovat bound to spare this incom- 
 parable vUlain than the duke, his brother-in-law. In a word, 
 he was persuaded that he could not do a better ser\ace to his 
 king, than to put the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Athol, the 
 two greatest hypocrites in Scotland, and of whose duplicity and 
 selfish policy no man was ignorant, out of a condition to injure 
 his project, or to pi-ejudice the interest of their sovereign."* 
 
 Tliis method of palliation serves to support the plea 
 he sets forth in his autobiography, which he wrote in a 
 fit of adherence to the Jacobite cause; and where, unable 
 to conceal the notorious fact of his revelations to Queens- 
 berry, he endeavours to make out that he betrayed no 
 one as a Jacobite, except those whom he knew to be 
 on the opposite side. 
 
 The commissioner's letter to the queen, detailing his 
 
 interview with Lovat, whose name is still kept profoundly 
 
 secret, is dated 25th of September, 1703. He there says: 
 
 '■ This person is willing to come to London and to g'ive what 
 accounts he knows, provided he do it secretly ; and he offers to 
 return to France and discover all the correspondence and de- 
 signs ; but says that if he falls under observation, or that he 
 
 * P. 175. 
 G
 
 82 THE LIFE OF 
 
 be discovered, he runs the nsk to be broken on the wheel. He 
 says what money is transmitted yet from France, is only for the 
 use of some particular persons, and that it comes by bills to 
 London, and is brought hither in specie." 
 
 " I confess it hard," continues the zealous commissioner, " to 
 think how one should know or be ready to reveal so much. 
 Yet the delivering of that principal letter, and the showing his 
 own commission under the hand and seal of the Prince of 
 Wales as King James VIII. and III., which he says was the 
 first paper sealed with his new seal ; these do give credit to 
 what else could not have been so well trusted ; and he says, that 
 he has a commission as major-general from the French king 
 which lies there, that it might give no offence till once the 
 forces designed were raised. I thought it necessary to enter- 
 tain him wdth some money till your majesty do signify your 
 further pleasure about him."* 
 
 It was, indeed, a matter of urgent necessity with Lovat 
 that he should obtain a pass, and make his escape abroad. 
 Among his own people lie was, as he expressed it, "in 
 greater safety than the privy council in the city of Edin- 
 burgh;" but it was otherwise when he passed through the 
 Lowlands. His ill-omened presence was creating a 
 dangerous sensation in Scotland. The sentence of out- 
 lawry obtained by the dowager lady and her friends from 
 the Court of Justiciary, still hung over him ; and active 
 measures were taken to make him feel its weight. 
 
 Among the formidable documents issued against re- 
 cusants from justice, by the privy council, one received 
 the savage title of " Letters of Fire and Sword." Such 
 a writ was issued against Lovat and his followers, giying 
 authority to those intrusted with its execution. 
 
 " To convocate our lieges in arms, to pass and search for, 
 see, follow, take, apprehend, imprison, or present to justice, and 
 in case of resistance, hostility, or opposition, to pursue to the death 
 the said Captain iSimon Fraser, outlawed and fugitive, afore- 
 said, and such persons as shall associate themselves to him, and 
 * Original Tapers, &c. pp. 7 — 8.
 
 SniOX LORD LOVAT. 83 
 
 resist the execution of this, our commission, wherever he can 
 be apprehended. And if the said Captain Simon Fraser, and 
 they who shall associate themselves to him, in ojiposition to 
 this commission, shall, for his or then* refuge, happen to 
 flee to houses or strengths, in that case we, with advice fore- 
 said, give full power and commission to our said commis- 
 sioners, conjointly, and severally, as said is, to pass, pur- 
 sue, and assiege the said houses or strengths, raise fire, and 
 use all force and warlike engines that can be had for winning 
 and recovering thereof, and apprehending the said Captain 
 Simon Fraser, and such persons as shall associate themselves 
 to him in resisting the execution of this commission as rebels 
 and traitors."* 
 
 This formidable document was dated 27th of Sep- 
 tember, just two days after Queensberry's letter to 
 the queen. Tlie commissioner appears to have granted 
 him a pass to London immediately afterwards, for he set 
 out before the commencement of October. The commis- 
 sioner was proceeding to London about the same time, 
 and Lovat agreed to have another secret meeting with 
 him there. Lovat, probably finding his position in Bri- 
 tain more uneasy every day, at that meeting persuaded 
 the commissioner to make considerable exertions to get 
 him sent over to the continent. In Queensberry's own 
 words, 
 
 " Fraser appeared most hearty and forward to make further 
 discoveries, and renewed the offer he had made formerly of 
 returning to France, and there to do great service for the go- 
 vernment by finding out what returns had been made fx*om Scot- 
 land, and said he believed he might be master of the original 
 papers, and that he would return and discover the resolutions that 
 should be taken in France, upon the answers from Scotland ; 
 and that he would do such things for her majesty's sen'ice, as 
 should deserve her pardon and an estabhshment for his ovtU 
 subsistence."! 
 
 He seems, indeed, to have had dexterity enough to make 
 * Simon's Tracts, xii., 447. < f Original Papers, &c. i. 56. 
 
 g2
 
 84 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tlie commissioner adopt a principle which of course that 
 great official does not mention — to consider the revela- 
 tions made to him too valuable a piece of political pro- 
 perty to be communicated to any other statesman. 
 There were, therefore, some more secret interviev/s in 
 London, at •which Lovat convinced the statesman that 
 it would be an essential service to the government 
 to send him back immediately to France. Queens- 
 berry at last agreed to obtain for him and three fol- 
 lowers, a pass from the English government ; and the 
 pass was signed by Lord Nottingham, then secretary of 
 state, for the names Campbell, Munro, Dickenson, and 
 Forbes, without his having any idea of the real person 
 who was to use the document. Lovat lodged with 
 Thomas Clark, an apothecary, near the Monument, who 
 from the reliance placed in him by his lodger, must ]iave 
 known more than he chose to divulge. He would 
 only say that " the captain himself was a pretty tall 
 _ gentleman, sanguine complexion, fair hair, or a periwig," 
 who having left Billingsgate and sailed down to Graves 
 end, on the 13th of October, the pass w^as brought to 
 Clark to be forwarded to him, " by a pretty tall, thin, 
 black gentleman." Having thus got clear of the British 
 Isle in circumstances of peril and extreme emergency, we 
 shall cast a glance at the state of matters he left behind 
 him, before following him across the Channel. 
 
 Sir John Maclean who had set out from France nearly 
 at the same time as Lovat, did not arrive on the coast of 
 Kent until the lOth of November, and being too late to take 
 advantage of the indemnity, he was immediately appre- 
 hended. His conduct was not exactly that of a high 
 minded chief. He agreed that " he would tell the Earl 
 of Nottingham all he knew upon assurance of his pardon,
 
 SniOX LORD LOVAT. 8t5 
 
 and being treated like a gentleman, so as not to be required 
 to appear in pubHc as an evidence against any person."-'i= 
 — His notion being, that it was more characteristic of 
 a gentleman to give secret information, than to bear 
 open evidence in a court of justice. Accordingly he 
 made his " Discovery," from wliich a great part of the 
 foregoing sketch of liovat's proceedings in France is de- 
 rived, and he was then pardoned and pensioned. This, of 
 course, being too close an imitation of Lovat's own conduct, 
 calls forth a stroke of his righteous indignation. Sir John 
 is spoken of as having acted " to his shame and eternal 
 confusion as the most contemptible of cowards, and as one 
 who as ever since been universally regarded as the most 
 worthless of the human race."t 
 
 The secret was now no lono;er confined to the bosom of 
 Queensberry. On the 13th of December, the queen went to 
 the House of Lords, and in a speech to both houses, said, 
 " I have had unquestionable informations of very ill prac- 
 tices and designs carried on in Scotland by emissaries from 
 France, which might have proved extremely dangerous to 
 the peace of these kingdoms ;" and intimated that investi- 
 gations were in progress, the result of which should be set 
 before them. On the 28th she wrote to the privy council 
 of Scotland, recommending the examination of Lovat's asso- 
 ciates, Macleod, Mackinnon, and jNIaclean, and the council 
 thought it necessary to say in answer, 
 
 " ^^'^ i^^^S^ 't our part to inform your Majesty that we 
 find there are not sufficient provisions, either of arms or am- 
 munition, for defence of the country ; and there are not suf- 
 ficent funds whereby they may be supplied."J: 
 
 So that viewing this state of matters in conjunction with 
 
 * Original Papers, i. 57. t Own Life, 194-5. 
 
 j Privy Council Eecords.
 
 86 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the general dissatisfaction, it is clear that a better time for 
 the organisation of a Jacobite revolt in Scotland could not 
 have been seized, had the agent been better trusted. 
 
 The emulation excited by her Majesty's visit excited 
 one of the most renowned of all the contentions on matters 
 of privilege between the two houses. After Maclean, a 
 Trench officer named Boucher, and some inferior partisans, 
 had been seized by the usual executive authorities, the 
 House of Lords appointed a committee of seven members 
 to examine them, and report to the house, ordering at the 
 same time " that no persons should speak with the pri- 
 soners till they had appeared at the bar of the house.^' 
 The Commons represented this as an interference with the 
 royal prerogative of the executive, and passed strong re- 
 solutions on the subject, and an equally strong address to 
 the queen. The Lords, on the other hand, declared that an 
 appeal to her Majesty was not a constitutional method of 
 settHng questions of privilege between the two houses, 
 holding, it would appear, that such differences should be 
 adjusted in conference. They were no less violent than 
 the Commons in their resolutions and addresses. The 
 Commons passed an address, to the queen, 
 
 " That she will be pleased to resume the just exercise of her pre- 
 rogative, and take to herself" the examination of the matters relat- 
 ing to the conspiracy communicated to this house by her Majesty ; 
 and to give assurance that they will defend her Majesty's sacred 
 person and government against all persons concerned in the 
 said conspiracy, and all other conspirators whatsoever; and to 
 declare that the appointment of a committee of seven lords 
 for the sole examination of the said conspiracy, is of dangerous 
 consequence, and may tend to the subversion of the govern- 
 ment." 
 
 They passed, with many eulogiums, a vote of confidence 
 on the Earl of Nottingham, und his ability to sift the
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 87 
 
 plot, wliicli tempted the members of the House of Lords 
 to show in debate, that he had not made inquiry so satis- 
 factorily as themselves, thus: 
 
 " The seven lords went on with their examinations ; and 
 after some days they made a report to the house. Maclean's 
 confession was the main thing. It was full and particular. 
 He named the persons that sat in the council of St. Germains. 
 He said the command was offered to the Duke of Berwick, 
 which he declined to accept till trial was made whether Duke 
 Hamilton would accept of it ; who, he thought, was the proper 
 person. He told likewise what directions had been sent to 
 hinder the setthng the succession in Scotland — none of which 
 particulars were in the paper that the Earl of Nottingham 
 had brought to the house, of his confession."* 
 
 After the exhibition of much constitutional learn- 
 ing, in which Lord Somers took an active part, and 
 many references to precedent, the last step taken in 
 the matter was an address of the Lords at the end of 
 March, containing the following passage, which had the 
 immediate effect of further alarming the independence 
 of Scotland, and carrying the constitutional battle north- 
 wards . 
 
 " We do humbly take leave to offer to your Majesty, as our 
 concurrent opinion, that nothing has given so much encourage- 
 ment to your enemies at home and abroad to enter into this 
 detestable conspiracy, as that after your Majesty and the heirs 
 of your body, the immediate succession to the crown of Scotland 
 is not declared to be in the Princess Sophia and the heirs of her 
 body, being Protestant. ''f 
 
 Of course, these very free remarks on the conduct 
 of the independent legislature of a neighbouring country 
 called forth an answer there. A resolution was tabled in 
 the Scottish parliament, charging the House of Lords 
 
 * These matters are stated in " Sir John IMaclean's larger discovery, 
 Febniary 26, 1704," which appears to contain the statemtnt he made 
 to the Committee of the House of Lords. 
 
 f Pari. Hist., vi., 172-22-i.
 
 88 THE LIFE OF 
 
 with an attempt on tlieir independence, and gently re- 
 proaching the House of Commons with unneighbourly 
 conduct. It pronounced that the House of Lords' address 
 *' was an undue intermeddling with our concerns, and an 
 encroachment upon the honour, sovereignty, and inde- 
 pendency of this nation ; and that the proceedings of the 
 House of Commons were not like those of good subjects to 
 the queen and good neighbours to us." The latter part 
 of the resolution was, however, lost on a division. Lovat, 
 when he had set his foot in safety on the other side of the 
 Channel, appears to have looked back with some exulta- 
 tion on the respectable quarrel he had left behind him. 
 
 Let us now advert for a moment to Lord Athol. It has 
 already been mentioned that Lovat had some conferences 
 in London Avith Robert Ferguson, called " Ferguson the 
 Plotter." This curious personage glides in and out of the 
 pages of the history of the time, scarcely presenting him- 
 self for so long a period as might enable one to ascertain his 
 character and history. His name is Scottish, but in 1704 
 we find him speaking of having lived in England since 
 1655. He had been connected with the Rj'e-house Plot, 
 and in the general pursuit he was traced within the walls 
 of Edinburirh. The abates were shut, but he found a 
 concealment in a place seldom searched for conspirators 
 at laro-e — in the Tollbooth — the old Heart of Midlothian. 
 He had, immediately after the accession of William, been 
 concerned in the project of Montgomery for uniting the 
 ultra-Presbyterians with the Jacobites, for the restoration 
 of James, and he appears to have done so without any 
 zeal or even partiality either for Jacobitism or Presbyte- 
 rianism. Such a person could not well be in the same 
 place with Lovat, without something congenial in their 
 
 ^
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 8^ 
 
 spirits bringing tliem together. Yet it may "be questioned 
 if Ferguson was a very deep or dangerous intriguer. He 
 seems rather to have attached himself, as a matter of taste 
 or vanity, to plots laid by others, than to have been him- 
 self an original deviser of formidable conspiracies. He 
 gloried in his sobriquet of " the plotter," and boasted of 
 the many plots he had been concerned with. In his writ- 
 ings there is a certain tone of professional conceit ; and in 
 alluding to Lovat and his operations, he speaks as one 
 deeply initiated in all these mysteries of hidden state-craft, 
 who, in the person of Lovat, has come in contact with a 
 young aspirant, of promise certainly, but of very small 
 experience, and much too self" relying. Ferguson, in a 
 *' Discovery" which he made to Lord Nottingham, after 
 having explained that he had a suspicion of some one 
 being engaged in a plot to accuse Lord Athol and other 
 loyal persons of treasonable designs, describes an inter- 
 view with a man of importance living in Clark's house, 
 who turned out to be Lovat. He continues to describe 
 the various suspicions that in the course of some partly 
 convivial interviews, were roused in him, without being 
 satisfied, by the conversation and conduct of Lovat. In 
 the meantime he said and did nothing openly; but soon 
 after Lovat's departure, he went to Clark, and desired to 
 have a letter transmitted to Lovat. This letter was an- 
 swered by Lovat, who addressed the plotter as his " uncle," 
 out of affectionate respect, probably, for his superior ex- 
 perience as a conspirator. Through this answer, Ferguson 
 obtained a clue to Lovat's arrangements for corresponding 
 with his friends in Britain. He was thus enabled to lay a 
 plan for intercepting letters, and to do posterity the ser- 
 vice of preserving a very curious tissue of intriguing cor- 
 respondence, to which the reader shall be presently intro-
 
 90 THE LIFE OF 
 
 duced. Ferguson found that he had now supplied himself 
 ■with information sufficiently important for a satisfactory 
 revelation ; and so he informed Lord Athol, hitherto only 
 aware of Lovat's presence in Scotland as that of a fugitive 
 from justice, of the trap that had been laid for him. Athol 
 had very good cause to complain. His brother minister, 
 the Duke of Queensberry, had been four months nourish- 
 ing a charge of high treason against him, and now he for 
 the first time was made aware of the charge, and dis- 
 covered the sort of person by whom it had been made. 
 He wrote an indignant memorial, which was read to the 
 queen, at a Scottish Council held at St. James''s, on the 
 18th of January, 1704. The Duke of Queensberry does 
 not appear to have acted in this matter with any dis- 
 honesty, or with any greater degree of malevolence than 
 consists with the circumstance of a great public officer 
 rather too credulously adopting, and carefully nursing, a 
 secret denunciation which was to burst upon and over- 
 whelm a brother minister. He was, to use a common but 
 clear expression, made a fool of. He was obliged to resign 
 his high office, and to hear the whole history of the 
 intrigues, out of which he lioped to make revelations so 
 important, called " The Queensberry Plot," with the ad- 
 ditional consolation that under this title it would form 
 part of the history of his country. 
 
 In following our hero in his flight from Gravesend to 
 the coast of Holland, and thence to France, it is unfortu- 
 nately impossible to derive much trustworthy information 
 from his own account. The object of the present narrative 
 is to embody the truth as nearly as it can be derived from 
 conflicting statements by individuals who mortally hated 
 each other, and from pamphlets and letters drawn up to serve 
 the temporary ends of their writers. In the midst of all this
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 91 
 
 it must be admitted tliat Lord Lovat's own memoir Has an 
 air of consistency and simplicity, strongly in contrast with 
 tlie conflicting elements by which it is surrounded; but 
 unfortunately these virtues just appear too strongly for 
 the occasion. His account of his own conduct has too 
 much in common with the good boy books in general, 
 and especially with the " History of Goody Two-shoes." 
 Every one who has taken part, with him the virtuous and 
 magnanimous Lord Lovat, is alike virtuous and magnani- 
 mous ; is invariably religious, patriotic, honest, courageous, 
 and humane. As for those who in any way oppose him or 
 counteract his projects, their qualities are announced in a 
 shape which does not admit of being described by a 
 feebler pen, and must be allowed to attest itself Of an 
 author, from whose contemporary account of the Queens- 
 berry Plot he had suffered, he said : 
 
 " It -were pity to treat his book with too much severity, 
 since he hath suppressed his name, for fear of being cudg-elled 
 to death by the footmen of the many noblemen he has mal- 
 treated, and who are unwilhng' themselves to soil their hands 
 with shooting- him through the head, as a gentleman did the 
 father of this author, if he be the person whom all the world 
 beheves him to be."* 
 
 Tlie last allusion was probably looked upon by its 
 writer as singularly happy. The author referred to, is 
 George Lockhart, of Carnwath, whose father, the presi- 
 dent of the Court of Session, had been shot in the High 
 Street of Edinburgh by Chiesly, of Dairy. Lockhart had 
 written a history of his times, which he intended for 
 posterity, and not for his own age. While he was making 
 comphcated arrangements for lea"ving it sealed-up, with 
 directions which would insure it from being opened, so 
 long as any of the persons affected by it were aHve, he 
 
 * Own Life, 204,
 
 92 THE LIFE OF 
 
 could not help allowing a friend to peruse it. That friend, 
 desirous of preserving a copy of so curious a document, 
 got it copied bj a clerk, who, carrying out the dishonesty 
 of his employer just one degree further, kept an addi- 
 tional copy, not only for his own use, but for that of 
 the public, whenever an opportunity should occur of pro- 
 fitably printing it. The opportunity did occur ; and thus 
 many conspicuous people, of whom Lovat was one, had the 
 rare opportunity of seeing set forth, in a printed book, the 
 private and confidentiar'opinion entertained of them by 
 a contemporary; and their fate was the proverbial one of 
 those who overhear estimates of their character, which are in- 
 tended for the ear of others. Lockhart, being a Jacobite, 
 treated Lovat, " one Simon Fraser," as he ignominiously 
 calls him, as a spy employed to betray the Jacobite cause • 
 and gave a brief account of the plot, as if it had been, 
 originally concocted by him, with that sole view. 
 
 To return to Lovat's journey; a young Scotsman, son of 
 IMr. Mackenzie, of Scatwell, having studied for a short time 
 at Oxford, was desirous to complete his studies at Leyden. 
 It was his fortune to pass over to Holland in the same 
 vessel with Lovat, and to have some intercourse Avith him, 
 which he afterwards described in these terms : 
 
 " I went on board the 16th of November, and there were 
 some gentlemen who called themselves my countrymen. I was 
 very glad to see them, since I wanted known company. So 
 after we set sail, one of the gentlemen said to me, you that 
 are country gentlemen need pass the sea but once or twice, 
 but soldiers must go, almost every year: and I said, I hoped 
 if I got safe back to England, 1 should scarce cross the seas 
 again. I talking a little after this manner, he showed me his 
 pass, and there I saw some names writ down : — The first, 
 which he took to himself, was John Campbell, the second 
 Muuroe, the other two passed as servants, inider the names of 
 Dunkinson and Forbes : and so, Mr. Campbell as he called
 
 SDIOX LORD LOVAT. 9^ 
 
 himself said, he dared not to write down Captain CampbeU, 
 for fear of Argvle's getting notice of it, because he had pro- 
 mised to break him if ever he could ; and so, since he staid 
 some time longer than his furlough, lie intended to keep 
 private till he should come to his regiment, w-hich he said be- 
 longed to Sir David Collier ; but he said, he had no great 
 pleasure in staying there since the king's death, who was to 
 have given hlra a regiment if he had lived, for the singular 
 ser^'ice he did that regiment, in getting a great many recruits to 
 it; hat from tiie queen he needed not expect preferment, since 
 she was a woman that did not respect merit. I said, that 1 v.as 
 not much couA'crsant in military affairs, but as to v.liat I heard 
 in England, all neople said, that the queen was not in the 
 least inferior to King William in giving every man his due. 
 He answered, that they were mistaken that said so. Tiien I 
 said, the generality of England are mistaken, for any thing I 
 could ever hear. After this, he began to talk of the Union, 
 and said, Scotland could never be happy if united vpith England. 
 I begged his pardon in that, and told Jiim I differed from him. 
 He said, he wished they would vmite with his old masters, the 
 States of Holland, and the master of the ship agreed with him 
 in that. I said, it may be the Hollanders will fit my humour 
 better than I expect, but for any thing I ever heard of them, 
 they'd never agree with my humour so well as those who Avere 
 Britaius ; and then, after he asked me what I was, and that I 
 told him, he began to ask me if I knew Simon Eraser of Beau- 
 fort ? I said I did, httle thinking that he was the man I spoke 
 to, and I beheve scarce any body could know him then, if they 
 suspected nothing-. He asked what my opinion was of him ? 
 I said, I thought him a great fool, since he took advice from 
 those who advised to so illegal and extravagant things. 
 He said, he thought him so too. After speaking on several 
 such little and pi-ivate things, we at length arrived at Rotter- 
 dam, where we were recommended to a private house of one, 
 a potter by trade, so he advised me to go along with him."* 
 
 Mr. Mackenzie's further statements as to their restless 
 manner of going from house to house — how it would be 
 imwise to stay in this one, and another was too full to 
 afford them any room, and a third had dangerous com- 
 
 * Original Papers, i. 52.
 
 94 THE LIFE OF 
 
 pany in it — is ratlier prolix ; and the details only give one 
 the general idea that Lovat had considerable difficulty in 
 finding a place of safety. He lived for a short time in 
 Holland, corresponding with various people. He had 
 three distinct parties to keep in good humour, and in 
 reliance on his conduct. First, the Jacobites in France, 
 whom he had to entertain with large and mysterious allu- 
 sions to the services he had been performing in Scotland. 
 Second, the Scottish Jacobites, with whom he corres- 
 ponded through Ferguson, and Colin Campbell of Glen- 
 derule. By both these it may be observed that he was 
 betrayed — the former having commenced the correspond- 
 ence for the pui-pose of detecting him — the latter having 
 been tampered with and bribed to give up the letters 
 he received, a circumstance which induces Lovat, in 
 his usual expressive style, to call him: "This imnatural 
 monster — this perfidious traitor — this execrable villain."* 
 
 The third party with whom he had to correspond was 
 the Duke of Queensberry, to whom he professed to sell 
 the secrets of the other two. He had probably a fourth 
 system of correspondence with members of the French 
 government; but if he had, we are not, unfortunately, 
 possessed of the means of partaking in this department 
 of his secrets. In corresponding with Campbell, he 
 adopted the name and address of " Mr. John Smeaton, 
 to the care of Mr. Vincent Nerinx, merchant in Rotter- 
 dam." 
 
 On the 4th of December, writing from Rotterdam to 
 this congenial spirit, he says : 
 
 " I have sent this to let you know that to my loss and 
 trouble I am here yet, because that httle devil, Corbusiere, 
 forgot to give me a letter of advice to answer my bill, and for 
 
 * Own Life, 195.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 95 
 
 want of it I cannot get a farthing'; and live here at the rate of 
 twenty guelders a day : and I could not set out my nose but 
 twenty Scots people knew ; some of them are going to Eng- 
 land. I believe they will give account of me. I made them 
 all believe that I am going on the present expedition to Por- 
 tugal. I desire you tell the duke this, and send me an answer 
 to my last."* 
 
 Again, writing to Campbell, and referring to Sir John 
 Maclean, who was third in number of tlie correspondents 
 who betrayed him, by the term " your brother," he says : 
 
 " I am confounded to know that your brotlier is prisoner. 
 I am afraid they will keep him so; however, his only busi- 
 ness is to give them fair words till he is in the Highlands, 
 for I'd rather see him shot and damned than that he should 
 do an ill thing. Since his lady is with him, he and she 
 must be humoured till he be once in Gray Steel's bounds, 
 and when I return, I hope we will manage him. Our mas- 
 ter's business must carry, for nothing happens every day but 
 melancholy misfortunes to the other party. However, ray 
 dear, since he knows nothing but what she will know, and 
 then her father, who is a knave, you must not let your brother 
 know what passed in Scotland, but in fair generals as I have 
 done in the enclosed." 
 
 He was without doubt very sincere in his desire that 
 Maclean should suffer all calamities, whether of body or 
 soul, rather than " do an ill tlung," viz., an evil tm-n to 
 him, Lovat; and in the " enclosed" he repeats the wish 
 in a modified form : 
 
 " The making of an ill step now would so ruin your repu- 
 tation, that though I love you entirely, I had rather see you 
 buried than that you should be guilty of it." And, " Take 
 care for Christ's sake that no condition may make you or your 
 fiiends teU a word of the main business to any body. Many 
 things may be said that are true and probable, that may do 
 you service, without touching the main, which torture should 
 not oblige you to discover." 
 
 Another letter to Campbell, dated the 14th of December, 
 
 * Original Papers, i. 39 .
 
 96 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sliov/s that lie was still in Rotterdam, but expecting soon 
 to leave that town. He concludes with a fit of enthu- 
 siasm and cajolery : 
 
 " My dearest; if I escape tliis journey, you will see me in 
 summer, if I am alive in health. I pray God preserve and 
 prosper you, my dearest cousin. I hope to see you enjoy a 
 great reputation and a plentiful estate. Your cousin James, 
 Sir Norman's son, is dead, and buried last Wednesday. Pray 
 let me hear frequently from you, and believe you are the crea- 
 ture in the world I love most."* 
 
 Subsequently, when the discoveries about the plot had 
 begun to acquire an unpleasant publicity, we find him 
 writing to Campbell, from Liege, on the 24th of February, 
 1704. 
 
 " I believe all the devils are got loose to torment me. With 
 you I am abused, ruined, and my reputation tome. Here I 
 suffer by those whom I served, and am treated like a traitor 
 and a villain, and if I had not had good friends here of stran- 
 gers, I had perished like a dog. I do not yet know what my 
 fate will be, but I have dear bought my conversation with 
 those you call my real friends. You tell me that K [Keith?] 
 betrayed me to A [Athol] and now we hear of his sufferings 
 for me, but none in England could wrong- me but he or you, 
 and if either of you has wronged me, I cannot trust myself or 
 any flesh and blood : my comfort is, that I neither betrayed my 
 trust nor my friends, nor would not for the universe! * * * 
 For my part, I believe the day of judgment is at hand, for I 
 see a great many of the symptoms of it."f 
 
 Taking up another thread of the correspondence, we 
 find him writing to Quecnsberry in terms suitable to the 
 position in which he stood with that minister, but not in 
 the same enthusiastic spirit in which he addressed his 
 Jacobite friends. He writes from Rotterdam on the 29th 
 of November, 
 
 "I give you the trouble of these lines to let you know that 
 we are come safe here, and that your goods are safe. I will 
 
 • Original Papers, i. 45. f Ibid. i. 34.
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 97 
 
 have a most dangerous journey before I come to my garrison, 
 for all the roads are full of parties and partisans, and the 
 French insult now because of their last victory at Spiers. It 
 is certain that we are routed there." 
 
 But his hardest task was in corresponding with the 
 court of St. Germains, where he had to report the pro- 
 gress of his mission. He prepared "a memorial to the 
 queen of all that my Lord Lovat did in his voyage to 
 England and Scotland by her Majesty's orders."* It 
 contains very flattering but vague statements of success. 
 Wherever he had presented himself, the utmost entlm- 
 siasm was shown for the royal cause ; but throughout the 
 whole there was a most unsatisfactory indefiniteness. 
 Partisans came in multitudes, but no individuals were 
 identified. He anticipated tlie motions of James Murray, 
 whom the Jacobites had sent as a spy over his actions, by 
 charging that gentleman with betraying liim to the Duke 
 of Queensbcrry; and thus he very ingeniously introduced 
 the subject of those conferences with the duke which of 
 course could not have been concealed, stating with a tone 
 of great magnanimity that his Grace had made him the 
 most advantageous and brilliant offers if he would desert 
 the Jacobite interest, but that he had resisted all tempta- 
 tions and stood, fast by his integrity. Of course, instead 
 of stating that he was sent over by Queensberry to obtain 
 further secret information about the projects of the ex- 
 iled court, he represented himself as accredited from the 
 Highland clans, because "he was the only man that the 
 Highlanders would trust to make conditions for them." 
 When he came to the history of obtaining the pass from 
 Queensberry, he was obliged to admit, that to enable him 
 to return to France, he had thrown out certain hopes; he 
 
 * Macpheroon's Papers, i. 641. 
 H
 
 98 THE LIFE OF 
 
 said he only did so tliat lie might nominally fulfil liis 
 mission and return to Britain to be restored to his estates. 
 
 This explanation, as shall presently be seen, was not satis- 
 factory. 
 
 At the time when he conducted the greater part of his 
 protean correspondence, he was in extreme danger, sub- 
 ject to provoking detentions, which made him furious with 
 impatience, and compelled to undertake perilous enter- 
 prises. He remained fourteen days at Rotterdam endea- 
 vouring to procure a passport. There, in the midst of liis 
 extensive diplomatic correspondence, he wrote one mani- 
 festo which had amidst its policy, at least some touches 
 ofslnceritv. It was addressed, " To the honourable — all 
 the gentlemen of the name of Fraser of the Lord Lovat's 
 family." He exhorts them to unity, and says, 
 
 " I hope you "will reflect on your foolish divisions and abhor 
 them ; and as I never did revenge myself against the par- 
 ticular persons that appeared against me, because I hated 
 mortally to dip my hand in my own blood, so I do heartily and 
 sincerely forgive all, and every one of them, by this, since I be- 
 lieve they did not see their error, till they see their next door 
 neighbours like to take their bread from them. And as I do 
 pass by and forgive all bygone injuries, so I hope they will 
 join and concur with me to keep out our enemies, and to pre- 
 serve my family and their own name and kindred ; which, if 
 they do not, when I come to my country, I declare solemnly, 
 that I will treat them as my worst enemies, and cut them off 
 as monstrous members, who are like to destroy the body whence 
 they have their birth : and I can assure you I shall have power 
 to do it, and be fit sides with all my enemies, if I live a few 
 months."* 
 
 He did not then know what was prepared for him on 
 his return to Paris. When he was able to leave Rotter- 
 dam, he went to the Hague, where he had not been many 
 
 * Original Papers, 1. 47.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 99 
 
 Bouts ere he felt symptoms of his presence, as a suspicious 
 person, being known. He took the conveyance, which 
 the tourist may still employ, the Tracshwit, and went to 
 Delft, whence he proceeded to Hertogen Bosch, or, as it 
 is generally marked in the maps, Bois le Due, where he 
 was near the Dutch frontiers, and in a good position to 
 take advantage of any oj)portunity for escape. Here he 
 found several of his countrymen in the garrison ; and as 
 they were curious to see and converse with so eminent a 
 character, a report very naturally arose, that he had gone 
 there to attempt to seduce them to the French interest. 
 He tells us that he found many of his o^vn clan there, and 
 that he met Major General Ferguson, a brother of the 
 plotter, to whom he presented a letter from that worthy, 
 desiring the major-general to communicate with Lovat in 
 the hopes and prospects of the Jacobites. All these mat- 
 ters of course made his journey the more perilous. He 
 was passing through " the classic land of fortified defence," 
 where every village was a fortress, during one of the 
 hottest European wars, when spies were swarming, and 
 stray people of suspicious appearance were hung from the 
 nearest tree or bartizan, ere time could be aiforded for 
 inquiring into their history. He adopted a disguise which 
 none but an able man could support — that of an officer in 
 the service of Holland, the country through which he had 
 to travel ; changing it as occasion required, for the costume 
 of a peasant. When he found his position at Bois le Due 
 becoming unpleasant, he made arrangements for fleeing to 
 Antwerp, a distance of fifty miles, at one dash. In passing 
 Breda, he and his companions took a circuit through the 
 heaths. On approaching a fortified bridge over the Merk, 
 the precaution was adopted of hiring a peasant to recon- 
 noitre ; a favourable moment being found when the vigilance 
 
 h2
 
 100 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of tHose in guard was relaxed, Lovat and his little knot of 
 followers, including liis brother John, and his cousin Major 
 Fraser, galloped across. When he reached Antwerp, ex- 
 hausted with toil and excitementj he found it in possession 
 of IMarshal Villeroi, who of course could send hira in 
 safety to Paris. When he arrived there, he found that he 
 was exposed, the incompatible elements which he had 
 endeavoured to unite in his intrigues having created a 
 general explosion. Secretary Middleton wrote to De Torcy 
 on the 16th of January, and after some reference to the 
 other evidence against Lovat, made the following saga- 
 cious criticism on his memorial to the ex-queen, described 
 above. 
 
 " He told me that Queensberry, Argyle, and Leven, were 
 the greatest enemies of the king my master in that country ; yet 
 he communicated to them the whole of his commission, which 
 is a crime that deserves hanging in every country. He rejects 
 extraordinary offers ; but obtains a pass to go to London, and 
 from thence the same Queensberry obtains another pass for him, 
 under a borrowed name, to secure his safe return to France. 
 This Is very true, for he has produced them. It is therefore 
 clear as daylight, that these noblemen wanted to employ him 
 here as a spy, and for signing letters and commissions, which 
 night serve as proofs against men of honour iu that country. 
 You will be pleased to observe, sir, that in his own report he 
 makes every one ask commissions, in order that he might ob- 
 tain now what was refused to him last year. He accuses none 
 but James Murray, wlio is a man of such known probity, that 
 my Lord Arran called for him as a man in whom he could place 
 the greatest confidence : but foreseeing that Mr. Murray's ac- 
 count would not be favourable to him, he chose to be beforehand 
 with him. 
 
 " If the king thinks proper to apprehend him, it should be 
 done without noise. His name sliould not be mentioned any 
 more, and, at the same time, all his papers should be seized. He 
 has a companion called Fraser, who has attended him every- 
 where. I know nothing more about him."* 
 
 * Macpherson's Papers, i. 652-3.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 101 
 
 When he discovered how he stood with the court of 
 St Germains, he wrote several letters to Middleton and 
 others, enlarging with his usual eloquence on his own 
 services and sacrifices, and those which his family had 
 made for unknown periods of years; but concluding in 
 the following strain : 
 
 " I am daily informed that the queen has but a scurvy opinion 
 of me, and that I rather did her Majesty bad than good service 
 by my journey. My lord, I find by that, that my enemies have 
 ^eater power with the queen than I can have; and to please 
 them, and ease her Majesty, I am resolved to meddle no more 
 with any affairs till the king is of age. This is leaving the 
 field with a fair victory to my enemies. But I am sure the 
 king's service will sufter by it, and perhaps my enemies will not 
 reap the advantage they hope and expect, by this victory, which 
 tliey have so long wrought for."* 
 
 If the King of France could not do more substantial 
 services to the exiled house, he could at least favour them 
 with the occasional use of his power of secret and arbitrary 
 imprisonment. This was a privilege of the utmost im- 
 portance to the court of St. Germains, and the Jacobite 
 correspondence of the period shows that it was very fre- 
 quently used. It was of the highest moment, especially 
 that those who were acquainted with the correspondence 
 of the English statesmen, and other inhabitants of Britain 
 who corresponded with the exiled court, should not be 
 allowed to return home, if they were people liable to 
 the slightest suspicion of treachery. The safety of those 
 who were already in the correspondence — and they were 
 many and great people — as well as the hopes which the 
 exiled court might have, of adding to the number, depended 
 on the preservation of secrecy. Accordingly, when any 
 Jacobite showed an uneasy or suspicious desire to return 
 
 * Macpherson's Papers, i. 655.
 
 102 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to Britain, a lettre de cachet was obtained, and he was 
 quietly kept out of siglit and hearing in the Bastille, or 
 any other state prison. Lovat before leaving France on 
 his great expedition, had been plausible enough to get 
 some individuals, probably people who knew too mucli 
 about himself and his designs, imprisoned; and now the 
 time was come when he was to be done to, as he had done 
 by others. 
 
 In much that has been written, both by himself and 
 others, about his residence in France from this time down 
 to the year 1714, there is unfortunately very little that 
 can be taken as authentic. By his own account, which is 
 probably the least erroneous, he was committed to the 
 Castle of AnjTouleme. The first short memoir of his life, 
 published in 1746, states that he was imprisoned in the 
 Bastille ; and in the book bearing the name of Arbuthnot, 
 there is a minute detail of his imprisonment there, and a 
 narrative of the lives and adventures of his fellow-prison- 
 ers, so precise and so characteristic of French memoir writ- 
 ing, that it is probably a translation from some French 
 book containing the adventures of a prisoner in the Bastille. 
 
 Both the memoirs above referred to say that he 
 took orders, and became a renov/ned popular preacher,, 
 and a shining ornament of the church; as a cure in St. 
 Omers. They state that he was admitted a Jesuit, a cir- 
 cumstance improbable for many reasons, and among others- 
 on account of the perseverance with which tliat illustrious 
 body inquired into the history of all candidates for ad- 
 mission to their order, and their strict rule to admit none 
 who had been convicted of offences. It is remarkable, 
 however, that in a long memoir of Lovat, in the " Biogra- 
 phic Universelle," written by no less a person than Lally 
 Tolendal, this statement is believed. A very different
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 103 
 
 autlioritj, Major Eraser, in liis narrative, gives this story 
 in his own way. " Lord Simon knowing that the speat was 
 great against him, made his interest with the Jesuites and 
 professed Louis's rehgion, and entered into that sect, 
 which was strongly backed by the great Mun-si Cullbarr, 
 and Marchi de Fraseher." That he became a priest is not 
 improbable. We shall come across some not very reve- 
 rend allusions to his position in the Roman Catholic 
 Church in the course of his correspondence; and he is 
 reported to have said that, if he had remained in orders, 
 he would at least have been an archbishop, if he did not 
 fill the chair of St. Peter. 
 
 In " A Free Examination of a IModern Romance entitled 
 Memoirs of the Life of Lord Lovat," the statement of his 
 having taken orders is contradicted ; and it is said that he 
 lived at Saumur, where " he occupied a genteel house, kept 
 a handsome equipage, and saw and was seen by the best 
 company in that poHte and populous neighbourhood." This 
 corresponds with his own statement in his memoirs ; and is 
 m some respects confirmed by his subsequent correspond- 
 ence, in which we shall find him speaking as if he had 
 been comfortably settled in France, and had drawn round 
 him some of the elements of retired enjoyment. 
 
 Major Fraser, whose narrative is cited in the next chap- 
 ter, speaks of him as having abundance of money, furni- 
 ture, and plate ; and confirms an assertion in his life, that 
 he held a pension from the king of France. It is clear 
 that during the whole period he Avas either in prison or 
 under espionage. The author has seen a letter, of no par- 
 ticular interest in itself, written to him on the 29th of 
 June, 1709, addressed to him as a close prisoner, and 
 when Major Fraser visited him in 1714, he says, he went 
 to " Somoir, where my Lord Lovat resided as prisoner."
 
 104 THE LIFE OF 
 
 During his residence in France, he Irad much inter- 
 course with the head of the House of Frezeliere, who re- 
 ceived him as a kinsman. He speaks of this family as the 
 most illustrious in France; yet Anselm in his genealogical 
 history of the great houses of that country, though he oc- 
 casionally mentions the alhances of the Frezelieres, does 
 not give their history. Lovat alludes to the marquis as an 
 illustrious soldier, second only to Villars ; yet history has 
 neglected to record his achievements, and his name even 
 does not appear in the " Biographic Universelle." There 
 is still extant, however, a letter by the marchioness to 
 Lovat, dated the 31st of June, 1720, a very curious docu- 
 ment. For the sake of her " tendre amitie" for him, and 
 the proximity of their races, she offers her congratulations 
 on his marriage, and her prayers for his future prosperity 
 and happiness. She says that though he disclaims ambi- 
 tion she is certain it will never die within him for 
 *' elle est I'ame des Frezels." The letter contains this 
 curious sentence, in reference to a pledge left by Lovat in 
 France, which the reader may invest with whatever ro- 
 mantic history he choses. 
 
 " Revenons au Sieur Bemierd, a qui j'ai remis en main votre 
 lettre, mon cher Mylord. Je lui ai reproche ses graves fautes 
 a. votre egard ; d'ailleurs il a eu soin, a ce qu'il m'assure, et 
 aura a I'avenir, de I'enfant baptise sous votre iUustre uom. II 
 m'assure qu'il est tres blond et a de votre air. Souvent ces 
 enfauts de I'amour sont aimables et ont du merite. J'avoue 
 que je ne I'attendais pas pour fruit de votre sagesse. Mais 
 riiouiine est foible, malgre le directeur de I'oratoire.''* 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Causes of the Return in 1715— Le<ral Schemes of the Mackeuzies for 
 obtaining the Estate and Title— Meetings of the Clan— A Messenger 
 sent to Lovat — The Messenger's Adventures— Negotiations with 
 the Court of St. Germains — They escape together— Adventures in 
 London— Lovat's Pardon— His Achievements in the Rebellion— His 
 Howards- Receives the Title and Estates— His various Litigations 
 —The Dangers of the Litigants— The Outrages of the Clan. 
 
 Lovat's prepossessions were certainly wltli the Jacobites ; 
 and in discussing the train of circumstances whicli in- 
 duced him to join the Hanoverian party, he speaks of him- 
 self as driven to desperation, by the unreasonable and unjust 
 severity of his king, the Chevalier, the foul ingrati- 
 tude with which his services were met, and the malice of 
 his fellow Jacobites ; seeming to say with Coriolanus — 
 
 " Thus I turn my back, 
 There is a world elsewhere." 
 
 The court of St. Germains, indeed, had evidence 
 that in his retirement, whether lay or clerical, he had 
 not totally abandoned his intercourse with Britain. At 
 the breaking up of the conference at the Hague in 1709, the 
 Jacobites thought that the juncture would be suitable for 
 an invasion. Lovat hearing of the proposal, about which 
 we may be assured he was not consulted, sent an oracular 
 letter of warning to Lord Melville, who had been the 
 means of introducing him and his revelations about the 
 plot to the Duke of Queensberry, He says,
 
 106 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " I am informed, by several persons, that there Is a de- 
 sign of going to see you towards the latter end of the 
 campaign ; but I believe that depends upon the peace. If it 
 is done you will see nobody ; iDut if the war continues, you 
 will most surely have the visit that you missed last year. If 
 that happens, be fully persuaded that you will see me soon 
 after, to live and die with you, at the head of some brave 
 fellows, that will follow me in spite of all mankind." 
 
 This letter was a signal illustration of the folly of 
 trusting in any man's consistency in those times. At the 
 period of the plot, Leven was a partisan of the Hanover 
 succession, but tlie lapse of six years had taught him 
 reasons for being a Jacobite, and he sent Lo vat's letter to 
 St. Germains. An action, which makes Lovat call him 
 " one of the vilest hypocrites upon the face of the 
 earth, for betraying in so base a manner the most sacred 
 confidence." He seems however to have kept it for some 
 time in his possession. It is dated the 20tli of August, 1709, 
 and it is on the 8tli of March, 1711, that Middleton, 
 greatly triumphing in this confirmation of his suspicions, 
 sends it to De Torcy, saying " Here, sir, is a spy of conse- 
 quence unmasked, and we know very well the means of 
 preventing this correspondence for the future."* 
 
 As an introduction to the account of an embassy 
 sent by the Erasers to their chief, we must here go back 
 and take up a small thread of collateral clan history. It 
 appears that the operations of our hero, detailed at the com- 
 mencement of this narrative, had effectually marred the pro- 
 ject of uniting the heiress of Lovat to Lord Saltoun, and 
 the Athol fimily seeking another alliance for her, she 
 was married to Alexander Mackenzie, son of Roderick 
 Mackenzie of Prestonhall, who thenceforth took the title 
 of Lord Lovat, and endeavoured to take possession of the 
 
 * Macpherson's Papers, ii. 132, 103.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 107 
 
 estates, with -what success we have already seen. It was, 
 perhaps, an inducement in the pecuhar circumstances to 
 court this alliance, that Mackenzie's father was a judsje 
 of the Court of Session. The old lawyer prowling about 
 among the intricacies of the family titles, found that they 
 were not in the best possible condition, and that his skill 
 would be taxed in their repair. There was no doubt tliat 
 by the original investitures, the Barony of Lovat was a 
 male fief Supposing the exile to be the nearest male 
 heir, his rebellion forfeited his Hferent interest in the estate, 
 but did not aifect the right of his successor. There was 
 nothing, however, that might not then be made eiFectual 
 in law by those who had power on their side. Some 
 creditor of a former Lord Lovat, had in the year 1669 
 endeavoured to obtain payment of his debt by means of 
 an execution against the estate, called an " apprising." 
 Preston-hall purchased the right to this process, and com- 
 menced proceedings for seizing the estate for non-pay- 
 ment of the debt. As the peerage could not be seized 
 by this species of process, the less secure method was 
 necessarily had recourse to, of the young lady commenc- 
 ing proceedings on her right of succession, such as it 
 was. Thus these two carried on their process of *' Reduc- 
 tion, Improbation, and Declarator." There was no one of 
 course to resist this action, and on the 2nd of December, 
 1702, they obtained decree before the Court of Session, 
 he for the estate, and she for the title.* The old judge 
 being thus the nominal owner of his daughter-in-law's 
 estate, this ingenious family compact was concluded by 
 the execution of an entail in favour of the issue of the 
 marriage. In the further history of this project, we have 
 
 * Anderson, 137.
 
 108 THE LIFE OF 
 
 a signal instance of tlie blind rashness of family pride, 
 and the extravagant presumption of clan ambition. The 
 policy of the Mackenzies would have been to link their 
 name and origin in those of the Frasers, and endeavour 
 to obliterate all marks of the ingrafting of the new branch. 
 On the other hand, they formed the wild project of con- 
 verting the Frasers into Mackenzies. By the first entail, 
 the heirs who misjht succeed were bound to take the 
 name and arms of Eraser. By a subsequent deed, executed 
 on the 23rd of February, 1706, the heirs were allowed, 
 " if they shall think fit, in place of the surname of Fraser, 
 to carry the surname of Mackenzie, and to alter the said 
 coat of arms, by carrying the deer's head in the first 
 quarter, and the three freses or strawberry leaves only in 
 the second quarter ;" and then there is this remarkable 
 provision, the whole showing the extreme caution which 
 was necessaiy in carrying such a design to its accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 *' With proYision and condition also, that the said surname 
 and arms being once altered, and recorded so in the books of 
 heraldry, and the Lord Lyon's Office, that " it shall not be in 
 the poiver of the said heir of entail* tvho alters the same, or 
 assumes the surname of Mackenzie, ever after to return to the 
 surname of Fraser and their former hearing, under the 
 hazard of the irritancies and penalties contained in the foresaid 
 disposition of entail." f- 
 
 The clan appear to have been informed of these pro- 
 ceedings, and to have treated them as a sort of treason 
 against their state, which tended only the more to exas- 
 perate them against the new dynasty. 
 
 In 1713, several meetings were held by the gentlemen. 
 
 * This word is here substituted for the Scottish technicality Tailzie, 
 to make tlie passage intcllible to the general reader, 
 ■f Anderson, 137, 139, Lovat Documents.
 
 SDIOX LORD LOVAT. 109 
 
 of tlie clan Fraser, who, after having for some time be- 
 lieved that their chief " had rotted in the Bastille," had 
 heard a rumour that he was still alive. A vote was taken 
 to accredit one of their number to discover his place of 
 retreat, and learn his intentions, " as they were persuaded 
 upon King George's accession, there would arise some dis- 
 turbance in Britain, and if Simon could be stolen out of 
 France, he might come to fish in dormly waters. The 
 vote," continues the narrator, " fell upon the poor major, 
 who had then eleven small children, and he not being bred 
 a scholar, and having no lano;ua2:e but his mother's tonsrues, 
 the English and Irish, thought it a hardship to go to a 
 foreign country, where he understood none of their lan- 
 guage ;" but the demands of public duty were imj)erative. 
 The messenger's courage and natural sagacity more than 
 made up for his ignorance of languages. His first step 
 was to get himself accredited to the court of St. Germains 
 and the Jacobites, under the plea that he was to serve 
 their cause. He then tells us : 
 
 "Upon the first day of May [1714], by four o'clock of the 
 morning', the major took his journey from his dwelling'-house, 
 with his haversack, and left his wife and children sprawling ou 
 the ground, in tears, and proceeded on his journey, till he came 
 to Newcastle. From that he went down to Shiels, and took 
 occasion of a colHer's vessel Droing- for London. When he came 
 there, he discovered his design to my Lord Islay, Sir James 
 Campbell of Arkinglass, and John Forbes of Culloden. I 
 cannot say that my Lord Islay seemed heartily in the design in 
 hand ; but Sir James and Culloden were very sangiiine, and 
 gave Major Fraser a good bowl of punch the night before they 
 parted, and wished him good success at parting." 
 
 " The mayor went off for Gravesend, and there found a little 
 smuggler of a vessel, belonging to a Frenchman, with whom he 
 engaged to go abroad with him to Callais. The major not 
 having time to bring in any provisions on board, only a little 
 bread and cheese, thought of no drink. The winds being con- 
 trary [he] was very sore put to it by the rascals. The mayor,
 
 110 THE LIFE OF 
 
 not having' their language, was like to fall foul of them ; and ia 
 end their cruelty came to such a height, that they would not 
 give him drink. The bread and cheese drying him up, he was 
 necessitate to draw his sword, and was resolved to kill the three, 
 being no more aboard, and to run the vessel to land ; which, 
 when they saw that he turned so desperate, gave him some 
 small beer." 
 
 A man who could adopt such, decided measures was 
 Independent of languages, and lie soon found his way to 
 his chief at Saumour, where he says : 
 
 " Lord Simon could not express himself for joy, that he had 
 seen in that part of the Avorld, the only man that he loved best 
 of his name. Lord Simon was tlien but very low in his person. 
 The major encouraged him as much as he could, and asked him 
 if he had any thoughts of ever returning home. He answered 
 that he believed not, nor was it possible, without getting leave 
 from the court of St. Germains, and that he knew that was im- 
 possible, by reason that the Duke of Athol and the family of 
 Hamilton had prevailed with the Pretender never to let him 
 home, and that Queen Mary was his mortal and declared 
 enemy." 
 
 When the chief had made up his mind to an effort for 
 his release, he entrusted to the major a considerable bundle 
 of letters; one of them, to the exiled prince, filling "a 
 whole sheet of paper written back and fore." The mes- 
 senger set off on foot, with directions to find an Irish 
 cordeliei', who was to act as his interpreter. He first 
 applied to the court of France, whence he received "a 
 satisfying answer," that his chief would be released when- 
 ever the court of St. Germains agreed to the measure. 
 This was indeed a highly favorable opportunity for Lovat 
 showing his power in Scotland. Here was a gentleman, 
 nominally a man of property, coming to him, not to 
 offer terms from his clan, but to know his wishes, and the 
 part he desired to take in the ensuing crisis, iii order that 
 the clan might know how to fulfil their duty of allegiance.
 
 SIMOX LORD LOTAT. Ill 
 
 At St. Germains, Major Fraser found tlie Duke of Perth, 
 ■wlio favoured his efforts to release his chief, and sent him 
 accredited to the prince and his mother. His first inter- 
 view was with the latter, who " desired the major to draw 
 near, and told him, by way of Jesuite, that she was glad 
 to see a Scotsman, and a man so resolute to travel the 
 country of France without the language, and that she was 
 sure nothing obliged him to it, but his honour of serving 
 the king." The major knowing that they were not on 
 very good terms with his chief, appears to have approached 
 the exiled royalties with very httle prepossession in their 
 favour. He tells us that Mary of i\Iodena, having just 
 heard of the death of Queen Anne, had sent an express 
 for her son to leave Bar le Due ; yet had duplicity enough 
 to send the major thither to wait on him, offering her 
 hand to kiss, and saying, " that she wished him all success, 
 when, at the same time, she was sending him an Aprile 
 crand, and 300 miles to travel, which she might have 
 spared if she had not been a real Jesuite, and, according 
 to her belief, yet in purgatory, till she make atonement to 
 the poor major for the sweat he lost." Not easily baffled, 
 he succeeded pretty speedily in getting access to the che- 
 valier. The interview did not commence auspiciously. 
 His Highland pride was immediately wounded by an ex- 
 posure of his deficiency in languages. " He asked the 
 major if he had any French at all. The major answered 
 that he had only three words — the first, to ask the road 
 — the second, to ask a bottle of wine — the third, a bed 
 at night." They insisted in extracting from him his French 
 version of these requisites, and received it with shouts of 
 laughter. Few people can bear such mirth worse than 
 the Highlander, and so " the major stood grave, and told
 
 112 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his Majesty that he was glad to come twelve or thirteen 
 hundred miles to make his Majesty laugh so heartily." 
 
 The manner in which the chevalier carried on the ne- 
 gotiation, shewed an utter ignorance of the character of 
 the Highland clans. He firmly refused to sanction Lovat's 
 release, remarking that nevertheless he would secure the 
 aid of the Frasers ; forgetting that Mackenzie of Preston- 
 hall was to them what the elector was to the Jacobites — 
 " an usurper." The intercepted letter was shown to the 
 ambassador, who said it was probably forged, while he 
 by no means indignantly repudiated the charge inferred 
 from it, but spoke as if it were not for him to question the 
 negotiations his chief might carry on, either with Hanover 
 or St. Germains. " The major told that his commission, 
 from the name of Fraser was to declare their minds, which 
 was, that if he would give them their natural head and 
 chief, they would venture their lives and fortunes in his 
 cause, and if not, that they had declared that if they should 
 die to a man, they would never draw a sword for him or 
 any of his. Whereupon, with a smile, he took the major 
 by the button of his clothes, and told him that he was 
 sure he would fight. The major replied, that his fighting 
 was of no great use to any man, and he behoved to do as 
 the rest of the clan did." He was offered commissions foi 
 the gentlemen of the clan, but says he declined them, as 
 he had no authority to treat on any other matter than the 
 release of his chief 
 
 He did not find, however, that the injunctions laid on 
 him, prohibited him from accepting a fine horse from the 
 Due de Loraine, with some other tokens, whicli made 
 Lovat on his return suspect him of being bribed. This 
 matter having been explained, the chief and the follower
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 113 
 
 concerted an escape. The method in which it was accom- 
 plished was characteristic. They had been for some time 
 lurking at Mons, when — 
 
 " Lord Simon and the major came off under silence of night, 
 back from Mons to Saumour. When Lord Simon came there, 
 be called for his father confessor, and other Jesultes of that 
 college, and told them that his cousin the major had been with 
 the pretender, pleading for his liberation, ■nhich he attained, 
 and that he was to go off by the permission of the pretender 
 and the king of France, hence for Scotland, in order to raise 
 bis men for the pretender's ser\ace, while these men — I mean 
 the Jesuites, — prayed for his success, and kissed him heartily, 
 and also kissed the major, who was then as great a Jesuite as 
 them." 
 
 They proceeded by Rouen to Dieppe, where they could 
 find no vessel for England. At Boulogne they heard that 
 they were pursued. There, hiring a boat, they sailed on 
 the 14th of November, 1714, and after a storm — the 
 danger of which was increased by the major insisting on 
 bis horse, the gift of royalty, being conveyed in the 
 boat — they reached Dover next afternoon. Their journey 
 to London was, by the major's account, an alternation of 
 storm and sunshine of distrust and confidence; Lovat 
 at one moment attempting to shoot him as a traitor, at 
 another, saying " he would not part with him, and if he 
 did, he would go back to the country he came from, and 
 go into a cloister where he would end his days." 
 
 He found immediately a supporter in John Forbes of 
 CuUoden, but the Duke of Argyle and Lord Islay de- 
 clined to intercede for him. Meanwhile, his enemy, 
 Athol, hearing of his return, a warrant was issued against 
 him; and though he had for some time effectually con- 
 cealed himself in the capital, on the 11th of June his 
 lodgings in Soho Square were entered by a party of 
 armed constables. The major kept them in parley for a 
 
 I
 
 114 THE LIFE OF 
 
 time; having resort to his usual remedy in such difBcul- 
 ties, a plentiful supply of brandy to all parties ; while he 
 removed from the pockets of his chief, who was in bed, 
 " some pater nosters and ave marias he had got about 
 him." The captives were kept for some time in a spong- 
 ing house, where they formed a plan for a rescue by 
 bribing some clansmen who were then among the mili- 
 tary stationed in London. The necessity of attempting 
 this enterprise was obviated by Lord Sutherland, Forbes 
 of CuUoden, and some other gentlemen, becoming bail 
 for him to the extent of 5000/.* 
 
 Before detailing, in Lovat's own words, his journeys to- 
 the 2iorth and his achievements, it may be mentioned that 
 while he was there, an address in his favour was signed 
 by about seventy individuals, including the Earl of Suth- 
 erland, Lord Strathnaver, the Members of Parliament, 
 and the Sheriffs of the northern counties, along with 
 several burgh magistrates, clergymen, and landed pro- 
 prietors. It implored the royal clemency " for one wha 
 has now lately, when the greatest dangers did seem to 
 surround us, by the influence he has over a numerous 
 clan, supported with us that cause wliich, in defence of 
 your majesty's undoubted title to the crown, we have 
 to the utmost of our power endeavoured to maintain."^ 
 The memorialists continue to say that they are " so 
 sensible not only of liis power, but of his sincere intention 
 to serve the cause, that they are ready to give security 
 for his loyal, faithful, and dutiful behaviour" to any amount 
 that may be desired.f 
 
 His pardon was not signed until the 10th of March, 
 1716. The person who drew the document appears to 
 
 * The above statement is taken from IMajor Eraser's " EuU and Im- 
 partial Account." MS. f CuUoden Papers, 336,
 
 SIMON LORD LOYAT. 115 
 
 have thought that his employer could not be safe, if there 
 were any of the most liidden cracks or flaws in human 
 nature -which it did not cover. It is an astounding and 
 horrible enumeration of all the crimes and abominations 
 to which the human animal is liable ; and, as if there 
 might be doubts whether one language would, in all cases, 
 be sufficiently explicit and definite, the document being 
 itself in Latin, some of the more offensive parts of the 
 criminal nomenclature are translated into English. 
 
 Of the chief events connected with this period of his 
 history, Lovat has given an account in a hitherto unpub- 
 lished document, which, being intended to recall to the 
 person to whom it was addressed circumstances with which 
 he had been acquainted, is probably in its general features 
 true. The rest of this paper, which is a vindication of his 
 conduct, addressed to Lord Islay, will appear further on. 
 
 " When my Lord Elcliies was at my house in time of his cir- 
 cuit, I told him, as my fi'lend, that I was represented above as 
 a man disaffected and plotting against the government. I 
 thought his answer to me was very just and right. He said, 
 that persons that would believe that of me, must believe that I 
 am stark mad. I therefore would wish your lordship would 
 appoint any man of your good friends to converse with me, 
 to know whether or not my head Is turned, or If I have left 
 the ordinary use of my reason and judgment ; for, If I was 
 giulty of what I am accused, I deserve to be put In Bedlam as 
 a madman, as much as any that was put In It these twenty years 
 past. To convince yom" lordship of this, I humbly beg you may 
 reflect on the situation that your lordship saw me in at London, 
 in the year 1715, and compare it with that In which, I bless God, 
 I am In now. Immediately before your lordship took journey 
 to Scotland, I had then the laws against me for capital crimes, 
 put In close prison with naked bayonets at my breast all night, 
 threatened with Tower-hill, violently persecuted by the Dukes of 
 Montrose and Roxburgh, and the other enemies of your family ; 
 and though your lordship thought then I might be of use to you 
 in Scotland, yet you could not obtain a sist of the laws that 
 
 l2
 
 116 THE LIFE OF 
 
 were against me, nor a safe passport for me to go to Scotland, 
 but desired that I should make the best of my way that I could, 
 and meet your lordshijj with all the men I could make at 
 the head of Badenoch, where your lordship was to be on the 
 head of the Argyleshire men, being thus left to shift for myself, 
 I gave 100 guineas to my friend Dr. Willwood, who by the 
 means of Mi-. Stanlon, of the Secretary of State's office, got a 
 passport to my brother John to go to Scotland, with four of his 
 friends. So I came as one of my brother's attendants ; and 
 after being taken prisoner at Newcastle, Longtown, near Carlisle, 
 Dumfries, and Lanark, I came to Stirling, where I thought to 
 have been received with open arms by the Duke of Argyle ; but 
 instead of that, he only sent me Brigadier Grant to give me his 
 kind service, and to tell me that he could not see me for fear of 
 the Duke of Roxburgh, who was there as a spy over him, but 
 desired I should go Immediately north by sea with Culloden, 
 and that he depended much on my assistance in his present 
 dangerous situation. 
 
 "I went Immediately to Edinburgh, in order to embark at 
 Leith with Culloden. I was not two hours at Edinburgh, when 
 I was made prisoner by order of the Justice Clerk, and was 
 designed to be sent to the Castle that night, and I believe to be 
 scaffolded the next day, if I had not been delivered and relieved 
 from that danger by Provost John Campbell, whose zeal for 
 the government, and for his chief, the Duke of Argyle, was 
 very singular at that time. When in a few days after I em- 
 barked with Culloden, about ten of the clock at night, at Leith, 
 we were pursued by several larg-e Fife -boats that were in the 
 rebels' possession, and very well manned by them. They 
 chased us for eight or ten miles, and fired on us, and we on 
 them, for above two hours ; and after several other imminent 
 dangers arrh'ed at last with Culloden at his house, near In- 
 verness, where the present advocate* kept a gamson, the 
 rebels being then entirely masters of Inverness, and all the 
 countries about it. 
 
 " I went Immediately to join 200 of my kindred, who were 
 waiting for me under arms in Stratherrlck ; and being in- 
 formed that Colonel Macdonald of Cappoch was going Into 
 Inverness, to reinforce Sir John Mackenzie, governor for the 
 Pretender, I marclied up to him and chased him. He then 
 sent me a message, that since I was come home to my country, 
 
 * Viz., Duncan Forbes then Lord Advocate.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 117 
 
 that he would not disturb it, but would go straight to Perth, 
 which he did. I then marched down to Inverness, and find- 
 ing the situation of it, I resolved to do some signal action for 
 the government, or die on the spot. Accordingly, by my 
 own project, and with a handful of my own kindred, I in- 
 vested, and in three days, by taking the governor's provisions, 
 by chasing the parties that were coming to his relief, and a 
 little skirmish that happened, in which Kilravock's brother 
 killed, and by my continual threats that I would put Sir John 
 and all his rebellious garrison to the edge of the sword, tlie poor 
 cowardly governor ran off at night, and his garrison, and left the 
 town at my discretion. I marched in, and took possession of the 
 town the next day, with 800 Grants and 400 Monroes, who 
 came up immediately to concur in taking of the tov>ii from the 
 rebels. Duncan Forbes, who was eye-witness of all this, dares 
 not refuse a syllable of it. This was the greatest piece of 
 service that was done in this country to any king, at several 
 ages ; for as 1 took possession of Inverness the Saturday 
 before Sheriff Muir was fought. If it had been delayed three 
 days, there had been about 2000 of the rebels of my Lord 
 Mar's army in the town of Inverness, so that it v.ould have 
 been impracticable for the king's friends to have attempted the 
 reducing of it. Then the Pretender would have come there, and 
 against the next spring would have had a greater army than 
 ever appeared for him in Scotland ; and havinu; all the High- 
 lands and isles behind his back, to retire to if he was beat, ifc 
 would at least have cost several thousand men, and some mil- 
 lions to the g'overnment before he would be chased out of 
 Scotland. So that the taking Inverness from the rebels at 
 such a critical juncture, was a service should never be for- 
 got. It would be tedious and perhaps selfish in me to tell 
 the other singular services I did to suppress the rebellion in 
 the North. However, they were such as procured me three 
 letters of thanks from my great and worthy master, the late 
 king, in which he said he Avas so satisfied with my singular 
 services, that he would give me such marks of his favour, as 
 would put me at my ease, and be an encouragement to his 
 other subjects in this country to be faithful to his service. In 
 this situation I was much caressed by my Lord Cadogan, who 
 offered me vast preferments and encouragements if I would 
 renounce the Duke of Argyle and the Earl of I slay, and join 
 the Duke of Marlborough and him, who had then the king in
 
 118 THE LIFE OF 
 
 their hands. I refused his offer with disdain^ and told hira I 
 would not take the Hanoverian dominions, and renounce the 
 children of the late Duke of Arg-yle, to whom I owed my life, 
 and all that was dear to me. This declaration made Cadogan 
 hate me all my life ; and his party prevailing, it was with 
 much ado that your lordship got me, by the assistance of my 
 Lord Stanhope, the independant company that Avas commanded 
 by Colonel Monro, before he was made commissioner of in- 
 quiry, and the government of the Castle of Inverness, without 
 salary or pension. I did not enjoy this independent company 
 but eight months ; when, by the total disgrace of the Duke of 
 Argyle, Colonel Grant, Fannal, and I, were broke ; and I con- 
 tinued nine years without a sixpence benefit by the govern- 
 ment, but my half-pay, and 400/. pension ; that I got by the 
 late king's personal friendship, and by the intercession of Be- 
 rinstafft, Bothmar, and Mahomet, who were my friends ; and 
 I got the pension at a time that Roxburgh was at the height 
 of liis favour, notwithstanding of his continual opposition to 
 me ; and that the Duke of Argyle and my Lord Stanhope told 
 me that I would eat Hampton Court as soon as get it."* 
 
 So commenced the history of our hero's rise in the 
 world. His services were very important, and he knew 
 their value. In what Lord George Murray accom- 
 plished with his little band in 1745, we have a type 
 of what might have been done in 1715, if the Ja- 
 cobites had had among them a head like Lovat's. Ten 
 thousand men — a very considerable army at that time 
 — were at once assembled, and Scotland; from Inver- 
 ness to the Lothians, was as completely in the hands of 
 the Jacobites as a country could be in the possession of an 
 armed force. If Lovat had joined them, the face of his- 
 tory would at least have been so far changed, that instead 
 of the mere crushing of a revolt, the Hanover dynasty 
 would have been only established as the fruit of a tedious 
 war. The main reward to which he turned his eye, was 
 the undisturbed possession of his ancestral domains and 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 119 
 
 honours, -which the misfortunes of Mackenzie — or Fraser- 
 dale, as he was generally called — in taking the losing 
 side, seemed to have placed witliin his grasp. But he 
 was not so fortunate as he might have expected to be. 
 Mackenzie made his escape, and was not tried for high 
 treason. His property could not consequently be for- 
 feited, unless by act of Parhament, and such an act, in- 
 tended to put Lovat in possession, might have created 
 disagreeable discussion. By fleeing, and being outlawed, 
 however, Mackenzie had come under certain forfeitures to 
 the crown — he lost all his moveable property, by what 
 was called the single escheat, and he forfeited his o^vn 
 life-rent in his landed property, by the life-rent escheat. 
 About this and other like matters, we now find him con- 
 ducting an earnest and friendly correspondence with Dun- 
 can Forbes. Of the commencement of their intercourse no 
 trace has been found. With his father, we have seen that 
 Lovat was intimate at the time of the outraQ^es on the Island 
 Aigas. Immediately on his return from exile, we find 
 him on terms of intercourse with the two sons of his 
 friend, so intimate as to indicate a previous intercourse by 
 letter, John Forbes had the honour of enjoying this in- 
 timacy till his death, with Duncan. After lasting long, 
 it came to a tragical conclusion. If it be difficult to account 
 for such an intercourse on the part of Forbes, it is easy to 
 perceive the motives that Lovat had for continuing it. He 
 felt that it was much to his interest, in various shapes, to 
 retain the good opinion and the services of such a man as 
 Forbes. People of loose principles are much addicted to 
 laying hold of the skirts of some respectable neighbour, 
 whose steady position may serve, in some measure, to 
 keep them in their balance before the eye of the world. 
 Forbes was then a young man, and comparatively ob-
 
 120 THE LIFE OF 
 
 scure, but lie had the ear of Lo vat's great patron, Ar- 
 gyle, and a shrewd observer like our hero could not fail 
 to see that he had stuff for greatness in him. Hence all 
 his letters, from 1715 downwards, addressed to his 
 " dearest general," as he calls the young lawyer, are 
 eminently kind, flattering, and respectful. Having so 
 frequently been placed in abject positions, where he dared 
 not speak to his equals in birth openly face to face, he had 
 acquired a certain sycophancy of style, which seems to 
 have tinged all his efforts to be courtly and compli- 
 mentary; and, placed as he was, a peer, and the head 
 of a powerful clan, his letters to the young advocate, 
 struggling up towards a much inferior rank, are like those 
 of an inferior to a superior. 
 
 Lovat was fortunate in getting access to crowned heads. 
 Writing to liis " dearest general," on the 23rd of June, 
 1716, he says: — 
 
 "I had a private audience with his majesty this day; and I 
 can tell you, dear general, that no man ever spoke freer lan- 
 guage to his majesty and the prince than I did of our two 
 great friends, in letting them know that they did them more 
 service, and were capable to do them more service than all 
 those of their rank in Scotland ; and that is true." 
 
 The "two great friends" are evidently the Duke of 
 Argyle, and his brother Lord Islay, to whom Lovat 
 would feel pretty sure that his statement would be com- 
 municated ; a few days later he refers to the same topic, 
 
 " Our friends gain ground every day, and 1 hope that what 
 I said to the king in my private audience Saturday last, did a 
 little contribute to make him believe that the two brothers are 
 necessary persons to him. It would be too long to tell you all 
 I said, but in a word, my general could not speak Avith more 
 force in favour of the two brothers. I told but truth when I 
 said that their father was the founder of the Protestant suc- 
 cession in Scotland, and that they were themselves the support 
 of it, and the only capable to be so."
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 121 
 
 But his main object at this time, was his gift of Fraser- 
 
 dale's escheat. 
 
 '• I want," he says, " but a gift of the escheat to make me 
 easy; but if it does not do, you must find some pretence or 
 other that will give me a title to keep possession, either by the 
 Taillie [entail] my Lord. Provost has, or by buying off some 
 creditors ; in short, you must make a man of it one way or 
 other."* 
 
 At length on the 23rd of August, 1716, a royal warrant 
 was issued for the grant putting him in possession of — 
 
 " All goods, gear debts, and sums of mone^', jewels, gold, 
 silver coined and uncoined, utensils and domicils, horse, nolt, 
 sheep, corns, cattle, bonds, obligations, contracts, decreets, 
 sentences, compromitts, and all other goods, gear, escheatable 
 whatsomever, as well not named as named, which pertained of 
 before to Alexander Mackenzie of Fraserdale." 
 
 The law of Scotland, which would be ashamed to be 
 very far behind that of England in the quaintness of its 
 nomenclattire, called this the " single escheat," and in 
 addition to it, the loyal chief was invested with : — 
 
 "The said Alexander Mackenzie his life-7-enf escheat, of all 
 lands, heritages, tenements, annual-rents, tacks, steadings, 
 roomes, possessions and others whatsoever, pertaining and be- 
 longing to him, with the whole mails, ferms, kaiues, customs, 
 casualties, profits, and duties of the same.'"t 
 
 The circumference of his expectations enlarged as 
 they were realised, and we find him looking to other 
 escheats besides Fraserdale's. " I hope, my dear general," 
 he says to Forbes, " you will take start to London to serve 
 his grace, and do something for your poor old corporal; 
 and if you suffer Glengarry Fraserdale or The Cldsholm 
 to be pardoned, I will never carry a musket any more 
 under your command though I should be obliged to go 
 to Afric." Glengarry and Chisholm were the owners of the 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 55. f Culloden Papers, 339.
 
 122 THE LIFE OF 
 
 immediately adjoining estates — tlie inference is but too 
 obvious. The gift of the estate had one very disagreeable 
 qualification, that it was only to belong to Lord Lovat 
 so long as his adversary Fraserdale lived. It was inge- 
 niously tantalising to put such a man in the position of 
 being compelled sincerely to desire his enemy's longevity, 
 and such a brief tenure of wealth was by no means con- 
 sistent with his early dreams about strengthening the 
 foundations of a gTcat dynasty. He very early stated his 
 complaints on this subject, to his " dearest general,'* writing 
 on the 20th of February, 1717, in a tone which indicates 
 that he was not at first quite aware of the limited nature 
 of his acquisition. 
 
 " I am afraid it's ominous when you write long letters and 
 I short ones. I have notliing to say as to the law part but a 
 blind submission to your will, only that I am sorry my adver- 
 saries have secured the best lawyers, except my general whom 
 I look on as the best of all ; it" you can secure Sir Walter 
 Pringle I beg you do it." 
 
 In another letter, in proof of his submission he says, 
 with his old savasje recollections of lawless violence gleam- 
 ing through his prudential arrangements about legal 
 advice. 
 
 " I most humbly beg of my dear general, to employ Sir 
 Walter Pringle and whom else you please, and consult to- 
 gether of some legal way of my keeping possession of this estate, 
 besides the gift, which I look upon as the most precarious tiling 
 on earth. And I must tell my general, that either I must keep 
 violent possession, which will return me my old misfortunes, or 
 I must abandon the kingdom, and a young lady whom my 
 friends have engaged me to marry. So, dear General, I beg 
 you may give me some prospect of not being again forced to 
 leave the kingdom, or to fight against the king's forces. The 
 one or the other must be, if I do not tlnd any legal pretence of 
 possessing the estate but by this gift, which I now reckon as 
 nothing. The thoughts of all this confuse my brain, so excuse
 
 SIMON LORD LOYAT. 123 
 
 my writ and style — and believe me eternally, without reserve, 
 the most faithful and affectionate of all your slaves."* 
 
 The torrent of litigfation -with which Lovat now soucrht 
 to overwhelm his enemies, resolved itself into three main 
 streams. The one was for his ricrht to the honours of the 
 peerage, another was a struggle to defeat Fraserdale's heir, 
 who, as his father only forfeited his life-rent, would succeed 
 on his death, and the third consisted of a series of actions 
 for defeating the operations of individuals who held secu- 
 rities over the estate as creditors of Fraserdalc. There was 
 still another system of litigation, but here Lovat was in 
 the defensive, resisting payment of those bonds which we 
 have seen that he granted on his retreat to France, to the 
 gentlemen of his clan, on the condition of their remain- 
 ing faithful to hira. 
 
 We have seen that in 1702, when he was a fugitive, 
 the Court of Session decreed the barony of Lovat to be 
 vested in the dau2;hter of the former lord, to whom Fraser- 
 dale had just been married. In 1721, when Lovat's 
 proxy was produced at the election of the Earl of Aber- 
 deen to serve as one of the sixteen peers of Scotland in the 
 British Parliament, in place of Lord Annandale, a protest 
 was taken by Lord Rothes, on the ground that this 
 peerage was not limited to heirs male, and that of right it 
 was vested in the person of Emilia, Baroness Lovat, and 
 was declared to be so by a decision of the Court of Session. f 
 Fraserdale's forfeiture, of course, did not affect his wife. 
 On the death of the lady, who thus claimed the title, her 
 son assumed it; and Lovat commenced an action in the 
 Court of Session, for " reducing," as it is technically 
 called, the previous decree of the court against him, which 
 
 * CuUoden Papers. 70. 
 
 t Robertson's Proceedings relating to the Peerage, p. 92.
 
 124 THE LIFE OF 
 
 was still liable to be opened up in this shape, as lie had not 
 been a party to the action in which it was decided. He 
 had the able assistance of his friend Charles Erskine, after- 
 wards Lord Tinwald, whose papers in the case of " The 
 Lovat Peerao-e," containinc: an examination of the foun- 
 dations of nearly all the early peerages in Scotland, are a 
 mine of information on Scottisli heraldic and feudal lore :* 
 but on an occasion such as the present, the reader would 
 not perhaps be duly grateful for a participation in the 
 learnins: of these laborious criticisms. 
 
 It was not till the 3rd of July, 1730, that the court de- 
 cided in his favour, and 
 
 " Decerned and declared the title, dignity, and honours of 
 Lord Fraser of Lovat, to pertain and belong- to the said Simon 
 Lord Fraser of Lovat, pursuer, as eldest lawful sou of Thomas, 
 Lord Fraser of Lovat, his father, who was grand-uncle to Hugh, 
 Lord Fraser of Lovat, deceased."f 
 
 Counsel learned in modern peerage law will look with 
 contemptuous pity on the statement that the Court of 
 Session decided a question, thus involving the honour and 
 dignity of a peer of the realm ; but it is true that such 
 a decision was given, the court and those who pleaded 
 before it not knowing that the jurisdiction of a court 
 of law is totally incompetent to so great a matter. 
 At so early a period after the Union, many important 
 questions of official and judicial arrangement, which 
 had not been absolutely provided for by that treaty, re- 
 mained to be developed in practice ; and it came finally to 
 be the rule, that questions as to Scottish, as well as English 
 peerages, must be discussed in the House of Lords. 
 
 Lovat had for his solicitor, or " doer," as he is termed 
 in Scotland, a certain John Macfarlane, a writer to her 
 Majesty's Signet, of unexceptionable reputation. The client 
 * Session Papers in the Lovat Cause. f Anderson, 142.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 125 
 
 was far too wise a man to act the lord to his worthy agent, 
 and his letters to him, of which a few are quoted in this 
 book, are written in the most affable and condescending 
 strain. If we may judge from internal evidence, he had 
 subjected Mr. Macfarlane's virtue to some severe tests, and 
 he occasionally called forth admonitions or remonstrances, 
 to one of which he pays the compliment of saying, that it 
 is a very creditable specimen of that style, in which the 
 ablest master that he knows is Mr. Pope. On another 
 occasion, he answers one of his doer's remonstrances, pro- 
 bably against some very villanous proposal, in the following 
 strain, which affords a very fair key to his ethical system. 
 It shows how eminently " practical" all his notions were, 
 and might not inaptly proceed at the present day from 
 one of those who despise general systems, and are "men of 
 action not of theory." 
 
 ''April 29, 1729. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I liad the honour of your fine moral and plii- 
 losophicale letter by this post, and tho' it is writ in a very pa- 
 thetick, smooth way, yet I liave read so many good authors on 
 the subject, \A-ithout being- able to reduce their advice to practise, 
 that an epistle from a Scotch lawyer can have but very little 
 influence on me, that now by a long experience knows that 
 those fine moral reflections are no more but a play of our in- 
 tellectualls, by which the author carresses his own genius by 
 false ideas tliat can never be put in practice. You may give me 
 as many bony words as you please, but words will never gain 
 me the estate of Lovat, nor my peerage, without assiduously 
 acting that part T ought, to get thateftectuat ; and though some 
 people charged me with liking some of the Roman Catholic 
 principles, yet I do assur you that I do not expect new miracles 
 in my favours, and that I am fully resolved to use all the ordinary 
 meanes in my power to save my family. I told you so plainly 
 in my last letter, that I had no satisfactory answer to any of 
 my essential quei-ies, that I will not trouble you with repeating 
 what I have said, only I must tell you that 1 alwise observed 
 since 1 came to know any thing in the world, that an actif man
 
 126 THE LIFE OF 
 
 with a small understanding' will finish business and succeed 
 better in his affairs, than an indolent, lazy man of the brightest 
 sense, and of the most solid judgment. So since I cannot 
 flatter myself to have a title to the last character, T ought to 
 thank God that I am of a very active temper, and I'le be so far 
 from relenting, that I'le double my activity if possible." 
 
 His legal conflict about the estates was more serious 
 and more complicated than his action for the title, and it 
 took far too many shapes to be here recapitulated. He 
 must have been very unpleasantly awakened to a sense of 
 the precariousness of his tenure, by a decision of the Court 
 of Session, in 1722, finding him liable to " aliment" or sup- 
 port Fraserdale's son,* according to the old rule of Scottish 
 law, that the person who has the life-rent use of an estate is 
 bound to support the heir. At that time, an action in 
 the Court of Session, especially if it concerned landed pro- 
 perty, was a sort of hereditary war transmitted from ge- 
 neration to generation. It was a method of controversy 
 which was gradually superseding the old deadly feuds, 
 and the conflicts between the clans were transferred from 
 the mountain passes to the Parliament House of Edin- 
 burgh. A good array of active law- pleas came to be con- 
 sidered a badge of power and importance, nearly as eflcc- 
 tive as a strong body of clansmen. The various fortunes 
 of the protracted war were watched with eager eyes, and 
 as at each crisis their chief was triumphant or unfortu- 
 nate, the pulse of exultation or despondency was felt by 
 the lowest follower of the clan. The peculiar character of 
 the bench, as we shall afterwards have to describe it, and 
 the method of procedure, fostered these fires. To Lovat 
 the various fortunes of the judicial war appear to have been 
 a sort of substitute for the bold intrigues and perilous en- 
 
 * Morison's Dictionary of Decisions, p. 396.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 127 
 
 terprises to wliicli his previous life was devoted, and in his 
 correspondence we find vivid impressions of the progress 
 of the conflict. On the 2ud of July, 1730, he writes to 
 John Forbes recording a triumph. 
 
 *' I cannot tell you how much I owe to Duncau ; but I can 
 freely tell you that he was fully as sanguine in it as if it had 
 been your cause ; so that since he was his majesty's advocate, 
 he never took so much pains in any cause, any manner of way. 
 I hope he has now established a family that will be for ever 
 faithful to the roof-tree of Culloden ; and I beg that you may 
 believe there is not a Forbes come out of your family that 
 loves and respects you more than 1 do."* 
 
 He soon found, however, that one great victory in the 
 Court of Session did not end the war. On the 18th of 
 December we find him saying to John Forbes, that he 
 had desired the Laird of Maclcod, of whose family he is a 
 grandchild, to tell him, 
 
 " Whether or not his cousin Fraserdale's son had really a de- 
 sign to agree in a friendly manner, and take such a sum as he 
 and liis friends shall think proper for aU his pretensions to the 
 estate of Lovat. I desired John Macleod, at Inverness, to go 
 to Newhall with this message, and bid him tell Macleod that I 
 have put the thorn in my enemy's side, by putting a carte blanche 
 in my Lord Advocate's hands, and that every body knows his 
 generous temper, so that if they refuse his offer, no man will pity 
 them if they want bread ; and that after this season I never will 
 hear of any agreement, since, in two years, the law will make 
 me entirely master of the estate of Lovat, without being obliged 
 to give them a slxpence."t 
 
 And a few days later he says, 
 
 " Your brother, my Lord Advocate, who takes full burden 
 on himself for me, says, that they are such mad fools that he can 
 make nothing of them ; however, he will put the thorn In their 
 sides, and leave them excuseless before God and man.":J: 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House. •)■ Culloden Papers, 113. 
 
 it: Culluden Papers, 117.
 
 128 THE LIFE OF 
 
 On the 5tli of January, 1731, lie writes to the same 
 correspondent to say, 
 
 " Your brother who has been worhing all he could for me 
 this winter, has at last come to a final resolution. He offers 
 Fraserdale's family 600C /. sterling from me, and 2000Z. more from 
 himself if they come into his measures ; upon condition that if 
 they accept that offer in a month's time, he will oblige me to 
 adhere to it ; and if they do not accept, he has declared to them, 
 that they never will have it again ; but that he will do all that 
 in him lays to overturn all the rights that ever they had to the 
 estate of Lovat from the foundation. And my Lord Advocate 
 will find no great difficulty in that, for I have consulted it 
 fully, and am going on with aU vigour to put it in fuU execu- 
 tion."* 
 
 Two years later, in February, 1733, we find allusion 
 made to another judicial triumph. 
 
 "My gaining the decreet of the expiration of the legal, 
 makes my enemies think that it is time to agree. Their great 
 counsel who is a pretty fellow, Mr. Craigy,! has spoke to the 
 solicitor who is one of my counsel. But Fraserdale and his son 
 are such weak, wavering, and unconstant creatures, that I be- 
 lieve nothing can fix them to an agreement but your friend and 
 mine, his holding his assistance from them — which would be a 
 very good service done them, as well as to rae."| 
 
 This last is a doctrine in which, probably, the other 
 party would not have concurred. 
 
 It was not till the 8th of March, 1733, eighteen years 
 
 after his restoration that he was able thus to write to his 
 
 friend. 
 
 " I hope to return with thanks your visit to Culloden In less 
 than a month with the olive branch in my pocket, for now I 
 can tell you the agreeable news that you long wished for — a 
 final submissiiin is signed by Fraserdale and his sons and me, 
 sind put into the hands of my Lord Dunn and my Lord Grange 
 as arbiters, and they are to determine and decide what sums of 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 118. f Robert Craigie of Glendoick, 
 
 afterwards Lord rresident of the Court of Session. J Culloden 
 
 Papers, 131.
 
 SLMON LORD LOVAT. 129 
 
 money I am to pay to Fraserdale and his family for all the 
 right and pretensions they have, or pretend to have had to the 
 honours and estate of Lovat, which they are to give up to me 
 as the arbiters shall determine."* 
 
 The following letter to his agent, John Macfarlane, 
 curious on its own account, has significant reference to 
 the manner in wliicli this matter was finally settled by the 
 arbiters. 
 
 " Dear Sir — I had the honour of your kind and obliging 
 letter to me with Balhady's, but I received it when 1 was lying 
 very sick at Inverness, and I am not yet recovered, so that I have 
 neither strength nor spirits to answer that letter as I ought, but 
 will do it as soon as I am able to write or dictate right ; all I can 
 say now is, and I say it from the bottom of my heart and soul, 
 that I never had an unjust or unkind thought of you, but that 
 I always did and do believe you one of the honestest men that 
 ever entered the Parliament House : and I likewise always 
 believed, and do believe you to be my most faithful friend and 
 comrade, and I always gave you as niitch proof of this as lay 
 in my power ; so I beg of you once for all, to believe that no 
 man of the race of Adam, is capable to make me think an ill 
 thought of you ; I owe this justice to myself, as well as to you, 
 at the same time I must tell you, with the same freedom that 
 you speak to me, that I am convinced to a demonstration, that 
 I have been cheated, abused, sold, my papers embezzled, robbed, 
 and given up to my enemies ; and in short, treacherously, 
 villainously, and ungratefully betrayed and sold, by one whom 
 you and I entirely trusted, and used rather like a brother than 
 a doer, for which treachery I am persuaded God will punish 
 him some day or another, and for my part I will never forgive 
 nor forget it ; you may be sure I will not suffer it with a close 
 mouth, nor will I ever forgive any that had a hand in that vil- 
 lainous decreet arbitral, but will expose them in public and in 
 private as much as I am able, without a premunire upon my- 
 self, for there was never such villainy committed since there 
 was a lawyer or writer in Scotland, which will make me never 
 have such confidence in a lawyer or writer except in you 
 alone, as I have had heretofore, and your trustee and mine 
 was the great traitor, and contriver of all ; 1 wish I may not 
 
 » MS. at Culloden House. 
 K
 
 130 THE LIFE OF 
 
 feel it in some other part, and that I am not robbed of other 
 papers as well as those, that occasioned the villainous decreet 
 arbitrall, for I know no reason why that greedy gentleman 
 was privately for five or six weeks, without any person with 
 him, searching and rummaging my charter chest in my owa 
 house, when I was last at Edinburgli, if it was not to rob me 
 of any paper that might be of benefit to himself, or to his 
 villainous friends ; and as to all the papers that were at your 
 house, they were at his discretion, and God knows what he has 
 done with them, for I think nothing safe that was in his hands, 
 and I think him the most pernicious man that ever I had to do 
 with of his kind, however, if I suffer in one shape, and though he 
 gained money in betraying of me, his character, for which I 
 believe he has no great regard, shall be exposed to mankind, 
 and put m its true colours, and there I leave him. 
 
 " 1 have caused execute the summons of reduction and impro- 
 bation against the Chisholm, which I beg you cause carry on 
 with vigour, I likewise beg' you may not fail to make three or 
 four Barons for me this session, and such Barons as cannot be 
 rejected, I am fully determined on't, and nothing will put me by 
 that resolution ; I long much to know what is become of my 
 entail, and when-that will be finished. 
 
 " I oflPer you and good Mrs. Macfarlane, my most sincere and 
 aifectionate respects, and I am, without reserve, and unalter- 
 able friendship, attachment, and respect, 
 
 " Dear sir, 
 " Your most obedient, most affectionate, 
 
 " Beaufort, " and most obliged humble Servant, 
 
 " 27th Oct. 1739. LovAT."* 
 
 We perceive from this that having secured his paternal 
 estate, he had still an eye on the possessions of his neigh- 
 bours, the Chisholms; against whom, if one may judge 
 from the mass of papers connected with it, in an old 
 charter chest, he conducted a pretty tedious litigation. 
 He seems, like conquering monarchs, to have fostered a no- 
 tion that every neighbouring estate naturally formed a part 
 of his own; but the method in which he ultimately endea- 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 131 
 
 voured to realise the idea, was tlie ignoble one of buying 
 up securities, and endeavouring to attach the property for 
 the debts which they secured. Tlius he writes to liis 
 faithful doer, John Macfarlane, about Glengarry: 
 
 " I may as well ask his liver or his lungs, as ask him to give me 
 the lands of Abertarf for money, though they really and originally 
 belong to my family ; so that the law must assist me with my 
 money to get me possession of those lands that have been so 
 long and so unjustly kept from my family by the great weak- 
 ness of my predecessors. And till PrestonhaU's Tailzies made 
 void, I can have no thought of reducing the rights that he 
 has given, 
 
 " if I must pay up that adjudication of Mr. Robert Eraser's 
 to blow up PrestonhaU's right, it is high time I should begin. 
 I therefore earnestly entreat that you will Instruct my cousin, 
 Tom Brodie, and William Fraser that they may find out all 
 the sums contained in that adjudication ; and that you may 
 send me an exact list of them, that I may fall upon all the 
 methods I can to clear them off in the easiest manner." 
 
 The other great branch of litigation, conducted for 
 the purpose of preventing Fraserdale's creditors from at- 
 taching any part of the estate, was brought more briefly 
 to a conclusion. The matter at issue was thus recorded 
 by the lawyer who reported the decision, as a precedent; 
 and the general reader will find in the statement farther 
 evidence that the law of Scotland is not far behind that of 
 England in the complexity of its nomenclature : 
 
 " The creditors raised a process of constitution of several 
 debts, calling the officers of state and hkewise Fraserdale ; 
 and upon the dependence of that process they did arrest in 
 the hands of the tenants, who, having suspended upon double 
 distress, the question of preference came to be debated ; whether 
 the donator had the benefit of the escheat, mthout the burden 
 of any debt, or if the rents of the land were subject to the 
 debts and diligence of the creditors, and preferable to the 
 donator."* 
 
 * Dalrymple's Decisions , 248. 
 k2
 
 132 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The decision in tlie Court of Session in 1718, was in 
 favour of the creditors. The rule of treason law in Scot- 
 land has always been to spare as much as possible the 
 rights and interests of those who are not guilty. The 
 rule in England was that those whose interests were at- 
 tached to him by domestic, social, or patrimonial rela- 
 tions, should be overwhelmed in the fall of the convicted 
 traitor. This principle had its influence in the House 
 of Lords, where the decision of the Court of Session was 
 reversed, and Lovat triumphed over the creditors. 
 
 A person was appointed to act as factor for the credi- 
 tors, after the decision in their favour in the Court of 
 Session. This was a duty as perilous as it was obnoxious, 
 and Lovat's biographers narrate that in 1719, the factor's 
 p-ranaries were burned down. A document still extant con- 
 tains a sort of affidavit, or signed narrative, by certain persons 
 of respectability, who were present : — the minister of the 
 parish and his predecessor's son, the master of the charity 
 school, a writer, a messenger-at-arms, an officer of Excise, 
 and some neig^hbourino; tacksmen. Their statement im- 
 ports little more than that they were summoned to the 
 spot between twelve and one o'clock of the morning of 
 the 30th of December, 1719, and found that the pre- 
 mises had been effi^ctually fired, and were inextinguish- 
 able ; and that the factor's servants said they were ignited 
 in the middle, and at the four corners at once.* This 
 has been frequently alluded to as one of Lovat's acts of 
 vengeance; and the preservation of a document appa- 
 rently so unimportant, seems to augur that it was a charge 
 acrainst which he might have to defend himself. 
 
 Another document, amusing from its own nature, shows 
 
 • Lovat Documents.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 133 
 
 how difficult it was to restrain the clansmen from aveng- 
 ing tlieir claief's legal quarrel, if his opponent happened 
 to be within their reach. It appears that the factor did 
 not find himself safe without the presence of a military 
 force, which of course was looked upon as a warlike 
 aggression on a neutral territory, that ought to be repelled. 
 Lovat himself being absent, his wife, acting as viceroy, 
 had to issue a proclamation in the name of the two friendly 
 powers — King George, the Chief of the Military ; and 
 Lord Lovat, the Chief of the Erasers ; a " full double'' 
 of which, and of the warrant to the proper officer, is still in 
 existence. Although it is preserved in the following English 
 version, the minister would of course have the discretion 
 to translate the proclamation into Gaelic. 
 
 " To Mr. Thomas Chisliolm, Minister of the Gospel at Ivil- 
 morac. 
 
 " Beaufort, the 9th July, 1720. 
 
 " Reverend Sir, — I intreat you will be so kind as to read 
 the enclosed intimation after Divine Worship, in order to pre- 
 vent any disturbance by ig-norant people in the country, and 
 give my service to your bedfellow, willing you both a good new 
 year. " I am, Reverend Sir, 
 
 " Your affectionate humble servant, 
 
 "Ma. Lovat." 
 
 " Intimation therein enclosed. 
 
 " Whereas some ill-designing men, who are equally enemies 
 to bis Majesty King George and to my Lord Lovat, have by 
 malicious insinuations and false representations, procured a party 
 of the king's troops to come and keep garrison in this country, 
 ■with Intention to create mistakes, jealousies, and if possible 
 quarrel betwixt the soldiers and my Lord Lovat 's men, as if 
 the said party had come to assist the Jacobite Factor, who pre- 
 tends to uplift the rents of the estate of Lovat, in opposition to 
 his Majesty's gift to my Lord Lovat, which is confirmed by the 
 highest court in Great Britain. These are therefore to desire 
 and order all my Lord Lovat's kinsmen and followers, not to be 
 imposed on in that affair, but to use all discretion and civility
 
 134 THE LIFE OF 
 
 towards the said party, as believing' they would rather, if re- 
 quired, assist my Lord Lovat, in the support of his said gifts. 
 This, by my Lady Lovat's special orders, I am desired to inti- 
 mate to the congregation." 
 
 Among his sublunary legal conflicts, there was a law- 
 suit with Mr. Phraser of Pliopachy, one of the gentleraeii 
 of his clan. Pliopachy had acted for him as his agents 
 during his absence, making several journeys to France 
 with moneys recovered from the tenants. In a few years 
 after his chief's return, he had an account to present of 
 6831. 18s. 8d. His claims were submitted to four arbi- 
 ters, John Cuthbert and Hugh Fraser, on the part of 
 Lovat, and Alexander Fraser, of Culduthel, and John 
 Jackson, Commissary Clerk of Inverness, on the part of 
 Pliopachy. In 1719, they unanimously decided in favour 
 of Pliopachy, and Lovat granted him a bond for the 
 money. But Pliopachy, not making a discreet use of his 
 experience, allowed his chief to run further in his debt. 
 An arbitration was again proposed, but Lovat would not 
 agree to it, unless the decision of the previous arbiters 
 were opened up, and all the claims were submitted to 
 one general arbitration. Pliopachy submitted, and again 
 a decision was pronounced in his favour, on the 22 nd of 
 April, 1724, by Monro of Foulis, the oversman. Lovat 
 then commenced legal proceedings to set aside the deci- 
 sion, on technical grounds, and we find him carrying on 
 the litigation with Phopachy's children down to the year 
 1736.* 
 
 Phopachy lived in the Aird, within ten miles of Castle 
 Dounie, and he must have been a man of nerve, who in 
 such a situation could prosecute his chief. However 
 willing he might be, a chief could hardly in such circum- 
 stances prevent his immediate followers from doing ven- 
 
 * Papers in the case, Elcliies' Papers, Advocates' Library, vol. si.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 135 
 
 geance on tlie rebel, and tlierefore, it is only rather less 
 than was to be expected, to find that Phopachy's house 
 was but once attacked. This attack has been frequently 
 referred to as an instance of the vindictive spirit of Lovat, 
 but the incident as detailed by Duncan Forbes's faithful 
 agent, Provost Hossack, in a letter of the 12th of Febru- 
 ary, 1725, has a rather petty appearance. 
 
 " Last night five or six men armed attacked Phopachy's 
 house, went directly to the place -where he used to lie, and Avlien 
 they missed of him threatened his children and servants to dis- 
 coverle, told they wanted his life, and lay the head of one of his 
 daughters on a block, that she might discover where her father 
 ■was, and if any money was in the house. Meantime, some 
 people in the neighbourhood assembled, and two of them were 
 apprehended, and are now in prison. One of them, Archibald 
 Campbell, was shot with small greath by a servant of Phopa- 
 chie's in the face. Probably these two n'lay be the means of 
 discovering the accomplices in other matters."* 
 
 Before leaving ^the subject of the law-suits, it may be 
 well to mention the fate of the bonds which he had given 
 to the gentlemen of his clan before his departure for 
 France. Among the many holders of these securities, 
 all resigned their pretensions except Fraser of Struie, 
 with whom he conducted a litigation which lasted down 
 to the time of his execution. His defence was very like 
 that of the young gambler, who has given his note of 
 hand in a moment of excitement and intoxication, and 
 wishes to recall it in the hour of depression and sobriety. 
 He admitted that he had signed the bonds, but pleaded that 
 he was imder an insane and criminal hallucination, tempt- 
 ing him to commit treason against his lawful sovereign, and 
 support the cause of the Pretender. He urged, that it 
 was impossible that a set of bonds all granted on the 
 same day, and to the same class of persons, could have 
 
 * MS. at CuUoden House.
 
 136 THE LIFE OF 
 
 had any other object but a treasonable combination; and 
 as it is the policy of the law not to enforce obligations 
 for the commission of a crime, so he should not be com- 
 pelled to fulfil any of these contracts, undertaken by him 
 •when he was in the gall of iniquity. This defence was 
 adopted at the time when he was in the middle of his 
 great exertions for the exiled house, and immediately 
 before the rebellion of 1745.* 
 
 * Petition of the Rt. Hon. the Lord Lovat, 6th Eeb. 1745, in posses- 
 sion of James Maidment, Esq.
 
 SIMOX LORD LOVAT. 137 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Lovat Territories — Stratheric— The Aird — The IMoiintain Dis- 
 tricts — The Produce — The Fortaiices— Tlie Chief and his People — 
 Their mutual Rights and Privileges — Lovat's peculiar Character as 
 a Chief— Oriuin of tlie Coercive Power — The Hereditary Jurisdic- 
 tions — Ilis Regality — His Sheriffship — Lovat on the Bench — His 
 Use of his Judicial Powers — Kidnapping. 
 
 The district of wliich he was now the lord, was a goodly 
 heritage, so far as acres of land and men able to bear 
 arms were concerned, thou2;h its rental would have cut a 
 meagre figure beside that of a Sussex squire. Nothing in 
 the Highlands condescends to be spoken of as provincial, 
 and so each chief's estate was then, and is sometimes still, 
 called his " country;" nor Avas there anything very prepos- 
 terous in the term, when their territories were sometimes 
 larger than those of many a sovereign house of Germany, 
 and their authority over their people as great. The 
 country of the Frasers lies north and south of Lochness., 
 the town of Inverness, and its small circle of neighbouring 
 proprietories forming, as it w^ere, a sort of common or 
 thoroughfare between the two main districts of the lord- 
 ship, and breaking their compact unity. The southern 
 district, called Stratheric, was the more peculiarly High- 
 land part of the domain. It was the centre whence he 
 issued at the head of his predatory excursions, and the 
 place where he found shelter from pursuit, after his de- 
 feats. It was there that he organised his clan for his first
 
 138 THE LIFE OF 
 
 great raid on Lord Saltoun and the dowager, and tliere 
 that lie ended liis catalogue of enterprises and intrigues 
 when he received Prince Charles and his routed fol- 
 lowers. He had something of a patriarch's love for 
 these people. " I would truly," he S£iys, writing to his law 
 agent, "rather lose all I have than Stratheric. It's the 
 country that loves me most, and is most effectual to me, 
 both as to their rents and following."* The tourist in the 
 steamboat passing along Loch Ness, will observe the long 
 straight line of abrupt banks which bound the south- 
 eastern side of the lake. They are not mural precipices, 
 but they are masses of rock, declining at a very abrupt 
 angle, and rising sheer up from the lake's surface to the 
 extent of 1500 or 2000 feet. Here and there they are 
 seamed and broken into fantastic clustering rocks, but 
 generally 
 
 " Abrupt and sheer the mountains sink 
 At once upon the level brink" — 
 
 — so abrupt, that it has been deemed impossible to construct 
 a road alonsr the edo-c of the lake; and these wild tower- 
 ing banks, seen by so many thousands who pass them, 
 are seldom trodden by the foot of man. From the summit 
 of this long mountain, on the one hand, is seen the loch, 
 narrow and straight as a canal, with its ships and steam- 
 boats dotting its surface like so many playthings; on the 
 other, the basin of Stratheric, of which these banks are 
 the north-western wall, lies between them and the nearly 
 parallel line of the Monaliagli mountains. It is a high 
 and sterile district, full of lakes and morasses, and in many 
 places affording but little of the sublime. At its eastern 
 extremity it is entered by the pass of Inverfarikaig, cleft 
 through the rocky wall that edges the lake, and wild and 
 
 * Autograph Letter, 7th of December, 1721.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 139 
 
 precipitous, as a cleft through such a mass of rock might 
 be expected to be. At the opposite extremity, the only 
 entrance from the south is over the shoulder of the huo;e 
 hill of Corryarick, where the pedestrian (few vehicles, one 
 would suppose, could pass that way, though it is a mili- 
 tary road) goes nine miles corckscruing up, and comes 
 nine miles down on the other side, through a mountain tract 
 of which wind and fog have the reputation of being as in- 
 digenous and permanent elements, as the heather and the 
 peat bog, in which each succeeding mile shows scarce the 
 shade of variation. So was Strathcric naturally fortified ; 
 but there was then just one other entrance path, which it 
 would be a simple matter to protect in time of danger, 
 and which was subsequently deemed so important, in 
 giving those who could occupy it the command of the 
 district, that Fort Augvistus was built on it in 1715. 
 This must have been a serious diminution of the value 
 of the new inheritance, and a sad eyesore The fort 
 can never have been of much value against regular 
 military operations; it is commanded on all sides, and 
 when one has gone half-way up Corryarick, he feels 
 as if he could roll down a stone and crush it. But the 
 fierce children of the wilderness, all dreadful in hand-to- 
 hand battle, had a wholesome dread of the mother of the 
 musket, as they called the cannon, and were glad to 
 keep as far as possible from fortified places. Such was 
 Lovat's faithful country of Stratheric ; but its description 
 would be incomplete, were it not to be stated that here 
 and there it is seamed by deep black gashes, at the foot 
 of which rush impetuous streams, struggling from the 
 mountains towards the loch. These, sometimes swollen by 
 the melting of the snow, or the bursting of the springs 
 within the mountains in rainy weather, rising at once from 
 the rank of petty chafing brooks, fill each deep gorge
 
 140 THE LIFE OF 
 
 with a friglitful furious river, wliicli carries bridges and 
 all other obstacles before it, and cuts off all communica- 
 tion between one end of the strath and another.* In 
 one of these clefts are to be seen the far-famed Falls of 
 Foyers; and the wanderer in the days we are commemo- 
 rating, who came upon them unawares, would doubtless be 
 far more entranced in awe and admiration at the descent 
 of the wild cataract into its dark stony basin, than the 
 tourist of the present day, who approaches it with his 
 mind strung by the magniloquent description of the guide 
 books to the highest pitch of expectant excitement. 
 
 The other main branch of the Fraser country, called 
 The Aird, is of a very different character. It commences 
 nearly where the travellers' road proceeding northward 
 from Inverness and crossing the Caledonian Canal, turns 
 westward and keeps near the border of the Beauly 
 Firth. The firth runs inland like a quiet sequestered 
 lake, with wide stretches of fertile land along the edges, 
 and all is so peaceful, and has so much the aspect of inland 
 
 * The writer of this rememhers that, in 1829, just after the great floods 
 of tliat year, when taking a solitary walk from the Fall of Foyers, 
 through Stratheric, to Fort Augustus, he was told by some wayfarers 
 that his ijrogress would be stopped, as a bridge had just fallen. There 
 seemed, however, to be something contradictory and confused in their 
 statements ; and as they themselves iiad all passed the stream, he be- 
 lieved he might do so too. When he came to it, the bridge had a very 
 strange appearance. The gangway and the solid arch were gone, but 
 the paraj)et of the bridge, in two wide slender arches, still spanned the 
 Stream, and as they were made of tough masonry, and the stream had 
 subsided, he felt there was little danger in trusting his weight to one 
 of tlieni, and crossing over. The builders of the old Highland bridges 
 had more of the peculiar skill suited to the district tlian, perhaps, some 
 modern engineers might give them credit for. lliey made no para- 
 peted approach to tlie arch, and the traveller had to descend to the 
 edge of tlie stream, and then mount by a curve nearly concentric with 
 the inner arch of the bridge. This metliod of building, though not very 
 convenient to the traveller, had this advantage, that when a great 
 flood filled the wiiole fissure, it encountered only a narrow rib instead 
 of a broad surface. In the instance just narrated, though the flood had 
 been so strong as to carry off the an;]), the parapet, which in modera 
 bridges is generally the lirst part swept away, still remained.
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 141 
 
 landscape scenery, tliat the vessels with wliich, especially 
 ■when there is a storm along the eastern coast, the seques- 
 tered firth is occasionally filled, have a strange incon- 
 gruous appearance on these narrow and quiet waters. 
 In the distance are ranges of high hills, presided over by 
 the broad shoulders of Ben Wyvis. But near the edge 
 of the fii'th the land is, for some distance, a flat well cul- 
 tivated plain, many parts of which seem to be alluvial 
 soil redeemed from the water; and farther on the banks 
 rise gently, covered with dense forests of pine and birch, 
 interspersed with occasional patches of arable land. This 
 fair territory is divided by the noble river Beauly, which 
 after passing the rocky barrier, commencing widi the Island 
 of Aigas, and ending with the lower Fall of Kilmorac, 
 comes sweeping down to the firth, a broad, pellucid, deep, 
 and rapid stream. On its edge, as it joins the firth, are 
 ranged the houses of the village of Beauly, now consist- 
 ing of neat rows of modern stone buildings, but which, from 
 any thing that can be learned of it, must have been fully as 
 extensive a century ago as it is at present. Over the tops 
 of the houses rise no common sight in a Scottish village 
 — the grey walls of a priory founded by the Byssets in 
 1230. The lofty edifice, associated with religion and 
 peace, and the great old forest trees in which it is em- 
 bosomed, are, as well as the rich alluvial land by which 
 they are surrounded, a strange feature of a Highland 
 landscape; and there are few places in Scotland where a 
 traveller, who does not cast his eyes on the distant ho- 
 rizon, might more aptly believe himself in the rural 
 scenery of England. Lifting the eyes, however, from more 
 immediate objects, it crosses the rugged outlines of the 
 mountains which cluster round Strath Glass, Strath Affric, 
 and Strath Farrar. Mounting up as it were by the rocky
 
 142 THE LIFE OF 
 
 stair down wliicli the river Beauly tumbles, we reach the 
 first of these glens, a long trench with a level bottom — pro- 
 bably the bed of an ancient lake, through which the river 
 winds sluggishly among grass and sedge. Here, too, but for 
 the immediate vicinity of the mountains, the scene might 
 be English. Above this the various streams which supply 
 the river come from distant rugged glens, up which, in the 
 various directions of Strath Farrar, Strath Cannich, and 
 Strath AfFric, the Fraser country pushed itself, till its 
 extremities nearly approached the western coast. 
 
 The staple production of the country would, of course, 
 be fighting men: there would be little in the form of 
 rent. The smallness of the actual money rental of Highland 
 estates in that age has been the subject of much remark; but 
 it must be remembered that the object on which a Highland 
 chief, if he received a money rent, would most heartily em- 
 ploy it, would be the support of a sort of stipendiary army; 
 and as they supported themselves, the pay on which they 
 could have lived may be considered part of the value of the 
 estate — at least to their chief, though it must be admitted 
 that it would not have told for much in the London market. 
 Tlie Aird, now a fine agricultural district, must even then 
 have afibrded a considerable quantity of grain and pasture. 
 In Lovat's letters, especially those to his men of business, 
 the salmon fishings on the Beauly arc frequently men- 
 tioned. The greatest of all individual discoveries in the 
 art of providing for the table, the preservation of the fish 
 in ice, had not then been made ; yet he must have derived 
 a considerable revenue from exporting it in the old boiled 
 shape, as he often talks with exultation or disappointment, 
 as the case may be, of his year's contract for the sale of 
 his salmon. Their capture was generally accomplished 
 by men watching on the rocks, and spearing them as they 
 attempted to leap the waterfall — a perilous occupation,
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 143 
 
 since it added tlie shock and strviggle "with a nimble and 
 strong animal, to the natural hazard of clambering among 
 precipices.* Red deer would be abundant in the upper 
 glens; but, unless when on great occasions several hundreds 
 of sportsmen collected together into a hunting army and 
 scoured the country as if they were pursuing a fugitive 
 enemy, they would not be looked on as objects of 
 amusement and recreation, but as the food of the people, 
 to be acquired by the laborious duties of stalking. The 
 refinement of killing, for the sake of killing, had not yet 
 in the Highlands superseded the primitive notion, that the 
 subsistance of man was the only legitimate reason for kill- 
 ing the Creator's creatures. Accordingly, there would be 
 no attempts, by coercive restraints on locomotion, to create 
 artificial solitude for the purpose of enhancing the enjoy- 
 ment of the individual sportsman. Grouse, ptarmigan, and 
 probably the capercailzie, would be abundant; but the High- 
 landers of those days cared little for slaying them save to 
 provide for the demands of hunger. Lovat himself seems 
 to have been no sportsman, or rather to have sported with 
 higher game; but he could condescend on occasion to 
 notice such trifling creatures, and talks in one of his let- 
 ters, not inexpressively, of becoming " as free of debt as 
 a muircock." 
 
 From his territories and their produce, let us glance at 
 the authority he exercised over them. It is a popular mistake 
 to speak of the Highland institutions as of the same cha- 
 racter as the feudal : there was an external resemblance, 
 but they rested on perfectly distinct principles. The feudal 
 
 * There is a particular rock on the edge of the fall on which the sal- 
 mon sometimes alight in their vain eiforts to surmount it. A Lord Lovat 
 once placed a faggot-fire and a kettle of water on this rock, and it had 
 not remained long ere a salmon leaped in, and in a quarter of an hour 
 was^fit for the table. Thus his lordsliip was able, when people boasted 
 of their preserves and fisheries to say that he had a salmon leap 
 where the fish, when wanted, jumped into a cauldron to be boiled.
 
 144 THE LIFE OF 
 
 lord by being invested with tlie land, claimed tlie services of 
 tliose wlio lived on it, as lie himself rendered services to 
 his sovereign. The system was hnked throughout by the 
 tenure of land. The baron lield of the sovereign, and the 
 vassals held of the baron. Tlie system issued out of the 
 right of conquest, the victorious leader partitioning the 
 conquered territories among his followers, who made the 
 inhabitants their tributaries. It was exemplified in its 
 most perfect scale by the partition of England among the 
 followers of the Norman conqueror. But among the Celts, 
 both of Ireland and Scotland, the principal man of a dis- 
 trict held his primary authority as the leader or patriarch 
 of the people, and his rights over the land proceeded from 
 his supremacy over those who lived on it. In both sys- 
 tems the principle of hereditary succession was predomi- 
 nant, but in neither was it the absolute rule ; and the nature 
 of the divergencies mark the characteristic difference of the 
 two social institutions. Vv^hen a feudal lord died, his 
 sovereign was entitled to see him succeeded by one who 
 was capable of defending the fief, and performing to him 
 the services of a warlike leader ; and if the nearest in blood 
 were a minor, an imbecile, or a woman, he might refuse 
 to renew the investiture. If a like circumstance occurred 
 in the death of a Highland chief, it was not the sovereign 
 but the clan who took up the matter, and they, as entitled 
 to an able leader, looked from the nearest heir by blood, to 
 some collateral relative of higher promise. It thus very 
 frequently happened that, when the last chief's son was a 
 minor, an uncle succeeded; and, indeed, it appears to have 
 been almost a fixed rule among the earlier Celtic tribes, that 
 the brother should succeed in preference to the son.* In 
 
 * Tlie peculiarities of Highland tenure are very ably examined in 
 "Skene on the Highlands," Some curious instances are scattered through 
 " Chalmer'8 Caledonian," and " Gregory on the Highlands and Isles."
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 145 
 
 feudal fiefs' -primogeniture and hereditary descent came to 
 he established as fixed rules at an early period, the rights 
 of the sovereign or other superior becoming valued as all 
 such claims are when industry displaces "war, by a pecu- 
 niary estimate. In the Highlands, however, the diver- 
 gencies from hereditary succession, and the peculiar rela- 
 tion of the chief to his clan, survived to a comparatively 
 late period. The Scottish monarch professed to deal with 
 the Highlands as with the rest of the kingdom, and gave 
 the chiefs charters, renewing the investitures from time to 
 time, and treating them on all occasions as feudatories of 
 the crown. The courts of law attempted to enforce the 
 same rules; but local customs and ideas of right, which 
 ought indeed to be the sources of consuetudinary laws, 
 "were too strong for slips of parchment, and even for the 
 -decrees of the Lords of Council and Session. We have 
 already seen an instance of the operation of this principle 
 in the hero of our history, who, because he was the nearest 
 male collateral relative, and a person very capable of lead- 
 ing a clan, was able to bid defiance to the efforts of his 
 predecessor's heiress, backed by the authority of the law. 
 
 The clansmen always felt that they had their own 
 share in the benefits of this principle, and that their chief 
 was not the absolute proprietor of the district occupied by 
 the clan, according to modern notions of property, and en- 
 titled to drive out the hereditary dwellers of the soil like 
 a pack of sheep admitted to graze for a term or at will. 
 They believed that they held their huts and paddocks, 
 "with the right of killing wild animals on the waste, by fully 
 as good a title as that by which the chief enjoyed his castle 
 and his authority as leader. When a revolution had taken 
 place in property and habits, and men were not deemed 
 
 L
 
 146 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tlie most profitable produce of the land, the Highlanders 
 were overwhelmed with astonishment to hehold their chiefs 
 change theu' nature, and become absolute proprietors, en- 
 titled, like the owmer of a city street, to eject the occu- 
 pants in such proportions, and at such times as they might 
 deem fit. Probably no instance can be found, of rights on. 
 ■which the holders beheved that they had a clearer pro- 
 prietary claim than these Highlanders understood that they 
 possessed in their hereditary occupancy ; and never was 
 any act more completely ^e/^ to be a tyrannical and illegal 
 plunder, tlian that by which the people were arbitrarily 
 dispossessed for the enrichment of their chief. That old 
 consuetudinary rights should not have been better re- 
 spected by our law, was a circumstance which appeared 
 worthy of sharp comment by an illustrious foreign jurist 
 and historian M, Simonde de Sismondi, who declared that 
 Europe was full of rights held by the same sort of tenure as 
 these Highland hereditary occupancies ; and that they were 
 at least so far respected in Germany, that when pubHc 
 pohcy rendered it expedient to alter them, the state took 
 care that all the benefits should not accrue to one side, and 
 all the burdens fall on the other. 
 
 Thus chiefship in the Highlands was not a sys- 
 tem of pure aristocracy. Birth went far ; but ability and 
 popularity were necessary for the consoHdation and in- 
 crease of power, and often for the preservation of the 
 rank of a chief. We have already seen some of the 
 shapes in which Lovat endeavoured to bind to his person 
 the gentry of his clan. Of these, Avho would all be able to 
 trace their connexion with the main branch, — who were 
 all, in genealogical phrase, cadets of the family — some 
 would have considerable tracts of land, which they held of
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 147 
 
 the cliief, nominally according to the principles of feudal 
 tenure, while their real position in the clan would be that 
 of the staif of officers under the commander-in-chief Many 
 of them would probably be tacksmen — mere tenants at 
 will by feudal notions, but possessed of as strong a title 
 as the feudatories according to Highland customs. The 
 chief would occasionally place one of his vassals or tacks- 
 men in the nominal position of a freeholder or " baron," 
 that he might have the elective franchise at his disposal, 
 whenever the chief thought it worth his while to exercise 
 so vulgar an instrument of power as to carry an election * 
 All these people were to be propitiated ; but even the herd 
 of vagabonds, who were all Frasers indeed byname, but who 
 could no more trace their actual pedigrees than the inmates 
 of a union workhouse, had also to be conciliated, and what 
 would be a higher bribe than the admission of their family 
 claims? This is a species of flattery in which no great man 
 but a Highland cloief can deal. The use of the family name 
 by the whole clan, established among them a general 
 claim to descent from the same stock as the chief. If the 
 itfchief acknowledged the connexion, and fixed the degree, 
 there was nothing incredible in the relationship — it was 
 but individuahsing a general truth. If the Earl of Nor- 
 ton the 30th of January, 1733, we find him saying, "Tlie Lairds of 
 Macleod and Grant going on to make a great number of Barons, forced 
 me to be at the expense to try the records to see what I could do. I 
 found two retours in chancery, by which it appears that I can make 
 by the Barony of Lovat, about 120 Barons. I consulted the affair with 
 tlie best lawyers in town, and they are positive that I can make about 
 120 Barons out of the barony of Lovat without objection; besides several 
 other baronries on the lordship; so that I am resolved to make as many 
 as will make some sort of balance in my family in case of a disputed 
 election, and as my ancestors made always a good figure in the shire, 
 it is but natural I should wish to preserve it." Culloden Papers, 131. 
 INIany other instances of his manufacture of barons will be found in 
 his correspondence in these pages. 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE LIFE OF 
 
 thumberland informed a tenant's son that he was a relation 
 of his own, the stolid Northumbrian would only gape a 
 deo-ree wider than usual, in decorous mirth at the undig- 
 nified joke of the great lord; but if Mac Slaimi, meeting a 
 sinewy Fraser glaring at the chief from the top of a rock 
 in Stratheric, beckoned the bare legged savage down and 
 informed him that he was the great grandson of his grand- 
 father's sixth cousin, the youth would go to his father's 
 hovel with proud and hasty strides to tell that the question 
 of his lineage had been solved by an authority which, as 
 Johnson said of George III., was not to be disputed. 
 According to tradition, he was highly accomplished in 
 the many arts by which the weaknesses and follies of the 
 uneducated can be turned to use, and was in all respects a 
 great popular favourite, — if it be not profanity to apply 
 this vulgar quahty to so transcendant a person as a High- 
 land chief. 
 
 Of the strongholds in which Lovat displayed his 
 power or his hospitality, none now remain. His prin- 
 cipal fortalice was Castle Dounie or Beaufort, standing on 
 the gentle slopes which rise gradually from the banks of 
 the Beauly firth, where a white-Avalled modern mansion 
 now looks cheerfully forth from rich forests of planted 
 trees. Further down, and on a slight eminence projecting 
 into the frith, stood the fortress of Lovat. Both these 
 strontjholds were rased to the c;round after the battle of 
 Culloden. The other fortress of Fanellan his own fol- 
 lowers had destroyed when it was in the possession of the 
 Mackenzies, and the Island of Aigas does not appear to 
 have been fortified, having been considered sufficiently 
 strong in its natural inaccessibility. We may form a 
 notion of Castle Dounie as correctly as if its rough brown
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 149 
 
 walls, like those of many another Highland or border for- 
 tress, were standing bare before us at this hour. While the 
 gentry of England, alike secure and powerless in the 
 strength of the law and the executive, encouraged the 
 open spreading Tudor architecture with its wide hospitable 
 doors, its broad easy flights of steps, and its expansive bow 
 windows, the Scottish chief or laird had to make his house 
 at once a castle and a prison. He was not rich enough to raise 
 a great baronial pile like those of the princely Norman 
 barons of England ; but such as were his materials, they 
 were mainly laid out for defence, and few of them were 
 devoted to comfort. A rocky eminence of inconsiderable 
 height was generally chosen. A few dungeons were hol- 
 lowed out in the living rock. Sometimes they were ap- 
 proached by winding stairs, but not unfrequently they were 
 oubliettes accessible only by an orifice above, Hke the Ma- 
 mertine caverns at Rome or the stone chambers at Baden 
 Baden. Over them a simple square tower was built, of con- 
 siderable size outside, but with walls from ten to fifteen feet 
 thick, so that each floor contained no more internal space 
 than would make a very moderately-sized modern room. 
 Within a narrow well a circular stair pierced the tower from 
 top to bottom, giving access by diminutive doors to the se- 
 veral stories. Every thing that gave communication with 
 light or air was diminutive. There can have been very few 
 studies carried on in these old towers. The owner had 
 always this best of reasons for objecting to his windows 
 being large, that if they were so, he might chance to be 
 shot by his neighbour when sitting at his ease in his cham- 
 ber; accordingly the openings through which all the light 
 admitted into these square masses of stone passed, resem- 
 bled drains communicating between the interior and the 
 exterior.
 
 150 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The castle would be looked on by the clansmen with 
 deep and awful veneration, as the symbol of the absolute 
 authority of the chief; and in its grim battlements and 
 frownino; strength when contrasted with their own de- 
 fenceless hovels, they would be substantially reminded of 
 their mutual relation — absolute command on the one part, 
 submissive obedience on the other. The most absolute 
 monarch or chief is, however, only absolute to individuals. 
 He cannot put to death or transport his whole people ; for, 
 afterall, suchisthe limit ofindividual human power, that the 
 despot can only act through his slaves, and can only strike a 
 minority at any given moment, employing the power of the 
 majority to execute the stroke. Thus the p6sition of 
 partial dependance in which the chief stood to his clan 
 at large, did not prevent his exercising a fearful despo- 
 tism over individuals, and inflicting hardships and cruel- 
 ties, which, believing they had come from the just source 
 of authority, they bore with a patient magnanimity truly 
 Turkish, and far more than Spartan. The power of the chiefs 
 over their clans was the true source of the two rebellions. 
 The clansmen cared no more about the leo-itimate race 
 of the Stuarts, than they did about the war of the Spanish 
 succession. If they had founded their conduct on old 
 historical recollections, they would have remembered that 
 their race had no bitterer enemies than the legatees of 
 Robert Bruce, who had crushed a Celtic throne in the 
 West, as justly formed as their own, and inferior only in 
 the fortune of war. The Jacobite Highland chiefs ranged 
 their followers on the Jacobite side — the Hanoverians 
 ranged theirs on tlie side of government. Lovat's con- 
 duct was a sort of expei'imenhim crucis ; he made his 
 clan llano verian in one rebellion, and Jacobite in an- 
 other. In the former ho kept the force of his clan on the
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 151 
 
 side of government, though he had been absent from 
 them for twelve years, and another person whom the law 
 declared to be their true chief, had held possession of the 
 estates in the interval, and that legal owner had espoused 
 the Jacobite cause. Such was the strenrrth of the tie of 
 
 CD 
 
 chiefship, and the nothingness of any other pohtical bond 
 among these wild races. 
 
 There is no doubt that the power of the chiefs 
 over their followers was frequently exercised with great 
 tyranny and cruelty, on occasions in Avhich the wily, 
 ambitious chief, and the servile, ill-used clan, have mutu- 
 ally shared in the praises of generous devotion and en- 
 thusiastic loyalty. A perusal of the rather uninteresting 
 extant specimens of the correspondence of the chiefs of 
 the two rebellions, would speedily undeceive those Avho 
 imagine that the Jacobite cause spread in one fire of 
 devotion and loyalty, from " High-minded Moray, 
 the exiled, the dear," to the meanest gilly who followed 
 the army. In the " Jacobite correspondence of the Athol 
 Family" there are some vivid specimens of the practical 
 intimidation necessary to raise the men of the Athol 
 district, who, in the period between the two rebellions, 
 had somewhat changed their character, and become less 
 warlike in their habits. The following instances are se- 
 lected at random out of many. After many complaints 
 about their supineness, one of Tullibardine's emissaries 
 writes to him : 
 
 " In obedience to your lordship's commands, I went to Dun- 
 keld, but to no purpose, for I plainly see that the whole inhabi- 
 tants are quite degenerate from their ancestors, and not one 
 spark of loyalty among them; and, as the bearer can inform 
 your grace, not one man of them will stir without force, and 
 even then there is neither gun nor sword to be had. The
 
 152 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Laio-hwood men are on the same footing, and have neither arms 
 nor willingness."* 
 
 From another quarter there is the statement : 
 
 " We flatter ourselves that the humour and refractory temper 
 of the Dunkeld people is not unknown to your grace, that no- 
 thing but force, with your graces -presence, or the presence of 
 your officers with a party, can or will pull them from their 
 houses."! 
 
 " Nobody," says Steuart of Ballechin, in the same corres- 
 pondence, " knows what it is to raise men, but he that tries it. 
 Not so much as one of the gentlemen j brought their men, but 
 obliged me to go myself to raise them."§ 
 
 " God knows," says Tullibardine, writing to his brother, 
 Lord George Murray, "what dilatory imposing evasions one 
 has to struggle with among a multitude of refractory people 
 in these parts. But now hopes,! though with tmspeakable 
 
 * Jacobite Correspondence, 16. f lb. 71 
 
 X Cleaning his own domestic wassals. 
 
 § Jacobite Correspondence, 156. 
 
 II Sk in original. Tullibardine, or, as he then called himself, the Duke 
 of Athol, was not a very pure writer of English, and his long absence 
 abroad may be his excuse. As appropriate to this subject of forcible 
 levies, the following letter in the same collection, may be considered 
 curious. It is from the pen of a lady who cut a very conspicuous 
 figure in the affair of 1745. Lady Macintosh of Moy, the heroine of 
 the Ivoute of Moy, whom General Stuart of Garth informs us :— " Of 
 all the fine ladies few were more ac.coynpUshed, more beautiful, and more 
 enthusiastic." Are we to take in her ladyship's orthography the 
 measure of the accomplishments which adorned tlie celebrated balls at 
 Ilolyrood, while Charles Edward held his short court ? An Enghsh- 
 nian will scarcely comprehend the theory of the spelling, which is given 
 literatim. Any one accustomed to speak with Highlanders, will per- 
 ceive how completely " the accents of the mountain tongue" overcame 
 the principles of English spelling : — 
 
 " My Loud Douke,— The Beraer of this is a veray Pretay fellew, 
 Brother to M^cnzee of Killcoway. He had a Compannay resed for the 
 Prince's Servace, but was handred by Lord Siforth to keray them of, 
 which meks me geve this trobal to beg of your Grace to geve him an 
 ordar for rasing his men, and thene he can wous a lettel forse. My 
 God preasearf your Grace, and all that will searve ther Prince and 
 Countray, which is the eai-nest wousli of 
 
 " Your Grace Most 
 
 " Aflnett and Obd. Sarvant, 
 
 " A. M= IntoshJ'
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 153 
 
 difficulty, Fascally and Ballechin will at last be able to bring' 
 up a considerable recruit of men."* 
 
 Here a landed proprietor returns, after an absence of 
 nearly thirty years. His estates have in the meantime 
 been held by another scion of the house, who holds differ- 
 ent political opinions from his own. A firm government, 
 under a new dynasty of things, has thrown the cause of 
 the exiled chief into the shade, as the half-forgotten 
 politics of a former generation. He returns, and he finds 
 his people reluctant to join liim in a dangerous outbreak, 
 in which there is little hope of success. All this is 
 natural; but then comes the next phenomenon, Avhicli 
 requires peculiar explanation. He has recourse to coer- 
 cion, and they obey. He, an attainted criminal by the 
 laws of the land, with a price upon his head, safe from 
 capture only while he is among these people, uses force 
 towards them, and instead of appealing to the law and 
 the power of the state, they yield at last an unwilling 
 obedience ! It is here that, pure and unadulterated, we see 
 the power of chiefship, and the strength of the tics of 
 that patriarchal system. To obey the chief was the 
 creed in which these mountaineers were brought up. 
 Though the ship be drifting to destruction, and the 
 mutiny laws are the thought furthest from the mariner's 
 mind, the captain is still his master. The Irish Catholic 
 has been accustomed to see his priest scorned and hunted 
 from society, if not subjected to penal laws ; yet few 
 earthly dominions are more absolute than the sway of that 
 spiritual counsellor over the mind and actions of his 
 votary. Tlie Turkish governor in his province, and at 
 the head of his troops, receives the fatal order to die for 
 * Jacobite Correspondence, p. 161.
 
 154 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his crimes, and folding tlie sultan's mandate reverently on 
 his brow, drinks his cup of poisoned coffee without a 
 murmur. Even so the Highlanders' mam rule of ethics, 
 the predominating principle around which all his notions 
 of honour, integrity, and duty were formed, was ohedi- 
 ence to his chief. The creed would have more or less 
 efiicacy, according to circumstances or character. Some 
 would come forward with alacrity whenever it was known 
 that they were wanted ; others rather averse to the project, 
 and perhaps, from the progress of knowledge, entertaining 
 misgivings about the creed of passive obedience to chiefs, 
 might exhibit an unusually intense obtuseness in compre- 
 hending that their services were required, or might manage 
 so to adjust their comings and goings, that the officials 
 who went to intimate their leader's commands might be 
 pecuharly unfortunate in their visits. One who, how- 
 ever, directly refused to obey orders issued by his rightful 
 chief, would be deemed a deeply degenerate child of the 
 sept; and for him, who, to escape from the just vengeance 
 of the hand of the clan, sought that camp of the enemy — 
 the protection of the law — the Celtic vocabulary of epithets, 
 would scarcely contain words sufficient to express the 
 abhorrence with which all well-thinking people brought 
 up in sound clannish principles would look on so unna- 
 tural a monster. Hence the " force" which Tullibardine 
 employed; and which Lovat found it sometimes all the 
 more necessary to employ that he was a hunted criminal, 
 who out of his own clan dared not confront the meanest 
 officer of the law. 
 
 Among the powerful expressions in which he so pro- 
 fusely indulged, the choice vials of his wrath were poured 
 forth on those persons, who bearing his name, in any
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 155 
 
 way counteracted his projects. Some Erasers were clergy- 
 men, and did not find that the chief's injunctions were 
 always in accordance with those of their spiritual master. 
 Others were perhaps barristers, and might be retained by 
 the opposite party. To such persons, the expressions 
 *' imnatural villain," " unparalleled traitor," "horrible par- 
 ricide," were devoted. He was very fond of comparing 
 their conduct to that of Judas ; and on at least one occa- 
 sion, where he had met with more than usual provocation, 
 he expressed in terms, not very fit for publication, a 
 belief that the case was one of deeper treachery ; for 
 while the arch-traitor might have had some doubts about 
 the spiritual headship, the clansman could have no doubt 
 that he, Lord Lovat, was his temporal lord and master. 
 
 There are many incidents from which it may be in- 
 feiTcd, that Lovat was a rigorous if not a cruel chief; but 
 this would in no wise diminish the influence of his enter- 
 prising spirit and popular manners. Nothing was more 
 likely to light i;p a flame of uncontrollable fury in a 
 clansman's mind, than any insult offered to his chief; and 
 in his presence, an avowed difference of opinion was a 
 sufficient insult. On one occasion, in 1744, when the 
 freeholders of Inverness-shire were assembled in the court- 
 house for the election of a collector of the land-tax, a 
 dispute arose between Lovat and Lord Fortrose. It was 
 carried pretty far, for Lovat gave the other the lie, and 
 he retaliated by a blow on the face. Fraser of Foyers, a 
 gentleman of the clan, and not one of the inferior herd of 
 followers, was in the gallery, and leaping down, presented 
 a pistol to Lord Fortrose, whose life was saved by a gen- 
 tleman throwing his plaid over the pistol. The rumour 
 having reached the street that high words had passed
 
 156 THE LIFE OF 
 
 between tlie chief and Fortrose, tlie latter was assaulted 
 
 by Lovat's followers as lie left the hall, and it required 
 
 the able intervention of Duncan Forbes to preserve the 
 
 peace, and suppress a clan feud.* The following incident 
 
 is hkelj enough to have related to Lovat; it is, at all 
 
 events, eminently characteristic of his position with his 
 
 clan. 
 
 " An English officer being in company with a certain chief- 
 tain and several other Highland gentlemen, near Killichumen, 
 had an argument with the great man ; and both being well 
 armed with usky, at last the dispute grew very hot. A youth 
 who was hanchman, not understanding one word of English 
 imagined his chief was insulted, and thereupon drew a pistol 
 from his side, and snapped it at the officer's head, but the pistol 
 missed fire ; otherwise it is more than probable he might have 
 suffered death from the hand of that little vermiu."t 
 
 Here and there in Lovat's correspondence, where his 
 natural feeHngs break out, we see that the love and 
 obedience of his clan were truly the chief objects of his 
 most ardent longings. In this we find the genuine passion 
 of his life. In all other matters his words are hollow and 
 insincere, but here his heart was really concerned, and 
 in the most trying moments of adversity, the future 
 coronach of the old women over his grave cheered his spirit. 
 While his title to the lordship and lands of Lovat was under 
 dispute, he wrote from London the following address to 
 the Frasers, in which he alludes in a spirit of edifying 
 Christian forgiveness, to those gentlemen of his clan, the 
 Lairds of Struy and Phopachy, with whom he had con- 
 
 * Anderson, 158-9. This anecdote seems to rest on no better au- 
 thority than Arhuthnot, but in such matters, the book bearing his name 
 is generally substantially correct. 
 
 f Burt's Letters from the North, ii. 157. The reader will remem- 
 ber how effectively such an incident is used in " Waverley."
 
 SniON LORD LOVAT. 157 
 
 ducted acrimonious disputes. The skill displayed in tliis, 
 and in tlie other parts of the document ; the success with 
 which it supports the character of the devoted and aiFec- 
 tionate chief; are worthy of all admiration. 
 
 *' To the Honourable the Gentlemen of the name of Fraser. 
 
 " My dear Friends, — Since by all appearances, this is the 
 last time of my life I shall have occasion to write to you, I 
 being now very ill of a dangerous fever; I do declare to you before 
 God, before whom I must appear, and all of us at the great 
 day of Judgment, that I loved you all ; I mean you and all 
 the rest of my kindred and family, who are for the standing 
 of their chief and name ; and as I loved you, so I loved all my 
 faithful commons in general, more than 1 did my own life, or 
 health, or comfort, or satisfaction : and God, to whom I must 
 answer, knows that my greatest desire, and the greatest happi- 
 ness I proposed to myself under Heaven, was to make you aU 
 live happy, and make my poor commons flourish ; and that 
 it was my constant principle to think myself much happier 
 with a hundred pounds, and see you all live well at your ease 
 about me, than have ten thousand pounds a-year, and see you 
 in want or misery. I did faithfully design, and resolve to 
 make up and put at their ease, Alexander Fraser, of Phopachy, 
 and James Fraser, of Castle Ladders, and their families ; and 
 whatever disputes might ever be betwixt them and me, which 
 our mutual hot temper occasioned, joined with the malice and 
 calumny of both our enemies, I take God to witness, I loved 
 those two brave men as I did my own life, for their great zeal 
 and fidelity they showed for their chief and kindred. I did 
 likewise resolve to support the famlUes of Struy, Foyers, and 
 Culduthel's families ; and to the lasting praise of Culduthel and 
 his famille, 1 never knew himself to swerve from his faithful 
 zeal for his chief and kindred, nor none of his famille, for which 
 ] hope God will bless him and them, and their posterity. I 
 did likewise design to make my poor commons live at their ease, 
 and have them always well clothed, and well armed after the 
 Highland manner, and not to suffer them to wear low country 
 clothes, but make them live like their forefathers, with the use 
 of their arms, that they might always be in condition to
 
 158 THE LIFE OF 
 
 defend tliemselves against their enemies, and to do service to 
 their friends, especially to the Great Duke of Argyle and to 
 his worthy bx-other the Earl of Islay, and to that glorious and 
 noble faniily, who were always our constant and faithful friends; 
 and I conjure you, and all honest Erasers, to be zealous and 
 faithful friends and servants to the family of Argyle and their 
 friends, whilst a Campbell and a Eraser subsists. If it be God's 
 will, that for the punishment of my great and many sins, and 
 the sins of my kindred, I should now depart this life, before I 
 put these just and good resolutions in execution ; yet I hope 
 that God in his mercy will inspire you and all honest Erasers, 
 to stand by, and be faithful to my Cousin Inveralahie, and the 
 other heirs male of my family, and to venture your lives and 
 fortunes, to put him, or my nearest heirs male, named in my 
 testament, written by John Jacks, in the full possession o£ 
 the estate and honours of my forefathers, which is the only- 
 way to preserve you from the wicked designs of the family of 
 Tarbat and Glengarry, joined to the family of Athol. And you 
 may depend upon it, and you and your posterity will see it 
 and find it, that if you do not keep steadfast to your chief, I 
 mean the heir male of my family ; but weakly or falsely for 
 little private interest and views, abandon your duty to your 
 name, and suffer a pretended heiress and her Mackenzie chil- 
 dren to possess your country and the true right of the heirs 
 male, they will certainly in less than an age chase you all by 
 slight and might, as well gentlemen as commons, out of your 
 native country, which will be possessed by the Mackenzies and 
 the Macdonalds ; and you will be like the miserable unnatural 
 Jews, scattered and vagabonds throughout the unhappy king- 
 dom of Scotland, and the poor wives and cliildren that remains 
 of the name, Avithout a head or protection, when they are told 
 the traditions of their family, will be cursing from their liearts 
 the persons and memory of those unnatural, cowardly, knavish 
 men, who sold and abandoned their chief, their name, their 
 birthright, and their country, for a false and foolish present 
 gain, even as the most of Scots people curse this day, those 
 who sold them, and their country to the English, by the fatal 
 Union, which I hope will not last long. 
 
 " I make my earnest and dying prayers to God Almighty, 
 that he may in his mercy, through the merits of Christ Jesus, 
 save you and all my poor people, whom I always found honest 
 and zealous to me and their duty, from that blindness of heart,
 
 SIxMON LORD LOVAT. 159 
 
 that will inevitably bring those ruins and disgraces upon you 
 and your posterity; and I pray that Almighty and merciM 
 God, Avho has often miraculously saved my family and name 
 fi'om utter ruin, may give you the spirit of courage, of zeal, and 
 of fidelity that you owe to your chief, to your name, to yoiu*- 
 selves, to your children, and to your country ; and may the 
 most merciful and adorable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spi- 
 rit, three persons, one God, save all your souls eternally, through 
 the blood of Christ Jesus, our blessed Lord Saviour, to whom I 
 heartily recommend you, 
 
 " I desire that this letter may be kept in a box, at Beaufort, 
 or Maniack, and read once a year by the heir male, or a prin- 
 cipal gentleman of the name, to all honest Erasers that will 
 continue faithful to the duty I have enjoined in this above- 
 written letter, to whom, witli you and all honest Frasers, and 
 my other friends, I leave my tender and affectionate blessing, 
 and bid you my kind and last farewell. 
 
 " LovAT. 
 
 " London, the 5th of April, 1718. 
 
 " Not being able to write myself, I did dictate the above 
 letter the little French boy that's my servant. It contains the 
 most sincere sentiments of my heart ; and if it touch my kindred 
 in reading of it, as it did me while I dictate it, I am sure it will 
 have a good effect, which are my earnest prayers to God."* 
 
 As appropriate to his policy towards Ms clan, it is neces- 
 sary, though it may not he new to the reader, to repeat the 
 inscription regarding liis father and himself, which, in 1 736, 
 he inscribed on a monument in the church of Kirkhill: 
 
 * Lovat Documents. Tliis paper is printed in the Appendix of 
 Vol. III. of "Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745, by Mrs. Thom- 
 son, author of Memoirs of the Coiu-t of Henry VIII." Of several col- 
 lections of Jacobite memoirs wliich have appeared within the last three 
 years, this is certainly the most creditable.
 
 160 THE LIFE OF 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MEMORY 
 
 OP 
 
 LORD THOMAS ERASER OF LOVAT, 
 
 WHO CHOSE KATHEE TO UNDERGO THE GREATEST HARDSHIPS OF 
 
 FORTUNE, THAN 
 
 TO PART WITH THE ANCIENT HONOURS OF HIS HOUSE, 
 
 AND BORE THESE HARDSHIPS WITH AN UNDAUNTED FORTITUDE 
 
 OF MIND : 
 THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY SIMON LORD FRASER OF LOVAT, 
 
 HIS SON, 
 
 WHO LIKEWISE HAVING UNDERGONE MANY AND GREAT VICISSITUDES 
 
 OF GOOD AND BAD FORTUNE, 
 
 THROUGH THE MALICE OF HIS ENEMIES, 
 
 HE IN THE END, AT THE HEAD OF HIS CLAN, 
 
 FORCED HIS WAY TO HIS PATERNAL INHERITANCE, 
 
 WITH HIS SWORD IN HIS HAND, 
 
 AND RELIEVED HIS KINDRED AND FOLLOWERS 
 
 FROM OPPRESSION AND SLAVERY ; 
 
 AND BOTH AT HOME AND IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES, 
 
 BY HtS EMINENT ACTIONS IN THE WAR AND THE STATE, 
 
 HE HAS ACQUIRED GREAT HONOURS AND REPUTATION. 
 
 HIC TEGIT OSSA LAPIS, SIMONIS FORTIS IN ARMIS, 
 KESTITUIT PRESSUM NAM GENUS ILLE SUUM. 
 HOC MARMOK POSUIT CARI GENITORIS HONORIj 
 IN GENUS AFFLICTUM PAR ERAT EJUS AMOR. 
 
 This inscription was dictated by the same policy which 
 made Duplelx raise his pillar of triumph at Pondicherry. 
 "When Sir Robert Monro said: "Simon, how the devil 
 came you to put up such boasting romantic stuff?" Lovat 
 answered •. « The monument and inscription are chiefly 
 for the Frasers, who must believe whatever I their chief 
 require of them, and their posterity will think it as true as 
 the gospel." 
 
 A person who travelled through the Highlands Imme- 
 cliately after the rebellion, gave the following accoimt of 
 Lovat's policy towards his clan, which is confirmed by the 
 observations of Burt. 
 
 " The late Lord Lovat was a singular man In many respects, 
 but in two things he distinguislied himself ; first, he not only 
 discouraged all the schools that were erected in his country, and
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 161 
 
 declared himself an enemy to all those who educated their chil- 
 dren at home, but also was at great pains to convince the cliiefs 
 and principal gentlemen in the Highlands, far and near, how 
 much their interest would suffer by them ; secondly, he did 
 more towards reviving a clannish spirit (which had greatly de- 
 cUned since the revolution) than any man in the whole country, 
 and used all popular arts to impress upon the minds of the pre- 
 sent and rising generation, how sacred a character that of chief 
 or chieftain was. His practice was agreeable to his doctrine in 
 this matter, for he married his eldest daughter to Macpherson of 
 Cluny, who had nothing to recommend him but his being a 
 considerable chieftain, his estate being so encumbered with debt, 
 that he had not a hundred pounds a year free."* 
 
 So much for the power held by the chief from the cus- 
 toms and consent of his clan — let us now look at the 
 authority he possessed by virtue of the law of the land, and 
 the sanction of the crown as a feudal lord. We here pass 
 from the substantial power awarded to him by popular 
 consent to that high authority conferred on him by the 
 constitution of Scotland, and the power of the monarch, 
 which, truly formidable in name, would still have been of 
 little effect in the Highlands without the other for its sup- 
 port. At an early period there had been several inferior 
 heritable jurisdictions in the person of the lords of Lovat, 
 but in the year 1704 the territory was by royal charter 
 erected into a " regality." This was probably done for 
 the purpose of putting an authority into the hands of the 
 heiress and her husband, to enable them to counteract the 
 power of Simon over the clan; and, like many other 
 ingenious engines of war, it fell into the possession of the 
 person whom it was destined to crush. A lord of rega- 
 lity had, at least, as many of the privileges of an in- 
 dependent prince, as a Margrave or Pfalzgrave. His 
 courts were competent to try all questions, civil or cri- 
 
 *"The Highlands of Scotland described; with some Observations 
 concermng the late Kebeliion."— MS. Royal Library, British Museum. 
 
 M
 
 162 THE LIFE OF 
 
 miiial, that of high treason against the empire or sove- 
 reignty alone excepted. He appointed judges and exe- 
 cutive officers who had no responsibility to the imperial 
 authority. He had within his territory a series of muni- 
 cipal systems — corporations with their municipal officers, 
 privileged markets, harbours and mills; with internally 
 administered regulations of police, applicable to weights 
 and measures, fishing privileges, and other like useful 
 institutions. He could build prisons and coin money. 
 When any of his subjects were put on trial before the 
 King's courts, he could " repledge" the accused to his 
 own court, only finding recognizances to execute justice 
 in the matter — a nominal check, which would seldom 
 divert the lord and his " baillie," or judge, from- acting 
 according to their own particular views.* With the short- 
 sightedness for which man is proverbial, the lord of the 
 regality of Lovat bequeathed his powers in his entail, little 
 dreaming that the document would not be opened till a 
 juncture v; hen, as the very fruit of his ovm conduct, all 
 regalities and other hereditary jurisdictions were swept 
 away. The carefully elaborated clauses, which were to 
 perpetuate the consolidated power of the petty monarck 
 to long following generations, are thus left to no better 
 * purpose than " to point a moral or adorn a tale." And 
 it is for the former of these purposes, — to exhibit in the 
 cold and measured terms of a legal document, the great 
 powers possessed by some of these northern chiefs before 
 the rebellion, that a portion of this part of the entail is here 
 ofTcred for the reader's perusal. 
 
 * An aricalogy will bo seen between regalities, and the palatinates 
 created in England. Tlie jealousy with whicii any dispersal of the 
 privileges of the crown among tlio great barons was watched in Eng- 
 land, brought.back two of the three palatinates to the king at a very 
 early period, while the third being in the possession of a bishop, could 
 not be the means of tlirowing any dangerous power into the hands of a 
 particular house, andremamcd in existence down to the year 1836.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 163 
 
 *' With power also of creating", nominating, constituting, and 
 ordaining baillies, and deputes, clerks, officers, dempsters, and 
 other member3 of court, necessary for administering justice 
 •within the bounds of the said regahty, for whom they shall be 
 answerable ; and Tsdth power to the baillies, and deputes to be 
 so constituted and appointed, to hold regality courts within the 
 said head burgh, or upon any other part of the said regahty, 
 and to continue their courts, and administer justice within the 
 said regality, to all persons, seeking, complaining, or pretend- 
 ing to have interest ; and all malefactors and transgressors 
 of the law, to apprehend, prosecute, incarcerate, put to the 
 knowledge of an assize, and bring to condigned punishment, 
 for whatever crimes, faults, and delicts of whatever nature or 
 quality, that are competent to be judged and punished by the 
 laws of Scotland, and that by hanging, heading, whipping, 
 drowning, burning, dismembering, fining, imprisoning, and ba- 
 nishing, out of the said regality, or by escheat of their move- 
 able goods, or by any other method and means used and wont, 
 and competent to be fuUowed by the laws of Scotland in such 
 cases, and the escheats, fines, and amercements of the said 
 courts, and likewise the tolls, customs, profits, fees, and 
 emoluments, of the said prison, Mercat Crosses and Weigh 
 House, to collect, receive, exact, and apply the same to their 
 own proper uses. And likewise with power to them always, 
 and in all time hereafter, to repledge the inhabitants within 
 the bounds of the said regahty of Lovat from all and sundrie 
 other courts, judges, and jurisdictions, before which they shall 
 happen to be convocate, convened, or prosecuted ; and that 
 to the privilege and jmisdiction of the said regality of 
 Lovat, in which only they ought to be convened and judged; 
 and for that effect to find caution of culreoch for adminis- 
 tering justice to the parties having interest within term of 
 law. And moreover of exeeming, absolving, and liberating the 
 tenants and possessions of the said lordship and regahty of 
 Lovat, comprehending as said is in all time hereafter, from all 
 judgments and jurisdictions, of all sheriffs, justices general, and 
 their deputes and commissioners of justiciary, and from all other 
 judges and their jurisdictions witliin Scotland, as well in criminal 
 as in civil actions. 
 
 Lovat was appointed slieriff of the county of Inverness. 
 This gave him in the portions of that great county which. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE LIFE OF 
 
 were not within his own domain, an autliority second only 
 to that which he exercised as a lord of regality. He had, 
 it is true, none of the regal and municipal powers above 
 alluded to, by virtue of his sheriffship. He was a judge 
 only, not a governor. Murder was the only one of the 
 four pleas of the crown in which he had jurisdiction; but 
 in this and other crimes he possessed the power of life and 
 death. True, recourse lay from his authority to the king's 
 supreme court; but the man might be hanged or released 
 as the case might be, before the writ was sued out. Find- 
 ing that a person, such as Lovat, could be made a judge 
 in the days of Lord Hardwicke and President Forbes; 
 that a patent for such an appointment must have passed 
 under the great seal of Britain ; presents us with the most 
 remarkable type of the state of Highland society in that 
 age. The reader naturally exclaims with Juvenal — 
 
 Sed quis custodiet ipsos 
 
 Custodes ?" 
 
 Yet there is much to be said in vindication of these ap- 
 pointments in the Highlands, and of the practice of consider- 
 ing power a superior qualification to either legal ability or 
 integrity of character. The crown had no real authority 
 there, except close to the spots where military stations were 
 established. If one were made a sheriff, because he was a 
 conscientious man and a good lawyer, where would the 
 benefit lie, when not one of his decrees could be enforced? 
 Whoever could most effectually bring all under him and 
 keep the peace, was the best sherifi", that such a state of 
 things admitted of being chosen. True, a Macdonald or 
 a Mackenzie would have small chance of justice from 
 Lovat or his substitute in a dispute with a Fraser ; but 
 would matters be mended by a nominal appointment, which
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 165 
 
 would be little better than a mere invitation to tbe nomi- 
 nee to wage war with the actual holder of power ? Then, 
 in questions between man and man, when neither the chief 
 nor his clan were on one side, differences would be decided 
 and decrees enforced with energy and rapidity. It would 
 be a misnomer perhaps to call this quick justice, but it was 
 probably the nearest approach to it of which circumstances 
 admitted. When he was stripped of his sheiiffship, we 
 shall find that Lovat both plausibly and truly showed that 
 this was disarming the only man who had power to keep 
 the peace of the Highlands. Such was the value of a ju- 
 dicious administration of the law as it stood, in comparison 
 with a fundamental reform ! To meet the instances of par- 
 ticular tyranny and partiality, of which not a few will be 
 found in these pages, it was a great fact that the Lord 
 Advocate, writing to an Enghsh minister in 1726, could 
 say— 
 
 " Whilst I was in the north country, I made several small 
 progresses into the Highlands, and Vv'hat, at my first arrival at 
 Inverness, I wrote to you concerning the tranquilhty or those 
 parts, I can now confirm from my own observation. In the 
 whole of my jom"ney I did not see one Highlander carry the 
 least bit of arms, neither did I hear of any theft or robbery." 
 
 When any of the SheriiF's friends had to complain of 
 injuries from those under his authority, his affable earnest- 
 ness, his friendly zeal and anxiety to act in a gentlemanly 
 and liberal spirit, by giving his friend more than compen- 
 sation in an ample vengeance, — has something in it truly 
 ludicrous, when we reflect that the service he so liberally 
 offered was to administer the law for the gratification of 
 his friend. His professions were probably a considerable 
 distance beyond the actual amount of his zeal; and some- 
 how or other it generally happened that when it was to
 
 166 THE LIFE OF 
 
 serve others, the vengeance of the law did not ahght so 
 swiftly and surely as when it was to serve himself. Of the 
 particular uses to which he apphed his judicial power, we 
 shall find a very fair illustration in the following passages 
 from letters to John Forbes of Culloden, when his brother 
 Duncan was Lord Advocate. It is only necessary to ob- 
 serve that the Chisholms and the Camerons were neigh- 
 bouring clans to the Erasers, and not always on peaceful 
 terms with them. The power of the sheriff gave of course 
 a great preponderance to the latter. Some " Strathglass 
 rogues" had been caught, and the sheriff, desirous to make 
 the best use of the capture — which, since they were "tall 
 handsome fellows," was by making a present of them to a 
 friend recruiting for the Dutch service — seems to have 
 been nervously apprehensive lest his friend the Lord Ad- 
 vocate might think it necessary for the sake of public 
 justice to interfere with his arrangements. 
 
 "As to those Strathglass rogues, if you knew the malicious and 
 insolent affronts they put upon me, you would not ask any favor 
 for them. My Lord Advocate knows it, and was very warm for 
 transporting them if they did not voluntarily list for your cousin 
 Arthur, and if it had cost me 5001. I had got them transported; 
 but if they liave voluntarily enlisted themselves for Mr, Forbes, 
 I am very well pleased ; I shall send them to him without any ex- 
 pense in keeping of them ; for I will send immediately orders 
 to carry them South with a guard. There is a Captain there 
 of Arthur's Regiment who will receive them and deliver them to 
 Arthur, and I'll send him other two Camerons that are in your 
 prison, tall fellows ; and five sucli good men will do him more 
 service now that the Dutch expect a war, than thirty men next 
 season. I have written to my friend Mr. Bailley, the town 
 clerk, about this, who will manage that affair for me ; and for 
 the service of your cousin, 1 truly rather give a crown a day 
 out of my pocket, to maintain them a twelvemonth at Inverness, 
 than to admit them to bail. It is but a new trick of my ene- 
 mies to insult me; for if they were once at liberty no bail 
 would ever get them back j but they would offer you for your
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 167 
 
 cousin's use, some nasty little thieves, that they would be rid 
 of, and TTOuld be of no service to Arthur; but those are 
 handsome fellows, and they are too happy if they come off for 
 going to Holland. I therefore beg you may order them to be 
 well secured till I send for them ; and be so just as to believe, 
 that I am while there is blood in my body, with great affection 
 and respect, &c. ***** 
 
 " I am very much surprised to hear from several of my friends, 
 that there is a design to affront me and hurt my reputation and 
 interest, by letting those Strathglass villains at liberty, who did 
 insult me in the most atrocious manner; but I will not believe 
 an angel from heaven, that my worthy and constant friend 
 John Forbes, of Cidloden, would, for any consideration, directly 
 or indirectly, assist any Chisholm on earth, to insult or affront 
 me in the persons of those villains; especially since the only 
 thing that kept me from sending them to America, was my 
 eagerness to serve your cousin- German Arthur Forbes ; so I beg 
 of you, dear Cullodin, to give strict orders that those fellows do 
 not make their escapes, till I order a party to bring them up 
 here at my own expense, that they may be sent to Arthur with 
 other two Camerons, that are in your Tolbooth, by a captain 
 of liis regiment, who is in this town. 
 
 ***** ^ 
 
 After what I have said, I take the freedom to tell you, that I 
 am convinced if you know really the unworthy manner in 
 which I have been insulted by the Chisholms, after doing the 
 most essential services to the Chisholm and to his family, you 
 would as soon offer to throw me from the bridge in the river of 
 I^ess, as you would desire me to consent to put those villains at 
 liberty, who beat and insulted some of my men and relations. 
 I do assure you, dear CuUoden, the whole design is to affront 
 me in setting those villains at liberty, and hope that you will 
 never go into that; for it is but highly just that they should wil- 
 lingly make a campaign or two in Holland, since I save them on 
 that account from transportation ; and those fellows with the two 
 Camerons that I have in your prison will be such a good com- 
 pliment for honest Arthur, that I hope it may conti'ibute to get 
 him a company now that the Dutch are goiug to raise ten thou- 
 sand men of additional troops ; and I shall take care that they 
 will not be expensive to Arthur till they are in Holland, and 
 then they will be worth themselves."* 
 
 * Culloden Papers, page 118, 119.
 
 168 THE LIFE OF 
 
 These views correspond very accurately -witli tlie fol- 
 lowing extract from Burt's letters, wliicli concludes with, 
 a personal incident of a highly curious nature, showing 
 how little efficacy the Scottish substitute for the Habeas 
 Corpus Act had beyond the Highland line. 
 
 " When any ship in these parts is bound for the West Indies, 
 to be svire a neighbouring chief, of whom none dares openly 
 to complain, has several thieves to send prisoners to tovi^n. 
 
 " It has been whispered their crimes were only asking their 
 dues and such like offences ; and I have been well assured they 
 have been threatened with hanging, or at least perpetual im- 
 prisonment, to intimidate and force them to sign a contract 
 for their banishment, which they seldom refused to do, as 
 knowing there would be no want of witnesses against them, 
 however innocent they were ; and then they were put on board 
 the ship, the master paying so much a head for them. 
 
 "Thus two purposes were served at once, viz., the getting rid 
 of troublesome fellows, and making money of them at the same 
 time. But these poor wretches never escaped out of prison. 
 
 " All tliese I am apt to believe, because I met with an ex- 
 ample at his own house, which leaves me no room to doubt it. 
 _ " As this chief was walking alone in his garden, with his 
 dirk and pistol by his side, and a gun in his hand (as if he 
 feared to be assassinated), and as I was reading in his parlour, 
 there came to me by stealth (as I soon perceived), a young 
 fellow, who accosted me with such an accent as made me con- 
 clude he was a native of Middlesex ; and every now and then 
 he turned about, as if he feared to be observed by any of the 
 family. 
 
 " lie told me tliat when his master was in London, he had 
 rnade him promises of great advantage, if he would serve 
 him as his gentleman ; but though he had been there two years, 
 he could not obtain cither his wages or discharge. 
 
 " ' And,' says he, ' when I ask for either of them, he tells 
 me I know I have robbed him, and nothing is more easy for 
 him than to find, among these Highlanders, abundant evidence 
 against me (imioccnt as I am). And then my fate must be a 
 perpetual gaol or transportation : and there is no means for me 
 to make my escape, being here in the midst of his clan, and 
 never suffered to go far from home.'
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 169 
 
 " You will believe 1 was much affected with the melancholy 
 circumstance of the poor young man, but told him that my 
 speaking for him would discover his complaint to me, which 
 might enrage his master ; and in that case I did not know 
 what might be the consequence to him. 
 
 " Then with a sorro^\4"ul look he left me, and (as it hap- 
 pened), in very good time."* 
 
 That this poor bondsman had very accurately antici- 
 pated the fate awaiting him, we may infer from the fol- 
 lowing warrant issued for the capture of a black musician, 
 who had made his escape from Beaufort or Castle Dounie, 
 " in order to go and play at the assemblies at Aberdeen." 
 
 " These are empowering you to cause seize one John Fraser, 
 my domestic servant, that plays on the violin and hautbois, a 
 black fellow, about 5 feet and 8 inches high, who run away out 
 of my house with his liveries, and with several other things that 
 he stole from me and my servants, both gold and silver and 
 clothes. I therefore entreat that you cause seize him, and put 
 him in prison till I send for him, to be tried according to law, 
 for which this shall be your sufficient mandate. At Beaufort, 
 the 12th of August, 1728. " LovAT."t 
 
 The nature of the trial " according to law" that the 
 " black fellow" would receive within the regality, may 
 easily be imagined. As the man had escaped beyond the 
 jurisdiction, this warrant is accompanied by a request to 
 John Macfarlane, to " find some shadow of law forgetting 
 him apprehended." 
 
 • Letters from a gentleman in the North, i. 55 — 57. 
 f Lovat Documents.
 
 170 THE LIFE OF 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 His Pomp — The Coach, and a Journey in it — Social Life at Castle 
 Dounie — The Guests — Lovat at Table — His Letters — His Character 
 as an Author — Family jMatters — Black John of the Dirk — The two 
 Marriages — Legends — His Children, and his Conduct to them — The 
 Brigadier — Character of Lovat in the Female World — The Story of 
 Lady Grange — Elucidations of Lady Grange's Character — Con- 
 vivialities with her Lord. 
 
 When Ms affairs were firmly settled, lie attempted to 
 add some of the common-place aids of civilised luxury, 
 to the savage pomp of the chief He kept a coach, and 
 became very partial in his letters to occasional allusions to 
 his " chariot." With what additional greatness this won- 
 derful engine invested him, we may gather from Burt, who, 
 on the first appearance of a coach in that district, repre- 
 sents the people as bowing to the powdered coachman, in 
 deep reverence to one who held in his hands the means of 
 guiding so wonderful a machine. Of the adaptation of 
 his coach to Highland roads, we have a very full statement 
 in a letter from himself, describing his journey to Edin- 
 burgh in 1740, to make arrangments as to his entail. 
 
 " For two days before I came away, one of my coach mares, 
 as she was stepping into the park dropped down dead, as if 
 she had been shot with a cannon-ball. The next day, when I 
 went to bid farewell to Dunballoch's family and Achnagairns, 
 one of the hind wheels of my chariot broke in pieces, — that
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 171 
 
 kept me two days to get new wheels * » * 
 
 I brought my wheelwright ^\-ith me the length of Aviemore in 
 case of accidents, and there I parted with him because he de- 
 clared that my charriot would go safe enough to London ; but I 
 was not eight miles from the place, when, on the plain road, the 
 asletree of the hind-wheels broke in two, so that my gu-ls were 
 forced to go on bare horses behind footmen, and I was obliged 
 to ride myself, though I was very tender, and the day very 
 cold. I came with that equipage to Ruthven late at night, and 
 my chariot was pulled there by force of men, where I got 
 an English wheelwright and a smith, who wrought two days in 
 mending my chariot ; and after paying very dear for theii* work 
 and for my quarters two nights, I was not gone four miles from 
 Ruthven when it broke again, so that I was in a miserable con- 
 dition till I came to Dalnakeardach, where my honest landlord, 
 Charles M'Glassian, told me, that the Duke of Atholl had two 
 as good workmen at Blair, as were in the kingdom, and that I 
 would get my chariot as well mended there as at London ; ac- 
 cordingly I went there and staid a night, and got my chariot 
 Tcry well mended by a good wright and good smith. I thought 
 then I was pretty secure till I came to this place. I was storm- 
 staid two days at Castle Drummond, by the most tempestuous 
 weather of wind and rain that I ever remember to see. The 
 Dutchess of Perth and Lady Mary Drummond were excessively 
 kind and civil to my daughters and to me, and sent their 
 Chamberlane to conduct me to Dunblane, who happened to be 
 very useful to us that day ; for I was not three miles gone 
 from Castle Drummond, when the axletree of my fore wheels 
 broke in two, in the midst of the hiU, betwixt Drummond and 
 the Bridge of Erdoch, and we were forced to sit on the hill 
 with a boisterous day, till Chamberlain Drummond was so kind 
 as to go down to the Strath and bring wrights, and carts, and 
 smiths, to our assistance, who dragged us to the plain, where 
 we were forced to stay five or six hours till there was a new 
 axletree made, so that it was dark night before we came to 
 Dumblaine, which is but eight miles from Castle Drummond, 
 and we were all much fatigued. The next day we came to 
 Lithgow, and the day after that we arrived here ; so that 
 we were twelve days on our journey by our misfortunes, which 
 was seven days more than ordinary ; and I bless God we are 
 all in pretty good health, and I found my son in good health, 
 and much improven."* 
 
 * llisceUany of the Spalding Club, i. 4—6.
 
 172 THE LIFE OF 
 
 He lived cliiefly at Castle Dounie, where he was sur- 
 rounded by all the main elements of his pride and enjoy- 
 ment ; but he did not entirely separate himself from the 
 world. He frequently visited Edinburgh, in considerable 
 pomp, and went occasionally to London, where, on one 
 occasion, it is said, by his traditional biographers, that he 
 was disarmed in a duel with the Duke of Wharton, oc- 
 casioned by their conflicting addresses to a foreign beauty. 
 
 Tradition has thrown the inner recesses of the social 
 life of Castle Dounie into the darkest shadows, " Haud 
 intret Cato nee si intraverit spectet." Where nothing 
 but shadowy and uncertain outhnes are to be seen, let us 
 not too curiously try to give bulk and substance to their 
 visionary forms. It will be a more satisfactory task to 
 put together such notices of the ordinary social habits of 
 the chief and his people, as contemporaries may have 
 left. 
 
 King, in his " Munimenta Antiqua," after tells us that 
 the birth-place of Lord Mansfield was 
 
 " A great square tower, with walls of near thirteen feet In 
 thickness, having small apartments even within the substance 
 of the wall itself. At the bottom of one of which is a noisome 
 dungeon, without light, or even air holes, except in the trap- 
 door in the floor, contrived for lowering down the captives, 
 * * * and to speak the truth, even the residence of the 
 well-known Lord Lovat in the Highlands, at Castle Dounie, so 
 late as the year 1740, was much of tliis kind." 
 
 The antiquary then gives us the reminiscences of "that 
 worthy, sincere man, Mr. James Ferguson, the astronomer, 
 who, in the early part of his life, was constrained to dwell 
 several months in the castle." That he should have re- 
 tained the mental purity and uprightness that adorned 
 his character, in the midst of such an atmosphere, is not
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 173 
 
 tlie least remarkable feature of Ferguson's extraordinary 
 career. King continues to tell us, 
 
 " Here he kept a sort of court, and several public tables, and 
 had a very numerous body of retainers always attending. His 
 own constant residence, and the place where he received com- 
 pany, and even dined constantly wuth thera, was in just one 
 room only, and that the very room wherein he lodged. And 
 bis lady's sole apartment was also her own bed-chamber ; 
 and the only provision made for lodging either of the domestic 
 servants, or of the numerous herd of retainers, Avas a quantity 
 of straw, which was spread over night on the floors of the four 
 lower rooms of this sort of tower-like structure ; where the whole 
 inferior part of the family, consisting of a very great number of 
 persons, took up their abode. Sometimes about 400 persons, 
 attending this petty court, were kennelled here, and I have 
 heard the same worthy man, from whose lips the exact account 
 of what is here related has been taken, declare, that of those 
 wretched dependants he has seen, in consequence of the then 
 existing right of heritable jurisdiction, three or four, and some- 
 times half-a-dozen, hung up by the heels for hours, on the few 
 trees round the mansion."* 
 
 At the long table at Castle Dounie the guests and the 
 viands had a corresponding progression downwards. At 
 the head of the table where there were neiglibourijig chiefs 
 or distinguislied strangers, claret and French cookery 
 graced the board. The next department was occupied by 
 the Duihne wassels, who enjoyed beef and mutton, with a 
 glass of some humbler wine. The sturdy commoners of 
 the clan would occupy the next range, feeding on sheep 
 heads, and drinking whiskey or ale. In further progress 
 the fare degenerated with the feeders, and clustering on the 
 castle green in sunshine, or cowering in the outhouses m 
 foul weather, were congregated the ragamuffins of the 
 clan to gnaw the bones and devour the other offal. It was 
 
 • King's " Munimenta Antiq.ua," iii. 176.
 
 174 THE LIFE OF 
 
 a rule of tlie house tliat tlie day's provender, -whatever it 
 might he, should he consumed; and if the deer stalker or 
 the salmon spearer had heen more fortunate than usual, 
 the rumour would spread fast enough to bring an imme- 
 diate demand for the supply. This practice gave much 
 temptation to the troop of servants who attended the table? 
 to snatch away unfinished dishes; and many amusing in- 
 stances have been recorded, of the necessity of the guest 
 at Castle Dounie preserving a ceaseless watch over his plate, 
 and of the certainty of its instantaneously disappearing 
 during any moment of negligence. Wlien the chief's dis- 
 tinguished clerical relative, Dr. Gumming of Relugas, ar- 
 rived at Castle Dounie one night, tired and hungry, after 
 crossing the mountains, there was not a morsel of food to 
 be found, not an egg or a crust of bread; but a plentiful 
 provision for the day's consumption was brought in next 
 
 morning. ' 
 
 Lovat studied the courtesies of the table, which in his 
 hands were a political engine of no small consequence. 
 The simultaneous gradations of rank and provender at his 
 board in some degree resembled a pubhc dinner of the 
 present day, where the " distinguished guests" on the 
 platform enjoy turtle and burgundy, and the fare degene- 
 rates downwards till luxury revives within the horizon of 
 the croupier. Like the political leader who graces such 
 an occasion, Lovathad to remember the claims and position 
 of every one present; to bring them out, to pledge them, 
 and to attend to their tastes and foibles. He had great 
 skill in salving over any wounded feelings which might 
 occasionally be caused by the application of the system of 
 
 Anecdote coinmuuicated by Sir Thomas Lauder.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 175 
 
 gradations. " Cousin, I told my lads to give you claret," 
 he would say to some kinsman wlio looked demurely on 
 his assigned portion of the feast, " but I see you like ale 
 better; here''s to your roof tree."* 
 
 Burt attended a feast, which by the geographical de- 
 scription of the place was evidently at Castle Dounie, 
 where the officers of the regiments stationed in the vicinity 
 were frequently entertained. The honest Englishman was 
 not, perhaps, capable of appreciating the French cookery, 
 and his statement is shghtly tinged with John BulHsh 
 prejudices. 
 
 *' Our entertainment consisted of a great number of dishes, 
 at a long table, all brought in under covers, but almost cold. 
 What the greatest part of them were, I could not tell, nor did 
 I inquire, for theyVere disguised after the French manner; but 
 there was placed next to me a dish •which I guessed to be 
 boiled beef. I say that was my conjecture, for it was covered 
 all over vath. stewed cabbage, like a smothered rabbit, and over 
 all a deluge of bad butter. 
 
 " When I had removed some of the incumbrance, helped my- 
 self, and tasted, I found the pot it was boiled in had given it 
 too high a gout for my palate, which is always inclined to 
 plain eating. 
 
 " I then desired one of the company to help me to some 
 roasted mutton, which was indeed delicious, and therefore served 
 very weU for my share of all this inelegant and ostentatious 
 plenty. 
 
 " We had very good wine, but did not drink much of it ; but one 
 thing, I should have told you, was intolerable, viz., the number 
 of Higlilanders that attended at table, whose feet and foul 
 linen, or woollen, I don't know which, were more than a match 
 for the odour of the dishes. 
 
 " The conversation was greatly engrossed by the chief be- 
 fore, at, and after dinner ; but I do not recollect any tiling 
 was said that is worth repeating. 
 
 * See INIrs. Grant's MS., &c
 
 176 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " There were as we went home several descants upon oiir 
 feast ; but I remember one of our company said he had tasted 
 a pie, and that many a peruke had been baked in a better 
 
 crust. . 
 
 " When we were returned hither m the evenmg, we supped 
 upon beef steaks, which some who complained they had not 
 made a dinner, rejoiced over, and called them a luxury."* 
 
 It may not be inappropriate in this place to introduce 
 
 tlie reader to some of Lovat's epistolary courtesies. Here 
 
 is a letter of condolence to his relation, Drummond of 
 
 Bohaldie, on the death of that gentleman's brother. The 
 
 reader will observe how very well the document would 
 
 be adapted to a collection of religious letters by serious 
 
 people. 
 
 "Beaufort, 20th September, 1737. 
 " My Dearest Cousin, — I received the honour of your 
 two letters at the same time by the last post, the one dated 
 the 29th of August, and the other the 12th of September. It 
 was with tears in my eyes that I read your last letter, that gives me 
 an account of your brave worthy brother's death ; and my heart 
 is so full of grief for the loss of that gallant gentleman, that I am 
 hardly able to dictate a sensible letter. If you lost a kind, afi'ec- 
 tlonate, brave, worthy brother, that might have raised your 
 family to a greater pitch of honour and riches than it has been 
 for some generations, so I have lost a valuable relative that 
 some time or other miglit have been of great use to my family 
 and posterity. I therefore, by the right of blood and nature, 
 share with you in your just sorrow and grief for the irrepa- 
 rable loss of a brother in the flower of his age, of so much 
 merit and valour. However, my dearest cousin, it is contrary 
 to religion and common sense to repine at the acts of divine 
 Providence. It is God that has done it, and therefore we ciught 
 to submit ; and your family, and your relatives and friends, 
 ought to thank God that you are spared for the support of your 
 worthy father and mother, and of your brothers and sisters, 
 for the preservation of your family and the comfort of your 
 
 * letters from the North, i. 158.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. i77 
 
 friends. For my part, my dearest cousin, I do assure you 
 without compliment, that I have more comfort and satisfaction 
 in the honour of your personal friendship, than in any rela- 
 tions I have on earth ; and if my only brother that is dead, were 
 in life, I do not know which I would dispense with, you or 
 him ; and if it is any comfort to you, my dearest cousin, I 
 humbly beg that you may look upon me as a brother in the 
 place of him that you have now lost : and though I have not his 
 merit or his valour, I am very sure I have as much affection 
 for you as ever he had in his life. After what I have now said, 
 I hope you will forgive me to give you my sincere advice. 
 
 " In the first place, I earnestly beg of you not to hurt your 
 health by too excessive grief for that worthy brother that you 
 have lost, for your family's sake, and for your friends. In the 
 second place, I conjure you, by the duty you owe to your honest 
 father and mother, and to your affectionate brothers and sisters, 
 and to the friends and relations that love and honour you, that 
 you may not tliink, at any rate, of going to the West Indies. 
 Your family has made too great a loss already in that country. 
 I wish they never had been adventurers, or ambitious to gather 
 the dross of the earth in foreign parts. If they had stayed 
 in their country, though in low circumstances, they might have 
 some day or other so signalised themselves by their great valour, 
 that they would be an honour to their family and kindred. You 
 are now the only person left, that really can support and main- 
 tain the dignity of your family and kindred, if your king and 
 country had to do. How cruel, then, and barbarous it would 
 be in you to leave your family comfortless, and to deprive your 
 king and country of one of the best subjects that now our country 
 is possessed of. For God's sake reflect on all this, and let real 
 religion, natural affection to your parents and relations, and, 
 what I think is above all, the love of your country, banish out 
 of your heart all thought of leaving Scotland. If your brother 
 has left money, the authority of the government and the laws 
 will recover it for you. You do not want friends ; and for my 
 own part, I'll not only use all the interest I have in the world 
 for you, but I'll divide a sixpence with you as long as I have 
 any. So I earnestly beg of you to fix your heart upon your 
 home affairs, and wait patiently some happy occasion in which 
 you can show your merit and valour for the honour and glory 
 of yoiu* country, and how heroic and glorious it is to venture 
 your person for yoiu: dear country, rather than for the sordid 
 
 N
 
 178 THE LIFE OF 
 
 dross of tlie earth, -whicli is as diiScult and uncertain to preserve, 
 as it is painful and tormenting to acquire. I speak to you, my 
 dearest cousin, from my heart and soul, so I hope it will have 
 some influence oa you ; and if your business would allow you, 
 I wish to God you would come and stay some weeks with me, 
 that we might converse thoroughly upon that subject. 
 
 " I earnestly entreat you, offer my most affectionate humble 
 duty to your worthy father and mother, to your brother John, 
 and to your sisters, Mrs, Margaret, and Mrs. Jacobina; I 
 heartily condole with them the loss of their worthy brother. I 
 entreat you give my most humble service to my cousin Kipen- 
 davie, and to my old friend. Captain Taylor; and believe that I 
 am, while there is bi-eath in me, with uncommon zeal and re- 
 spect, my dearest cousin, 
 
 " Your most faithful, most obliged, 
 
 " And most affectionate slave, 
 
 " LOVAT. 
 
 (( 
 
 P. S. The bearer is my cousin, Mr. Fraser of Boblairnle, 
 whom I have sent to take care of a few cows and oxen, that I 
 have sent to be sold at the market of Crief. I hope, if your 
 affairs will allow you to go to Crief, you will assist him to dis- 
 pose of the cattle, and I entirely leave the management of that 
 little affair to you, and to my cousin Mr. Drummond the cham- 
 berlain, your brother-in-law, to whom I have writ with the 
 bearer."* 
 
 It is evident that he knew by nature as mucli as Ches- 
 terfield could have taught him, and that he embodied the 
 full spirit of that candid moralist's counsel, when he advises 
 us to approach the friend who has suffered a family afflic- 
 tion " with a countenance adapted to the occasion," and 
 to say " with a grave composure," " I'liope you do me the 
 justice to be convinced that I feel whatever you feel, and 
 shall ever be afflicted where you arc concerned." 
 
 We may next give a specimen of the exuberant courtesy 
 with which he could adorn an act of Idndness. This letter 
 is addressed to liis agent, John Macfarlanc : 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 ^ SIMON LORD LOVAT. 179 
 
 " I am very angry that you should be so nice with me, as to 
 tise any compliment to ask the use of two hundred pounds to do 
 you an essential service ; I do solemnly protest to you that I 
 have not a hundred pounds in the world but what I would as 
 freely lend to you to do you good, as I would to my bro- 
 ther John, if he was in life, and without any compliment. I 
 have not a relation or friend on earth I love and respect more, 
 or would go a greater length to serve ; so I beg you henceforth 
 make no ceremony or compliments with me, and command any 
 thing I am master of, as you do your own. I here send you a 
 bill enclosed for the two hundred pounds on Andrew Drum- 
 mond, payable at sight, with a letter of advice, &c."* 
 
 Among the various features of this versatile man's cha- 
 racter, "sve must not omit his rank among " noble authors." 
 The authenticity of his memoirs is discussed in the In- 
 troductory Notice. Several specimens of the book have 
 appeared in these pages. His epistolary style does not re- 
 quire to be characterised ; it speaks loudly for itself. In 
 1724 he addressed to the king a " Memorial concerning 
 the State of the Highlands."! It is not a document of 
 much interest, as the writer's primary object is to keep 
 out of view the efiective remedies for the turbident state 
 of the country, and his secondary object is to prevent their 
 being suggested to the reader, by a too distinct account 
 of the evils to be remedied- He admits that " that part 
 of Scotland is very barren and unimproven, has little or no 
 trade, and not much intercourse with the low country," and 
 that the people " are very ignorant, illiterate, and in con- 
 stant use of wearing arms." His remedies all tend to the 
 increase of the power of the chiefs. The sheriffs '' should 
 be persons having credit and interest in the sloire they are 
 to govern," meaning that they should be powerful cliiefs like 
 himself. He recommends the re-establishment of inde- 
 
 * Lovat Documents. 
 
 t Printed in tlie " Appendix to Burt's Letters," 5th Edition, ii. 254. 
 
 n2
 
 180 THE LIFE OF ^ 
 
 pendent companies commanded by the chiefs, and shows 
 that Lowland forces are utterly incapable of preserving 
 peace among the mountains* This paper was founded on 
 in " General Wade's Report on the State of the Highlands," 
 and thus was a main instrument in the restoration of the 
 independent companies in 1725, much to Lovat's satis- 
 faction. The paper having been thus far effective, it 
 would be unjust to suppose that it was not skilfully exe- 
 cuted. 
 
 The brother John, who is so often commemorated 
 with expressions of strong attachment, died about the 
 year 1715; from a course of dissipation, perhaps brought 
 on by the restoration of his brother, and the exciting 
 events of that year. Lovat in his letters makes frequent 
 allusion to this loss, as sincere as words can be. At a 
 subsequent time the Highlanders commemorated him by 
 the descriptive name of Black John of the Dirk, and told 
 a story of an incident between him and a piper at a feast 
 at Beauly. In the words of a witness examined in the 
 late genealogical inquiry: " The tune he was playing was 
 
 * Another document, of a totally different character, containing an 
 " Account of the State of the Highlands in 1716, with Suggestions for 
 Iheir Improvement," has been attributed to Lovat. It is in the Appen- 
 dix to the " Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron," printed for the Abbots- 
 ford Club. It affords a very forcible account of the mischievous power 
 of tlie chiefs, and declaims against adding to their natural authority by 
 investing them with regalities and sheriffdoms. It suggests the dis- 
 arming of the men, the abolition of the seignorial powers, restraints on 
 the assemblages of great bodies of men on hunting expeditions, and a 
 general system of education. In short, it is a method of drawing the 
 teeth and paring tlic claws of the Highland chiefs, and the only suppo- 
 sion on whicli one could admit, even on strong evidence, that it was 
 written by Lovat, is, that feeling at the moment uncertain about the 
 recovery of his own right of chiefship, he was resolved to ruin that of 
 his brethren. The only actual evidence of this alleged authorship ap- 
 pears to be, that the only extant MS. of the document, in possession of 
 Mr. Laing of the Signet Library, is titled " Copy of Eraser's Scheme for 
 Civilising Scotland." i/e would not give it this name, as he never forgot 
 his title.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 181 
 
 Blttack er Mac Thomas," and several lines of the song 
 repeated, are thus interpreted: "There is a dirk upon 
 Thomas's son, rattling and glancing above the band of his 
 breeches, when a knife might very Avell satisfy him ; he has 
 a sword and a shoulder-belt, when a straw rope might 
 answer him," &c. It seems that these allusions were in 
 some way personal to John, who drew his dirk, and, in- 
 tending to drive it into the bag, and let out the wind of 
 the pipe, or, as some witnesses said, not precisely caring 
 where he drove it, sent it to the piper's heart. For this 
 he had to fly and hide himself; a circumstance which 
 shows the origin of the legend to be in some event of 
 later date, in which some inferior member of the family 
 was concerned ; for that the brother of Mac Shimi 
 should be put to any inconvenience by the death of a 
 piper in the early part of the eighteenth century, is quite 
 incredible. 
 
 While the Dowager Lady Lovat was stiU alive Lovat was 
 twice married. The first object of his choice was Margaret, 
 fourth daughter of Ludovic Grant, of Grant. " I spoke," 
 says the lover, in the midst of his courtship, " to the duke 
 and my Lord Islay about my marriage, and told them that 
 one of my greatest motifs to that design, was to secure them 
 the joint interest of the north." 
 
 The matter seems to have been taken up by these great 
 men as an important negotiation. 
 
 " I trouble you," says the duke to a cadet of the Grant family, 
 *' with this, to let you know that some time since I learnt 
 that Lord Lovat had proposed a match with Grant's sister, 
 which for many reasons I wished so weel to, as to interest my- 
 self with Grant in favour of it. You know Lord Lovat is one for 
 whom I have with good reason the greatest esteem and respect; 
 and as I confide entirely in him and the brigadier, I am most 
 earnest that this match should take effect. I am informed that
 
 182 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the young lady is at present with you, and that some other 
 body is making court to her. I must, therefore, as a faithful 
 friend to us all, entreat your interest to bring this matter about, 
 Tvhicli will, I think, unite all friends in the North ; a union 
 •which will be very serviceable to his Majesty, and his royal 
 family ; and no less to all of us who have ventured our lives 
 and fortunes in defence of it."* 
 
 There was a dark shadow from his previous history, 
 ■wliich must surely have impended over this marriage in 
 the eyes of the young lady or her friends, however little 
 it might interrupt his own thoughts. It at all events 
 crossed the mind of his powerful friends. 
 
 " Islay desired me," he says to Duncan Forbes, " to write 
 to you to know if there would be any fear of a pursuit of adhe- 
 rence from that other person, which is a chimerical business, 
 and tender fear for me iu my dear Islay. But when I told him. 
 that the lady denied before the Justice Court that I had any thing 
 to do with her, and that the pretended marriage was declared 
 null — which Islay says should be done by the commissaries 
 only — yet when I told him that the minister and witnesses 
 were all dead who were at the pretended marriage, he was 
 satisfied they could make nothing of it, though they woidd en- 
 deavour it. However, I intreat you write to me or to Mr. Stewart 
 a line on this head to satisfy my Lord Islay 's scruple, "f 
 
 So were the transactions -with the dowager lady at 
 Castle Dounie, and Eilan Aigas thrust aside. How inviting 
 must have seemed the pathway so opened up to tlie new 
 comer! The marriage was celebrated in 1717. 
 
 This lady died in 1732, and in the following year 
 lier lord married his second wife, Primrose Campbell, 
 daughter of John Campbell of Mamorc. It was of course 
 a union of policy, and of very sound policy ; for Mamore 
 was brother to the deceased Archibald Duke of Argyle. 
 An anecdote has been repeatedly told of the suitor ha^dno' 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 59. f CuUodcn Papers, 56.
 
 SDIOX LORD LOVAT. 183 
 
 overcome her objections to the match by the following stra- 
 tagem. The lady received a letter purporting to be from 
 her mother, in a dangerous state of health, desiring her 
 presence in a particular house in Edinburgh. She flew 
 to the spot, and found there — Lovat. On her reiterating 
 her abhorrence of his addresses, he informed her that 
 the house was devoted to purposes which stamped infamy 
 on any female who was known to have crossed its thresh- 
 old. Such is the traditional account of his wooing. 
 
 The reader wiU judge how far it may militate against 
 this story, that the marriage contract was very formally 
 executed by the parties and their relations, the subscrip- 
 tions beino; attached at difierent dates from the 3rd of 
 April, when the bride and bridegroom signed, to the 9th 
 of July. The band of connexions who appear on the 
 occasion, is very formidable ; but however much this 
 may indicate their cordiality to the match, it is of course 
 no evidence that the bride herself went wilHngly to the 
 sacrifice. There were the bride's mother and her brother; 
 her uncle, Lord Elphinstone ; her aunt, the Countess of 
 Mar; the Duke of Argyle, and the Earl of Islay. Dun- 
 can Forbes was one of the witnesses. The contract pro- 
 vided the lady with a yearly jointure of 3000 merks, 
 Scots — about 170/.* 
 
 Tradition states that the married life of this lady was a 
 train of miseries caused by the tyranny and brutal violence 
 of her husband. To be mistress of Castle Dounie w^as 
 probably no enviable dignity, to a woman brought up 
 with even moderate notions of female deUcacy ; but it may 
 be questioned if one connected as Primrose Campbell was, 
 
 * The marriage contract was lately used for legal purposes. A copy 
 is in possession of James Maidment, Esq.
 
 184 THE LIFE OF 
 
 was likely to be exposed to palpable injury and insult, by 
 so sagacious a politician as lier husband. 
 
 Of Lovat's children, five; three sons and two daughters 
 reached maturity. Of Simon the heir, who was born on the 
 19th of October, 1726, there will be found several notices in 
 these pages. After the rebelhon he became a distinguished 
 officer, and by a special Act of Parliament was restored to 
 his paternal estates in 1 7 74. He maintained a high character 
 in public life, but Mrs. Grant states, that in him a pleasing 
 exterior covered a large share of the paternal character, 
 and that "no heart was ever harder — no hands more rapa- 
 cious than his." He had raised a regiment in the Eraser 
 country destined to embark at Greenock for America, 
 The people had formed expectations which he did not 
 reaHse, and the women pursued him to the place of em- 
 barkation with Celtic curses. Colonel Fraser gave a. 
 dinner to the officers of the 42nd regiment. He con- 
 ducted the wife of one of them to the inn where the 
 entertainment was held. She said she nearly fainted with 
 horror at the scene she encountered. Knowing Gaelic^ 
 she was able to understand the horrible curses of a troop 
 of old women who followed them, while her companion^ 
 not conscious of her skill, talked on with the quiet un- 
 concern of a well-bred gentleman.* 
 
 The second son, Alexander, who was born in 1729, 
 after serving abroad returned and spent his days in the 
 Highlands; he was called the brigadier, but does not 
 appear to have held that rank. Mrs. Grant says, he 
 " acquired rather too great a reUsh for the convivial mode 
 of living," and his habits were much more emphatically 
 attested by a witness in the late genealogical inquiries, 
 who said, that 
 
 • Mrs. Grant's MS.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 185 
 
 " On some occasions the said Brigadier Alexander Fraser 
 passed the night in the deponent's father's house, and on 
 such occasions the deponent, then a boy, used to leave a 
 bottle of whiskey at the brigadier's bed-side, to be drunk by 
 him during the night, and which he generally finished before 
 morning.''* 
 
 Of the two (laughters, Janet -was married to Mac- 
 pherson of Clunie, the other Sybilla, died unmarried. 
 Of his conduct to these young ladies, tradition gives a 
 favourable description, 
 
 "When his daughters," says Mrs. Grant, " showed a disgust 
 to the profligacy of Castle Dounle, and preferred residing gene- 
 rally with the only aunt they had then living, Lady Mackenzie 
 of Scatwell, he did not resent their leaving him, but ratlier 
 seemed pleased with the delicacy and good principles which 
 always governed their conduct."f 
 
 The same authority says, that in deference to their 
 feminine delicacy, he sometimes restrained the pruriant 
 luxuriance of his wit; if he did so, it was an abstinence 
 which his contemporary Sir Robert Walpole was, at least 
 hj his son's account, unable to practise. 
 
 He seems to have been far too much of a politician to let 
 his character go forth through the female world as that of a 
 brute and a tyrant; he had made himself popular among the 
 accomplished females of France, and was not likely to be 
 utterly repulsive to those of his own country when he thought 
 fit to be agreeable. Indeed, we have evidence that he did 
 not disdain to bring his intrigues to bear upon small ball- 
 room politics ; and that, petty as must have been the influ- 
 ence of ^ the salon in his immediate neighbourhood, he 
 condescended to employ it. The following letter is a 
 curious instance. 
 
 • Lovat Documents. t Mrs. Grant's MS.
 
 186 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " Lord Lovat to Miss Ann Stewart. 
 
 "Beaufort, 20th Dee. 1741. 
 
 ''Past 12 at Night. 
 
 " My Dear Cousin, — I was very soriy to understand that 
 you had a bad cold since you went into Inverness ; if you had 
 staid in my little house where the air is very good and whole- 
 some, and where you was as welcome as in your father's house, 
 it would have saved you from the had air and dirty streets of 
 Inverness, which has brought that cold upon you ; however, I 
 am exceeding glad to know that it is almost over, and I hope 
 this letter mil find you perfectly recovered, and in entire good 
 liealtli, which I wish with all my soul ; and I sincerely assure 
 you, and your worthy father and mother, and all the family, of my 
 most affectionate humble duty, best respects, and best wishes. 
 
 " As you promised to honour Miss Fraser with your good 
 company at Christmas, I have sent this express to know what 
 time you would have the horse and chaise go in for you. 
 
 " I know that you will be much solicited and importuned to 
 be at the ball that the Gentlemen Masons give on Monday 
 next. If a friend of yours was king at the ball, I think it 
 would be a right thing in you to honour it with your presence, 
 but as Major Caulfield is to be king of the ball, I know no call 
 you have to do him honour. 
 
 " Ewen BailHe told me that Caulfield and Collector Colvill 
 were to come here in a day or two to see me ; I own Caulfield 
 is not blate, and if he makes me a visit after cutting my 
 throat, and doing me all the injury in his power, and was the 
 great instrument of breaking of my company, it plainly proves 
 he was born and bred an Irishman ; but I have had several 
 proofs of the same many years ago. But my dear miss, as it 
 would be very impolitic in me to wish that you should deprive 
 yourself of the pleasures of that ball, since you have a great 
 many friends that will be at that ball that are masons, you 
 should go to please them, without taking any great notice o£ 
 Major Caulfield, and when the ball is over I shall send in my 
 chaise for you ; and my friend, and your cousin, the Laird of 
 Abriachen, will liave the honour to convoy you here, and you 
 may freely command your time to go and to come here, without 
 the least constraint, according as it suits your pleasure and 
 convenience. 
 
 " Since I wrote Avhat is above. Major Caulfield and Collector 
 Colvill are come here to dinner ; Mr. Colvill is my relation,
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 187 
 
 and is always very welcome to me, but I own that all the good 
 manners and politeness that erev I learned and practised was 
 put to a trial how to behave with the other gentleman. How- 
 ever, good nature got the better, and I let him see that I could 
 be as complaisant, and polite and civil in my own house, as if 
 he had never done me the least injury. He was telling me, that 
 it is not sure that he was to be king of the ball, but whether 
 he is or not, my kindly ad%ace to you, my dear cousin is, that 
 you should have that complaisance for your friends as to go to 
 that ball, which they cannot but take well, and they would have 
 reason to take it amiss if you did otherwise. But I earnestly 
 beg you may take care of your health, for the ball-room is a 
 cursed cold room. I wish you had my chair to take you in 
 and out ; Duncan Fraser can get it to you, and it will do me 
 vast pleasure that you shoidd take it, and I only propose it 
 for your health, which I do -nish as well as I do my own 
 daughter's, for I am with a singular esteem, and a very sin- 
 cere attachment, and respect, 
 
 " My dear miss, 
 '• Your most obedient and most faithful humble servant, 
 " and most affectionate cousin, 
 
 " LoVAT."* 
 
 Lord Lovat has been accused of being the main instru- 
 ment in the celebrated abduction of Mrs. Erskine, com- 
 monly called Lady Grange. The Honourable James 
 Erskine, called by his title of courtesy as a Judge of the 
 Court of Session, Lord Grange, was the second son of the 
 Earl of Mar. He vras raised to the bench on the IStli of 
 October, 1706. He was anxious to enter Parliament as an 
 opponent of Sir Robert "Walpole, a circumstance which 
 made that minister carry through the very excellent 
 act of 1734, prohibiting the Scottish judges from being 
 members of Parliament. Having some ambition to dis- 
 tinguish himself as a politician, he resigned liis seat 
 on the bench and became member for Stirlingshire. 
 His ambitious dreams, whatever they were, do not 
 
 * From a Transcript in possession of the Society of Antiquaries, 
 Edinburgh.
 
 188 THE LIFE OF 
 
 appear to have been realised, for lie soon after- 
 wards retired from public ,life. His ^Yife, whose history 
 has made so wild a romance of real Hfe, was the daughter 
 of that Chiesly of Dairy who shot Lord President Lock- 
 hart in the High Street of Edinburgh, for deciding that 
 he was bound to support his wife ; and it is said that the 
 lady frequently appealed to this symptom of the blood 
 from which she had sprung, as a significant intimation of 
 what she might be able to accomplish, if driven to ex- 
 tremities. 
 
 An amusinsc little tradition which the author obtained 
 on excellent authority, proves tlie intimacy between Lovat 
 and Grange. Dr. Carlyle, who afterwards became minister 
 of Inveresk, and the friend of Hume, Smith, Robertson, 
 and Blair, was one day, in his youth, striding contempla- 
 tively through a field near Prestonpans, when he was 
 addressed by Erskine of Grange, who Avas in search of 
 some one to dine with him that day to meet a friend. He 
 invited the young divine, with Avhom he had some ac- 
 quaintance. The friend was Lovat, and the social union 
 was of such a character as a young divine can seldom 
 have an opportunity of witnessing. The two old lords of 
 course got fiercely drunk ; the most innocent part, on the 
 whole, of their proceedings. They then insisted on having 
 the society of the landlady of the tavern and her female 
 assistants, with whom they danced a series of boisterous 
 reels, interspersed with those roystering personal compli- 
 ments which are said to be the peculiar attendant of the 
 national dance in its pure state. On the whole, it was 
 such an evening as a young divine was not likely to 
 forget. Lovat employed this convivial friend as one of 
 his legal advisers, and he speaks of the entail of his 
 estate, " which my Lord Grange has laboured these three
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 189 
 
 years past ; and he says now that he believes it one of the 
 best entails in Scotland."* Lord Grange was the great 
 lay head of the Ultra-Presbyterian party, and has been 
 respectfully commemorated by its historian, Robert Wod- 
 row, who notes on one occasion, that ** he complains much 
 of preaching up of mere morality, and very little of 
 Christ and Grace."t 0^ another occasion, he is repre- 
 sented, as complaining that " he was extremely abused by 
 not a few at Edinburgh, and represented as a hypocrite !"| 
 There can be little doubt of the charges being made ; but 
 if they were well founded, he was certainly as much a 
 hypocrite to himself as to others, for he left behind him 
 a diary, § very full of earnest piety, exhibiting at the 
 same time a feature not so likely to be anticipated, many 
 manifestations of domestic tranquillity and enjoyment. || 
 
 Wodrow affords us the following very emphatic picture 
 of the judge's domestic condition, in July, 1730, just 
 before the celebrated abduction of the lady. 
 
 " This month I have the very melancholy account of the 
 open breach in my Lord Grange his family. Things have 
 been very dark there for some time, since his lady took up a 
 
 * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, ii. 4. 
 
 I Wodrow Analecta, ii. 207. % lb., 306. 
 
 § Extracts from the Diary of a Member of the College of Justice, 
 privately printed, 1843. 
 
 II According to his friend "Wodrow, his wife was not the only woman 
 whose conduct perplexed the judge. The following passage may not be 
 unacceptable to the dealers in some modern mysteries : 
 
 " He tells me an account, which by the circumstances, I conjecture, 
 relates to himself, that there was a woman in Edinburgh under deep 
 distress and melancholy ; in short, her circumstances looked as like a 
 possession as any thing of that nature well could. She spoke of things 
 at distance and secret things. One day a gentleman came to visit her, 
 and seeing her distress, and strange things said and done by her, he was 
 really much frighted and terriiied, and when he went he set down some 
 hints of what he had seen, and his own terror in his day-book, and never 
 communicat this to any one. Next day he came to see her, and she 
 grinned fearfully at him, and said to him, ' Feared beast — write no books 
 of me.'" — Wodrow's Analecta, iii. 307. Lord Grange mentions in his 
 Diary, a female who beheld visions scarcely less real and effective than 
 that of St. Francis, who may be the person here alluded to.
 
 190 THE LIFE OF 
 
 jealousy of him^ charged him with guilt with another, and had 
 spies about him in England, when last there about his son's 
 process of murder. She intercepted his letters in the post- 
 office, and would have palmed treason upon them, and took 
 them to the Justice Clerk, as is said, and alleged that some 
 phrases in some of her lord's letters to Lord I)un, related to 
 the Pretender, without the least shadow for the inference. 
 Last month it seems his lady, being for her drunkenness palpa- 
 ble and open, and her violent unhappy temper and mis- 
 management, iuliibited by my lord, left the family. Tliis 
 was pleasing to her lord, and he did not use any endeavours 
 to have her back, since sometimes she attempted to murder 
 him, and was innumerable ways uneasy. Upon this, my lady 
 gave in a bill to the Lords for a maintenance, and containing the 
 grounds of her separation. But the matter was taken up, and 
 my lord entered into a concert with her friends, allowed her 
 one hundred pounds a-year, and she declared she would be 
 satisfied with that : and so they live separately. This man is 
 owned, by his greatest enemies, to have had the greatest provo- 
 cations possible, and his family distresses have even drawn pity 
 from them that (I hope) groundlessly have loaded him with the 
 gi'eatest calumnies and reproaches."* 
 
 This description of Lady Grange's character and habits 
 connects itself too -well with the other circumstances of the 
 story, -where we find her, as one of the comforts of her 
 banishment, receiving an anchor of whiskey annually, and 
 liberally partaking of it.f However shocking it must be 
 to modern female ears to say so, it is evident that this un- 
 fortunate woman was a confirmed drunkard. She had 
 sworn vengeance on her husband, and her pedigree indi- 
 cated her as one from v/hom such menaces were not to be 
 despised. It was recorded of her father, that when he 
 had made a like threat, and was asked how he could en- 
 tertain designs so horrible under the all-seeing Eye, he 
 answered, that God and he had many things to settle 
 
 * Wodro-w Analccta, iv. 166. Maitland Club. 
 
 t Mr. Chambers found this stated in tlic papers connected •with a 
 judicial investigation as to the al)duction, from -which he made an 
 interesting narrative in his Journal, No. 114.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 191 
 
 "with each, otlier, and tliey ■would settle this too. Lady 
 Grange was in possession of a dangerous, if not a trea- 
 sonable, letter by lier husband, and she had taken her 
 place in the conveyance to London, to present it at court. 
 On the whole, it is necessary to cast on the times the 
 reproach of saying, that Lord Grange's conduct admits of 
 some palliation. " These were things," he said, " that 
 could not be redressed in a court of justice, and we had 
 not then a madhouse to lock such unhappy people up in." 
 It has justly been remarked, that if she had been the 
 wife of Lovat or Charteris, things would have been more 
 effectually managed, and the world would never have 
 been astonished with the tale of her abduction. 
 
 On the evening of the 22nd of January, 1732, Lady 
 Grange, Kving in lodgings next door to those of her hus- 
 band, was seized and gagged by several Highlanders, 
 who had been secretly admitted to the house. She de- 
 clared that they wore Lovat's livery : probably meaning 
 his Tartan. She came afterwards in contact with mem- 
 bers of the Fraser clan, and she mentions that Lovat had 
 an interview with her principal gaoler, near Stirling, to 
 arrange as to her journey; but she does not say that she 
 was present. The project was undoubtedly one in which 
 the Jacobite chiefs participated, for the safety of an ac- 
 compHce, and the security of their cause in general; but 
 there is no further evidence but that just mentioned, to 
 connect it with Lovat; unless his own denial, which is 
 certainly very much in the tone of the man who denied 
 with an oath the charge of swearing, be considered as evi- 
 dence against him. 
 
 " As to that story about my Lord Grange, it is a much less 
 surprise to me, because they said ten times worse of me, when 
 that danmed woman went from Edinburgh, than they can say
 
 192 THE LIFE OF 
 
 now ; for they said that it was all my contrivance, and that it 
 was my servants that took her away ; but I defyed them then, 
 as I do now, and do declare to you upon honour, that I do not 
 know what has become of that woman^ where she is or who takes 
 care of her ; but if I had contrived, and assisted, and saved my 
 Lord Grange from that devil, who threatened every day to 
 murder him and his children, I would not think shame of it be- 
 fore God or man ; and wherever she is, I wish and hope she may 
 never be seen again, to torment my worthy friend." — Genea- 
 logy of the Hayes of Tweedale, p. 109.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 193 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 His political Career— Battle of Glenshicl— A successful Xegotiation — 
 Loyalty— A Favourite at Court — His Loyalty questioned— A Scene — 
 A Vindication— Its Sincerity tested— His Intrigues with the Jaco- 
 bites—His Dukedom — His simultaneous Zeal for St. James's and 
 St. Germain's— Deprived of his Independent Company and his Slie- 
 riflfship— Lord Tinwald- Dr. Patrick Gumming. 
 
 Let us now cast a glance at Lovat's political career, 
 or so mucli of it as has found its way above ground, 
 during tlie interval between the two rebelhons. His 
 first impulses were towards an active partisanship of 
 the house of Hanover, In the following letter to Dun- 
 can Forbes, we find him residing in London, and taking 
 a vivid interest in the bill for vestinsf the forfeited es- 
 tates in trustees, to be sold for the use of the public. 
 He had abeady secured Fraserdale's escheat, but, pro- 
 bably as the gift had been much attacked in Parhament, 
 he had some misgivings that it was not beyond all risk. 
 The " two brothers," Argyle and Islay, are still his idols; 
 and the business-like manner in which he speaks of 
 English politics after a life spent between small despotisms 
 in the Highlands, and a great one in France, does credit 
 to his capacity. 
 
 " 6th of 3Iarch, 1718. 
 " My Dr. Gen.— It's now ten at night, and I have not 
 yet had the tyme to eat a bit. The debate in the House of 
 Lords lasted from two to eight, and the two brothers should 
 
 O
 
 194 THE LIFE OF 
 
 have statues erected for tliem by your Session and countrey, for 
 they spoke to the admiration of all the hearers. The Due of 
 ]Mon[trose] and his friend Rothes, who has said such strange 
 things against the Lords of Session, that I leave to others 
 to give you account of. But I only tell you that the Duke 
 and he battled it a long time, in which battle there was 
 good sport to the hearers who laughed heartily. In short the 
 bill was committed by the majority of seven votes. If all Scots 
 had been of a side, that bill had been thrown out. But in short 
 the court will carry any thing. 
 
 " My Lord Athol has given a printed petition in his niece's 
 name against my title. I am to do the hke against the lady's. 
 Both is irregular and will be rejected. But it's only a point of 
 malice in his grace, which will not avail much to him. 
 
 " There are, as they say, great changes this day in the mi- 
 nistry. Stanhope again Secretary of State. Sund[erland] at 
 the head of the Tresery. The D. of Somerset master of horse, 
 and Carlisle President of the Council. They say there is a 
 reconciliation, and that the pr. [ince] will drop ye D[uke] and 
 his. A little tyme will show this. I only tell you what's whis- 
 pered, and I believe not w*out grounds. I'le send you ye peti- 
 tion by ye mail. 
 
 " I am, for ever, L."* 
 
 Notwithstanding the zeal with which he started, we find 
 his faith wavering so early as 1719. Having obtained 
 but a portion of the family estates by turning Hanoverian, 
 lie perhaps expected to gain the remainder by becoming a 
 Jacobite. In that year a Spanish invasion was expected, 
 and it is attested, at Lovat's trial, that he wrote to the 
 exiled Lord Seaforth " to encourage and desire him to 
 come down with his men; and that he, Lord Lovat, 
 would join him with all his, in favour of the pretender."f 
 He happened to show this letter to his neighbour Chis- 
 holm of Knockford; an act not in keeping with his usual 
 discretion, for Chisholm sent information of its contents to 
 
 * Autograph, original. t State Trials, xviii. 586.
 
 ^ SDION LORD LOVAT. 1 95 
 
 tlie government On this, Lovat immediately proceeded 
 to London to clear himself. In the meantime, he appears 
 to have given instructions to his clan to rise on the side of 
 the government, and to make themselves peculiarly officious 
 against Lord Seaforth; for in a contemporary newspaper 
 account of the battle of Glenshiel, in -which the Spaniards 
 •were encountered on the west coast of Invernesshire, there 
 is this statement. 
 
 " 'Tis said, the gentlemen of the name of Frazer with their 
 followers, who are well effected to the government, have taken 
 possession of the Castle of Brahan, the late Earl of Seaforth's 
 seat."* 
 
 Another news-letter a few days later, says, 
 
 " I hear the body of Monroes and Frazers, as also the 
 Sutherland men who were with the King's troops in the action, 
 behaved themselves very valiantly, and did considerable service 
 on the occasion." 
 
 In the midst of these statements, stands the following 
 announcement in the " Scots' Courant." 
 
 " His majesty has done the Lord Lovat the honour to be 
 godfather to his child ; and has appointed Colonel William 
 Grant, of Balandaloch, to be his proxy. The ceremony is to 
 "be performed at liis lordship's seat in Scotland, for which place 
 he set out on Monday last, together with Colonel Robert 
 Monro, Junr. of FowUs." 
 
 This is a fidl attestation of the success with which he 
 Lad re-established his character. But his good fortune 
 did not end here. He being now a potent man at court, 
 and the Seaforth family in tribulation, Lady Seaforth be- 
 sought him "to do something for her son." He agreed, 
 upon one condition: that the ominous letter — a sword 
 hanging by a hair over his head — might be restored to 
 him. He got possession of the document, and put it in 
 
 • "Scots' Courant," 18th of May, 1719. 
 o2
 
 196 THE LIFE OF A 
 
 the fire. "There was enough to condemn thirty Lords 
 there," said a friend, -who was with him at the time.* 
 But all traces of the perilous communication were now 
 obHterated, and he would be a bold man who should call 
 in question the loyalty of the king's favourite. 
 
 Having, probably, been taught caution by the narrow- 
 ness of his escape, on this occasion, we find no more overt 
 acts; and any intrigues he may have entered into, must 
 have been managed with extreme caution. He undoubtedly 
 established himself as a favourite with George I.; and 
 in his apologetical speech at his trial, he enlarges on his 
 fortune at court, with his usual liixuriance of descrip- 
 tion. He says, he received three several letters of thanks 
 from his Majesty and continues, — 
 
 " I believe there are Lords in this house — I am sure there 
 are a great many yet alive, that know I was a particular 
 favourite of the late King's : I believe more than any one of 
 my own rank in Scotland. I remember my Lord Townshend 
 told me one day, who was my particular friend, that I was 
 certainly a great favourite of the King, and if all the mi- 
 nistry should join together to hurt me, that it was not in 
 their power to do it — and that he would do me all the service 
 he could: and said, the King would not refuse any thing he 
 should ask for me." 
 
 On the same occasion, he tells the following curious 
 
 little romance, from which it appears, that he narrowly 
 
 escaped filling the next niche to that of Marlborough, in 
 
 the temple of heroic fame. The vision of greatness was 
 
 opened up to him in an interview with Lord Cadogan. 
 
 "He called me into his closet with him and told me, "we are 
 now fully convinced, Lord Lovat, that it was you, and a few of 
 the king's friends who were joined to you, that subdued and sup- 
 pressed the rebellion and extinguished It; and that all that was 
 wrote In the Gazette about Lord Sutherland, was all romance. 
 Now I am so sensible of those services that you have done the go- 
 
 * State Trials, xviii. 588.
 
 SDION LORD LOVAT. 197 
 
 vernment, that, if you will join yourself to the Duke of Marl- 
 borough, to the Earl of Sunderland, and to me, that are thought 
 the favourites of the king, we will, in the first place immedi- 
 ately make you a major-general — you shall have a regiment 
 of foot or dragoons, and 3000/. a year pension during your life. 
 My Lords, if I had accepted of that ofter, I had now had the 
 best estate in Scotland, and would have been fair for being one 
 of the Field Marshalls of England, being the oldest officer."* 
 
 His reason for rejecting this brilliant oiFer was that it 
 involved a desertion of his adopted patron the Duke of 
 Argyle, who had been a father to him and had treated 
 him as his own child ; and as he says on another occasion, 
 to John Forbes, " I have one good principle — think of me 
 what you will — I never did nor will forget a good service."* 
 
 Five years after the battle of Glensliiel we find him 
 addressing the young Prince of Wales, the son of George 
 I. — -^bo two years afterwards was to be George II. — 
 in terms of high loyalty, enlarging on his own devo- 
 tion, and hinting that the peace of the country was 
 likely soon to be disturbed; an expectation which he had 
 perhaps his own peculiar reasons for indulging. An ex- 
 tract from this letter, directed from Beaufort, the 24th of 
 July, 1724, may be taken as a specimen of his composi- 
 tion and orthography in French, a language with which he 
 frequently flavoured his ordinary correspondence, as many 
 scraps addressed to Duncan Forbes, not possessed of any 
 further intrinsic interest, attest : 
 
 " J'esperois avant le temps cy, avoir I'honneur de rendre mes 
 devoirs, tres humbles, a votre altesse Royalle a Londres; mais j'ay 
 eu ime fort terrible chute de mon cheval, qui attira une gross 
 maladie sur moy, dont je ne suis pas encore bien retabll. Quand 
 je serai en etat de faire le voyage, Je suis resoiu d'aller rendre 
 mes devoirs au Roy et a votre altesse royalle, et leur rendre 
 
 * State Trials, sviii., 830. f MS. at CuUoden House.
 
 198 THE LIFE OF 
 
 compte de la situation de ce pays ci, qui est le plus dangereux 
 des trois royaumes."* 
 
 He seems, during the current of his law suits, to have 
 really desired to establish the character of a respectable 
 worshipful member of society, looking discreetly after 
 this world, without totally forgetting the next. In a 
 highly curious passage of a letter to John Forbes, of the 
 10th of April, 1731, he says: 
 
 "I am much indisposed since I saw you at your house. Many 
 marks appear that show the tabernacle is failing. The teeth, 
 are gone, and now the cold has so seized my head, that I am 
 almost deaf with a pain in my ears. Those are so many sounds 
 of the trumpet that call me to another world, for which you 
 and I are hardly well prepared. But I have a sort of advantage of 
 you, for if 1 can but die with a little of my old French belief, I'll 
 get the legions of saints to pray for me ; while you will only get 
 a number of drunken fellows, and the innkeepers and tapster- 
 lasses of Inverness ; and Mr. Mc Bean that holy man, &c."f 
 
 From the year 1729 downwards, we find him strug- 
 gling hard with various rumours about disaffection, arising 
 probably out of intrigues which have alike baffled the 
 government of the day, and the biographical investigator. 
 Mr. Frascr of Phopachy, a gentleman of his clan wha 
 has already figured in these pages, appears, if we may- 
 judge from these mystical expressions in a letter of his 
 lord's, to have got an insight into some of his transac- 
 tions. The letter is dated the 7th of April, 1729. 
 
 " As to Phopachy, I believe he is quite mad or really pos- 
 sessed with the devil, for as 1 came home last night from the 
 King's advocate's house, I got a letter from Castle Ladder, of 
 ■which the enclosed is a copy, by which you will see what a 
 situation I am in with that villain." 
 
 He proceeds to say, that this undutiful clansman is pre- 
 
 * Autograph iu possession of Jlr. Watson, Princes Street, Edin- 
 burgh. tCulludeu Papers, 122.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 199 
 
 paring a memorial to be presented by*' a Lord in the 
 soutb" to the government, " that is full of all tlie crimes 
 tbat ever -was invented, and capable to bang all England 
 if it were proven." But exulting in conscious innocence, 
 he assumes liis high moral style, and says: 
 
 " I bless God I never was In my life guilty of a base or villa- 
 nous actioD, so I do not fear this wicked calumny. But I think 
 much shame that a monster called Fraser should endeavour to 
 give a scandalous impression of me to the world. 
 
 " I cannot," he continues, " think but the law does furnish 
 redress of such a barbarous villany as this. I believe that the 
 ■wicked man does all he can to provoke me to use violence against 
 him, but he is much mistaken, I hope the laws will do me jus- 
 tice."* 
 
 The following curious narrative, in an unsigned letter to 
 Duncan Forbes, seems to point at further suspicions of 
 disaffection. It is dated the 25th of January, 1733. The 
 person who, for some small reason unknown, is called the 
 Squire, is Mr. Brodie, who, on other occasions, is called 
 " The Beast," or " The King of Beasts," in reference to 
 his office of Lord Lyon, King at Arms, which is also the 
 occasion of some witticisms in this narrative : 
 
 ' " I am obliged to give you an account of a political war that 
 had very nearly ended in a bloody one. When the squire was 
 indisposed, as I wrote you in my last, but on the recovery, 
 Lovat made him a -sasit of civility, when I hap])ened to be pre- 
 sent, as were also Louis Colquhoun, Judge Elchles, and Brodie 
 of Whitehill. While I was there, nothing happened but com- 
 mon clviHties, but upon my retiring it seemed good to the 
 squire to fall upon the peer as if he had really been a Lyon. He 
 upbraided him with Ingratitude for deserting his friends the 
 Grants, railed at him for disobeying Lord 1 slay's orders, which 
 he said he had for directing affairs in the north, and which orders 
 he could produce, and threatened to glow hira up with Islay. 
 Lovat keeped his temper pretty well, though he really got very 
 
 * Autograph ilS.
 
 200 THE LIFE OF 
 
 abusive language, witli which all the company chimed in. He 
 said he could vindicate his conduct very easily, and defied him 
 to do him any harm above, with any man of note whatsomever. 
 Thus the visit passed ; but next day happening to meet at the 
 cross, the squire began again in the same string, which so pro- 
 voked the peer, that putting [on a] stern face, he told him 
 he had suffered too much of that already, and at the same time 
 by his posture threatened his majesty with a return which would 
 have obliged him to draw, if some people had not interposed 
 and parted them. Lovat in the height of his passion has writt a 
 long letter to the Earl of Islay in his defence, where he gives 
 the squire very rough language. I hope he will mend the 
 letter a little before he sends it, for he was in such a passion 
 when he read it to me, that I could get nothing said to him. 
 He assures me, that though you and all his friends make up 
 matters with the squire, yet he never can after the rude manner 
 he has treated him with."* 
 
 Perhaps these fears that Lovat would expose himself by 
 the indiscreet indignation of his outcries, were thrown 
 aAvay. He liad long been in possession of the savage 
 virtue of controlling the passions when there was nothing 
 to be gained by letting them loose. In the above scene 
 he appears to have exhibited an excellent command of 
 temper, in Avhich an Indian of NortliAmerica could scarcely 
 have excelled him; and his bursts of rage, which were not 
 few, and very loud and formidable, usually came forth, either 
 when he was disposed, as he probably was in writing to 
 the Earl of Islay, to act the part of the honest indignant 
 wlio cannot control liis feelings, or when he desired to 
 intimidate an opponent, as he seems to have chosen to do 
 with the Lyon, when he found that by keeping his tem- 
 per he only exposed himself to more attacks. There ap- 
 pears to be no means of discovering v/hether he then sent 
 a letter to Lord Islay : four years afterwards he sent to 
 that powerful nobleman, who, under Walpole's administra- 
 
 • MS. at Culloden House.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 201 
 
 tlon, was called the King of Scotland, a memorial of his 
 services and sufferings under unjust suspicion. The for- 
 mer department of this circumstantial paper has already 
 been quoted,* because it affords an autobiograpliical ac- 
 count of Lovat's conduct in 1715 : the remainder follows. 
 
 " la this poor situation was I for nine years, fighting for the 
 possession of the estate of Lovat, till such time as your lord- 
 ship thought it for the interest of the government, to re-establish 
 the Highland independent companies, then yom* lordship \yas 
 so good as to procui'e me my old company again, and when your 
 lordship came into the administration you were pleased to pro- 
 cure me two marks of distinction, a commission as Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of the shire of Inverness, and a commission as Sheriff 
 principal ; and by the providence of God and your lordship's 
 protection, I got the better of my enemies, and at a vast ex- 
 pense got possession of the honours and estate of Lovat, with 
 all the rights that the laws of Scotland can give me, so that I 
 had no difficulty further in life but to live frugally, in order to 
 pay the great debt I owe for that natural and beloved acquisi- 
 tion of mine, which has cost me above thirty years' purchase, 
 without the least consideration as heir male of the family, for an 
 Arabian would have got it cheaper than I. [What] I did 
 was by your lordship's particular advice, and 1 bless God I 
 am clearing off my great debt very well, and if God spare 
 me five years in health, I will not be owing any debt on my 
 estate, which 1 bless God is in better condition than it has been 
 in these hundred years past, and that only by the extraordinary 
 providence of God and the protection of the family of Argyle. 
 
 " Now, my good lord, I humbly refer it to your serious re- 
 flection, whether or not it is possible that I, in my senses and 
 reason, coidd have the least thoug-ht, or imagination, or wish, to 
 see another government, or any disturbance in this. Sm^ely, I 
 must be a madman if I would wish the Pretender to prevail, who 
 used me like a scoundrel, and put me in a dimgeon, upon the 
 mere suspicion of my being a partisan of the family of Hanover. 
 And if the Pretender did prevail, of which there is no manner 
 of probability, and which I pray God may never happen, would 
 1 not be an idiot and a madman to imagine that any serrice I 
 could do to the Pretender could balance the interest of the fami- 
 
 * See Chap. V.
 
 202 THE LIFE OF 
 
 lies of Hamilton, Gordon, Athol, Seafortli, who have been my 
 professed enemies these forty years past, and who were always 
 believed to be friends to the Pretender, and must naturally be 
 Ms favourites if ever he prevail. Now, my lord, I have no say, 
 or chance, for the standing of my family but by this govern- 
 ment, and except the family of Argyle, I know no family in 
 Scotland that can less expect mercy from the Pretender than 
 my family ; for as Duncan Forbes told me once, I might expect 
 a gallows ten feet higher than ordinary if the Pretender pre- 
 vailed, so that I must think that no man upon serious reflection 
 can believe, that upon any consideration whatever, I could ever 
 act or contrive any thing against this government, if twenty 
 villanous Knights of the Post should assert it. I will teU your 
 lordship some facts, w'hich I hope will convince you or any man 
 that thinks, that I believe there is a God and a future state, that 
 I am entirely and absolutely innocent of the false and viUanous 
 aspersion laid to my door. For, in the first place, since the 
 year 1715 that I engaged myself in his Majesty's service, more 
 for the love and attachment I had to the Duke of Argyle and 
 your lordship, than for any favour I then received from the go- 
 vernment, I solemnly declare before God, and as I must answer 
 to Him at the great day of judgment, I did not wTite one single 
 letter beyond seas, or to any man in the Pretender's service or 
 interest, and if the contrary is proven by any of the race of Adam, 
 I mil voluntarily sign the severest sentence that can be pro- 
 nounced against me. For I was so far from keeping any cor- 
 respondence with any man abroad, that I was so foolish as to 
 lose several considerable things I left in France for my not 
 writing or sending for them ; I left some money in the hands 
 of Monsieur Rogeault, who Avas Intendant of Rouen when I 
 came from France ; I likewise left my coach and chaise, my 
 pictures and my library of books, which were of value, at Somaur, 
 and as I must answer to my God, I never sent a single letter to 
 recover them since I came from France. So your lordship wiU 
 see how basely I am abused, and as to the second aspersion, of 
 my design to send my son to France to be educated, I am per- 
 suaded that Divine Providence, to protect my innocence, has 
 allowed an impudent villain to advance such a manifest lie against 
 me, that can be refuted by several honest gentlemen to whom I 
 have communicated the project of the education of mv children 
 these several years past. Your lordship knows that Dr. John 
 Clark of Edinburgh is a man of honour and veracity ; he can
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 203 
 
 declare upon soul and conscience that I agreed and concerted 
 with him, about two years ago, that he should have the direc- 
 tion of the education of my children, for which I promised him 
 100 guineas for his pains ; and the doctor can tell your lordship, 
 or to any man that will ask him the question, that his scheme 
 was, and is, that my two boys should stay at the school of Dal- 
 keith till they were masters of their Latin, that then they shovdd 
 come in to Edinburgh, to stay two or three years at the College 
 in that University, and at the same time learn what they coidd 
 of the Scots' law, and that then they should go over to Holland, 
 and stay two or three years there to learn the civil laws, and the 
 other parts of learning that they would be capable of. By this 
 time my eldest boy would be past twenty, and fit to travel 
 through Germany, France, or Italy, or any other part 
 of Europe that he had a mind to see. This is the true 
 scheme that Dr. Clark and I had a mind to follow, and in 
 pursuance of it, since my eldest boy was so tender and so much 
 threatened with a decay that I durst not venture to send him 
 south this year, Dr. Clark sent me one of the ushers or doctors 
 of the school of Dalkeith to be his tutor, and to teach him and 
 his brother their Latin in the same way that it is taught at Dal- 
 keith, that they might be the fitter to go to that school the next 
 year. He is one Mr. Racket, a very carefid, prudent, young' 
 gentleman, and he is here since the month of October last. This 
 is the sincere, real fact, for I wish I may never see God in mercy, 
 and that none of my children may be alive before tliis letter 
 comes to your lordship's hands, if ever I had a single thought 
 or intention to send my boys to France till first they had got all 
 the Scots and Dutch education that I now have described to 
 your lordship, and I hope you will entirely believe that I would 
 not make such an imprecation to myself and children, but for 
 truth's sake, for all the king's dominions and estate upon earth. 
 " I therefore earnestly entreat and hope, that if there remains 
 with your lordship any part of the friendship that you have so 
 long honoured me with, and which has been my greatest support, 
 that you will now be so good as to show your resentment against 
 my calumniators and false accusers. I cannot but be persuaded 
 that the wild, unnatural, and ungrateful wretch, James Fraser, 
 of Castle Leathers, commonly called Major Cracks, for his lies, 
 has been one of the Knights of the Post that has behed me; be- 
 cause, since he came home, he was so insolent as to send me a 
 threatening message, by the Sheriff Depute of Inverness, and by
 
 204 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tlie Commissary, that if I would put him out of my lands that 
 he now possesses, of which I gave a tack, or lease, to one of my 
 lieutenants, that he would go immediately and be an informer 
 against me, though he was it not before ; and he was so impudent 
 as to tell these gentlemen, and Major Caulfield, that he would send 
 me a challenge to fight me, if he could get any man to carry it, 
 notwithstanding that he is known to be the greatest coward, as 
 well as the greatest liar in the whole country, for several different 
 persons have affronted him publicly, and he never had the soul to 
 fight them or resent it. But since this letter is too much swelled 
 already, I will refer to another paper to give your lordship a true 
 and faithful account of that ungrateful and unnatural monster, 
 that I relicA'ed from mere beggary, which will prove to demon- 
 stration that he is, and always has been, one of the greatest rogues 
 that tliis country has produced. The only reason that I coun- 
 tenanced him for, was liis brother Culduthal's sake, who was my 
 lieutenant, and one of the honestest rnen in the world, as all his 
 brothers were, who always condennied and quarrelled him for his 
 lying, rhodomontade, knavish ways of life. 
 
 "As to my zeal and attachment to this administration, I 
 humbly think I need not appeal to any other voucher than your 
 lordship. I always loved Sir Robert Walpole, more than all the 
 ministers that ever I knew in England, since the first time that 
 my brother. Brigadier Grant, procured me his friendship ; and 
 Sir Robert cannot but remember, that 1 was always his faithful 
 partisan, whether he was out, or whether he was in the adminis- 
 tration; and though he did neglect to give me the 200/. that I 
 received every year by his mere goodness and friendship till the 
 late king's death, yet he did not in the least diminish my zeal 
 for him, which your lordship was witness to, for at the last gene- 
 ral election of the peers, when the patriots were at the height of 
 their malice against the administration, 1 was as faithful a par- 
 tisan as your lordship and Sir Robert had in Scotland ; and it was 
 not then bairn's play, for I thought to lose my life in the borough- 
 room, as, indeed, I thought that the Dulce of Argyle and your 
 lordship would lose yours in the midst of the king's friends ; and 
 my Lord Cathcart, who sat by me, knows that 1 was resolved to 
 fight to the last gasp in defence of the administration, and espe- 
 cially in defence of your lordship and the Duke of Argyle, whose 
 lives I thought then in great danger. And when the election 
 was over, and that we came out of the house, I was pelted with 
 showers of stones and clods, and my chariot almost broke by
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 205 
 
 the mob of the patriots. I humbly think that should not be 
 so soon forgot ; nor can I Imagine that your lordship has forgot 
 ■what you told me at the Duchess of Argyle's at Duddingstone, 
 •when I had the honour to take leave of your lordship. You 
 "were so good as to ask me what commands I had for you. I 
 told your lordship that all 1 asked was, if you was pleased with 
 my behaviour during your campaign in Scotland, and your lord- 
 ship was so good as answer me, that ye was so very well pleased 
 with my conduct and zeal, that you would let the king and first 
 minister know of it, which would turn to my advantage. For 
 God's sake, my good lord, what have I done, as yet, to dis- 
 oblige you or the administration ? I punctually obeyed all your 
 commands, and I never refused any tiling that was proposed to 
 me for the king's service, and to be suspected by the adminis- 
 tration or government, is what I never would imagine. 
 
 " Durum. Sed levins sit patientia, 
 Quidquid corrigere est nefas. 
 
 " I hope your lordship will easily believe, that no disaster in 
 life will ever diminish my zeal and attachment to the family of 
 Argyle, and to your lordship, who has always been my constant 
 protector. And whatever effect this hellish storm may have 
 against me, your lordship will find while there is breath in me, 
 that I am, and will be, with unalterable zeal, love, and respect, 
 
 " My dear lord, 
 " Your lordship's most affectionate cousin, 
 
 " And most sincere and faithful slave. 
 
 " LovAT. 
 " Beaufort, 27th of May, 1737. 
 
 " P. S. — I had the honour to write to your lordship, to ray 
 brother Coll. Campbell, and to Sir James Grant, some time 
 ago, that if your lordship was so good as to take any concern 
 in the education of my eldest boy, that you would have the dis- 
 posal of him before any man on earth. It is strange to tliink, 
 that after that I would have an intention to send him to 
 France, if I was not downright mad and bereaved of my 
 senses. "* 
 
 To all the lovers of the earnest, the robust, the manful, 
 the healthy in style, Lovat's letters must be eminently 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 206 THE LIFE OF 
 
 satisfactory. There is no petty sophistry, no equivocation, 
 no mincing morality, — all is as wide-hearted, as broadly 
 announced, as the sternest worshipper of the earnest can 
 desire ; and if clear, broad, powerful diction were accepted 
 as the sole and conclusive testimony of inward sincerity, 
 lie might have gone down to posterity as one of the 
 most honest-liearted men that ever breathed. Unfortu- 
 nately the conclusion that must be reached on a broader 
 induction, is, that the superlative strength of his impre- 
 cations denotes that he is telling unusually flagrant false- 
 hoods. His argument throughout is, that to suppose 
 him to have acted as he is accused of having done, he 
 must be indeed a great rascal. This he considers a 
 reductio ad ahsurdum; and it would indeed be very con- 
 clusive, if it had not the defect too characteristic of the 
 application of that argument to ethics, that the ahsurdum 
 only exists in imagination, not in nature. 
 
 Let us see how far this general conclusion is justified 
 by any facts of which we are in possession. In 1736, the 
 year before this letter was written, appears on the stage 
 John Roy Stuart, a celebrated Jacobite, as having broken 
 out of Inverness gaol. " Who was sheriff at that time?" 
 is a question put to a witness at Lovat's impeachment; 
 and the answer, given in the manner of cause for eflfect, 
 was, " My Lord Lovat." Chevis, the witness, continu- 
 ing to give a narrative of Hoy Stuart's proceedings, says, 
 that when he had broken out of gaol he went to Hve for 
 six weeks at Lovat's house. 
 
 " He was going- abroad then, and the ship was prepared for 
 him before lie left Lord Lovat's house ; and he went in my Lord 
 Lovat's chaise or chariot." 
 
 Question — " I desire you will inform their lordships whether 
 any message was sent by the noble lord at the bar by Roy 
 Stuart and to whom ?"
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 207 
 
 Answer — " I heard the noble lord at the bar charge him 
 with a message to the Pretender." 
 
 " What do you mean by charging him with a message ? 
 
 " To assure the Pretender, whom he called his king, of his 
 fideHty ; and that he was determined to live and die in that 
 cause." 
 
 " I beg that he may Inform your lordships whether there 
 was any thing said at that time In relation to any commis- 
 sion or patent ?" 
 
 " He charged him to expedite his sending his commission of 
 Lieutenant- General of the Higlilands, and his patent of a 
 Duke." 
 
 It would appear that these honours had been matter 
 of previous negotiation, and that Roy Stuart was to urge 
 them forward. The commission and patent were granted 
 in 1742. During Roy Stuart's sojourn at Castle Doimie, 
 the noble host and his guest had many convivial cele- 
 brations of their devotion to the exiled house, and at 
 least on one occasion, their enthusiasm rose too high to 
 be expressed in any meaner language than the sublime 
 grandeur of Celtic poetry. It is always the fate of that 
 language to suffer in translation; and so the House of 
 Lords had no better test of its merit, than the following 
 couplet translated by Chevis — 
 
 " 'Wlien yoimg Charley does come o'er, 
 There ^viU be blows and blood good store."* 
 
 All these, and many other manifestations, would doubt- 
 less take place in the public hall of Castle Dounie, in the 
 presence of the clan, in whose faithful ears it would be as 
 safely deposited as if it had been whispered to the 
 icebergs of Spitzbergen. From 1737, indeed, it is clear 
 that Lovat was at the head of an association of the High- 
 land chiefs, for the restoration of the exiles, with whicli 
 many of their clansmen must have been well acquainted. 
 
 * State Trials, sviii. 588-9.
 
 208 THE LIFE OF 
 
 They had much communication with France, and more 
 than once gave the government of that country notice of 
 favourable movements for an invasion.* His zeal, indeed, 
 in the cause, which he so ably represented to Lord Islay 
 as involving infamy and insanity, is so well established, 
 that even his own profuse asseverations of it to Charles 
 Edward and his followers do not discredit it. There is 
 evidently considerable truth in the following very solemn 
 appeal to Murray of Broughton. 
 
 " I am like to make my exit very soon out of this trouble- 
 some world, and I thank God ! I have served my king- [that 
 is King James] faithfully from my infancy till now ; and that 
 it is well known by all the gentlemen in the king's interest in 
 the north, that for many years past I was the life and spirit o£ 
 the king's affairs in these countries, and as I made it my only 
 business to encourage and keep up the hearts of the king's 
 friends, it was very fatiguing and troublesome to me, and vastly 
 expensive, by my extravagant housekeeping, and giving away 
 often a little money to the king's friends that wanted it much> 
 and from whom I never expect any payment."f 
 
 The formation of independent companies in the High- 
 lands was a very difficult edge-tool for a British minister 
 to handle; for wliile on the one side it tied the chiefs to 
 the crown, and made them, in some respects, participa- 
 tors in government measures, and keepers of the peace in 
 their countries, — on the other, it enabled them more 
 elTcctually to arm and discipline troops which might 
 be turned to purposes very diiferent from those contem- 
 plated by the government. It was, in every respect, 
 highly advantageous to Lovat's policy to have the sanction 
 of an authorised command added to his authority as a 
 chief; and to be able to discipline and arm his clan, all 
 devoted as they were to himself, in the light of day, and 
 
 * State Trials, xviii, 589-590. t State Trials, xviii. 749.
 
 SIMOX LORD LOVAT. 209 
 
 under tlie eye of those against whom he might probably 
 have an opportunity of leading them. He was not a man 
 likely to neglect his duty as colonel of his clan, and he 
 boasted to the House of Lords that General Wade and 
 two military friends had said that they " never did see 
 such a fine company in any country." After holding his 
 command for fifteen years, he was deprived of it. He 
 was not long afterwards removed from his office of 
 sheriff. Walpole, whose policy it was, in later life, not to 
 make treason conspicuous, had probably obtained from 
 time to time notice of his proceedings, and silently des- 
 poiled him one by one of his elements of power. The old 
 man seems to have been maddened and mortified by these 
 humiHations. After liis capture he said, speaking to Sir 
 Everard Fawkener about the removal of his commission, 
 " that if Kouh Khan had landed in Britain, he thought 
 that would have justified him to have joined him with 
 his clan, and he would have done it." To his friend 
 Erskine, of Tinwald, he breathed forth the followino- 
 notes of high-minded and decorous indignation. He was 
 a master of the grave and dignified in rhetoric, when he 
 chose, as well as of the fiercely indignant or the pathetic. 
 
 " I told you, my dear lord, before you went to London, that I 
 was persuaded that my disgrace would augment, because it began 
 without any just reason or foundation. I find that I guessed 
 light ; for the sheriffsliip of Inverness is taken from me, in 
 the same manner that my company was taken from me, and 
 that is, without attributing any faiilt to me, and the country is 
 surprised with the one as they were with the other, and really 
 strongly oflFended and affected. All I shall say of this part of my 
 disgrace is, that the king's service will suffer a great deal more 
 from it than I will ; for I can freely say, in face of the sun, that 
 I was fitter to be sheriff of that great and troublesome shire, to 
 keep it in peace and good order, than any one man beyond the 
 Grampians ; nay, I may say than any man in Scotland, for, be-
 
 210 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sides my own interest in the shire, all the principal gentlemen 
 ■who have estates in it are my near relations, and upon my account 
 were more diligent than ordinary to keep their country and 
 people in peace, so that except private theft, which can never be 
 curbed and extinguished without a particular act of Parliament 
 for that purpose, during the many years that I was sheriff there 
 were neither riots nor pubHc quai-rels, and there were few shires 
 in the north that could say the same. I can likewise say that 
 I was more than one himdred pounds a year out of pocket by the 
 sheriffship ; and all those that know my family, know that it was 
 no feather in my cap, for my ancestors were sheriff of Inverness 
 and Murray, sinrnl and semul* above three hundred years ago, 
 which appears by the charters of several gentlemen in both these 
 shires, so that I should now borrow the motto of Baron Ken- 
 nedy and his faimy, ' Fuimus. ' And what advantage the ad- 
 ministration has by taking it from me, is more than I can com- 
 prehend. 
 
 " I remember I begged your lordship, when you was going ta 
 London, if you found a proper occasion to tell the Earl of Islay, 
 who was for many years my patron and warm friend, that whatever 
 wrong impressions his lordship got of me, they were only the 
 product of lies and calumnies ; for I defy the devil and all the 
 men on earth to prove that ever I spoke a disrespectful word of 
 his lordship, but, on the contrary, as I really was his faithful 
 and zealous partisan, and not an useless one, I professed it 
 openly wherever I was, even in presence of his greatest ene- 
 mies ; and what I have done to fall into his displeasure, I declare 
 faithfully I do not know it, nor can it have any other foundation 
 than an unhappy prejudice founded upon calumnies and lies." 
 
 After reiterating his grievances in a somewhat tedious 
 
 manner, he thus bravely concludes : 
 
 " However, I bless God, that whatever I suffer, or may suffer, 
 no power can take away the comfort that I have of a clean 
 conscience and upright heart, that never betrayed a private man 
 nor a public cause ; and I believe those two great men have had 
 several partisans, whom they heaped with riches and honours, 
 that even abandoned themselves, and sometimes betrayed them, 
 I could name severals of tbem, that they cannot have forgot j 
 and while I was their partisan for many years, I defy them to 
 have the least ground of suspicion of my fidelity and zeal for 
 
 * So in the MS. but it should have been " gemel."
 
 % SIMON LORD LOVAT. 211 
 
 their persons and interest, and now the world sees my reward ; 
 but no disappointment of whatever kind can alter my upi-ight 
 way of thinking." * 
 
 Dr, Patrick Gumming of Relugas, a very eminent Pres- 
 byterian clergyman, was connected with Lovat by mar- 
 riage. In those days, when political events were guided 
 less by popular impulses than by the skill of statesmen, 
 every department had its manager; and in the Presby- 
 terian church there was always some chosen instrument 
 of the existing powers. Patrick Gumming, minister of St. 
 Giles', and professor of church history in the University, 
 of Edinburgh, appears to have been to the government of 
 Walpole that g-uide in ecclesiastical politics, and distributor 
 of patronage, which Garstares was under "WiUiam III. Such 
 a person was well worth courting, and of the sacrifices 
 which Lovat made in the cause, he gives us the follow- 
 ing picture in a letter of the 11th of September^ 1740: 
 
 *' Having gone on Sunday, the 7th of this month, without 
 a big coat j to the old kirk (which is one of the coldest kirks in 
 Edinburgh), to hear ]Mi'. Patrick Cumming's sermon, I catched 
 such a violent cold, that has almost already cost me my life, for 
 Monday and Tuesday thereafter I had such a violent cough 
 without a minute's intermission that rent my head and bowels to 
 pieces, and 1 am persuaded no man ever had such a violent cough 
 without half a minute's intermission, as I had on Monday from 
 morning till eight o'clock at night, and if it had continued 
 all that night 1 am persuaded I had died of it."| 
 
 The reader shall now be put in possession of more 
 tangible evidence of his desire to secure the favour of this 
 important personage. The following letters addressed to 
 him, are worthy of being compared with the others from 
 the pen of the same author. They are calm, grave, una- 
 dorned with imprecations or declamatory periods, and in all 
 
 * Jacobite Correspondence of the Atholl family. 
 jl.e.a great coat. + Miscellany of the Spalding'Club, ii. 9. 
 
 p2
 
 212 THE LIFE OF (§ 
 
 respects written in a style and spirit adapted to the profession 
 and character of the person to whom they were addressed. ' 
 
 " Reverend and Dear Cousin, — I hope this will find you 
 and your worthy lady, and your lovely children in perfect 
 health, and 1 beg leave to assure you and them of my most 
 affectionate respects, and that of this family's. The last year, 
 when by the lies and calumnies of some of my own kinsmen, 
 my Lord Islay was made to believe that I was resolved to send 
 my son to France, to breed him after the manner of that coun- 
 try, which I no more thought of than to drown him in the river 
 of Beauhe ; yet this false information made my Lord Islay 
 write to me as my friend, and as a minister, that he thought 
 it proper I shoidd send my son to be bred in England, to take 
 off the bad impressions that Sir Robert Walpole had got of me 
 as to my affection to the government. I told my Lord Islay 
 that the bad impressions that Sir Robert had got of me, were 
 only founded upon lies and calumnies. That I was as faithful 
 a subject as he was, and that in my own capacity I had done 
 as good service to the king and government as any of my own 
 rank in the island, and that therefore I would not send my son 
 to England as a hostage of my fidelity, which I defyed the 
 world to attack with justice and equity, but that if my son was 
 stronger and a few years older, I woidd send him to his lord- 
 ship to be bred in the manner that he pleased. In the mean- 
 time I asked leave to send him for a twelvemonth to Glasgow, to 
 Principal Campbell, where I believed he would be very happy ; 
 but I was strangely mistaken, for they have turned the child's 
 head, and filled him with pride, vanity, and luxury. I suppose 
 they tell him that he is the chief of a numerous clan, and heir 
 to a great estate. Poor man, he little considers what pains and 
 trouble it cost me to get my estate, for it is by the miraculous 
 providence of God that I possess what I have. After a vast 
 fatigue, labour, and industry, I truly yet owe 7 or 8000/. sterling. 
 It is true that is no insurmountable debt on such a great estate 
 as mine is at present, with good management ; but if I should 
 die, and that my son should come into the estate with a young 
 head turned to vanity and luxury, he woidd soon make him- 
 self miserable, his estate would be in his creditors' hands, and 
 his kindred would become despicable, whereas if he is rightly 
 educated, without pride and the ordinary vices that follow it, 
 he may make the best of figures absolutely of any man this side
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 213 
 
 of the Grampians, for if I live four or five years, I'll leave him 
 an estate of betwixt 40 and 50,000 merks a year free rent, and 
 the most improvable of any estate in the north of Scotland, and 
 the best situate. All this makes me resolve positively to have 
 my son educated after my own manner, that is a true Scotch- 
 man and a Highlander, for I had as rather see him buried as 
 see him bred a thorough Englishman. For this reason I in- 
 tend to bring him immediately from Glasgow to Edinburgh. 
 I have acquainted my Lord Islay and my friends at London 
 of it ; Sir James Grant, Sir Robert Monro, and Col. John 
 Campbell, my brother-in-law; and I wrote to them all that I 
 was to bring him to Edinburgh, and if I could prevail with you 
 as my relation to accept of him, that I would settle him with 
 you ; and if you refused to receive him, I would endeavour to 
 settle him with 3Ir. Kerr, Professor of Humanity, who is my 
 friend ; and I wrote that you were both good Whigs, and 
 friends to my Lord Islay. Now, my dear cousin, I come to the 
 point ; I beg you may consider that your mother and great 
 grand-mother were daughters of the family of Lovat, and by 
 consequence that my blood runs doubly in your veins. Besides, 
 I hope you believe that I have a very sincere esteem and re- 
 spect for your person and merit. After what I have said, I 
 hope you cannot take it amiss that I should most earnestly 
 beg of you to receive my eldest son into your family, which 
 ■would be an inexpressible comfort to me, and a great ease of 
 mind, since I am fully convinced that no man in Scotland can 
 direct or instruct him better, as to every thing that a man of 
 quality should know, that is the head of a good family, and 
 the chief of a brave people, than you can do; so that I would be 
 entirely easy and settled in my mind if he was with you, as if 
 he w^as with myself every day ; and I know your worthy lady 
 is so good a woman, that she would take as great care of him 
 as she would of a family of her own children; so I beg of you, 
 my dear cousin, not to refuse my earnest request, which is so 
 essential for the welfare of the family of Lovat, and of the name 
 of Eraser, to whom you are more than once related. And as 
 to his board, &c., you shall have carte blaiiche, and regulate 
 every thing according as you please; and my cousin, William 
 Eraser, who is my doer, and gives you this letter, will pay you 
 punctually. 
 
 " I shall be mighty impatient till I have the honour to hear 
 from you, for upon your answer my future satisfaction very
 
 214 THE LIFE OF 
 
 much depends ; and I hope you believe that I am, with the 
 utmost esteem, attachment, and respect, 
 " Reverend and dear sir, your 
 
 " Most affectionate Cousin, and most 
 " Obedient faithful, humble servant, 
 
 " Lovat: 
 "Beaufort, the 6th of April, 1739." 
 
 He must have made himself very sure that Dr. Gum- 
 ming would not accept of the proposed charge, ere he 
 committed himself to so very persuasive a letter. The 
 answer was no doubt according to his expectations and 
 calculations, and drew from him a rejoinder, in which, 
 after repeating his views of the expediency of the arrange- 
 ments, and expressing his regret that it cannot be fol- 
 lowed out, he says, 
 
 " I had a letter from the Laird of Mackintosh, of which I 
 send you a copy, recommending one Mr. Menzies to be gover- 
 nor to my son ; he says that he speaks and understands the 
 Irish language, and I do assure you, dear cousin, that that is a 
 qualification that I love much, and that I'll prefer any man 
 that has it, to a man that wants it, cceteris paribus, as to 
 other necessary qualifications. 
 
 " After what 1 have said, dear cousin, I refer entirely to you 
 and to Dr. Clerk to fix a governor with my son ; I shall most 
 willingly give him 25Z. a-year as you propose, and go into any 
 other condition that you shall think proper. But I beg again 
 to put you in mind, that I had rather ha^e the man that speaks 
 Irish, than another, providing you know him equally deserving. 
 I am sorry my child should want a governor so long, though 
 he has one Mr. Finlayson that confers with him every night ; 
 so I shall long, dear cousin, to hear from you on this subject, 
 with your full and free opinion and advice in this affair, that is of 
 the greatest consequence to me, and to my family, of any in life. 
 
 " I earnestly beg pardon for this freedom and trouble, and 
 beUeve that I am with unalterable attachment and respect, 
 
 " Reverend and dear sir, 
 " Your most affectionate cousin, 
 " Most obedient and most obMged humble servant, 
 
 " LovAT.* 
 
 *' Beaufort, April 11, 1740." 
 
 * Originals in possession of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 215 
 
 In 1740, -when lie was in Edinbiirgli, he had. in- 
 terviews with the *' ilhistrious brothers," Argylc and 
 Islay respectively, and conducted himself with his usual 
 ability. At the duke's levee, he met a Dr. Charles 
 Stuart. " The duke out of joke would fain have put us 
 by the ears, because he said we were both Jacobites, and 
 that he would learn something from our quarrel." A 
 person of inferior genius who had just despatched a letter 
 full of fidehty to the exiled house, which was probably 
 Lovat's last occupation, might have been confused, and at 
 all events have denied the accusation ; but he was too great 
 an artist, — he chimed in with the tone of jocularity. " I 
 told him that the doctor and I knew one another too well 
 to be bit that way." Then resuming his grave tone he 
 continued, " I told the duke that the doctor was the 
 happiest man in the world ; that he always was a Jaco- 
 bite ; that he is a Jacobite; and that he always will be a 
 Jacobite while he lives; and yet that he is a favourite 
 with all the great men of the court, and of the govern- 
 ment, and if a lying scoundrel said that my Lord Lovat 
 was a Jacobite, he was persecuted for it without any more 
 inquiry."* 
 
 In Ids interview with Islay, he was severely tried. " I 
 was several days there, and saw him take in a great many 
 people to his closet, one after another, but he never called 
 me, so when the levy began to grow thin, I went off 
 without saying any thing. At last, about a fortnight ago, 
 lie took me by the sleeve, and bade me go and speak to 
 him in his closet." At this interview he was flatly ac- 
 cused of Jacobitism. 
 
 " He said that my house was a Jacobite house ; that the 
 discourse of those in my house Avas Jacobitism, and that I cou- 
 
 * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, ii. 6.
 
 216 THE LIFE OF 
 
 versed with nobody but with Jacobites. He owned to me that 
 the villain Castleleaders told him the strangest things upon 
 this subject ; I answered his lordship, that Castleleaders was 
 such a known liar and rogue in the country, that no honest man 
 would drink with him ; his lordship told me that the Jacobites 
 themselves said openly that I was a Jacobite ; I answered him, 
 that the Jacobites had reason to call every man a Jacobite, that 
 they might endeavour to draw him to their party. He then, 
 told me, that the first minister had intelligence from abroad of 
 my correspondence with the Pretender. I answered his lord- 
 ship with a little warmth, that these stories were but damned 
 calumnies and lies, and that I did not for many years write a 
 letter to any person beyond sea, which indeed is true." 
 
 We may divide his politics at this period into esoteric 
 and exoteric. The former was for his brethren the Jaco- 
 biteSj and expressed in secret fraternal communion. The 
 latter was the principle of practical politics, which he 
 might avow to the world. After the indignity oiFered ta 
 Scotland, at the period of the Porteus mob, a patriot 
 or opposition party, separate from the Jacobite, had made 
 great progress. Argyle was at its head, while his brother 
 Islay remained with the court. It was a very serious 
 question with Lovat, to which of these branches he should 
 adhere. The interview with Islay decided the question. 
 It gave no hope of the restoration of his sheriffship or in- 
 dependent company ; and he says to his correspondent — 
 
 " I must now tell you that when I came here, I was not 
 determined to dispose absolutely of myself for some time ; but 
 when I found the Duke of Argyle at the head of the greatest 
 families, tlie richest families, and the most powerful families in 
 the kingdom, openly prcjclaiming and owning in the face of the 
 sun, that he and they were resolved in any event, to stand for 
 and endeavour to recover the liberty of their country, which is 
 enslaved by tlie tyranny and oppression of a wicked minister, 
 I own my heart and inclination warmed very much to that 
 side ; and on the other hand, when I found that the minister 
 for the court, the Earl of Islay, said nothing to me that re- 
 garded my person or family, but that the first minister accused
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 217 
 
 me of being- a Jacobite, and tbat James Fraser, of Castleleaderg 
 that infamous liar and informer, had told to himself the strongest 
 things of me upon that subject, which I answered Aery cava- 
 lierly, both as to the first minister, and as to his lordship, and 
 when I found that he asked nothing of me, nor promised me 
 any eqvuvalent for my company, or any other particular favour, 
 I then plainly concluded that he left me to myself to do what 
 I thought fit." 
 
 He had some impediments to overcome, ere he was 
 received into companionship with such men as the Dukes 
 of Hamilton, Montrose, Bucclcugh, Queensberry, and 
 Roxburgh, with Lords Tweeddale, Anandale, Aberdeen, 
 and Marchment; but he was finally successful, and thus 
 txiumphantly records his enrollment. 
 
 " I am now, my dear cousin, at the end of ray project. You 
 see me embanked over head and ears with the noble party of 
 the Patriots, and you see me i-eceived with open arms, even 
 with the great families that were my enemies, who will not 
 only be my steadfast friends, but will continue for their own 
 sakes friends to my son, and to my family ; so that I humbly 
 think, that by God's help, I have done the greatest service to 
 my son and family that was possible for me to do, which I hope 
 will redound to the interest, honour, and glory of my kindred. 
 After I found that those great men received me with open 
 arms, I thought I would not in honour go into their party with 
 bare brix. I told them that I would not only give them my 
 vote, but that I hoped to gain them the Shire of Inverness, by 
 choosing my cousin, the Laird of Maclod, as member ; you 
 see now, my dear cousin, that the election of Inverness-shire 
 is mine more than the Laird of Macleod's, and that every man 
 that wishes me well, and my family and kindred, should sup- 
 port me in carrying that election for the Laird of Macleod." 
 
 The opposite candidate was Sir James Grant, of Grant, 
 the representative of the family to which Lovat's pre- 
 vious wife belonged. Lovat was not one who carried on 
 trifling wars, and the strong measures he proposed to 
 adopt, give us an additional insight, if any were neces- 
 sary, to his system of practical ethics. " Glenbucket,"
 
 218 THE LIFE OF 
 
 he says, " did me tlie honour to make me two visits, and 
 we spoke seriously on this subject, and Glenbucket is 
 afraid that neither Sir Alexander Macdonald nor Glen- 
 garry will qualify. In that case, we will lose our election; 
 but I entreat that you speak seriously to my lord, that he 
 may engage Glenbucket to write strongly to Glengarry, 
 to persuade him to take the oaths. I know he has no re- 
 gard for them, so he should not stand to take a cart-load of 
 them^ as I would do to serve my friends."^ 
 
 Let us exhibit on the best of all authority — Lovat's own 
 confidential letters — the dangers incurred by any gen- 
 tleman of his clan who mioht differ with him in election 
 pohtics. In tliis struggle for the Laird of Macleod, in 
 opposition to Sir James Grant, in 1740, Mr. Fraser of 
 Fairfield, the o-wner of a small estate near Inverness, who 
 should of course have taken the party of liis chief, 
 
 " took his journey by Castle Grant, and for a promise that 
 the Laird made him of an ensigncy to his son, the poor 
 covetous, narrow, greedy wretch, has renounced his chief and 
 his kindred. * * * He then discovered himself 
 to be an unnatural traitor, an Infamous deserter, and an un- 
 grateful wretch to me, his chief, who had done him such signal 
 servaces. * * He should be hanged for deserting of 
 me to serve any Grant that ever was born, or any other Scots- 
 man. William Fraser, my doer, haAang told me that the Laird 
 of Grant had promised him an ensign's commission for his son, 
 providing that he would vote for his father, and that he 
 believed, that if I would secure an ensign's commission for his 
 son, that he never would vote for the Laird of Grant, this made 
 me resolve to speak to him before his cousin Mr. Gumming, 
 and my doer, William Fraser. I told Fairfield that I was far 
 from desiring Ills loss, or any hurt to his family; that since the 
 Laird of Grant promised him an ensign's commission for his 
 son, that I would do better. Grant's promise was precarious, 
 but, that that moment, before his cousin Mr. Gumming, I 
 would give liim my bond for 500^. sterling, obliging myself 
 
 * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, 4 — IS.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 219 
 
 to get his son, an ensign's commission in two months, or to 
 give Iiim the full value of it in money, to buy it for liis son. 
 He then most insolently and vUIanously told me that he could 
 not accept of it, that he was under previous engagements to 
 the Laird of Grant, and that he must keep them." 
 
 The insolence and villanj of refusing the preferred 
 bribe, did, Lovat admits, put him " in some passion." 
 His first glance is towards the law, and he hints that 
 lie may be able to wrest Fairfield's estate out of his hand. 
 He alludes to the recusant having once proposed to sell 
 it, when he interposed, " I would not allow him to 
 sell it to a stranger, because I had a strong claim upon it, 
 that I believe will reduce the rights of it when I please, 
 and that, whoever bought it, I would spend a thousand 
 pounds to make my claim good ;" and he says, chuckling, 
 that new documents have been put into his hands, tending 
 to strengthen his claim, " so that Fairfield is as mad as he 
 is unnatural and ungrateful." But more frightful terrors 
 hanging over poor Fairfield's head, are intimated in the 
 following ominous passage. 
 
 " All my fear at present is, that my cousin Gortuleg, who 
 certainly is the prettiest fellow of my kindred in the Highlands, 
 will fall foul of Fairfield, who I believe is stout, which is the only 
 good quality that I can imagine he has, and in all events if 
 they tight, Fairfield is undone, for if Gortuleg kills liim there 
 is an end of him ; or if he kills Gortuleg, the universe cannot 
 save his life if he stays in this island; for Gortuleg has foiu? 
 cousin-Germans, the most bold and desperate fellows of the 
 whole name, who would take off Fairfield's head at the cross of 
 Inverness, if they were to be hanged for it next moi'ning ; I 
 know them well, for they have been very troublesome to me with 
 their blood duels. I beg you ten thousand pardons, my dear 
 cousin, for this very long letter; but I entreat you, seriously, 
 consider of all that is in it, and after mature deliberation,'! beg 
 you may send an express to your sister, and write to her and 
 to Fairfield, what you think proper upon the subject of 
 this letter."
 
 220 THE LIFE OF 
 
 In a letter dated a few days later, lie details a brief 
 dialogue, that makes one shudder. " Duke Hamilton and 
 several other lords asked me, in a joking way, whether 
 that fellow that has deserted his chief and his clan is still 
 alive or not, I answered that he was, by my precise and 
 express orders — and I said but what was true."* 
 
 * Miscellany of the Spalding Club, ii. 10—27.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 221 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Beginning of the Rebellion — Misgivings about the Prince's poor Land- 
 ing — The Lord Advocate and Duncan Forbes — Preston Pans — The 
 Determination of Lovat — The Gathering of the Clan — Attack on Cul- 
 loden House — Correspondence with Duncan Forbes — Duncan's Advice 
 and Threats — Lovat's Conduct to his Son — Imprisonment — Escape — 
 Doubts and Dissatisfaction — A Cold CoUation for the Prince — Their 
 First Meeting after the Battle of Culloden — The Flight— The Seizure 
 — The Sorrows of the Clan — The Journey — Anecdotes — Hogarth — 
 The Tower — The Impeachment — The Closing Scene. 
 
 In reference to the breaklnfv out of the insurrection of 
 1745, Lord Stair wrote to Lord Loudon, "I own to you 
 my opinion would always have been, preferable to every- 
 thing, to have disarmed the Erasers, and to have secured 
 my friend Lord Lovat, which I should have imagined 
 •would not have been disagreeable to him."* If the go- 
 vernment had confined him in the gaol of Liverness, they 
 would have done a great service to him ; for he might then 
 have referred to his imprisonment as a sufficient excuse for 
 not joining the chevalier, and he could have escaped 
 whenever he desired to make an open demonstration. 
 Left as he was to his own guidance, he felt himself in a 
 most painful state of equilibrium, between liis choice and his 
 interest. Tlie plan for the restoration of the house of Stuart, 
 of which he had more than forty years previously been 
 the inventor, was a rising in the Highlands, co-operating 
 with a Erench invasion, and supported by abundance of 
 French money. In the meagre landing of the prince, he 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House.
 
 222 THE LIFE OF 
 
 missed two of the elements of his plan, and thought the 
 third also would be deficient. A witness at his trial said, 
 " Sometime after the 25th of July, 1745, 1 heard a gentle- 
 man came to my Lord Lovat's house, to tell him, that the 
 Pretender's son was landed somewhere about Lochaber. 
 I heard my Lord Lovat say he did not land hke a prince; 
 that he had no army with him, and only a few servants."* 
 This corresponds with the tone of the following letter to 
 Lochiel-t 
 
 ^^ September, 1745. 
 " Dear Lochiel, — I fear you have been ower rash lu going 
 ere affairs were ripe. You are in a dangerous state. The 
 Elector's General, Cope, is in your rear, hanging at y^ tail, 
 w* 3000 men, such as have not been seen heir since Dundee's 
 affair, and we have no force to meet him. If ye Macpherson's 
 Vi^ take y® field, I w'^ bring out my lads to help y® wark, 
 and twixt y^ twa we might cause Cope to keep his Xmas 
 here. But only Cluny is earnest in y® cause, and my Lord 
 Advocat plays at cat and mouse w* me ; but times may 
 change, and I may bring him to y^ St. Johnstone's tippet. 
 Meantime, look to yourselves, for ye may expect many a sour 
 face and sharp weapon in y*' south. I'U aid when I can, but 
 my prayers are all I can give at present. My service to y® 
 prince, but I wish he had not come heir soe empty-handed. 
 Siller would go far in the Highlands. I send this be Ewan 
 Fraser, w™ I have charged to give it to yourself; for were 
 Duncan to find it, it w'^ be my head to an onion. Fare- 
 well. 
 
 "Your faithful friend, 
 
 "LoVAT."$ 
 
 The Lord Advocate mentioned in this letter, Mr. 
 
 * State Trials, xviii. .598. f Anderson, p.l50. 
 
 X This letter, which Sir Walter Scott considered very characteristic 
 of Lovat, was first published in 1825, in Mr. Anderson's history. It 
 appeared to the present author to be just too characteristic, and to be a 
 sort of concentration of the most usual expressions, which Lovat would 
 te likely to have dispersed over a larger space. On application to the 
 gentleman to whom it had belonged, it was found that the MS. had 
 unfortunately been lost, and there was thus no opportunity of testing 
 its genuineness by its appearancCt
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 223 
 
 Craigie, of Glendoick, wrote to Lovat on the 15tli of Au- 
 gust, hoping that his old zeal for the government ■would 
 prompt him to exert his well-known influence in the 
 Highlands in this emergency. The Lord Advocate's 
 letter is hesitating and diffident. He speaks of his cor- 
 respondent having " ground of complaint" " against par- 
 ticular persons," which may happily be dropped during 
 the general emergency. Lovat 's answer is open, manly, 
 and unreserved. " Your lordship," he says, "judges right 
 when you believe that no hardship or ill-usage that I meet 
 with, can alter or diminish my zeal and attachment for 
 his majesty's person and government." Yet, like an ho- 
 nest man who has been subjected to unworthy suspicions, 
 he is bound to say : 
 
 " My clan and I have been so neglected these many years 
 past, that I have not twelve stand of arms in my country, 
 though I thank God I could bring 1200 good men to the field 
 for the king's service, if I had arms and other accoutrements 
 for them. Therefore, my good lord, I earnestly entreat, that 
 as you wish that I would do good service to the government on 
 this critical occasion, you may order immediately a thousand 
 stand of arms to be delivered to me and my clan at Inverness, 
 and then your lordship shall see that I wUl exert myself for the 
 king's service."* 
 
 Perhaps there is no other instance on record, of a 
 government being so ingeniously asked for weapons to 
 be turned against itself. Hogarth would have travelled 
 to Castle Dounie to see the expression of the old man's 
 face when he penned the equivocation of " The Kings 
 service." 
 
 In August, we find him commencing very actively a 
 correspondence with Duncan Forbes. A long letter of 
 the 24th consists of several elements. First, he is at great 
 pains, out of his zeal for the government, to make secret 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 210.
 
 224 THE LIFE OF 
 
 .nquiries about the resources and prospects of the rebels, 
 and he finds them very formidable. " After writing my 
 letter yesterday, I conversed very seriously with the man 
 I mentioned in my letter, who is a very sagacious, sly, 
 cunning, intelligent man. * * * He says that he does 
 not believe that there are three clans in the Highlands 
 but will send their men to them, whether the claiefs go or 
 not. * * * He says that they expect succour from Spain 
 and France every day." In the next place he is in great 
 dread of persecution for his fidelity to the government, for 
 he hears that " these mad people," and " their pretended 
 prince," " were resolved to burn and destroy all the coun- 
 try, where the men would not join them, with fire and 
 sword ; which truly frights me much." Lastly, he finds 
 symptoms of insubordination among his own people. "I 
 have but melancholy news to tell you, my dear lord, of 
 my own country, for I have a strong report that mad. 
 Foyers is either gone, or preparing to go, to the west ; 
 and I have the same report of poor Kilbokie, but I don't 
 believe it."* In answer, his sagacious correspondent re- 
 minds him how effectually he was able to lead his clan 
 in the right direction, in 1715, against stronger influences; 
 and suggests, that if he and they have resolved to do their 
 duty, they need not fear any hostile interference by others. 
 A few days afterwards, Forbes wrote to recommend that his 
 friend should be in readiness to join Sir John Cope in his 
 march southwards, and received an answer with this very 
 amusing exordium : 
 
 " I was so very bad all day yesterday and last night, that I 
 did not expect to see the light of this day ; so that it was this 
 morning before I had tlie honour of your letter put into my 
 hand ; and am glad to find, that though I be tormented to 
 death with boils on my body, which makes me feverish and most 
 
 * Cullodcn Papers, 211.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 225 
 
 uneasy, yet that your lordship is in perfect health, which I wish 
 the continuance of ; as should all those that love their country 
 do, being more viseful and valuable to the commonwealth than 
 a thousand like mine. 
 
 " Since Sir John Cope has such a powerful army, I hope our 
 desperate countrymen will aA'oid to see him ; but if they are so 
 mad as to fight, that unfortunate prince must fall with the bravest 
 of his adherents most foolishly. I own I must regret my dear 
 cousin Lochiel, who, contrary to his promise to me, engaged in 
 this mad enterprise ; but if Sir John Cope is beat (which I 
 think next to impossible) this desperate prince will be the occa- 
 sion of much bloodshed, which I pray God may avert ; for to 
 have bloodshed in our bowels is a horrible thing, to anv man 
 that loves Scotland, or has a good stake in it, as yom* lordship 
 and I have. Therefore, I pray God tliat we may not have a civil 
 war in Scotland ; this has been my constant wish ever since I 
 had the use of my reason, and it shall be the same while there 
 is breath in me ; so that they must be damnably ignorant of 
 the principles of my heart and soul, who can imagine tliat I 
 "would endeavour to promote a civil war in my country."* 
 
 Again we find liim amusing liimself with ingenious 
 equivocations. " Now, my dear lord, as to what you desire 
 me, of acquainting all my people to be in readiness, I do 
 assure you that I did so immediately after coming from 
 Inverness; but, to obey your commands, I have sent my 
 officers this day with orders to them to be ready when I 
 should call for them; and I ordered them to make short 
 coats and hose, and to put aside their long coats, and to 
 get as many swords and dirks as they could find out.'^* 
 This was, no doubt, quite true ; but the writer reserved for 
 his own bosom the purpose to which the preparations were 
 directed. 
 
 There is now a pause in the correspondence, for the 
 prospects of the Chevalier were appearing rather less mise- 
 rable. On the 19th of September, Forbes wrote to say- 
 that, having just received a power to dispose of indepen- 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 214, 215. t Culloden Papers, 215. 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE LIFE OF 
 
 dent companies, one of tliem was at his friend's disposal, and 
 he was anxious to hear his views, and if he was to accept, 
 to have the names of the persons for whom he desired com- 
 missions as captains and subaltern officers. He mentions, 
 at the same time, certain curious rumours — not of course 
 to be credited, but indicating how cautious people should 
 be, in these difficult times, to avoid actions which may 
 admit of evil interpretations. The report was, that Lovat's 
 Stratherick men were immediately to join the rebels, and 
 that, as his health was bad, and the master of Eraser but 
 a youth, they were to be commanded by Fraser of Invera- 
 lochie.* The answer, at variance with the writer's usually 
 decisive tone, evades either an acceptance, or rejection of 
 the company. He says, that his cousin Macleod knows 
 his resolution on the subject, and can give his views twenty 
 times more fully than he himself could do in a letter; and he 
 therefore refers to Macleod for an answer — an excellent 
 plan for gaining time, as he might afterwards, if he chose, 
 maintain that Macleod was not authorised to decline the 
 proposal. On the other matter, he is more emphatic. 
 " 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 that I was going to join 
 Koull Khan ;" and he concludes with his reasons for lately 
 having had intercourse with his cousin Invcralochle, "being 
 determined, as soon as I can, as I have been all this season, 
 to go south, and from that to England, and from that to 
 France (if I get leave), for the benefit of my health ; I 
 sent for Invcralochle to be witness to Evan Baillie's draw- 
 ing up the papers concerning my estate, because it's ten to 
 * Culloden Tapers, 222.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 227 
 
 one if I ever come back to tliis country after going out of 
 it."* 
 
 The battle of Preston Pans, fought on the 21st of 
 September, was the turning point of Lovat's policy. 
 Tlie unwilling witnesses examined about his conduct 
 within the walls of Castle Dounie, said he called it the 
 greatest victory that had ever been gained, and said 
 the prince would undoubtedly prevail. Bumpers were 
 di-unk to the triumph of the enterprise, and to the con- 
 fusion of the White Horse of Hanover. A gentleman 
 present observed, that the prince's success depended much 
 on the chief " throwing off the mask." On this the wit- 
 ness continues, " My Lord Lovat I saw take off his hat, 
 and put it upon the ground, and heard him say — there it 
 is thcn."t All was now activity at Castle Dounie. Cer- 
 tain " bell tents" were prepared, and colours painted, 
 with the blazon of the Lovat arms. The fiery cross was 
 sent round, and the usual threats employed against 
 those who were obstinate or indolent. In a short time 
 700 men Avere drilled on the green of Castle Dounie, 
 with white cockades and sprigs of yew| in their bonnets. § 
 He had now a truly hazardous game to play; for 
 whereas he had formerly but to conceal his intentions, an 
 easy task, he had now to conceal his actions. He at- 
 tempted the formidable task of sending his clan to join 
 the ChevaHer, without compromising himself in the re- 
 bellion, should it prove unsuccessful. In some stages of 
 
 » Culloden Papers, 410. t State Trials, xviii., 676-7. 
 
 X It is in allusion to this clan badge, that Scott makes Flora Mac 
 Ivor say, in her gathering song — 
 
 " How Mac-Shimei will joy when their chief shall display, 
 The yew-crested bonnet o'er tresses of grey !" 
 The use of the patronymic title is a piece of poetical skill — an allu- 
 sion to the name of Lovat, might have broken the spell of high-toned 
 devotion which pervades this powerful lyric. 
 § State Trials, xviii. 676, 683, 685. 
 
 Q2
 
 228 THE LIFE OF 
 
 society, it has been deemed the perfection of virtue to sacri- 
 fice, for the propitiation of higher powers, whatever object 
 a man held most dear to him. In conformity with this 
 principle, Lovat resolved to make a sacrifice of his son, a 
 fine young man of nineteen, to save himself The pro- 
 ject was, that the young man should " go out" with the 
 clan. If the Jacobites were successful, who could claim 
 greater merit tlian an old infirm man sending his son and 
 heir to fight his battles? if they were unsuccessful, he 
 might declare that the youth had rebelled against him. 
 Fully able to describe, however he may have felt, the 
 value of the sacrifice, he wrote both to the prince, and to 
 his secretary, Murray of Broughton, in the same tone; 
 but as the letter to his secretary is the more unreserved 
 and expressive, we make our extract from it. 
 
 " I solemnly protest, dear sir, that it was the greatest grief 
 of my life, that ray indisposition and severe sickness kept me 
 from going south to my dear brave prince, and never parting -with 
 lilm while I was able to stand, but venture my old bones with 
 pleasure in his service, and before his eyes, wliile I had the least 
 breath within me ; but when I found that by pains and weak- 
 ness in my knees, I lost the use of my limbs, 1 resolved to give 
 a proof of my singular zeal for my dear master the king, and 
 for my brave glorious prince, that I truly believe few or none 
 in Scotland would do but myself. I send my eldest son, the 
 hopes of my family, and the darling of my life, a youth about 
 nineteen years old, who was just going abroad to finish his 
 studies and education, after having learned with applause what 
 is taught in our Scots' Universities, and was graduate Master 
 of Arts. But instead of sending him abroad to complete his 
 education, I have sent him to venture the last drop of his 
 blood In the glorious prince's service ; and as he is extremely 
 beloved, and the darling of tlie clan, all the gentlemen of my 
 name and clan (which 1 thank God ! are numerous and look 
 well, and always believed to be as stout as their neighbours) 
 are gone with liim. 
 
 "■ There is not the head of an old family or tribe of my
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 229 
 
 name ant! clan in this country that have stayed at home ; only 
 a few old gentlemen, infirm like myself, that were not able to 
 travel ; and as my son is adored by the common people of mv 
 clan, he has brought along with him a considerable number of 
 the best of them, in two handsome battalions ; and if they 
 were as well armed and equipped as I could wish, they would 
 look as well as any clan that went south this year ; for as I 
 possess the largest and best estate in the shire, I have a great 
 number of commons on my property, about 1500 good and 
 bad ; and that which is very singular, is, that in that 1500, 
 there are not 30 but what are Erasers, which no chief in the 
 Highlands can say of his clan but myself; for most of them 
 are mixed with men of all the other clans."* 
 
 While these matters were in progress, he wrote in these 
 terms to Duncan Forbes, concerning some rumours tliat 
 iie was preparing to join the rebels: 
 
 *' There has been several villanous, malicious, and ridicu- 
 lous reports that vexed me ver^' much ; but as there was no 
 thing ever out of hell more false, I despise them, and the scoun- 
 di'cls that invented them — and since the whole business, trade, 
 and conversation of many in Inverness is to invent and tell lies, 
 I hope your lordship will believe no ill or mean thing of me till 
 jou have a real and infallible proof of it, as I am resolved that 
 this shall be my conduct towards your lordship — and if your 
 lordship pleases, let us live together, as we did since you came 
 north, communicating to one another what news we hear, and 
 inquiring for one another's health. "| 
 
 To this Forbes answers that the tales had made no 
 further impression " than to iuduce me to take that sort 
 of care of myself, without which I should have been 
 laughed at.'^ He fortified and garrisoned his castle at 
 CuUoden, and found that he had taken his precautions 
 just in time. A i^ew days later, a midnight attack was 
 made on him by the Erasers, who, not carrying their 
 purpose by the first fierce onset, after the usual practice 
 of Highland warfare, abandoned the main enterprise, and 
 
 • State Trials, xviii., 748-9. f Culloden Tapers, p. 228.
 
 230 THE LIFE OF 
 
 contented tliemselves -with minor depredations. The at- 
 tempt elicited this quiet and dignified remonstrance : 
 
 "Culloden, 1 8th of October, 1745. 
 " My Lord, — I would have acquainted your lordship sooner 
 of the idle attempt that was made on this house in the night be- 
 tween Tuesday and Wednesday last, by my relation, Foyers, 
 and some others, whom your lordship acquainted me some time 
 ago you could hardly govern ; but that I very well know it would 
 give your lordship more pain than it did me — though no man 
 of common equity, who knows that they carried off my sheep, 
 robbed my gardener, and the poor weaver, who is a common 
 benefit to the country, and carried off some of my tenants* 
 cattle, will imaoine that there Avas the least countenance from 
 any one about your lordship to this transaction ; nor should I 
 now give you any trouble on a subject so disagreeable, but that I 
 am teased every hour with reports that the gentlemen who 
 failed of their principal aim, give it now out that they are to 
 pillage, burn, and destroy my innocent tenants. These reports 
 I confess I give no credit to, knowing that I never deserved 
 any such usage at the hands of those who are said to intend it ; 
 but as things very unforeseen now-a-days happen, I have judged 
 it proper to acquaint your lordship with what I hear, in 
 full confidence that you will take as much pains to prevent 
 such hurt to me and my tenants as 1 most undoubtedly should 
 to prevent damage to your lordship, or to any one that belongs 
 to you. I have no news supported by such authority as is 
 fit to convince you, whose faith is on one side stronger, and on 
 another weaker than mine, else I should give you them. But 
 I hear enough to satisfy me that our unhappy contentions 
 will soon be at an end. God grant they may end with as 
 little liarm to our poor countiy as possible. I need not repeat 
 what I am so often assured that I am, to your lordship and 
 your family, a real well-wisher, &c."* 
 
 It may be questioned if Lovat himself instigated this 
 outrage. His clan, knowing that now he was on the op- 
 posite side from that of his old friend, would conceive it 
 their duty to act immediately in the quarrel. His relative^ 
 Norman Macleod, who must have known him well, and 
 
 * Culloden Papers, p. 230.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 231 
 
 would not be easily deceived, -wrote thus to Forbes, with 
 ■whom he was on confidential terms : 
 
 " Lord Lovat, my friend, seems to be in vast anxiety 
 about it, and with great reason, as he is apprehensive his 
 Stratherick men were the actors. If that is so, I persuade 
 myself he will do all in his power to bring them to justice. 
 His letter to me on that head is very strong, and had I 
 not lent it, with the other pieces of news I got last night, to 
 Sir Alexander, would in justice to him have sent a 
 copy of it."-"^ 
 
 And at the trial a witness, WilUam "Walker, said, " my 
 Lord Lovat knew nothing of it. It was Fraser of Byer- 
 field who took as many of the men as he could get to the 
 Castle of Culloden, in order to take the Lord President 
 prisoner; but my Lord Lovat knew nothing of that; for 
 when he heard of it he was like to go mad ; he cursed for 
 a matter of two hours, and we had no peace with him."f 
 In fact, it was a false move, and one of which so great a 
 tactitian as Lovat would have been ashamed. To such a 
 view, of course, his own protestations add no strength, 
 though they are worth quoting, especially for their em- 
 phatic conclusion. 
 
 " Truly the generous and moderate way that your lordship 
 writes of that base, barbarous, inhuman, and distracted attempt 
 and behaviour of the Stratherick men at Culloden, rather aug- 
 ments my trouble of mind and vexation than diminishes it ; for 
 I could never imagine that any man that had the honour to know 
 of your lordship, or to hear of you, should be so villanous and 
 imnatural as to hurt your lordsliip, or the meanest person be- 
 longing to your lordship ; since your goodness and liberality to 
 mankind in distress is as well known as your name and em- 
 ployment ; so that those that acted this villanous attempt and 
 plunder has been ruffians without the fear of God or man, and 
 they -svill have what they deserve some day or other." 
 
 After offering to divide a hundred fat wedders with the 
 * MS. at CuUoden House. t State Trials, xviii., G91.
 
 232 THE LIFE OF 
 
 president, and otlierwise to replace the loss lie has sus- 
 tained, he gives a very shrewd and able essay on cattle- 
 rievino- in ireneral, and concludes with an observation 
 •which, at the present day, would sound very strangely in 
 a communication to the head of the law. 
 
 " I beg-, my lord, that you may not be in the least appreben- 
 slve that any of those rogues, or any in my country, go and dis- 
 turb your tenants ; for I solemnly swear to Gortuleg, that if any 
 villain or rascal of my country durst presume to hurt or disturb 
 any of your lordship's tenants, I would go personally, though 
 carried in a litter, and see them seized and hanged."* 
 
 In the meantime, Forbes had, under the shape of com- 
 municating the news of the war to his old friend, given 
 him a very formidable view of the preparations made for 
 crushing the rebellion, and of the probabilities of their 
 success — all good-naturedly intended to divert him out of 
 the neighbourhood of the precipice which he was evidently 
 approaching. Lovat, with consummate assurance, retaliated ; 
 and as he was not hampered by any regard for truth, he was 
 able to present a far more formidable array : The landing 
 of 10,000 French, the rising of the great English Jacobite 
 families, the universality of the Jacobite feeling in Scotland, 
 &c., " so thathcismuch wiser than T, nay, Ithink he must be 
 a real prophet that can tell which of the sides will carry ."■■[■ 
 
 He had soon afterwards to inform the president of the 
 news, that his son was resolved, in spite of every eifort 
 that he could make, to carry the clan into tlie rebellion. 
 The president wrote a kind, friendly, considerate answer, 
 in which it is clear that while he thinks it necessary in 
 courtesy to speak of the son as the delinquent, he cannot 
 help representing the consequences as if it lay in Lo vat's 
 own power to obviate them. J 
 
 * Cullodcn Papers, 232. t CuUoden Tapers, 230. 
 
 J Cullodcn Papers, 231.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 233 
 
 Still professing to be grievously oppressed by the trea- 
 sonable designs of his son, Lovat sent a rejoinder in the 
 following pathetic strain : 
 
 " I do solemnly declare to your lordship that nothing- ever 
 vexed my soul so much as my son's resolution to go and join 
 the prince, and venture his person with him ; and this mad reso- 
 lution struck him In the head as soon as he heard of the prince's 
 landmg; and after what Macleod said to him, and what Gor- 
 tuleg said to him, and what myself said to him, I know by his 
 answers to Macleod, Gortuleg, and me, that all the creation 
 •will not keep him from going to live and die with that prince. 
 I refer It to your lordship, who has a true sense of the danger 
 of my family by his going out, what a load and weight of grief 
 must be upon my soul, to see my son, myself, and my family, 
 in such danger and jeopardy. But I cannot help it. I must 
 submit to the will of God, and there I must leave It. I sent 
 your lordship's last letter with a clever man to travel all night, 
 that he might deliver It to Gortideg as soon as possible; to 
 whom I wrote the strongest exhortations, to entreat him to 
 use all Ills credit and good sense with my son to dissuade him 
 from his very rash and Inconsiderate resolutions; and for my 
 part as my son only smiles, and laughs at me when I make 
 strong remonstrances to him against his resolutions, I am 
 resolved never to write or open my mouth to him on that sub- 
 ject. And as God Almighty has, at many times, wonderfully 
 delivered me out of many dangers and difficulties by land and 
 sea, I throw myself on his divine providence and trust entirely 
 to It ; for If God In his providence save my estate, I do not 
 give three-halfpence for my life, for it is but wearisome to me, 
 and full of troubles."* 
 
 And in a subsequent letter he resumes this tone : 
 
 " For my part, my lord, I solemnly protest to your lordship, 
 that since my son was determined on that mad foolish project, 
 I never spoke to him about It, but he always flew in my face 
 like a wild cat when I spoke to him against any of his dis- 
 tracted opinions."! 
 
 Turning to the evidence on the trial, for such notes and 
 illustrations as it may afford of this correspondence, we 
 
 • Culloden Papers, p. 234. t Culloden Papers, p. 235.
 
 234 THE LIFE OF 
 
 find a witness attesting the circumstance of Lovat wiiting 
 to tlie president that his son had obstinately determined 
 to rebel, when the following examination ensues: 
 
 Sol. Gen. — " Was that fact true ? was the son so obstinate ?" 
 B. Fraser. — " No ; I am sure it was not true." 
 ^0^. Gen. — " Why are you sure it was not true ?" 
 R. Fraser. — " Because whilst I was preparing a letter to the 
 Lord President, which my Lord Lovat dictated, wherein he 
 acquainted them of his son's obstinacy in going into the rebel- 
 hon (which letter my lord directed me not to let any body 
 see), his son, tlie master, came in and asked me for the letter ; 
 and I refusing to give it him, the son took the letter out of 
 my hand." 
 
 Sol. Gen.—'' Who took it out of your hand ?" 
 R. Fraser. — " The master of Lovat took it out of my hand ; 
 and after reading it said, ' Good God, how is this ! — accuse me 
 behind my back ! to call me stiff-necked and disobedient ! I 
 will set the saddle upon the right horse.' " 
 
 Sol. Gen. — " Pray repeat the answer you made last." 
 R. Fraser. — " The master of Lovat said, ' If this letter goes, 
 I will go, and put tlie saddle on the right horse, and will go 
 and discover all to my Lord President.' " 
 
 Sol. Gen. — " What did he mean by putting the saddle on 
 the right horse?" 
 
 R. Fraser. — " That he would go and discover to my Lord 
 President, that his father, my Lord Lovat, had forced him to 
 do what he had done."* 
 
 Eesuming the tenor of the correspondence, — the next let- 
 ter from Forbes assumes a more distinct tone. He does not 
 contradict all Lovat's assurances about the mad obstinacy 
 of the son ; but he proves to him that he has a most serious 
 interest in turning the youth from his project, for he may 
 be well assured that he will not be able to convince people 
 in authority that he is not himself the prime criminal; 
 and assures him that his friends will bo quite unable to 
 save him from the consequences. 
 
 " Should the unlucky youth persist in Ills purpose, and 
 • State Trials, xviiL, 599.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 235 
 
 should his authority Tvith that kindred for whom you have done 
 so much, and who with reason were so passionately fond of 
 you, prevail over your lordship, and induce them to march, 
 •without regard to your commands, or even to the safety of your 
 person, the case would stand in a very odd light, and in this 
 age of jealousy and suspicion, it is impossible to say what con- 
 struction might not be put upon it, even if a man had no enemy 
 to improve such suspicions by hints; on the other hand, should 
 the young man yield to yoiu- lordship's representations, or 
 should your authority prevail on your kindred, to desert liis 
 rash undertaking, and to save you and your family from ruin, as 
 they very remarkably did 30 years ago, when they were much 
 more deeply engaged than they are at present, it is to be hoped 
 that conduct would wipe off every circumstance of suspicion, 
 and atone for any act of temerity the master may have fallen 
 into ; at the same time that the joint force of those who in this 
 country are disposed to stand by the government, will be suffi- 
 cient to protect your country against the resentments of those 
 who may have flattered themselves with the hopes of assistance 
 from it. In those circumstances what is left for me to ad\ise, or 
 rather to wish, but that your lordship may prevail, either by 
 argument, or by authority, over the master, or over your kin- 
 dred, to forsake the dangerous course to which they are dis- 
 posed, and to join with the gross of the north in defence of the 
 government ; in which case nothing within my power for your 
 service shall be left undone. But, should what I presume to 
 ad-^dse, and most earnestly wish, not take place, whatever my 
 inclinations may be, I greatly fear my power wiU not be able 
 to answer them."* 
 
 On the same day, with this letter, the president ap- 
 pears to have written <inotlier, under different and more 
 positive information: they are both dated on the 29th of 
 October. The latter is so solemn, so emphatic, so severe 
 in the simple majesty of reproof, and so kind in its earnest 
 tone of regret, and of desire to see an amendment, that it 
 would be injustice not to quote a considerable portion of 
 it, though it is a long document : 
 
 " As I have now the honour of being charged with the 
 * CuUoden Papers, 237.
 
 236 THE LIFE OF 
 
 public affairs in tliis part of the kingdom, I can no longer remain 
 a spectator of your lordship's conduct, and see the double game 
 you have played for some time past, without betraying the 
 trust reposed in me, and at once risking my reputation, and 
 the fidelity 1 owe to his majesty as a good subject. Your lord- 
 ship's actions now discover evidently your inclinations, and 
 leave us no further in the dark about what side you are to 
 choose in the present unhappy insurrection. You have now so far 
 pulled off the mask, that we can see the mark you aim at, 
 though on former occasions you have had the skill and address 
 to disguise your intentions in matters of far less importance, 
 and, indeed, methinks a little more of your lordship's wonted 
 artifice would not have been amiss. Whatever had been your 
 private sentiments with respect to tliis unnatural rebellion, 
 you should, my lord, have duly considered and estimated the 
 advantages that would arise to your lordship from its success, 
 and balance them with the risks you run if it should happen 
 to miscarry ; and, above all things, you ought to have con- 
 sulted your own safety, and allowed that the chief place in 
 your system of politics, which I persuade myself would have 
 induced your lordship to have played the game after quite 
 a different manner, and with a much greater degree of caution 
 and policy. But so far has your lordship been from acting 
 with your ordinary finesse and circumspection on this occasion, 
 that you sent away your son and the best part of your clan to 
 join the Pretender, with as little concern as if no danger had 
 attended such a step. I say sent them away, for we are not to 
 imagine they went of themselves, or would have ventured to 
 talce arms without your lordshi])'s concurrence and approbation. 
 This, however, you are pretty sure can't be easily proved, which 
 I believe, indeed, may be true; but I cannot think it will be a diffi- 
 cult matter to make it appear that the whole strain of your lord- 
 ship's conversation in every company where you have appeared, 
 since the rreteiidcr's arrival, has tended to pervert the minds of 
 his majesty's subjects, and seduce them from their allegiance. 
 And give nie leave to tell you, my lord, even this falls under the 
 construction of treason, and is no less liable to pr.nishment than 
 open rebellion, as I am afiaid your lordship will find when once 
 this insurrection is crushed, and the government at leisure to ex- 
 amine into the affair. And I am sorry to tell you, my lord, 
 that I could sooner undertake to plead the cause of any one 
 of those unhappy gentlemen who arc just now actually in arms
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 237 
 
 against his majesty, and I could say more in defence of tlieir 
 conduct, than I could in defence of your lordship's. The Duke 
 of Perth and Lord Ogilvy never qualified — nor did they ever 
 receive the smallest favour from the present government — but, 
 on the contrary, were both stripped of their titles and honours, 
 and from men of the first quality, reduced to the state of private 
 gentlemen, since the revolution, and may both be supposed to act; 
 from a principle of resentment ; and only took up arms to recover 
 what they thought themselves unjustly deprived of. Lord George 
 Murray never had any place or pension from the public, and was 
 no doubt drawn in by the influence of the Marquis of Tullibar- 
 dine ; perhaps touched with pity and commiseration for his eldest 
 brother, who has spent the best part of his life in exile, and un- 
 doubtedly upon an allowance much inferior to his dignity. 
 These, and such like apologies may be offered in defence of most 
 of the leading men in the present rebellion ; but what shall I say 
 in favour of you, my lord? You who have flourished under the 
 present happy establishment? — you, who in the beginning of 
 your days forfeited both your life and fortune, and yet by the 
 benignity of the government was not only indulged the liberty 
 of living at home, but even restored to ail you could lay claim 
 to. Nay, his majesty's goodness went so far as to employ your 
 lordship in his service, and was pleased to honour you with the 
 command of one of the independent companies that were raised 
 some years ago in the Highlands, which you enjoyed for a very 
 long time : so that both duty and gratitude ought to have 
 influenced your lordship's conduct at tliis critical juncture, and 
 disposed you to have acted a part quite different from what 
 you have done : but there are some men whom no duty can 
 bind, nor no favour can oblige ; and I am afraid if a timely re- 
 pentance do not prevent it, your lordship will not unjustly be 
 ranked among that number."* 
 
 In tlie continuation of the letter, there are still offers 
 of intercession if the offender should repent, and do 
 services to government equivalent to the mischiefs he is 
 contemplating to effect against it. 
 
 The mask is not yet thrown off in presence of the 
 old benefactor and adviser. The admonition is thus 
 acknowledged : 
 
 * CuUoden Papers, p. 436, et seq.
 
 238 THE LIFE OF 
 
 "' I received the honour of your lordship's letter, late last 
 Bight, of yesterday's date, and I own that I never received one 
 like it since I was born ; and I give your lordship ten thousand 
 thanks for the kind freedom you use with me in it ; for I see 
 by it, that for my misfortune in having an obstinate stubborn 
 son, and an ungrateful kindred, my family must go to destruc- 
 tion, and I must lose my life in my old age. Such usage looks 
 rather like a Turkish or Persian government, than like a 
 British. Am I, my lord, the first father that has had an un- 
 dutlful and unnatvu-al son? or am I the first man that has 
 made a good estate, and saw it destroyed in his own time by 
 the mad foolish actings of an unnatural son, who prefers his own 
 extravagant fancies to the solid advice of an affectionate old 
 father? I have seen instances of this in my own time ; but 
 I never heard till now, that the foolishness of a son would 
 take away the liberty and life .of a father, that lived peaceably, 
 that was an honest man, and well inclined to the rest of man- 
 kind. But I find the longer a man lives, the more wonders 
 and extraordinary things he sees. 
 
 " Now, my dear lord, I beg leave to tell you my mind freely in 
 my turn. 1 thank God I was born with very little fear. In 
 my greatest difficulties and dangers by sea and land, and by 
 God's assistance, I often saved my hfe by the firmness and 
 steadfastness of my resolutions ; and though I have now but a 
 little remains of a life that is clogged with infirmities and 
 pains, yet by God's help 1 am resolved to preserve it as long as 
 I can ; and though my son should go away with the young 
 people of his clan, yet I'll have six hundred brave Frazers at 
 home, many of them about my own age, that will lose the last 
 drop of their blood to preserve my person. Since I am as 
 peaceable a subject as any in the kingdom, and as ready to 
 pay the king's taxes, and do every thing else that a faithful 
 subject ought to do, I know no law or reason why my person 
 should not be in safety."* 
 
 Much in the same tone the correspondence continues 
 through several letters. Forbes — never, while there is hope, 
 relinquishing his friendly efforts — affords his correspondent 
 the following hints of what is known, and what will be 
 inferred, of the proceedings at Castle Dounie. 
 
 * Culloden Tapers, p. 238.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 239 
 
 " The affection of your clan and their attachment to you, in. 
 the year 1715 and downward, wUl be remembered; it will not 
 be easily believed, that your lordship's authority is less with 
 them now, than it was at that time ; it will not be credited, 
 that their engagements or inclinations were stronger against 
 the government when the present commotions began, than they 
 were thirty years ago, when the clan was at Perth. It will 
 be alleged that the people were not universally forward to 
 enter upon the present spot of work ; that many of them were 
 reluctant, and some actually threatened, and others forced into 
 the service ; and I do not know whether, if jealousy were to 
 promote an inquiry, many circumstances might not come out, 
 ■which I choose not to think of, and hope never to hear of. 
 These considerations I must confess, fill me with great uneasi- 
 ness, which I must ever feel when any danger threatens your 
 lordship or your family, wliich my abilities or interest cannot 
 avert."* 
 
 The next letter from Lovat, on the 14th of November, 
 1745, is in the following melancholy strain: 
 
 " My Dear Lord, — I received your lordship's most kind 
 letter, of the 11th of this month, by the bearer, and my heart 
 is as full of thanks and gratitude as any man's can be ; I beg 
 your lordship a thousand pardons for not despatching the bearer 
 sooner, but the truth is, that I had almost died the night before 
 I received your lordship's letter. I had taken, the night of the 
 10th, my vomit as usual ; but I no sooner was in bed than I was 
 seized ^A^th a most terrible stitch in my left side. I covdd not 
 speak nor draw my breath, but upon the least movement I was 
 tormented most horribly ; I continued so all the night, and am 
 very little better ever since, so that I am in a very bad way. I 
 caused rub some warm brandy to my side before daylight 
 this morning, which has given me some ease ; or then I would 
 not be able to dictate this letter ; but my stitch still continues, 
 and if it does not go off, it will soon make an end of me, and 
 then I'll be no further troublesome to my dear Lord President, 
 or to any other of my friends ; and the mad youth will be then 
 Lord Lovat, as well as colonel of his rebellious regiment. I do 
 assure you, my dear lord, that I will not regret dying at this 
 time, that I may not see the evils that threaten my family, 
 
 • Culloden Papers, 242—3.
 
 240 THE LIFE OF 
 
 which was always regarded as an honest brave family in this 
 country."* 
 
 There is a term in the law of Scotland called " double 
 distress," applicable to one who is pursued for the same debt 
 by rival claimants, which would much more appropriately 
 describe the position of our hero at this moment. We have 
 just found him describing the pangs occasioned by an un- 
 dutiful son taking up the cause of the Jacobites — let us 
 now see the mental and corporal miseries which he suf- 
 fered because a more distant relation would not adopt the 
 same course. It is to the faithful bosom of Lochiel that 
 he now imparts his sorrows, in a letter otherwise full of 
 admiration of his gallant son, " the great hope of his 
 family and the darling of his life and soul." 
 
 " The base and treacherous behaviour of our wretched cousin, 
 the Laird of Macleod, has almost cost me my life already. The 
 night before he took his journey to the Isle of Skye, from 
 this house, sitting by me, he looked up seriously, and swore to 
 me, that as he should answer to God, and wished that God 
 might never have mercy on him, and that he might never enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven, but that his bones might rot on 
 earth, be burnt, and his ashes blown up in the air, if he did not 
 come with all speed imaginable, and with all his men that was 
 already prepai'ed, and come and join my son, and the clan 
 Fraser, and march south with them to the prince's service, 
 wherever he was. He swore the same terrible oaths and im- 
 precations next day to my son, and to your faithful servant, 
 Gortuleg ; and if he had kept his oaths and word, I had so ma- 
 naged this part of the north, that about 6000 men had marched 
 south to the prince's assistance ; which I thought would much en- 
 courage his own loyal party, and frighten the English to his obe- 
 dience. But when I got Macleod's letter, about twelve days 
 after, in which he told me that after dehberating fully with 
 his neighbour. Sir Alexander, and weighing the arguments on 
 both sides, he and his neighbour had resolved to stay at home, 
 and not to trouble the government. In reading this line, I 
 
 * CuUodcn Papers, p. 251.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 241 
 
 had almost fainted, and my body swelled Avith anger and vexa- 
 tion, so that I could not sleep nor eat for several days ; and I am 
 yet far from being- recovered, for I have a severe stitch and 
 pain in my left side, which keeps me from my night's rest, and 
 has entirely taken away my appetite, so that I believe the 
 treachery of that unnatural, ungrateful, and wicked man, will be 
 the occasion of my death very soon ; but before I die, I resolved, 
 if possible, to give such a mark of my zeal for my good master 
 the king, and for the glorious, brave, royal prince his son, 
 that I beheve few in Scotland would do but myself."* 
 
 It is not until the 1st of December that he announces 
 the departure of his son, saying, " the consequences of his 
 doing so are terrible beyond expression ; thougli I declare 
 I could not have done more to save my own life, and the 
 lives of my clan, as well as the estate of Lovat, than I have 
 done by smooth and rough usage to detain him at 
 home.''t His actual departure appears to have occurred 
 a day or two earlier; for before the expiry of the month 
 of November, the indefatigable Lord President, referrino- 
 to the men having commenced their march, and not beino- 
 many miles off, says: 
 
 " Now as my duty absolutely requires my endeavouring, by 
 all means possible, to prevent the junction of these men with the 
 rebels, and as my wishes are strong to prevent the destruction of 
 these men, by bringing them back to their duty before it is too 
 late, I find myself obliged to march into your lordship's country, 
 with a body of his majesty's troops, to lay hold of such as have 
 been accessory to the stirring up the rest, to endeavour by 
 the same means that have been used to force them into the re- 
 bellion, to draw them off from it ; and to take an account of 
 the names of such of them as I shall not find at their homes ; 
 to the end their return to live again in quiet, after they have 
 given all the disturbance they can to his majesty's government, 
 may be for ever prevented. And as no man is more deejily con- 
 cerned to have those inconveniences obviated than your lord- 
 ship, or better quahfied to obviate them, by letting the unhappy 
 men timeously know their danger, if they do not immediately 
 
 * State Trials, xviii., 754-5. f Culloden Papers, 259. 
 
 R
 
 242 THE LIFE OF 
 
 return to their homes ; I have presumed to give your lordship 
 this notice of my resolutions, previous to the putting them in 
 execution, that as little harm may happen to your lordship or to 
 your people as is possible. And I shall look for a precise answer 
 from vour lordship to what I now have the honour to acquaint 
 you -with, by to-morrow, because I cannot be answerable to 
 defer using the means that are in my hands any longer. It 
 •will give me great satisfaction, if the step I now take shall be 
 the means of preserving your lordship and your people ; and this 
 pleasure I shall have, even if it miscarry, that your lordship 
 must be satisfied I have done all in my power to avoid ex- 
 tremities ; and that I am, &c."* 
 
 On the lltli of December, Lord Loudon marched with 
 800 men to Castle Dounie ; and next day he brought Lovat 
 to Inverness, as a sort of hostage for the fidelity of the 
 portion of the clan which had not marched with his son. 
 It was soon found necessary to keep him a prisoner, but 
 he did not remain long in that position, for on the 2nd of 
 January we find him receiving congratulations on his 
 escape. He then writes to his son that as nothing ever 
 made him speak "a fair word" to Lord Loudon or the 
 president, but to save his person from prison, that embargo 
 on his tongue is now removed, for he is obliged to seek 
 shelter " in hills and woods and inaccessible places," and 
 if he did not find a refuge in Stratherick, " he might, per- 
 haps, be hunted like a fox by Loudon up and down the 
 country, which, perhaps, would cost him his life by cold 
 and fatigue." In the same letter he intimates that he is 
 making a lair for himself in the far-off recesses of his do- 
 minions, in an island on the Lake of Muily, deep among 
 the mountains of Glen Strathfarar. " I am making up vnth 
 all tlic haste possible, a habitation for myself in the house 
 of Muily ; for that country is the strongest hold in Scot- 
 land ; for I will make one hundred good men defend it 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 257.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 243 
 
 against all forces that King George can have in Scotland. 
 Besides, I ordered a boat to be made to carry me out and 
 in to the Isle of Muily when I please, so that it is morally 
 impossible to attack me in this country."* He had just 
 then received a letter from Charles Edward, accompanied 
 by a proposal approved of by him, and signed by Lochiel, 
 Macpherson of Cluny, and Secretary Murray, containing 
 the following powerful testimony to his talent and sagacity, 
 and to the bold spirit that still burned within his old dis- 
 eased body. 
 
 *' Now, my lord, the only proper means that appears to us, 
 in common -nith all the prince's well-wishers, to bring this to 
 the wished-for Issue, is your lordship's openly appearing- in arms 
 and joining the royal standard ; in which case we are certain 
 that there is not a man beyond the Forth, however timorous or 
 cautious (except some few who have already destined them- 
 selves to perdition) but will appear with the greatest alacrity 
 and cheerfulness. But not to take up too much of your lord- 
 ship's time, what his royal highness above all things wishes and 
 desires is, to have your lordship with him, to take upon you the 
 command of the army ; for though the prince knows that your 
 lordship's age makes it impossible for you to undergo the drud- 
 gery part of a general, yet he is sensible that your advice and 
 counsel will be of greater value than the addition of several 
 thousand men. Though your lordship has your own equipage, 
 yet we are apt to believe the prince's coach and six (of which 
 he himself makes no use) will be as convenient a voiture for 
 your lordship; and the French ambassador with Lord Pitsligo, 
 who have been in it all along, won't prove disagreeable com- 
 pany."! 
 
 But he had views of his own to follow out, and a few 
 days after receiving this flattering appeal, he bade his son 
 endeavour to obtain the patent of the dukedom, or a con- 
 firmation of it by the prince, " which if he refuse I must 
 keep to the oath that I gave before the Duke of Perth, 
 the Earl of Traquair, Lochiel, and other gentlemen, that 
 
 * State Trials, xviii., 760, 761. t State Trials, xviii., 772. 
 
 r2
 
 244 THE LIFE OF 
 
 first engaged in the present project with me, that I would 
 never draw mj sword till that was done."* 
 
 But the aspect of his adopted cause was now becoming 
 clouded. In vain Lochiel told him about the native strength 
 of Jacobite feeling in Scotland — of France having now 
 adopted their cause — of Spain being prepared with men 
 and money; the retreat from Derby told its own story too 
 broadly, and the nearer the prince approached him the 
 cooler became Lovat's zeal. He sent a message to his son, 
 desiring him to come north, under the pretext of raising 
 more men, but undoubtedly that if matters continued to 
 be unprosperous, he might claim the merit of recalling his 
 son, and might attempt to open a negotiation with the 
 government. The high-spirited youth, however, having 
 been induced to take his course, was resolved not to 
 abandon it in defeat and danger ; and his answer was a dig- 
 nified rebuke of the project, which he saw lurking be- 
 neath his father's suggestion. " That I should at such a 
 critical time," he says, " run home, would look ill : and 
 the pretext, as it would be called, of raising men, would 
 not screen me from an imputation your lordship, I am 
 sure, would always wish me to shun \' and he sagaciously 
 observes, " as to my going north, I know your lordship's 
 influence over your clan too well to think that where your 
 orders fail, my presence will have any weight. I am cer- 
 tain your commands, though only intimated by your offi- 
 cers, will do in a day, more than my presence would in a 
 week ; and I am persuaded your people will come up to a 
 man if you order them ; and if you do not, that they will 
 stay at home ; so that their coming or not entirely depends 
 on your lordship."f 
 , The son advises him " not to lose on both sides." 
 
 • State Trials, xviii., 762. -f State Trials, xviii., 764.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 245 
 
 He affectionately says that he will be content with a thin 
 
 regiment if his father's person were safe, but recommendg 
 
 that if he cannot get terms from Loudon and the Lord 
 
 President, he should not mar the chances of success to the 
 
 other party by his neutrahty. But the prince, driven 
 
 north before Cumberland's bayonets, was a vision every day 
 
 becoming more frightful; and as it came near his own 
 
 domains, we find his enthusiastic protestations of loyalty 
 
 einking into the following dubious suggestions about a cold 
 
 collation. They are addressed to his son on the 20th of 
 
 March. 
 
 " My cousin, Mr. William Fraser, tells me that the prince sent 
 notice to Sir Alexander Bannerman, by Sir John McDonell, that 
 he would go some of these days and view my comitry of the Aird, 
 and fish salmon upon my river of Beauly ; I do not much covet 
 that great honour at this time, as my house is quite out of order, 
 and that I am not at home myself, nor you ; however, if the 
 prince takes the fancy to go, you must offer to go along with 
 him, and offer him a glass of wine, and any cold meat you can 
 get there. I shall send Sandy Dean over Immediately If you 
 think that the prince Is to go ; so I ordered the glyd post to 
 be here precisely this night."* 
 
 This visit was never paid. With Cumberland on his 
 track, the poor prince had other matters to occupy him 
 than catching salmon in the Beauly; and they never 
 met, until, on the eve of Culloden's fatal morning, the 
 fugitive prince, at the head of his flying clans, rushed for 
 refuge into the grim sohtudes where the chief was wait- 
 ins: the chances of war — an unwelcome and calamitous 
 vision ! which at once scattered the last shred of his am- 
 bitious dreams. Lovat was then living at Gortuleg,t the 
 
 • State Trials, xviii., 764. 
 
 t Sir Walter Scott supposes the meeting to have taken place at 
 Castle Dounie; but the evidence at the trial, and many other incidental 
 matters not worth detailing, show it to have been at G ortuleg, where 
 the room in which the prince is said to have slept, may still be seen.
 
 246 THE LIFE OF 
 
 liouse of one of the gentlemen of liis clan, near the Fall 
 of Foyers. Sir Walter Scott has preserved a very pictur- 
 esque account of the effect produced in this solitary 
 region, by the sudden influx of the fugitives, in the 
 reminiscences of a lady, who said, " The wild and 
 desolate vale on which she was gazing with indolent com- 
 posure, was at once so suddenly filled with horsemen 
 riding furiously towards the castle, that, impressed with 
 the belief that they were fairies, who, according to 
 Highland tradition, are visible to men only from one 
 twinkle of the eyelid to another, she strove to refrain 
 from the vibration which she believed would occasion 
 the strange and magnificent apparition to become invi- 
 sible."* 
 
 Mrs. Grant of Laggan, preserved an account of the 
 meeting, which is perhaps another version of the same 
 narrative. 
 
 " For two or three days before, preparations were making- 
 for the reception of the prince and his train, to regale whom a 
 very ample cold collation was preparing. All the women in the 
 vicinity were called in to bake cakes, and roast meat, poultry, 
 and venison for the occasion. Such was the urgency of the time 
 and the quantity of food dressed, that every room in the house, 
 even that which Lovat occupied, was used for cuHnary purposes, 
 and filled with bread and joints of roasted meat. On the fatal 
 day of Culloden, the Highlanders at first gained some partial 
 advantage, and some one came up express to say that the for- 
 tune of the day Avas in favour of the prince; the house soon 
 filled with people breathless with anxiety for tidings of their 
 friends who were engaged. The little girl was considered as 
 an encumbrance, and ordered into a closet, where she continued 
 a little while an unwilling prisoner. Below the house was a 
 large marshy plain, in the centre of which was a small lake, 
 that in winter overHowed it, but was now nearly dry. This 
 spot the superstitious believed to be a rendezvous of the fairies; 
 all of a sudden the tumultuous noise that filled the house was 
 
 • Prose Works, iv., 83.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 247 
 
 succeeded by a deep silence ; the little prisoner, alarmed at this 
 sudden stillness, ventured out, and saw no one creature in the 
 house but Lovat sitting in deep thought, then she ventured to 
 the door, and looking down saw above a thousand people in one 
 ghastly crowd in the plain below. Struck with the sudden shift- 
 ing of the scene and the appearance of this multitude, she 
 thought it was a visionary show of fairies which would imme- 
 diately disappear. She was soon however undeceived by the 
 mom-nful cries of women who were tearing off their handker- 
 chiefs for bandages to the wounded. In an instant quantities of 
 linen were carried down for the same purpose, and the intended 
 feast was distributed in morsels among the fugitives, who were 
 instantly forced to disperse for safety to the caves and moun- 
 tains of that rugged district. The prince and a few of his fol- 
 lowers came to the house; Lovat expressed attachment to him, 
 but at the same time reproached him with great asperity for 
 declaring his intention to abandon the enterprise entirely. 
 ' Remember,' said he, fiercely, 'yoxir great ancestor, Robert 
 Bruce, who lost eleven battles and won Scotland by the 
 twelfth.'"* 
 
 At early dawn the prince fled westward towards the 
 Glengarry country. Lovat, according to the usual accounts, 
 sought refuge in the gloomy recesses of Castle Caudor, 
 where a small low chamber, near the roof, was long shown 
 as his place of concealment. But it must be observed 
 that to reach this place, he would have had to leave his 
 Highland fastnesses, and to proceed along the district 
 occupied by the king's troops; almost through the very 
 field of Culloden. If he ever sought this spot, he must 
 have speedily left it for the refuge, which, with so much 
 foresight, he had prepared in the Lake of Muily. From 
 the top of a hill on the way to that distant retreat, he is 
 said to have beheld the centre of all his power and ambi- 
 tion, Castle Dounie, burned by Cumberland's soldiers, and 
 illuminatino; the darkness with its blaze. 
 
 * Mrs. Grant's MS.
 
 248 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Yet the old man soon rallied. He had something of the 
 savage heroic in his nature which prompted him to stand 
 at bay, when every door was closed beyond hope against 
 supplication or finesse. In that confused group of fugi- 
 tives, though many had shown themselves both brave 
 and wise, his was the only head that framed a consistent 
 policy for their adoption, and the only tongue that still 
 gave utterance to defiance. 
 
 " What though the field be lost! 
 All is not lost — the unconquerable will 
 And study of revenge : immortal hate, 
 And courage never to submit or yield." 
 
 In a hut in the neighbourhood of his retreat, he had a 
 conference with Lochiel, Barisdale, Clanranold, Secretary 
 Murray, and other Jacobite leaders. There he proposed 
 that they should raise 3000 men, " a compact body," 
 who might defend the mountains against Cumberland's 
 troops, and, without any concert with the exiled house, 
 make themselves so formidable, and their country so im- 
 pregnable, that they would force the government to give 
 advantageous terms. The respective quota to be supplied 
 by the various chieftains were fixed, and an engagement 
 was signed by them. True to the last to his tortuous 
 policy, Lovat alone refused to put his hand to the bold and 
 sagacious project he had devised.* The reader does not 
 require to be informed that the project was not put in prac- 
 tice. Each hunted fugitive sought but a place of refuge, 
 and a temporary rest for his own wearied head ; and when 
 no presiding mind like Lovat's -^as present among them, 
 they had no superfluous thoughts to spare for compre- 
 hensive measures. 
 
 With a frame exhausted by age and disease, unable to 
 
 • State Trials, xviii., 664, 735.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 249 
 
 move his limbs, tKe hardships he encountered, hiding in 
 bogs and hollow trees, and caverns, with the whole fabric 
 of his ambition lying in dust at his feet, and no brilhant 
 hopes as in the days of his early hardships beckoning him 
 through endurance to greatness, — the miseries of the old 
 man's wanderings must have been such as the pen need 
 not attempt to describe. He was finally apprehended in 
 the district of Morar, on the western coast, by a party 
 from the Furnace sloop, which had been sent to search 
 the isles and the coast.* From his retreat in Loch Muily, 
 he must have travelled upwards of seventy miles over the 
 wildest country of Scotland to reach this spot, and for all 
 this exertion he must have been indebted to the faithful 
 labours of his clansmen, for he could not walk a step un- 
 supported. In the Lake of Morar he had hidden himself 
 in an island which, as he had the command of the only 
 boat on the lake, he considered impregnable. As, how- 
 ever, the western extremity of the lake was very close to 
 the sea, a boat was towed by the man-of-war's men over 
 the peninsula, and launched on the lake. The contem- 
 porary narratives state that he was discovered within a 
 hollow tree, in which he was able to stand upright after 
 having entered by an orifice below, through which the 
 sailors were astonished to see what appeared to be two hu- 
 man legs muffled in flannel Hke those of a gouty alderman. 
 He was conveyed in a litter to Fort WilHam, and there, 
 on the 12th of June, he wrote a letter to the Duke of Cum- 
 berland, saying: " I can do more service to the king and 
 government, than the destroying a hundred such Hke old 
 and very infirm men like me, past seventy, without the 
 least vise of my hands, legs, and knees, can be advan- 
 tage in any shape to the government." Nor did he fail in 
 
 • State Trials, xviii., 739, 740.
 
 250 THE LIFE OF 
 
 efforts to touch other feelings. He spoke of his favourable 
 reception at the court of George I., much in the same strain, 
 ■with several other letters already quoted. " And I often," 
 he continues, " carried your royal highness in my arms in 
 the parks at Kensington and Hampton Court, to hold 
 you up to your royal grandfather, that he might embrace 
 you, for he was very fond of you and the young prin- 
 cesses.*" But this was addi'essed to a heart harder than 
 the nether millstone. It procured him nothing but a 
 visit from Sir Everard Fawkener, the duke's secretary, 
 who saw him at Fort Augustus. The secretary did not con- 
 ceal the nature of his office, and as he was in the presence 
 of one who had been a main instrument in the rebellion, 
 the visit " was designed to see whether he would discover 
 any thing that might tend to bring those mischiefs to a 
 more speedy end." But as he candidly explained that he 
 had no hopes of mercy to hold out, he was only told in 
 Lovat's usual manner of the power he himself possessed, 
 and the uses he might make of it, with the assurance that 
 he was 
 
 In utrumque paratus, 
 
 Seu versare dolos, seu certse occumbere morti. 
 
 In his way southwards, he passed the western extremity 
 of his own favourite country of Stratherick, to the grief 
 and dismay of his people, whose feehngs would be in a 
 great measure similar to those of the royalists, when 
 they saw Charles I. passing through St. James's Park to 
 the scaffold at Whitehall. One of his clansmen retained 
 till a venerable old age the name of " Bairdie," because, 
 from that memorable epoch of calamity, he had never 
 allowed his beard to be cut, preserving it as a token of 
 
 * State Trials, xviii., 715.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 251 
 
 attacTiinent to his chief. He liad said in a letter to 
 Duncan Forbes, " If I am killed here, it is not far from 
 my burial place ; and I will have after I am dead, what 
 I always wished, the cronach of all the women in my 
 country to convey my body to the grave : and that has 
 been my ambition, when I was in my happiest situation 
 in the world."* His adverse fortune gave him the 
 opportunity of experiencing these melodious obsequies, 
 by anticipation, for the wail of the old women followed 
 Ms Htter, and the senachie, or family bard, was loud in his 
 
 lamentations. t 
 
 He was conveyed in a litter by easy stages through Stirl- 
 ing and Edinburgh, and thence by Berwick to London. 
 An anecdote of his journey is preserved, which shows 
 that he could carry his ruling spirit into trifles, in the 
 midst of disaster. A young officer was desirous of contem- 
 plating the actual features of this strange monster, of 
 whom such wild rumours had reached the civilised world; 
 and the acute inmate of the Htter, discerning his object, 
 snored loudly, and pretended to be fast asleep. The 
 young man gently drew the curtains and looked in, when 
 " the monster," starting up, seized him by the nose, and 
 gave it a twinge not easily to be forgotten. | 
 
 This is quite in conformity with an incident which 
 amused Gray, the poet. 
 
 " I have been diverted with an account of Lord Lovat in his 
 confinement at Edinburgh. There was a Captain Maggett, 
 that is obliged to lie in the room every night with liim. When 
 first he was introduced to him, he made him come to his bed- 
 
 • This passage occurs in Lovat's letter to President Forbes, of the 
 30th of October, as above (p. 238), in an edition whichwas published 
 on a large sheet of paper, and circulated at the time. There can be 
 little doubt of its genuineness as written, but it was not inserted in the 
 letter as it was sent to Eorbes. See Culloden Papers, p. 239. 
 
 t Mrs. Grant s MS. J Mrs. Grant's MS.
 
 252 THE LIFE OF 
 
 side, wliere he lay in a hundred flannel waistcoats, and a furred 
 night gown, took him in his arms, and gave him a long em- 
 brace that absolutely suffocated him. He will speak nothing 
 but French ; insists upon it that Maggett is a Frenchman, 
 and calls him Mon cher Captaine Magot (you know magot is 
 a monkey); at his head lie two Highland women — at his feet 
 two Highland men."* 
 
 It -was at the White Hart Inn in St. Alban's, that he 
 met with Hogarth. He had a mind fully capable of 
 appreciating that great artist's works; they had made 
 each other's acquaintance before ; and we learn that, though 
 under the hands of the barber, he " received his old 
 friend with a salute which left much of the lather on his 
 face." The great master of the Real in art, beheld here a 
 face and figure to immortalise. The well-known portrait 
 to which this meeting gave rise, represents the massive 
 form of the old captive leaning forward in a high-backed 
 chair, the forefinger of his right hand placed on the thumb of 
 Lis leit. He is supposed to be enumerating the various de- 
 tachments of the rebel forces ; but his thoughts are evidently 
 occupied with things of deeper import than mere numbers. 
 His broad forehead is knit into large knots by the work- 
 ing of thick coming fancies, as if he were luxuriating in 
 one of his great schemes; his eyes shoot forth from be- 
 neath them a twinkling light, half fierce, half sarcastic; 
 while his broad mouth expanding in a smile of cajolery 
 and good-humour, seems to laugh at the eloquent earnest- 
 ness of the other features. Around them all, gather a 
 multitude of little wrinkles, which, in the hands of one 
 accustomed to stamp a passion or a cast of character by a 
 single line, did each their service in recording an epitome 
 of the strange and varied history of the subject of the sketch. 
 
 * Gray's Works, iii,, 6.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 253 
 
 The artist said, " that the muscles of Lo vat's neck ap- 
 peared of unusual strength — more so than he had ever seen." 
 This etching was one of the most popular of Hogarth's 
 works.'"'' The impressions could not be taken so fast as 
 the public demanded them, though the rolling press was 
 at work all night for a week. For several weeks the pro- 
 ceeds are said to have realised twelve pounds a-day.f 
 
 As he approached the Tower, he saw the scaffold erected 
 for the execution of Kilmarnock and Balmerino, and, 
 reading there his own fate, treated his attendants with a 
 train of reflections on the strange vicissitudes of his life — 
 his hardsliips among the mountains in his youth — his 
 adventures abroad — his intimacy with distinguished fo- 
 reigners — his imprisonment — his greatness, and now his 
 fall. He was an eloquent moraliser, and is said to have 
 deeply impressed those who heard him. J 
 
 Before his trial he wrote the following letter to his old 
 legal adviser, Erskine of Tinwald, who had been made 
 Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland. Its air of mild dignity, 
 the quiet contempt of mean things, and the tone of judi- 
 cious flattery, bring it near to perfection. 
 
 " My vert Dear Loro, — The only design of this letter is 
 to give your lordship my most humble and sincere thanks 
 for your goodness towards me, for William Fraser, writer to 
 the Signet, has informed me, that your lordship has been so 
 very kind, as to write to the glorious yomig fellow your son, 
 who is an honour to his country-, in as pressing terms in my 
 
 * Hogarth did another representation of Lovat, not so well kno^vn, 
 but very curious. It is called " Lovat's Ghost on a Pilgrimage." The 
 portly body is in the costume of a bare -footed friar. The head carried 
 under the arm, grins forth a mixed expression of fire and horror. The 
 adjuncts are a church-yard, and the tone of light and shadow is taken 
 from Rembrandt— aU dusky and obscure around, but a lurid light illu- 
 minating the face. Perhaps the horrible and the ludicrous Avere never 
 brought in closer contact. 
 
 t Nichol's Anecdotes of Hogarth, 282. 
 
 X Contemporary account of Lord Lovat, " his behaviour during his 
 confinement in the Tower," &c. London, 4to.
 
 254 THE LIFE OF 
 
 favour, as you could do for a brother ; this is an instance of 
 generosity very uncommon, and rare to be foimd in this age. 
 
 " It is true that your lordship and I lived for many years 
 in as intimate friendship as if we were brothers, and commu- 
 nicated freely our sentiments to one another, yet I thank God 
 there is never a word that passed between us, that ever was 
 heard of without your lordship's apartment. You have now, 
 my dear lord, given proof that you are what I always be- 
 lieved (you) to be, that is a man of the best sense and judg- 
 ment of your country, a man full of goodness and aifection for 
 your relations, and a man of real friendship for those that you 
 profess friendship to ; I have the honour to have a claim to 
 your lordship's goodness and affection as a relation, and you 
 know, ray dear lord, that I have some claim to your friendship 
 — but what would all that signify, if your lordship's generous 
 soul did not oblige you to put it in execution. I have, my 
 lord, done great and essential services to those of the first rank 
 in Scotland, who now abandon me, as if I had come from 
 Turkey with the plague upon me ; but as the Scripture says, 
 that ingratitude is next to the sin of murder, let them answer 
 for it. I bless God I am fitter to appear before the Judge of 
 all the earth than they are ; and though my family seems to 
 be now in a very low and desperate condition, yet I hope, by 
 God's mercy, before this age is at an end, that it will be more 
 flourishing than theirs, and then they will see their shame as 
 well as ingratitude. Your uprightness, my dear lord, has put 
 you above this, for you neither abandon nor forsake your fi-iend 
 because he is unfortunate and in distress. May the God of 
 Heaven reward you, my dear lord, may you live many years ia 
 perfect health, and may your posterity flourish with honour 
 and wealth, more than any that wore the gown in Scotland. 
 
 " I most humbly beg of your lordship to recommend me once 
 more to your lovely son, whom I expect to be the hero of my 
 cause, and who, perhaps, may save my grey head from the block ; 
 but whatever come of me, I am sure he will gain great honour 
 to himself, since he has a large field to walk upon. I have the 
 honour to be, with the utmost gratitude, attachment, and respect, 
 " My very dear lord, 
 " Your lordship's most obedient and 
 
 " Most obliged humble servant, 
 
 " LOVAT.* 
 
 " Tower of London, 20th of January, 1747." 
 
 * Jacobite Correspondence of " The Athol Family," 241.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 255 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to compare this witTi a letter 
 written at the same time in a lower key, and in a more 
 confidential tone, to a humbler instrument : 
 
 " My dear Cousin William, — I am sorry that you are not 
 ■with me, and yet your presence in Scotland is absolutely neces- 
 sary, so that I know not what to say. Your presence here is 
 necessary, and your presence there Is necessary ; but I am so un- 
 lucky, that I cannot have you in two places at the same time ; 
 but I think your being here soon Is absolutely necessary. As to 
 
 Thomas More G , he must absolutely keep out of the way, 
 
 and not appear at all. You are to take notice, ray dear Wil- 
 liam, that according to the laws of England, by which I am to 
 be tried, women are sufficient and as credible witnesses, to aU 
 intents and purposes, as men are ; and, therefore, as during my 
 close confinement, by reason of my weakness and infirmities, 
 women attended my person, and must have been witnesses 
 of my conduct, correspondence, and transactions, they will be 
 very proper to give evidence In my defence. You wdl give 
 particular Instructions to John Fraser, and my other friends in 
 the north, as to this matter, and let them inquire after and find 
 out proper persons of both, or either sexes, according to their 
 discretion. ##***«? 
 
 " I am very sure that you can get both men and women that 
 can witness what you think necessary for me ; and John Era- 
 ser, my steadfast friend and chamberlain. Is the only person 
 who can assist you In this efiectually. This Is all that your 
 friend, at this distance, can say, lea^ong all the rest to yourself, 
 as the only faithful friend that he can depend upon to save him- 
 self and his family. I hope God wIU reward you for it, for I 
 cannot*." 
 
 The other rebel lords had been tried on a bill of indict- 
 ment, by a grand jury of Surrey, moved by certiorari into 
 the House of Lords. There was more than one reason 
 against adopting the same plan with Lovat. As he had 
 not been in arms, he did not come within the special rules 
 of the temporary act, which authorised the presentment of 
 
 * Lovat Documents.
 
 256 THE LIFE OF 
 
 traitors by grand juries in other countries than those in 
 which the treason was committed.* As no part of the 
 treason charged against him had occurred in England, he 
 could not be presented there at common law; and as pre- 
 sentment by a grand jury in Scotland was a novelty intro- 
 duced from England, its working could not be trusted to. 
 Moreover, as the decision in favour of his right to the 
 peerage had only been given by the Court of Session, there 
 was room for doubting'^if he were a peer; and an objection 
 to his trial by his peers on a certiorari, might be taken at 
 some critical moment. The old constitutional form of im- 
 peachment had no local restrictions, and commoners as 
 well as peers were amenable to it. On the 11th of 
 December, 1746, the articles were moved and carried 
 without a division. On the 17th of December, they 
 were brought by the managers appointed by the Com- 
 mons, to the House of Lords. The " glorious young 
 fellow" mentioned in the last letter does not appear among 
 the counsel assigned to him, four of whom were, ap- 
 parently. Englishmen, and one a Scotsman, Mr. Hamilton 
 Gordon. The examination of the witnesses commenced 
 on the 9th of March, 1747, and occupied five days. 
 Lovat's conduct, throughout, was that of a dignified old 
 man persecuted by fate, and borne to the ground by the 
 oppressive strength of his enemies. Sometimes he was 
 pathetic, occasionally impi-essively indignant, but never 
 querulous or captious. He showed no disposition to catch 
 hold of mere points of form ; but was always ready to waive 
 his right to their strict fulfilment, and to let the real 
 business proceed imintcrrupted. In general he was grave 
 and decorous, and but one pleasantry escaped him ; — when 
 he was asked if he had any questions to put to Sir Eve- 
 
 • 19 George II. c. 9, § 2.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 257 
 
 rard Fawkener, when examined as a witness, he said, 
 " No, only that I am Sir Everard's humble servant, and 
 wish him joy of his young lady." 
 
 He made several appeals calculated to move commise- 
 ration for his grey hairs. " My lords," he said, at the 
 commencement, " I have not had the use of my limbs 
 these three years; I cannot see, I cannot hear; and I beg, 
 if your lordships have a mind I should have any chance 
 of my life, that you will allow cither my counsel or soli- 
 citors to examine my witnesses, and to cross-examine those 
 produced on behalf of the crown, and to take notes."* If 
 he had been tried, on the charges brought against him, in 
 Scotland forty-six years earher, he would have been allowed 
 this privilege ; but the rules of English law confined the 
 assistance of counsel, in cases of treason, to purely legal 
 questions. At the conclusion of the second day he com- 
 plained of the hardships of the early daily attendance to 
 one of his infirm constitution, and said, " I must therefore 
 beg that your lordships will indulge me with a later hour 
 and some respite; otherwise I shall die at your bar,"f but 
 the request seems to have been unheeded. Another ap- 
 peal of the same description, in which he said, " I fainted 
 away thrice this morning before I came up to your lord- 
 ships' bar; but yet was determined to show my respect to 
 your lordships, or die upon the spot,"i produced a respite 
 of a da v. 
 
 Impeachment, undoubtedly, partakes of the nature of 
 popular proscription mixed with that of judicial trial. In 
 its original nature, it was a method of crushing enemies of 
 the state too powerful to be subjected to the ordinary 
 legal tribunals, and was, in some respects, understood to 
 
 * State Trials, xviii., ^78. f Ibid., 549. 
 
 X Ibid., 694. 
 
 S
 
 258 THE LIFE OF 
 
 substitute tlie salus populi suprema lex, for tlae strict rules 
 of the courts of law. Altliough mucli of this character 
 had disappeared before the middle of last century, yet in 
 the trial of Lovat, a portion of it clearly survived. There 
 •were too many persons active in such a form of pro- 
 ceeding for proper individual responsibility to operate, or 
 judicial calmness to reign supreme. Hence, the evidence 
 was, in a great measure, such as would not, at least at the 
 present day, be tolerated in any court of justice in this coun- 
 try. Effect was given to excited relations of rumours, and 
 to the still more excited opinions of individuals. A High- 
 land witness, Hugh Fraser, showed a juster appreciation of 
 the rules of evidence than the Attorney-general or the 
 Lord High Steward. Being asked, " I desire to know 
 whether in your opinion that news had any influence 
 to determine my Lord Lovat's conduct at that time?" he 
 answered, " I cannot take upon me to say what it was that 
 determined my Lord Lovat's conduct."* Of his guilt, there 
 cannot at this day be a doubt, but from the precautions 
 which ho had taken, and the fidelity of his clan, it was 
 not easy at that time to find unexceptionable evidence of 
 it, and some testimony of a very questionable kind was 
 admitted. Even Horace Walpole remarked, that "It 
 hurt every body at old Lovat's tryal, all guilty as he was, 
 to sec an old wretch worried by the first lawyers in 
 England, without any assistance but his own unpractised 
 defence." 
 
 The interest of the drama was increased by the produc- 
 tion of a witness of no common kind, John Murray of 
 Broughton, the Chevalier's secretary, who, after advising- 
 him to undertake the enterprise, becoming one of the 
 main agents in its execution, and consenting to fill that office 
 * State Trials, xviii., 719.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 259 
 
 ■wliicli implied the greatest amount of trust and reliance 
 on his integrity and secrecy, had bought his worthless 
 life by agreeing to be a witness. The appearance of such 
 an accuser must have made the old man's heart leap with 
 inward satisfaction. On the whole he occupied a far more 
 dignified position during his trial, than a biographer 
 can give him in any of the ordinary transactions of his 
 life; for his prosecutors were careful to found only on his 
 services to the Jacobite cause, and did not dwell on his 
 counter-operations in favour of government — in their 
 hands, therefore, he was consistent. Lookino- through the 
 ■whole vista of his own duplicity, he could contemplate 
 his accuser with lofty scorn. He had never been pilloried 
 in the witness-box. His oscillations between party and 
 party, not to give them any stronger term, had something 
 in them of the nature of diplomatic policy. In his de- 
 fence, put in %vriting and read by the clerk, he denounced 
 the traitor in terms which form no despicable specimen of 
 denunciatory oratory. 
 
 " Murray the most abandoned of mankind, who, forgetting 
 his allegiance to his king and country, has, according to his 
 own confession, endeavoured to destroy both, like another Ca- 
 taline, to patch up a broken fortune upon the ruin and distress 
 of his native country ; to-day stealing into France to enter into 
 engagements upon, your lordship may believe, the most sacred 
 oaths of fidelity; soon after, like a sanguinary monster, putting 
 his hand and seal to a bloody proclamation, full of rewards for the 
 apprehending the sacred person of his majesty; and, lest the cup 
 of his iniquity had not been filled, to sum up all in one, he impru- 
 dently appears at your lordships' bar, to betray those very secrets, 
 which he confessed he had drawn from the person he called his 
 lord, his prince, and master, under the greatest confidence."* 
 
 Lovat could discriminate, and make a graceful applica- 
 tion of his discrimination. Another Murray had ap- 
 
 * State Trials, xviii,, 799. 
 S2
 
 260 THE LIFE OF 
 
 peared against liim at tlie trial, but in a different shape. 
 After having allowed the evidence for the managers of the 
 Commons to be finished, he called for a postponement of a 
 very inexplicable character, on account of his own wit- 
 nesses being tampered with, and William Murray, after- 
 wards Lord Mansfield, but then Solicitor-general, showed 
 that this was done to palliate the circumstance of his not 
 attempting to lead exculpatory evidence. On this the 
 prisoner said, 
 
 " I thought myself very much loaded by one Murray, who, 
 your lordships know, was the bitterest enemy I had against 
 me. I have since suffered by another Mr. Murray, who, I 
 must say wltli pleasure, is an honour to his country, and whose 
 elegance and learning is much beyond what is to be expressed 
 by an ignorant man like me. I heard him with pleasure, though 
 it was against me. I have the honour to be his relation, though, 
 perhaps, he neither knows it nor values it. I wish that his 
 being born in the north may not hinder him from the prefer- 
 ment that his merit and learning deserve."* 
 
 The author has had an opportunity of perusing a large 
 bundle of papers containing the memorandums, corre- 
 spondence, and suggestions of the solicitors employed in 
 the defence, and others who took an interest in it. Any 
 efforts that were made for him appear to have been of a 
 very vague and unsatisfactory character, and the whole 
 resemble much the proceedings of men who are engaged 
 in a hopeless task. The following is a specimen of the 
 character of these suggestions. 
 
 " To find out what evidence can be brought of expressions 
 of loyalty in the time of the late troubles, and for some time 
 before, or -what letters were written to any person in that strain, 
 and who these persons were, and as another part of this article 
 to find out, what expressions of regret and concern in conversa- 
 tion and letters writ by him, on account of the late troubles, 
 were said or wrote; under this particular comes a letter that 
 
 * State Trials, xviii., 827.
 
 SIMOX LORD LOVAT. 261 
 
 was wrote to Commissary Monro, after the battle of Falkirk, 
 on the death of Sir Robert Monro, his brothei", i-egretting the 
 occasion of it. This letter might be got, and if the Commissary 
 saw him when at Inverness, or before or after, and that any thing 
 of loyalty and regrets for the misfortunes of the times passed, 
 he must be examined upon it, and what he says taken down."* 
 
 The response "whicli this meets with in another of the 
 memorandums, can have been by no means hopeful. 
 " Commissary Monro was spoken to fully this day, lie 
 made search for the letter but couldn't find it, and he 
 says, if he had, it contained some things very improper to 
 be exposed — such as a strong advice to Sir H. M. to quit 
 the army — said nothing loyal, only wished the troubles 
 of our country were at an end."f 
 
 The verdict of guilty was found unanimously, on the 
 18th of March; and on the 19th sentence of death was 
 pronounced in the ordinary brutal form peculiar to Eng- 
 land. :j: 
 
 It was a melancholy instance of the inefEcacy of harsli 
 laws, that the system which could not prevent a citizen 
 from sporting with the interests of the community for 
 sixty years, after the manner which fills up the events of 
 this narrative, should make such mighty exertions to cut 
 ofi" a few years of his paralysed existence. It could furnisli 
 but a poor warning to ardent, young, political adventurers, 
 to behold the axe of the avenger so long in falling on the 
 victim ; and would scarcely frighten them from compro- 
 misino; their lot in chances so lonof deferred. The old 
 man's grey hairs excited a sym.pathy, which he knew the 
 art of cultivating ; and if he had been left powerless and 
 poor, to wither in unpitied solitude, seeing all his schemes 
 bafSed, and the policy he had so skilfully cultivated re- 
 
 * Lovat Documents. •[ Ibid. % See its terms, page 44.
 
 262 THE LIFE OF 
 
 versed, lie would liave afforded a more solemn example 
 to those whose projects of ambition are not founded on 
 the honest wish to serve their fellow-creatures. 
 
 After receiving his sentence, he made a short appeal, 
 earnest but not servile, to both Houses to intercede for 
 the mercy of the crown. His last words to the House 
 were in the full spii'it of his life and character, a solemnity 
 tinged by a lurking equivocation. 
 
 Lord High Steward, — " Would you offer any thing 
 further?" 
 
 Lord Lovat. — " Nothing, but to thank your lordsliips 
 for your goodness to me. God bless you all, and I bid 
 you an everlasting farewell; we shall not meet all in the 
 same place again — I am sure of that."* 
 
 The public were ravenous with curiosity about the great 
 Leviathan that had been at last so effectually hooked, and 
 it was necessary to fill the ear of London with details of 
 his previous history, as well as anecdotes of his conduct 
 since his capture. Many of them are fabulous, and many 
 not worth preserving, but a few are too characteristic to 
 "be passed over.f They may be announced by an incident 
 not mentioned in the contemporary accounts, but preserved 
 by tradition. On his return from the House of Lords to 
 the Tower, an old woman not very Avell favoured, had 
 pressed through the crowd and screamed in at the window 
 of the coach, " You'll get that nasty head of yours chopped 
 off. you ugly old Scotch dog," to which he answered, " I 
 
 believe I shall, you ugly old Enghsii b ," paying her 
 
 back with the feminine of the masculine epithet she had 
 applied to him. The major of the Tower coming to visit 
 
 • State Trials, xviii., 841. 
 
 i Taken cliiefly from the " State Trials," the " Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine," the " Londoa Magazine," the " Scots' Magazine," and some con- 
 tcnipiyrary Tracts.
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 263 
 
 liim and ask how he did, he answered, " Why, I am 
 about doing pretty well, for I am preparing myself, sir, for 
 a place where hardly any majors, and very few lieutenant- 
 generals go ;" this was a more distinct hint than that given 
 to the House of Lords. Any matter engrossing the public 
 mind so much as this trial and execution, naturally in- 
 vited the vagaries of persons wholly or partially insane, to 
 the centre of attraction. In this shape an individual of the 
 name of Paynter rendered himself conspicuous by a peti- 
 tion to his Majesty, and a letter to Mr. Secretary Pelham, 
 stating that his application was very diiferent from those 
 ■with which statesmen are generally overwhelmed, and was 
 for a boon for which there would be few competitors. 
 *' Do then," he said to Pelham " be persuaded — let me 
 persuade you, sir, to intercede with the king on my be- 
 half, that Lovat may be pardoned, and that I may have 
 the honour of being beheaded on the scaffold in his lord- 
 ship's stead." When he heard of tliis magnanimous offer, 
 Lovat said it exceeded the text of Scripture, which says, 
 *' Greater love than this hath no man, that a man lay down 
 his life for his friend." " However," he continued, " this 
 man offers to suffer for a stranger, nay, for one that he 
 stigmatises with the name of a vile traitor. In short, sir, 
 I am afraid tlie poor gentleman is weary of living in this 
 wicked world, and, if that be the case, the obhgation is 
 altered, because a part of the benefit is intended for him- 
 self" Occasionally his thoughts were far off among his 
 mountains, and his heart swelled with the thought of the 
 greatness that there still hallowed his name. He said he 
 would have his body entombed in the church of Ivirkhill, 
 which had been the family place of burial for centuries, 
 and that he had at one time left, in a codicil to his will, a 
 sum to pay all the pipers from John O'Groat's house to
 
 264 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Edinburgli to play before his body, and if this were not 
 permitted by the government, yet the old women would 
 cry the coronach, *' And then," he said, " there will be old 
 crying and clapping of hands, for I am one of the greatest 
 chiefs in the Highlands." He made himself a favourite 
 with the warders. On the evening before his execution 
 he took a cordial pipe and a glass of wine with them, and 
 on their drinking to him " a good journey," he said 
 *' Amen," and then knocking the ashes out of his pipe, 
 thus moralised: " Now, gentlemen, the end of all hu- 
 man grandeur is like this snuff of tobacco." There was 
 more than one striking instance, while he was in the 
 Tower, of his power of securing the affection and 
 attachment of those by whom he was surrounded. 
 When General "Williamson, the lieutenant-colonel of 
 the fortress, visited him on the same evening, he 
 desired to bid farewell to that gentleman's daughter, but 
 was told that she was so much overcome by sorrow for 
 his fate, as to be unfit to support an interview. " God 
 bless the dear child," he said, " and make her eternally 
 happy, for she is a kind-hearted, good lass." He desired 
 the attendance of Mr. Baker, the chaplain of the Sardinlars 
 ambassador, and declared that he died in the faith of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, " that he adhered to the rock 
 upon which Christ built his church; to St. Peter, and the 
 succession of pastors from him down to the present time ; 
 and that he rejected and renounced all sects and commu- 
 nities that were rejected by the Church." But even on 
 this solemn question he showed his old propensities : when 
 asked If he was a Jesuit, he said no — a Jansenist: evi- 
 dently out of a spirit of mystification. There is in the 
 " State Trials" a copy of a letter to his son, which bears none 
 of the characteristic marks of Lovat's composition, none
 
 SIMON LORD LOYAT. 265 
 
 of his vivacity or power. It is, in fact, precisely in tlie 
 usual stvle of a criminal's penitentiary letter, ^Yllere a 
 well-meaning clergyman supplies those decent references 
 to religious consolation wliicli the ignorant and hrutal 
 minds of ordinary criminals are unable to suggest or ap- 
 preciate. 
 
 The tragedy was finished on Thursday, the 9 th of April. 
 The last time he had stood in the open air before an 
 assemblage, was on his own hills, and in the presence of 
 his own people — here he was in the midst of the London 
 mob, for whose hundreds of thousands his death was a 
 holiday. From the dense eagerness of the crowd, a scaf- 
 fold fell, and several people were killed. But so intensely 
 was the interest of all centred in the one solemn and 
 dehberate extinction of life, which had brought them to- 
 gether, that the incident was scarcely noticed, save to 
 record Lovat's remark on it, " The more mischief the 
 better sport." When he reached the scaffold he looked 
 round and said, " God save us — why should there be such 
 a bustle about taking off an old grey head that cannot get 
 up three steps without two men to support it." He em- 
 braced one of his clansmen, James Fraser, and said, "My 
 dear James, I am going to Heaven, but you must continue 
 to crawl a Uttle longer in this evil world." To another of 
 his followers he gave his gold-headed cane, and it is still 
 in the possession of the receiver's descendants in Inverness. 
 He examined the edge of the axe, and said he believed it 
 would do. It was then that he uttered the sentiment 
 from Horace, ever connected with his name by the asso- 
 ciation of contrariety, 
 
 " Dulce et decorum est pro Patrla morl." 
 He read the inscription on his cofQn, which was simply 
 " Simon Dominus Fraser de Lovat, decollat; April 9,
 
 266 THE LIFE OF 
 
 1747. ^tat. suffi 80." It appears to have been the 
 meagerness of this inscription that, leading him to re- 
 flections on the vanity of all his hoarded hive of grand 
 ancestral associations, prompted him to say with Ovid, 
 " Nam genus et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, 
 Vix ea nostra voco." 
 
 His head was severed from his body at one blow. 
 
 It may be a question whether a public career of any 
 kind can be so conducted as not to find defenders and 
 vindicators — not merely among eccentric writers seekmg 
 for paradoxes^ but in the thoughts of sincere, honest, able 
 men. Of such vindicators, Lovat's life and character, 
 such as we have seen them, had a few. By them his 
 actions were viewed through a pecuhar medium. They 
 were the Machiavellianism of a prince, not simple trans- 
 actions between man and man. He was endowed with 
 the privileges of a monarch, who is not to be tried by 
 the ordinary rules applicable to a subject; and with whom 
 deeds that amongst mankind at large are called treachery 
 and falsehood, take rank as kingcraft and state policy. 
 Let us part with him in peace, by concluding our me- 
 moir in the words of one of these panegyrists : 
 " Drummond of Bochaldy to Mr. Edgar. 
 
 ''Paris, 31st. of May, 1747. 
 " Our good friend Lord Lovat is indeed no more ! His 
 majesty has lost In him an able and zealous asserter of his 
 just rights ; one of the best heads and hearts that was in his 
 dominions ; his country has lost one of the greatest and besc 
 patriots it had at any time, and his relations and intimate ac- 
 quaintances a most faithful friend in all their necessities and 
 wants. There have been many exceptions made against his 
 character, which the necessities of the times, and the particular 
 unhappy situation of liis family at his setting out in the world,
 
 SIMON LORD LOVAT. 267 
 
 can only account for. But to consider his wliole life in gross, 
 we must allow him to have been one of the ablest men, of the 
 soundest head, firmest mind, and best heart, that our country 
 has at any time produced ; one who never lost the point he 
 had in view; whose surprising presence of mind, in all events, 
 gave occasion to his seizing opportunities for succeeding in 
 things by the ablest thought impracticable, and quite out of 
 the sight of the common-rate of mankind. His equality and 
 rather cheerfulness, than dejection of mind, in tlie last davs of 
 life, and the easy, civil behaviour, with resignation, with wliich 
 he became a sacrifice to his duty and the royal cause, have re- 
 conciled the world to him. Every mortal <s now satisfied that 
 his sentiments were always the same — equally just and honour- 
 able — and that the innumerable difficulties he had to conquer 
 In the settlement of his clan and private family, made it neces- 
 sary to cover them by means that often rendered his character 
 equivocal in the eyes of the world."* 
 
 * Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron, printed for the Abbotsford Club. 
 — Appendix.
 
 LIFE OF DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 OF CULLODEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth — Origin and History of liis Family — Grey Duncan — "Maternal 
 Training — Education — College Life in Edinbiirgh — Trial of Captain 
 Greene for Piracy — Studies in Holland — His Marriage — His Wife — 
 Her early Death— Profession of the Law — Defence of Culloden Castle 
 — Capture of Inverness — Appointed the Lord Advocate's Assistant 
 — Opposition to the Government in their Conduct to the Eebels — 
 Letter to Sir Robert Walpole — Convivial Habits — Enters Parliament 
 — His Friends — Driunmond, Walpole, Ly ttleton, Mansfield, Dr.Clark, 
 Colonel Charteris, &c. 
 
 It is a relief to the ^vriter, as it may probably be to the 
 reader, to tiu-n from the intricacies of a mind twisting 
 itself to suit the turns of fortune and to profit by every 
 recurring change in the course of events, to an honest 
 simple character, shaping itself according to principles, 
 ■which if they be not abstractly right, are yet illumined 
 by the light of a conscience within. The relief is some- 
 thing like that which the anatomist of society experi- 
 ences, when, after threading the gloomy noisy streets of a 
 city, and inhaling its tainted atmosphere, he reaches the 
 open fieldsj and breathes the pure air of heaven beneath 
 the light of day. His city travels may have developed 
 many wonders. Close beside the indications of squalor
 
 270 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 and vice are tlie monuments of the accumulated labour 
 of great intellects ; old historical associations strew the 
 path; modern wonders of science compete with them 
 for admiration ; the great world of man has been laid 
 open for examination into the sources both of its great- 
 ness and its misery. The pursuit is not without its 
 interest and its dignity; but the sunshine and the fresh 
 green, the pure breeze and the clear water, have double 
 charms by contrast when the task is finished. 
 
 Of Duncan Forbes, many circumstances which may be 
 likely to give the reader an interest in his character, have 
 been necessarily connected with the preceding narrative. 
 It now remains to give a general sketch of the events of 
 his life, and of his nature, moral and intellectual. He 
 was born near the town of Inverness, on the 10th of 
 November, 1685. His family possessed two estates in 
 Inverness-shire, the one bearing the historical name of 
 Culloden, near the banks of the Moray Firth, east of 
 Inverness, the other called Bunchrew, on the edge of the 
 same estuary, where it turns in a south-eastern direction, 
 on the other side of the Highland capital. It is not 
 known at which of the family seats Duncan was born. 
 Both Culloden and Bunchrew, though not among the 
 mountains, are within the Highland Hne, where the people 
 are of Celtic race, and still speak the Gaelic language, the 
 use of which, even in these populous and cultivated border 
 districts, seems to diminish but by inches. The Forbeses, 
 however, did not belong to any of those races, which, 
 whether indigenous or importcd,having taken root in the 
 country in the early ages, when clans were little inde- 
 pendent kingdoms, founded each a Hne of petty monarchs 
 — like the Frasers of the Aird, or the Macleods of Skye. 
 Though owners of the lands inhabited by Higlilanders,
 
 OF CULLODEN. 271 
 
 tliey were no more Highland cliiefs, entitled to a "fol- 
 lowing," or court of officers and attendants, than the 
 English gentleman who now buys a Highland estate. 
 They had migrated from the Lowlands in the seventeenth 
 century, a time when the law was too strong to let a new 
 clan dynasty grow up under its eyes, though it might 
 not be powerful enough to destroy those combinations of 
 chief and people, which had been the sturdy growth of 
 many centuries. The first Forbes who settled in Inver- 
 ness-shire, was a cadet of the family of Tolquhon, in 
 Aberdeenshire, itself descended from a cadet of the Lords 
 of Forbes. The power and wealth of the family is at- 
 tested by the massive ruins of the Castle of Tolquhon, 
 where an ample court-yard is surrounded by a quadrangle 
 of towers and curtains, richly moulded and covered with 
 rude sculpture, now all roofless and fast hastening to decay. 
 
 Duncan was the name of the first member of the family 
 who possessed Culloden. He was provost of Inverness, 
 and died on the 14th of October, 1654, aged 82. He en- 
 joyed the name of Grey Duncan, and his title to be so called 
 is fully attested by his portrait, where a large grisly beard 
 conceals the lower part of his bold, broad, honest face. 
 Eound the room, where this portrait occupies the highest 
 station, are ranged those of his descendants, and it at 
 once strikes the stranger, that seldom, in the ancestral re- 
 presentations of Scottish families, does one see so fine a 
 clustre of open, handsome, ingenuous countenances. Per- 
 haps this may partly arise from a usual characteristic of 
 such portraits — the sinister-looking moustache of the seven- 
 teenth century being absent from this group, in which there 
 is no medium between the rich, full, uncultivated beard of 
 Grey Duncan, and the clean-shaven faces of the next 
 generation. 
 
 The family were of Presbyterian principles, and we find
 
 272 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 Jolm, the son and heir of Grey Duncan, disqiiahfied to sit 
 as member of Parliament, apparently for the shire of Elgin, 
 because the test being tendered to him, on the 10th of Fe- 
 bruary, 1685, he refused to take it.* With such priu- 
 ciples, he naturally was a sufferer imder the intolerant 
 government of Charles II. ; but his sufferings had a very 
 unusual effect, for, according to the family historian, 
 *' the frowning aspect of government, by introducing the 
 habits of economical and private living, instead of hospi- 
 tality and expense, into his family, must have conduced 
 to the accumulation of his fortune ; and about the year 
 1670, his landed estate was doubled by the purchase of the 
 barony of Fcrintosh, and the estate of Bunchrew."t Fe- 
 rintosh, on account of the privileges granted to its owner, 
 became, at a subsequent period, illustrious as the head- 
 quarters of the distillery of whisky ; and thus, so short- 
 sighted is man, the efforts of *' the Merry Monarch" to 
 subdue the spirit of the stubborn Presbyterian, became 
 the source of conviviality for generations after he and his 
 roystering companions were in their graves. In the High- 
 land campaign which succeeded the revolution, the estates 
 of the Forbcs's were ravaged by the troops of Cannon 
 and Buchan; and as this had arisen, not from the mere 
 accident of war, but from the zeal of the family for revo- 
 lution principles, Duncan Forbes, the son and successor of 
 the frugal John, received as a compensation, the privilege 
 which has just been alluded to, of distilling into spirits the 
 grain of the barony of Fcrintosh, at a nominal composi- 
 tion of the duty, which remained at the fixed sum of 
 400 merks, Scots, or 22/. 45. 5d., after the spirits distilled 
 in other parts of the covmtry were subjected to a compara- 
 
 • Innes, Origines parocliialcs. f Introduction to the CuUoden 
 
 Papers, v.
 
 OF CULLODEX. 273 
 
 tively heavy excise.* The loss to be compensated was 
 estimated at 54,000/. Scots, or 4,500/. sterling — a very 
 considerable sum in that age. The Scottish Parliament 
 had little pecuniary means at its command, and probably 
 gave the best reward it could afford; but this was certainly 
 a method of requiting public sacrifices, but one degree 
 less mischievous than the old method of allowing the 
 favoured individual to ravage in his turn the territory 
 of some rebel chief, and obtain from it whatever he might 
 be able to extract. 
 
 The person who immediately profited by these inci- 
 dents, Duncan Forbes, the father of the subject of our 
 memoir, was member of the Scottish Parliament for the 
 County of Nairn, and Hke his father, an active friend of 
 revolution principles. He was married to Mary Innes, a 
 daughter of the laird of Inues, a baronet in Morayshire; 
 and they had besides Duncan, a son John, who succeeded 
 to the family estates, and several daughters. The earhest 
 lessons that Duncan received were imbued with an earnest 
 piety, which has been a leading characteristic of the Cul- 
 loden family through several generations. A writer who 
 seems to have spoken in a great measure from personal 
 observation, says of the father : 
 
 " This old gentleman was a real good man. He kept the 
 worship of God statedly and fixedly iu his house ; and when a 
 chaplain, or minister, was w^antlng, he performed the office him- 
 self. He read the sacred Scriptures with concern and regard — 
 he sang the praises of his Creator with a truly thankful heart, 
 and poured out his soul in prayer before him. I can remem- 
 ber, with pleasure, having been once at a gentleman's house 
 near Inverness, where the conversation turned upon Culloden, 
 and there a matron said, ' It is no wonder that Mr. Forbes 's chU- 
 
 * Burke's History of the Commoners, iv. 622. 
 T
 
 274 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 dren have arrived at so great honours, for sure I am, they are 
 children of many a prayer.' "* 
 
 His mother, a woman mild, kind, and affectionate In 
 nature, but imbued with the religious principles of pres- 
 byteriauism almost to sternness, appears to have written 
 to her children many long, earnest, serious letters; the 
 continuation, it may be presumed, while they were absent, 
 of the counsel they received verbally when in her pre- 
 sence. Some of them are still preserved, written in a 
 hard angular rather masculine hand, which would be very 
 distinct if the lines were not too closely crowded together. 
 One will readily expect from the object they generally have 
 in view, that, however important they may have been, and 
 however much reverenced by the receivers, they would 
 afford little interest to a general reader, who, if he have 
 access to a theological library, may find the same topics 
 discussed by more expert hands. But as a specimen of 
 the principles which presided over the cradle and child- 
 hood of Duncan Forbes, and had their share in the subse- 
 quent formation of his mind and habits, the following cha- 
 racteristic specimen is given from a letter written by this 
 lady to her son when he was twenty-six years old, and too 
 much entangled with the practical business of life to be 
 so observant of early precepts as she desired him to be. 
 
 " November 16, 1711. 
 " I had yours of the 8th, Tuesday night, and was somewhat 
 eased by knowing that your brother and you had got safe, 
 tho' my liealth was none of tlie best when you left me, and 
 my sinful God-provoking anxiety, both for your souls and bodies, 
 neither is nor has been very helpful to me for that part of it. 
 And I out of my heart wish that you took a little better heed to 
 both. I was much surprised as well as grieved to find that 
 you journeyed from Innes upon the Sabbath. Its now a con- 
 
 ♦ Memoirs of Duncan Forbes, 1748, p. 9.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 275 
 
 siderable time since I observed you put not that value upon that 
 day you yourself sometimes did, as well as you know that those 
 whose footsteps ought to be your pattern in well-doing did. 
 This is and has been a wounding to me, and a very sensible one."* 
 
 After he obtained the rudiments of education in Inver- 
 ness, Duncan was sent to Edinburgh. The earliest extant 
 production of his pen is the following scrap, probably the 
 result of some inquiries which he had engaged to make in 
 the fashionable world of Edinburgh, to enable his brother's 
 wife to outshine the provincial equestrians of the north. 
 The information may not be iminteresting to those whose 
 inquiries as to costume go farther than the existing fashion. 
 
 •' Edinburgh, June 2, 1702. 
 " I employed the lady Bargeny as you desired me, to inquire 
 what was most used for ryding clothes and under petticoat. 
 The sum of her report was, that one of two must be done. 
 Either scarlet coat and skirt, or camlet coat and skirt of a grave 
 colour with a silver button. She says that the coat is some- 
 times used of cloath, but not so frequently as of camlet. A 
 KiUamanca of 3 or 3-6 ane ell is used for under petticoats." f 
 
 From the following letter, dated November 17, 1704, 
 we find that he had then commenced his professional 
 studies, and that he contemplated, though not apparently 
 with perfect cordiality, going through some practical 
 training. It shows us that he attended the Scottish law 
 class taught by John Spottiswood, whose name was long 
 venerated by the steady practical members of the profession 
 as it was abhorred by the more indolent and careless por- 
 tion of their pupils, from his authorship of " An Intro- 
 duction to the Knowledge of the Stile of AYrits, simple 
 and compound, made use of in Scotland." 
 
 " Edinburgh, November 17, 1704. 
 " Dear Brother — I was yesterday with Mr. David, who 
 says that according to the desire of your letters, he has provided 
 
 * MS. at CuUoden House. t MS. at Culloden Ilouse, 
 
 T 2
 
 276 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 a writing cliambre for me, and is very positive anent my going 
 to one, as also for going to Mr. Spotswood's Colleges of Law, 
 and you know that he having once taken it in his head, and 
 asserting it to be necessarie, I cannot contend, so that if you 
 do not resolve to comitermand it in plain terms I must submit. 
 And vou must remit here five guineas for Spotswood, and a 
 hunder merks for the Latin. In the meantime, I think it duty 
 to advertise you that one Someville is expecting money which 
 you promised him at the Tearm. There is no news this post, 
 else you should have your share of them. 
 
 " I am your most affectionate and dutiful brother, 
 
 « Dun. Forbes."* 
 
 The dangerous and excited state of Scotland at the 
 commencement of the eighteenth century has been men- 
 tioned in a previous part of this volume. The trial of 
 Captain Thomas Greene and his crew for piracy, in 1705, 
 ■was an incident, which has marked in the darkest colours 
 the spirit that then actuated all classes of Scotsmen. A 
 ship belonging to the Scottish Darien Company, had 
 been seized in the Downs, and confiscated for a breach of 
 the privileges of the English East India Company. By 
 way of reprisal, as if the act had been done by an alien 
 state, an English vessel, called the Worcester, lying in 
 the Frith of Forth, was seized and detained by the order of 
 the Scottish Court of Admiralty. "While the crew of this 
 vessel were enjoying idleness and dissipation among the 
 people of Burntisland harbour where she lay to, they were 
 heard to throw out some mysterious hints about crimes 
 that the distant seas had closed over, in such words as — 
 " It is a wonder that since wc did not sink at sea, that 
 God does not make the ground open and swallow us up 
 when wc arc come ashore, for the wickedness that has 
 been committed during this last voyage on board that 
 old hulk." Dark rumours began to circulate and gather 
 
 * MS. at Culloden Ilouse.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 277 
 
 an articulate sliape. A vessel was said to have been 
 attacked in the Indian seas, and the crew murdered with 
 hatchets and thrown overboard. That national enthusiasm 
 might contribute to increase the indignation thus excited, 
 it was discovered that the ship was a Scottish vessel, be- 
 longing to that unfortunate Darien Company, which then 
 lay at the root of all Scotland's woes and wrongs. Of 
 the horrors of which the populace of Scotland supped 
 full — and not only the populace, but the lawyers, clergy, 
 and statesmen — we have a fair representation, in two 
 letters by Duncan to his brother; the first is dated 2nd 
 of April, 1704, a mistake apparently for 1705. 
 
 " A week or two ago I took a hundred merks from Andrew 
 Skeen, to pay for my writing' chamber, what penny-worth I 
 have, I'll tell you when, God willing, we meet. I was, when I 
 came here, resolved to follow the advice you gave me, viz., to 
 spend as little as I can here, in order to spare something till I 
 come to a place where spending will be more necessary, and I 
 continue so still ; but you may think it otherwise, when you 
 hear that I have bought six or seven pounds' worth of books 
 here, and am resolved to buy more, yet this is soon reconciled, 
 when you know that I have them here by the half cheaper thau 
 they are bought in Holland. 
 
 " I ga\ e you last ane account of Green's tryael and doom, 
 which makes such a stir in this place. Since the sentence, one 
 Geo. Haines made a declaration, in which he says, there was a 
 ship taken upon that coast, at that time, &c., but that he was 
 not aboard himself. Afterwards, seeing that this confession did 
 not procure him a remission, he made a second one, upon some 
 assurances of life, in which he confesses tliat he was aboard the 
 time of the action, but did not know what men they were that 
 were taken, or what was done with them. But this not being 
 full enough, he, upon the sight of a remission, made a third one, 
 m wliich he tells of the men's beinsr murdered, some being- cut 
 
 « . <^ y c> 
 
 m pieces by hatchets, and others tied back to back and thrown 
 overboard. He adds, that be heard Captain Mather in the 
 meantime say, that that was Captain Drumraond. [This] would 
 tell well enouijh if he had told it all at first, or if he had done 
 it without hope of remission ; but now he has got his remission
 
 278 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 for this fine story, another of the men called Bruce, seeinj^ 
 his neighbour freed from death by such a notable tale, has made 
 an ample confession also, and is in a fair way to a remission too. 
 On Tuesday last, came a letter from Argyle, by the Queen's 
 order to the Privy Council, desiring them to delay execution till 
 the queen should see the process. Upon which the counsel 1 
 took him up roundly, telling him he took too much on him to 
 order them ; that they would do what they would without re- 
 gard for his letter, but there is since then an express come, with 
 orders from the queen herself, as is said, to reprieve them till 
 her further pleasure be known."* 
 
 "April 20, 1705. 
 " The news of the town is a discovery of the oath of piracy 
 taken as is alledged by Captain Green and his men, which, 
 George Haines, one of tlie men that has confessed, says to 
 have been thus : That Captain Green and the rest of the 
 crew, w^ere let blood of (by Samuel Wilcocks, surgeon, mate of 
 the sliip) in one bowl, that their several bloods together with a 
 little claret wyne were mixed, and they made to sitt on their 
 knees ; that they were made to eat a little bread with the liquor, 
 and in this fashion take a sacramental oath of secrecy in the 
 horridest tearmes that could be devised. Upon this discovery, 
 Haines and Wilcocks were confronted before the Advocate, 
 ■where the one alledged and the other denyed most pointedly. 
 Its alledged, also, that there is a watch found which Captain 
 Green had given to a Miss of his in Town with T. D. the two 
 first letters of Captain Drummond's name engraved on it. 
 What truth is in this I know not.f 
 
 " Dun. Forbes." 
 
 The Admiralty Court found the accused guilty, more 
 it is to be feared in token of their strength, and to show 
 England what they could do, than in tlie impartial admi- 
 nistration of justice. Forbes carefully watched the pro- 
 ceedings, and soon had reason to believe that tlie whole 
 nation, from tlie bench to the lowest populace, hurried 
 on by the blind fury of national prejudice, were com- 
 mitting an atrocious crime. Subsequently, when stand- 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House, f MS. at Culloden House.
 
 OP CULLODEN. 279 
 
 ing-up in the House of Commons for the independ- 
 ance of Scotland in the inquiry about the murder of 
 Captain Porteous, he gave an account of his own impres- 
 sion and conduct on the occasion in this remarkable state- 
 ment. 
 
 " One Greene, a master of an English vessel, having been 
 forced by stress of weather into the harbour of Leith, a report 
 was spread that he was a pirate ; upon which he and his offi- 
 cers were taken up and tried, and upon the evidence of some 
 of bis crew, no two of whom concurred in their evidence, con- 
 demned for murdering one Drummond and seizing bis ship. 
 I was present at the whole trial, and was sensible with what 
 partiality and injustice it was carried on: the unfortunate men 
 seemed to me to have no other crime, than that of being En- 
 glishmen, and of being obliged to put into Scotland at a time 
 when great animosities were subsisting in that kingdom, on ac- 
 count of some proceedings against the natives of Scotland, 
 which were judged there to be unjust and harsh. For these, 
 and no other crimes, this poor unfortunate gentleman, and the 
 officers of his ship, were to suffer an ignominious death. The 
 populace. In the meantime, began to have a surmise that the 
 privy council, which sat at that time in Edinburgh, Intended to 
 reprieve the criminals. As every surmise to an enraged mob, 
 is a proof, they attacked the Lord Chancellor, beat his chair in 
 pieces, and obliged him to fly for his life ; and bad It not been 
 for the city guard, who rescued him with their bayonets vipon 
 the muzzles of their guns, they had torne him to plecea. 
 They afterwards went and knocked at the door of the house 
 where the privy council was sitting, bawling out for the blood 
 of these persons ; and the privy council in a mean and scan- 
 dalous manner gratiKed them, by signing an order for their ex- 
 ecution that very day. I was so struck with the horror of the 
 fact, that 1 put myself in deep mourning, and with the dang-er 
 of my life, attended the innocent but unfortunate men to the 
 scaffold, where they died with the most affecting protestations 
 of their innocence. I did not stop here, for I carried the head 
 of Captain Greene to the grave : and In a few months after, 
 letters came from the captain for whose murder, and from the 
 very ship for whose capture, the unfortunate persons suffered, 
 informing their friends that they were all safe. These letters,
 
 280 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 sir, were of a date, much later than the time wlien the crimes 
 for which Greene was condemned, were pretended to be per- 
 petrated." 
 
 The resistance thus offered by the young student of 
 jurisprudence to the torrent of national prejudice and 
 fury — a torrent which swept with it alike the sedate and 
 the exciteable — the wisdom of grey hairs and the enthu- 
 siasm of youth, presaged a character as remarkable for 
 its love of justice, as for its firmness; and was the more 
 admirable, that it was no fruit of callousness or calculat- 
 ing indifference, but was exhibited by one in whose 
 bosom the love of country burned steadily, and no less 
 warmly than the devouring flames of patriotism by which 
 it was surrounded. 
 
 A lawyer's education in Scotland was considered very 
 incomplete in that age, without some aid from a foreign 
 university. While the devotees of the common law of 
 England scorned the system of the civilians as something 
 that partook both of the un-English and the slavish, and 
 nursed themselves into an almost devout veneration for 
 the rude but majestic system which separated them as 
 much from the European mind as the channel isolated 
 them from the continent; the Scottish lawyers sought 
 instruction from the learned civilians of Holland and 
 France, as from persons who had filled their cisterns from 
 the old undefiled fountains of the Roman Law. If it be 
 admitted, that the English common law was calculated 
 to guarantee more valuable privileges, the Scottish system 
 at least infused into the profession a tone of scholarship 
 and liberal feeling, which long continued to characterise 
 the Parliament House of Edinburgh. The protestant 
 university of Ley den, was the uniform resort of the sons 
 
 * Parliamentary History, vol. x., p. 284.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 281 
 
 of those gentlemen who were imbued with sound revolu- 
 tion principles, and thither Forbes went soon after the 
 affair of Captain Greene. On the 15th of December, 1706, 
 we find his brother John writing to his wife. " Pray fail 
 not to give my love to my mother, and tell her my bro- 
 ther is well, for I heard from him last week, and answered 
 his bill for 300 guilders. He is still at Ley den, but I 
 think he will be shortly at the Hague. I have from seve- 
 ral, that have come over with the last fleet, who left him 
 in very good health, and gives him as ample a commenda- 
 tion as my heart can desyre, for which I desyre to bless 
 God."* 
 
 His foreim studies seem not to have been of lonof dura- 
 tion, for on the 16th of September, 1707, we find him 
 writinfr to his brother, that owino; to the bad state of the 
 weather, the Duke of Marlborough may probably return 
 to Britain witliin a month, and that he would prefer 
 going by that great commander's convoy, as both the 
 safest and the cheapest method of travelling homewards. 
 " Notwithstanding," he continues, " of the great expense 
 I have made hitherto, I shall want to clear me of Hol- 
 land, about four hundred guilders, for Hving, some books, 
 and petty debts. "f 
 
 He appears to have been married soon after his re- 
 turn to Scotland. He had fixed his aflfectlons on Mary, 
 the dauo-hter of Hu2;h Rose, twelfth Baron of Kilravock, 
 the proprietor of an estate close to Culloden.l Accord- 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House. t MS. at Culloden House. 
 
 X This Baron of Kilravock was a political man of considerable emi- 
 nence. He opposed the incorporating union, and was in fevour of fede- 
 ralism. His biographer says, he was brought up with " notions of 
 licentiousness and arbitrary government," but that he subsequently 
 imbibed the principles of the llevolution. He partook in the capture 
 of Inverness from the Rebels, in 1715, when his brother was killed. 
 (MS. History of the family at Kilravock.) On his death, Lovat wrote a 
 letter of condolence to his son, which would make no bad model for 
 such an occasion, for " The Universal letter writer." " I o^vn, I was
 
 282 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 ing to tradition, she was beautiful in her person, and pos- 
 sessed of all the qualities, moral and intellectual, which 
 might make her a suitable partner for one so highly 
 endowed. 
 
 Between the old Fortalice of Kilravock, and the mansion 
 of the Forbes's, lies Culloden Moor; and amidst the asso- 
 ciations of defeat and misery which haunt the spot, one 
 memorial of an earlier date and a gentler character is still 
 Dointed out to the wayfarer. Beneath a spreading oak 
 tree, an unusual feature of the surrounding scenery, there 
 is a huge stone ; and there the affectionate traditions of the 
 country people record, that Duncan Forbes, who still hves 
 among them as a name for the place to be proud of, used 
 to meet with Mary Innes, when their affections had been 
 plighted. Not yet had this peaceful solitude been asso- 
 ciated with historical tragedies — with disaster, and blood, 
 and cruelty. And in the old widowhood of Duncan 
 Forbes, when he heard, with a throbbing heart, of those 
 butcheries of which his own honoured domain had, by a 
 strange coincidence, been the stage; one can suppose that 
 the far different scenes wliich, through the A'ista of long 
 years, he coidd remember, on the same spot, must have 
 deepened, by contrast, the darkness of the tragedy. 
 
 Their union appears to have taken place in 1708.* 
 The period of her death has not been ascertained ; but it 
 is known that unhappily for the otherwise fortunate career 
 
 both surprised and heartily grieved at the loss of my most constant 
 and brave friend, who for liis uncommon valour and integrity, was an 
 honour to mankind; and the comfort I have in losing such a heroic 
 friend, is, that God be thanked, without any flattery, I can say that no 
 father has been so happily succeeded in our days in the part of the 
 kingdom where we live, as he is; for you possess all his good qualities 
 without the defects that advanced age brought upon him."— (0;-/^/na/ 
 at Kilravock.) 
 
 *A discharge granted by John Forbes, Duncan's son, to Hugh Rose, 
 preserved at Kilravocl<, bears reference to their contract of marriage 
 aa bearing date the 21st of October, 1708.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 283 
 
 of lier tusband, slie lived but a very short period, leaving 
 a son, John, of whom we shall hereafter have to speak. 
 Though still In early youth, Forbes seems to have che- 
 rished her memory according to the spirit of an unknown 
 author, 
 
 " Heu ! quaiito minus cum reliquls versari, quam tui me- 
 minisse." 
 
 In 1717, his brother, thanking him for ''the kindly 
 
 way of living he proposed," says, 
 
 " I like it extremely well, but I should like it much better if 
 you could think of providing yourself with an honest lass that 
 would be a comfort to you, and also take care a httle of me. 
 This U'oukl determine me to keep home, and with pleasure, 
 which in any other event cannot but be pretty melancholy 
 to me when alone ; and I assure you that your coming to 
 some speedy and solid resolution in this thing, which perhaps 
 you may take as a joke, is the greatest obligation you can do 
 your affectionate brother."* 
 
 But he seems to have considered that his course of ma- 
 trimonial happiness had been run, and we find no symp- 
 toms of his ever having contemplated a second alliance. 
 
 On the 26th of July, 1709, he became a member of 
 the Faculty of Advocates, f It is said that he was soon 
 afterwards made Sheriff of Midlothian, but the contem- 
 porary authority on which it is believed that at so early a 
 period he received this high appointment, is not stated.^ 
 He had undoubtedly at an early period attracted the 
 notice of the powerful family of Argyle. The story 
 that accompanies every eminent lawyer, about the senior 
 counsel taken suddenly ill, and the junior performing his 
 functions better than he could have executed them him- 
 self, and to the marvel of the bystanders carrying the 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 72. 
 
 t Books of Sedement, referred to in Brunton and Haig's " History 
 of the College of Justice." 
 
 J Brunton and Haig's, "History of the College of Justice," 509.
 
 284 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 cause triumphantly, lias not deserted Forbes. It was by 
 such an incident that he is said to have gained the good 
 opinion of the great leader in the camp and cabinet. 
 Wliatever may have been their introduction to each 
 other, their esteem was mutual. There seems to have 
 been nothing in young Duncan's character of the fawn- 
 ing or crouching, and no over anxiety to lift up the face 
 so as to catch the eye of those above, with the certainty of 
 losing notice of equals or inferiors. The duke seems to 
 liave had much respect for the firm, honest character of 
 his young friend ; and feeling probably that the obhgations 
 passing between them were mutual, he generally ad- 
 dressed him in the tone of warm and liberal friendship. 
 
 Lord Mar's rebellion, which found Forbes a promising 
 but obscure man of business, left him a person of consider- 
 able political note. Amidst other correspondence fore- 
 shadowing an outbreak, we find his brother writing to him 
 from London, on the 30th of April, 1715 : 
 
 " As for your Highland neighbours, your trysts and meet- 
 ings, I know not what to say. I wish Ave be not too secure. 
 I can assure you the Tories here were never higher in their 
 looks or hopes, which they found upon a speedy invasion. 
 "Whatever be in the matter, let things be so ordered that my 
 house be not surprised."* 
 
 His " house," the Castle of Culloden, was, if we may 
 judge of it from some old pictures of the battle of Cul- 
 loden, where it is represented in the distance, a huge, 
 tall, strong pile of buildings, vnth. little ornament. It was 
 partly built in the days of the Macintoshes, and was pro- 
 bably completed by the first Forbes. Old houses and 
 old furniture have, before they reach the dignity of being 
 ancient to go through the ordeal of being old-fiishioned, 
 
 * Culloden Tapers, 38.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 285 
 
 a state of transition in wliicli they have no friends, and 
 where the hand of every man who can afford to dispense 
 with them, is turned against them. To this perilous junc- 
 ture the old Castle of Culloden, after surviving all its 
 sieo-es, fell a victim. * The stronu^ stone vaults alone re- 
 main, and over them is raised a modern mansion in the 
 English style of the last century. Had it existed to this 
 day, the old Fortalice would have been looked on with 
 veneration, and it is at least to be regretted that its owner 
 did not content himself with building his new mansion 
 apart, and leaving the old grey walls to keep company 
 with the ancestral trees by which they were surrounded. 
 Such was the house for the safety of which its owner, 
 attending his parliamentary duties, expressed his anxiety. 
 It was considered a fortification of considerable political 
 importance, and, being attacked by the rebels, was held 
 out by Duncan, until the return of his brother with a 
 very important ally had the effect of raising the siege. 
 
 Both Duncan and his brother were actively engaged in 
 the civil war in Inverness-shire. We have already seen 
 Lovat's detail of their operations, in which he, of course, 
 naturally cuts the principal figure. We may now add a 
 few notices from the memoranda of a more imjDartial 
 spectator.* John Forbes met Lovat at Stirhng, on the 
 arrival of the latter, from France, and they concerted 
 together a plan for passing to Inverness — a project of great 
 difficulty, as the whole intervening country was overrun 
 by the rebel forces. They obtained a small merchant 
 vessel at Leith, belonging to Portsoy, and commanded by 
 a man named Clark. They received twenty-eight fire- 
 locks, with ammunition, from the castle of Edinburgh, 
 and were fortunate enough to find several north Highland 
 
 * Major Traser's full and impartial account, MS.
 
 286 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 dro^^e^s on tlielr way from England after the sale of their 
 cattle, who were glad to embrace this means of conveying 
 their money in safety. Lovat mentions their encounters on 
 the voyage through the Frith of Forth with some of Mar's 
 armed boats. 
 
 Findino- that the captain of the vessel was a Jacobite, 
 thev threatened to pistol him, and were contented to part 
 company with him by being landed at Aberdeen, instead 
 of continuing the voyage to Inverness under so danger- 
 ous a guide. At Aberdeen they found Lord Saltoun in 
 command of the Jacobite forces — a very serious discovery 
 for Lovat, who, sixteen years previously, caused a gibbet to 
 be erected before his window,* and might be too practi- 
 cally reminded of the threat conveyed in that exhibition. 
 The acuteness of Major Fraser, by his own account, saved 
 the whole party. Being suddenly summoned before 
 Lord Saltoun, with true Highland sagacity *' the major 
 told his lordship that he had tasted nothing since he came 
 in, and that he would be the better of a dram before he 
 told his lordship who they were. My lord called for a 
 double Stoup of brandy and a large glass, and gave a 
 bumper to the major. Then the conversation began." 
 Having thus gained time, and fortified his assurance, the 
 major said they were drovers who had been in England 
 selling cattle for Lord Seaforth, and were returning with 
 the money, wliich was much needed for the service of 
 King James. So effectually was the story told, that to 
 expedite a journey wliich seemed to be essential to the 
 Jacobite cause, Saltoun provided them with horses from 
 his own troop. They had a dangerous and difficult 
 
 * So Major Fraser says; but the Lord Saltoun mentioned in the 
 " Life of Lovat," had died a few montlis before this meeting. Perhaps 
 his son had been a partaker in the gibbet scene.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 287 
 
 journey tlirough a wild country, mucli frequented by the 
 forces of the rebels. On the second day they reached 
 Kilravock, the seat of Duncan''s father-in-law, which 
 was garrisoned, and holding out against the insurgents. 
 There Lovat remained, instructing Major Fraser to raise 
 the Stratherick men, and bring them to CuUoden House. 
 Continuing his narrative he says — " Culloden and the 
 major marched off, and came to the house of Culloden by 
 eight o'clock at night, where Mr. Duncan Forbes was 
 keeping a strong garrison of men, who were better paid 
 than the king's regulars, though they were all his own te- 
 nants. Culloden and the major having entered that house, 
 you may believe they were both well received. The major 
 told Mr. Duncan what command was laid upon him by his 
 chief to be that night in Stratherick, in order to march 
 down the men. Mr. Forbes answered, ' You fool, you'll 
 starve by the way — a wilder night never blew.' However 
 the major was positive to get to Stratherick that night. 
 He having taken leave of that gentleman with the con- 
 sent of a good bottle of wine in his skin, he made out that 
 twenty miles of rugged country by daylight. He arrived 
 cold and hungry,. He soon recruited with a dram of good 
 aqua vitge, and with seeing his friends so resolute in the 
 cause of their king and chief." He brought the men next 
 day to Culloden Castle, where, when they were united with 
 200 men under the Forbes's,and 300 under Kilravock, the 
 whole force amounted to 1300. It was arranged that Lovat 
 should attack Inverness from the north, and the Forbes's 
 with their friends should support him on the south. Before 
 the attack was made the governor surrendered ; the most 
 serious casualty in the affair being the death of Arthur Rose, 
 the brother of Kilravock, who being, as the chronicler 
 states, " a bold, resolute man, and long a slave in Turkia,
 
 288 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 tliouglit nothing was difficult for him there." The import- 
 ance of this capture was much enhanced, by its being 
 contemporary with the battle of Sheriff Muir, fought 
 on the 13th of November. 
 
 It was in allusion to his conduct on this occasion, that 
 Lovat used to address Duncan by the title, " My dear 
 General." He had some prepossession for a military life, 
 and seems to have embraced it heartily when circum- 
 stances threw it in his way. He had many of the quali- 
 ties, great and little, which are found united in distin- 
 guished military leaders — steadiness of purpose, verging 
 on pertinacity — much reliance on the efficacy of pre- 
 arranged plans and individual skill — and great confidence 
 in his own resources, mingled with contempt for the in- 
 fluence of aggregate opinions. Early in 1716, we find 
 that Forbes was appointed by the Public Prosecutor one 
 of his assistants ; and the following passages occur in a 
 letter which he wrote to Sir David Dalrymple, the Lord 
 Advocate dated the 20th of March, 1716. 
 
 " Yesterday I was qualified, the Lord knows how, as your depute. 
 The Justice Clerk shews a grim sort of civihty towards me, because 
 he finds me plaguey stubborn. I waited upon him, however, 
 and on the other lords, to the end that they might fix a diet for 
 the tryal of the Episcopal Clergy. The Justice Clerk does not 
 seem to smile on their prosecution, because it is not his own 
 contrivance.''* 
 
 The Justice Clerk was the same Lord Grange with 
 whom the reader has been made acquainted in the preced- 
 ing memoir. The prosecution of the Episcopal Clergy 
 was one of those acts of sectarian tyranny, of which too 
 many religious bodies have been alternately the perpetra- 
 tors and the victims. Tliat Lord Grange should have 
 stood in its way, can only be accounted for by some such 
 
 * Culloden Tapers, 42.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 289 
 
 peculiar reason as Duncan liimself suggests. To find a man 
 like Forbes dipping his hands in such matters, is a thing to 
 be lamented, along with the other follies of the ■wise. 
 
 The conduct of English statesmen when the rebellion 
 was at an end, was somewhat mortifying to Duncan's 
 national feehng. The law which enjoined that indict- 
 ments against persons charged with treason should be 
 found in the counties where the treason was said to have 
 been committed, was suspended by a special act, appli- 
 cable to persons taken in arms. The act meant more than 
 it expressed, and the trials and executions at CarHsle 
 showed that its object was to bring the Scottish rebels 
 within the cognisance of English juries. Forbes seems 
 not to have desired to fill the office of a prosecutor, from 
 an alarm lest his services might be required in carrying 
 out this project. On the 7th of July he wrote to Lord 
 Islay, saying: 
 
 '* I have, since my Lord Advocate's leaving' this country, offi- 
 ciated for him, faithfully I hope ; and by this night's post I 
 have a kin& of intinaation made me, as if there were some de- 
 sign of appointing me one of his deputies for the ensuing pro- 
 secutions ; but as I am an utter stranger to the English forms 
 of procedure,* and for several other reasons which your lord- 
 ship will easily apprehend, I am determined to refuse that 
 -employment ; nor can any motive whatsoever induce me to 
 accept that place as things now stand, unless your lordship 
 commands me.'f 
 
 Lord Islay said in answer : 
 
 " I had yours about your deputation of advocate. I am very 
 sensible of the disagreeable part of that office at present, and 
 yet I would advise you to struggle through it as well as you 
 can."J 
 
 * It does not necessarily follow, however, from this that he was to be 
 employed in England, as the English form of prosecution, in cases of 
 treason, was extended to Scotland immediately after the Union. 
 
 f CuUoden Papers, 58. % MS. at Culloden House. 
 
 U
 
 290 DUNCAN rORBES, 
 
 Tliat he acted in any way in tliese prosecutions is ex- 
 tremely improbable, as we find him occupied in a manner 
 very inconsistent with the usual functions of a crown 
 counsel, in collecting money to provide his countrymen, 
 prosecuted in England, with the means of defending them- 
 selves. On this subject he wrote the following letter to 
 Lis brother, which is creditable both to his humanity and 
 his independence : 
 
 "Edinburgh, November 16, 1716. 
 "Dear Brother, — I have written once to-day already; the 
 design of this is to acquaint you, that a contribution is a carry- 
 ing on for the relief of the poor prisoners at Carlisle from their 
 necessitous condition. It is certainly Christian and by no means 
 disloyal to sustain them in their indigent estate, until they are 
 found guilty. The law has brought them to England to be 
 tried by foreign juries; so far it is well. But no law can hinder 
 a Scotsman to wish that his countrymen, not hitherto con- 
 demned, should not be a derision to strangers, or perish for 
 want of necessary defence or sustenance out of their own coun- 
 try. Therefore, if any contribution is carried on for the above 
 purpose with you, it is fit you should give it all the countenance 
 you can, by exhortation and example. The king's %est friends 
 do not scruple it here."* 
 
 It is traditionally stated, that in after life, when high 
 official position brought him into the presence of illus- 
 trious persons, he excited some astonishment by vindicat- 
 ing his conduct on this occasion in the presence of royalty ; 
 the statement is fully as likely to be true as the greater 
 part of those which have no better than traditional au- 
 thority. 
 
 At this crisis, Forbes wrote a very remarkable " anony- 
 mous letter" to Sir Robert Walpolc. In this act he must 
 not, by an indiscriminate use of words, be confounded 
 with the cowardly calumniator, who conceals himself to 
 
 » Cullodcn Papers, 69.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 291 
 
 .stab a reputation or promote a sinister end. It has some- 
 times "been set down as a rule of etliics, tlaat no one sliould 
 "write an anonymous paper, however beneficent be his ob- 
 jects; and the rule is a good one, to the extent, that no 
 one should write about persons or measures under a shield 
 intended to be so impenetrable, that the author can never 
 be discovered and made responsible for what he has said, 
 "whatever may be its effects. On this groimd, hardly any 
 one will be found bold enough to justify the author of the 
 " Letters of Junius." But that sort of anonymousncss 
 ■which consists in desiring that the name of the writer 
 should not be associated with the writing — that his 
 opinions should be left to their own simple influence, 
 without their weight being affected either by the eminence 
 or the insignificance of the writer's name, which at the same 
 time may be discovered, if there should be dignus vindice 
 nodus — such anonymous writing is the staple of our fugi- 
 tive hterature, of our reviews, magazines, and news- 
 papers, and of our anonymous books. The " Letter to Sir 
 Robert Walpole," was of the class of writings which, at 
 the present day, might appear in the " Times,*" or the 
 " Morning Chronicle," embodying the observations upon 
 state affairs, of a man who did not wish to diminish the 
 power and weight of his truths, by exposing the youth 
 and inexperience of the person who utters them. For 
 ultimate responsibility, if there should be any, lie had 
 made full preparation. He says that he is resolved " to 
 assert no fact, and to give the character of no person, that 
 he will not answer at the peril of his head." He uses, at 
 the same time, some remarkable expressions, which show 
 that he had not completely concealed his authorship of the 
 letter, but had put friends, apparently in high places, in 
 possession of the secret; and which indicate to the reader, 
 
 u2
 
 292 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 tliat as lie had written his exposition with serious delibera- 
 tion, he was resolved to follow up its object with firmness. 
 " I have," he says, " but one thing more to acquaint you 
 with, before I enter on the subject; and that is, that it 
 will not be in your power to suppress this representation. 
 My respect to the king will hinder me from pubHshing 
 it, but I will convey it into hands that will take care of 
 it : if you do not perceive, you will guess at my meaning, 
 and act as you will be answerable." 
 
 This document teaches the political doctrine alike sim- 
 ple and sound, that a people can never be brought into 
 the ways of their neiglibours by force ; and that a scorn of 
 their deep-rooted prejudices, a perpetual irritation of their 
 sensibilities, disregard of the objects of their pride or 
 reverence, and persecution of the persons they venerate, 
 will not induce a nation so far to love the ways of those 
 who so treat them, that they will adopt the religion, the 
 ethics, and the laws, of which these actions are the visible 
 fruit. An insurrection having been overcome, he pleaded 
 that it was not the way to make the Scottish Jacobites 
 who joined it peaceable and contented subjects, to slaugh- 
 ter until the hangman was exhausted, and proscribe for 
 ever, as outcasts upon the earth, those who were spared 
 from death. He showed with solemn earnestness that 
 extirpation, if it be a sharper and more horrible, is a 
 more effective remedy than proscription, and in the end 
 not so cruel. " If," he says, " all the rebels with their 
 wives, children, and immediate dependants, could be at 
 once rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonish- 
 ing; but time would commit it to oblivion, and the danger 
 would be less to the constitution, than when thousands of 
 innocents, punished witli misery and want for the offences 
 of their friends, are suffered to wander about the country,
 
 OF CULLODEN. 293 
 
 sigliing out tlaelr complaints to Heaven, and drawing at 
 once the compassion and moving the indignation of every 
 human creature." 
 
 The former picture, all save its " oblivion'' — for history- 
 has no Lethe for such acts — has been exemplified in 
 Ireland. In the north, where extirpation had gone as far 
 as such things can, the remedy was sharp and horrible; 
 but over the graves and ploughed up hearths of the old 
 Celtic Catholics, for whom the law contained only penalties, 
 "were planted a new race to be rendered happy in the 
 enjoyment of its privileges; and the district was rightly 
 treated by its powerful neighbour, with but one great 
 blot on the act of justice — the bloody oblation that pre- 
 ceded it. 
 
 The observations on the effects of the wide-extended 
 forfeitures of the estates of the rebels, arc thus effectively 
 set forth : 
 
 " It will be agreed on all hands, that the proper rule in this 
 ease Avould have been, to have punished only as many as was 
 necessary for terror, and for weakening' the strength of tlie 
 rebels for the future, and to extend mercy to as many as it 
 could conveniently be indulged to with the security of the go- 
 vernment ; and this maxim every thinking Whig had then in 
 his mouth, however oifended at the insolences of the rebels. 
 In place of a course of this kind, the method followed was ; 
 1st. to try all the criminals in England ; 2nd. to detain in pri- 
 son all those in custody in Scotland, except some who had in- 
 terest with certain great men to obtain a previous pardon, to the 
 manifest dishonom- of the government ; 3rd. to attaint a vast 
 number of Scots noblemen and gentlemen ; 4th. to put it out; 
 of his Majesty's power to grant any part of estates forfeited ; 
 and 5th. to appoint a commission for inquiry, and levying the 
 rebels' goods and chattels. The necessary consequences of this 
 procedure in general are two. First, it makes all those who had 
 the misfortune to be seduced into the rebellion, with their chil- 
 dren, relatives, and such as depend on them for ever desperate, 
 and it's hard to tell what occasions may offer, for venting their
 
 294 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 rage. We see that want and hard ch-cumstances, lead men 
 daily into follies, without any other temptation ; but when those 
 circumstances are brought on by adherence to any principle, 
 or opinion, it's certain the sufferers will not quit their attempts 
 to better their condition, but with their lives. Second, as there are 
 none of the rebels who have not friends among the king's faith- 
 ful subjects, it is not easy to guess how far a severity of this 
 kind, unnecessarily pushed, may alienate the affections even o£ 
 those from the government. But in particular as this case re- 
 lates to Scotland, the difficulty will be insurmountable, I may- 
 venture to say there are not 200 gentlemen in the whole king- 
 dom who are not very nearly related to some one or other of the 
 rebels. Is it possible that a man can see his daughter, his 
 grandchildren, his nephews, or cousins, reduced to beggary, 
 and starving unnecessarily, by a government, without thinking 
 very ill of it ? And where this is the case of a whole nation, I 
 tremble to think what dissatisfactions it will produce against 
 a settlement so necessary for the happiness of Britain."* 
 
 The conclusion is peculiar, and not in conformity with 
 
 the style in ■which ministers of state are accustomed to be 
 
 addressed. 
 
 " By what I have said in the onset, sir, you may guess I 
 will not rest satisfied singly with having transmitted this to 
 you. I must know something of your sentiments about it. 
 I'm resolved to wait till the 20th September ;"j" and if, in the 
 London Gazette, before that date, I see nothing advertised 
 concerning a letter dated and signed as this is ; you may trust 
 to it, I shall complain of it in such a manner, as you shall 
 have no reason to be satisfied."^ 
 
 Let us now take a general glance at the social habits of 
 Duncan Forbes in early life. Among them, conviviality 
 occupied a far more prominent place than social moralists 
 of the present day would consider compatible with the 
 decorum of a high official person, professing serious re- 
 ligious opinions. Not few are the indications throughout his 
 correspondence of the inllucnce of wine; indeed, he seems, 
 
 * Cullo(]en Papers, p. C2. f The scroll of tlie letter is not dated. 
 X Cullodcu Tapers, pp. 61 — C5.
 
 OF CULLODEX. 295 
 
 in his novitiate, before he became a crown lavryer, to have 
 been a prime ringleader among jolly fellows. His friend, 
 John Macfarlane, apparently the same gentleman who was 
 Lovat's law agent, writing to him on the 21st of April, 
 1715, complains in moving terms of the decay of hilarity 
 since his departure, and says, " a tappit hen, a bird as 
 peculiar to you, as the eagle to Jove, has not been seen 
 among us since that event."* Apparently, much about 
 the same time, his friend Dr. Clark addresses him with 
 the following mystical reference to his convivial powers : 
 
 " Ringleader of Raccabites, — We have enjoyed such a 
 physical peace of mind since we were delivered from thy usurped 
 tyrannical government, that it's the constant prayer of the body, 
 * may the month of May last for ever.' We have been at no Utile 
 pains to pointout the reason of your appearance, as astronomers 
 do of a comet, and after long and diligent inquiries we have 
 agreed that as the church raiUtant was to be pestered with au 
 Antichrist, so the body physical was to suffer under some such 
 scourge, for the sin of didlness. I have a great many argu- 
 ments which induce me to beheve you are the man (the beast 
 I mean), and I Intend to write a dissertation which shall evince 
 it to demonstration. "t 
 
 The following httle statement in a letter to his brother, 
 tells its own story in a very few words: " I am so uneasy 
 that I cannot write much, though to make you easy, 
 Clarky, who is with me says, ' Deel care, if ye had drunk 
 less at denner^ you would not complain.' His causa sci- 
 enticB that my disease is, that he who dined with me is as 
 sick as I "I 
 
 The demands, indeed, which society then made, on a man 
 who had a head capable both of standing claret and enter- 
 taining company, were very formidable ; and if he was 
 rising in the world, gaining golden opinions among men, 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House. f MS. at Culloden House. The 
 
 repeated use of the word " physical" seems to have reference to a 
 society so called. % Ibid.
 
 296 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 and showing his aptitude for high stations, he had to 
 drink all the larger draughts of wine, to show that he was 
 not deficient in that main element of public greatness. 
 Drinking through a session with his lawyer brethren, in 
 Edinburgh would be no light task. When he went 
 north, he would have to recommence convivialities to 
 keep up the family influence among the Highland chiefs, 
 and the Barons of Moray; and as the northern air has 
 the reputation of counteracting the effects of intoxicating 
 draughts, the potations of Edinburgh would have to be 
 balanced by wider and deeper libations at Inverness. 
 That his constitution sometimes felt the pressure of these 
 laborious enjoyments, we find from such occasional pas- 
 sages as the following, from a letter dated Inverness, 26th 
 of September, 1716, and addressed apparently to one of 
 his jovial friends in Edinburgh. " For my own part I am 
 almost wearied of this wicked world ; one wish, and but 
 one 1 had when I left you concerning myself, that I might 
 enjoy eight days free of company and claret. How I have 
 succeeded, you may guess by this, that though to-day it 
 be just a month since I saw you, I have not yet buckled 
 a shoe, that is, I have not been one day out of my boots." 
 When in the north he would have to do duty side 
 by side with his brother the Laird, whose feats in this 
 department of human exertion, were so distinguished even 
 in that age, that he was honoured with the name of 
 Bumper John, to distinguish liim from all other Lairds 
 of CiiUodcn. Of the method of life at the Old Castle, we 
 shall let Burt, brought up under the somewhat milder 
 conviviality of English miUtary life, sj)cak : 
 
 " There lives in our nciglibourhood, at a liouse (or Castle) 
 called Culloden, a gentlemau wliose hospitality is almost with- 
 out bounds. It is the custom of that house, at the first visit
 
 OF CULLODEN. 297 
 
 or introcluction, to take up your freedom, by cracking his nut 
 (as he terms it,) that is a cocoa-shell, which holds a pint, filled 
 with champagne, or such other sort of wine as you shall choose, 
 you may guess by the introduction at the contents of the volume. 
 Few go away sober at any time ; and for the greatest part of his 
 guests, in the conclusion they cannot go at all. 
 
 " This he partly brings about by artfully proj)osing, after 
 ilie pubUc healths (which always imply bumpers) such private 
 ones, as he knows wiU pique the interest or inclinations of each 
 particular person in the company, wliose turn it is to take the 
 lead, to begin it in a brimmer; and he himself being always 
 cheerful, and sometimes saying good things, his guests soon 
 lose their guard, and then 1 need say no more. 
 
 " For my own part I stipulated with him, upon the first ac- 
 quaintance, for the liberty of retiring when I thought con- 
 venient ; and as perseverance was made a point of honour, that 
 I might do it without reproach. 
 
 "As the 'company are disabled one after another, two ser- 
 vants, who are all the while in waiting, take up the invalids 
 with short poles in their chairs, as they sit (if not fallen down) 
 and carry them to their beds, and still the hero holds out. 
 
 " I remember one evening, an English officer, who has a 
 good deal of humour, feigned himself drunk, and acted his part 
 so naturally that it was difficult to distinguish it from reality ; 
 upon which, the servants were preparing to take him up, and 
 carry him off. He let them alone till they had fixed the ma- 
 chine, and then raising himself up on his feet made them a 
 sneering bow, and told them he believed there Avas no occasion 
 for their assistance); whereupon one of them with a sang froid. 
 and a serious air, said, ' No matter, sir, we shall have you by 
 and by.' — This Laird keeps a plentiful table and excellent wines 
 of various sorts, and in great quantities, as indeed he ought, 
 for T have often said, I thought there was as much wine spilt iu 
 his hall as would content a moderate family."* 
 
 The types of true hospitality in a Scottish farmer's 
 house of old, were said to be an anker of whiskey always 
 on the spiggot, a boiler with perpetual hot water, and a 
 cask of sugar with a spade in it. Culloden's hospitalities 
 
 * Letters from the North, i., 135—136.
 
 298 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 were of a more aristocratic order, and tlie custom of tHe 
 liouse was to prize off tlie top of each successive cask of 
 claret, and place it in tlie corner of tlie liall to be emptied 
 in pailfulls. The massive hall table which bore so many 
 carouses, is still preserved as a venerated reHc, and the 
 deep saturation it has received from old libations of claret, 
 prevent one from distinguishing the description of wood 
 of which it was constructed. When Duncan was in 
 the north, he appears generally to have lived at Bun- 
 chrew, and besides his participation in the joviahties of 
 Culloden, he had occasional hospitalities to distribute in a 
 peculiar circle of his own. Examining an old account, 
 one of many which lie among more valuable papers, the 
 items of several charges for claret bought in individual 
 dozens, some at 16*. and some at 18s., show a sum of 40/. 
 spent in this manner in the course of a month.* 
 
 In estimating the character of any man, we must mea- 
 sure it by the habits of his age. Temperance was not 
 one of the virtues of that period. It was not associated 
 with particular moral or religious opinions ; and the younger 
 John Forbes, who inherited the serious principles of his 
 family, we find not ashamed, in writing to Sir Andrew 
 Mitchell, to make in all seriousness such an association of 
 ideas as the following: " God Almighty bless the King 
 of Prussia, and you. We pray for you, and drink for 
 you both every day."t A man who eschewed claret was 
 looked upon as merely exceptional; the victim of some 
 peculiarity, mental or physical; and the idea of investing 
 his conduct witli any merit, would have been considered 
 transccndantly ludicrous. Temperance was not a quality 
 to which Forbes aspired, and in this respect he was neither 
 before nor bcliind tlie principles of his age. From the 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House. f Mitchell Papers, British Museum.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 299 
 
 ScottisH convivialities of tlie last century, even the female 
 sex was not entirely exempt; and though , perhaps, there 
 is no part of the world where women of the educated 
 classes are now more completely exempt from a practice 
 which modem ideas have stamped as degrading,* there 
 are not wanting reasons for believing that ladies of good 
 birth and rearing, in the earlier part of last century, 
 quafied potations which would make their fair descendants 
 shudder, without either losing caste or character, or ex- 
 posing themselves to the contumely that overtook poor 
 Lady Grange. It was particularly remembered not many 
 years ago, by old people in Edinburgh, that a band of dam- 
 sels connected with a great northern house, walking clam- 
 orously up the High-street, in a beautiful moonhght night, 
 stopped suddenly where the shadow of the Tron Church 
 steeple crossed the street, and, under the hallucination that 
 they had reached the edge of one of their mountain 
 streams, were observed to divest themselves of their shoes 
 and stockinfTS to wade across. 
 
 The many traditions we have of the joviahty of our 
 forefathers, are accompanied by statements of the wonder- 
 ful feats of intellect performed by public men, lay and 
 clerical, when to all ordinary observation the faculties 
 were irretrievably steeped in claret ; and these lead to the 
 remark that we will not get a right appreciation of the 
 character of previous generations, by passing a sweeping 
 
 * It seems strange that though this vice is now so little known among 
 educated females in any part of I3ritain, as to be a phenomenon when it oc- 
 curs, yet a very worthyindividual of that sex has written some ingenious 
 tales, especially directed against it as a prevalent vice, and represent- 
 ing, not only men, who are lawful game on such occasions, but women 
 of high rank and fine accomplishments, whose failing is downright hard 
 drinking. This reminds one of the story of an ordinary of Newgate, 
 ■who, having to do duty for an old fellow-student, the curate of a retired 
 and primitive parish, packed up one of his penitential sermons, and 
 treated the simple parishioners with an exhortation to repent of a long 
 list of the most horrible crimes, of which they had never dreamed of 
 the existence.
 
 300 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 condemnation on tliem, for practices so mucli at variance 
 with those of the same class at this day. In some way or 
 other nature, ever wonderful in the adjustment of things 
 apparently incompatible, seems to have adapted the men 
 and their hereditary constitutions to tlie life they led. 
 They performed their part on the world's stage, and left 
 vestiges in which the unsteady pace of intoxication is sel- 
 dom to be traced. Without the fruit of their labours, the 
 present generation would not be such as it is ; and in the 
 statesman or lawyer of a century ago, who after his deep 
 potations carried a frame and intellect as fresh and vigo- 
 rous as ever to his important labours, we find no proto- 
 type of the attenuated and trembling dram-drinker of the 
 present day, whose unstrung nerves require a violent 
 forestallment of their wasting stamina, for each act of 
 ordinary cxertlonj and for every occasion on which he 
 has to hold intercourse with his fellow-men as a member 
 of society. 
 
 Yet, however it may have stood with country gentle- 
 men, breathing the fresh air all day, with no anxieties 
 except about their mortgages, the system was sometimes 
 considered oppressive, even by these herculean men of 
 business. " I haven't yet seen CuUoden; but he and I 
 will mind your honour in a glass, deep proportioned to 
 your wealth, and sprightly as your wisdom," is the con- 
 vivial wish that in a moment of easy gaiety arises in Dun- 
 can's ofGcial superior the Lord Advocate ; but, after a toil- 
 some convivial journey, we find the great law officer of 
 the crown thus hazily giving utterance to his oppressive 
 reminiscences. 
 
 " Tlie good people of Inverness and Murray were so exceed- 
 ingly kind (if it can be called kindness to make a man run the 
 gauntlet,) that neither shame nor remorse had any effect upon
 
 OF CULLODEX. SOI 
 
 me ; and seriously, though I thought myself happy that neither 
 your brother John nor the Squire were in the country, yet every 
 body, I don't know how, took upon them to be Johns and 
 Squires to me ; and for ought I know, I might have been crack- 
 ing nuts till now, if I had been able. The fire about Aberdeen 
 was not so intense ; but, comparatively speaking, it was pretty 
 smart. The Perth people are good enough for a brush and 
 away ; but the pleasures of the enchanted island, the baU, the 
 Lucy Barbers, and the strange and surprising adventures of 
 Emperor Gausy, must be left to another tune."* 
 
 Duncan himself, in the full tide of his onerous labours, 
 feeling his health precarious, sacrificed as we shall here- 
 after find, his conviviality to his duties; no small stake of 
 character in that age. 
 
 As to his brother John, it is to be feared that he illus- 
 trated the rule of eminence having always its drawbacks, 
 and that the notable extent of his convivialities broke his 
 constitution and accelerated his death. " Your friend 
 O'Bryan," he says, writing to his brother in 1717, "was 
 with me Tuesday night last, who, by the help of some 
 good wine, made me slip that post : and to the conse- 
 quence of that night's drinking you may impute my 
 making use of a borrowed hand; for yesterday and last 
 night I was so very ill, that this day I was obliged to take 
 a good quantity of blood."t Alas ! too frequent were such 
 occurrences with one of the kindest, worthiest, and most 
 honest of men. 
 
 Among convivial customs, one of the most barbarous 
 — perhaps horrible is the applicable term — is one that 
 still lingers in Scotland and Ireland ; a bacchanalian fes- 
 tival at every funeral. The deeper, the more irretrievable 
 was the loss, the more recklessly must the breaking heart 
 indulge in the outward manifestations of revelry. Despotic 
 custom had ordered it so, as it had commanded the im- 
 
 * CuUoden Papers, 102. f Culloden Papers, 72.
 
 302 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 molation of the Hindoo widow, and tlie gladiatorial 
 slauo-'hters at the festivals and funerals of old Rome. On 
 these occasions tlie convivial house of CuUoden was bound 
 by the most sacred ties of hospitality not to forget its 
 character, and even in such a solemnity as that of con- 
 veying a venerated parent to her grave, it burst forth in 
 a form so marked and emphatic, as to give rise to a me- 
 morable occurrence still holding a place in the tradi- 
 tonary anecdotes of conviviality in the north. Although 
 we might have desired that no such anecdote had ex- 
 isted, truth requires that, having gained currency, it should 
 be here repeated; and accordingly it is copied from the 
 memoir of Forbes, published immediately after his death. 
 " The Lady of Culloden, the mother of the deceased 
 lord, being dead, a very grand entertainment was pre- 
 pared, and her funeral obsequies were intended to be 
 performed with the utmost solemnity. On the day ap- 
 pointed a prodigious multitude appeared, consisting per- 
 haps of 10,000 people.* The noblemen and gentlemen 
 present drank most plentifully, and the care of the enter- 
 tainment was devolved npon him, her youngest son, who 
 played his part so well, that, forgetting his grief, he made 
 the company drink to such an immoderate excess, as even 
 to forget what they were doing ; at last it was moved 
 to proceed to the [ place of interment ; they quickly rose 
 up, and rode from the house to the church-yard; but 
 miluckily for them, they had neglected to give orders 
 for the Hfting of the corpse, that is the phrase used in 
 Scotland for carrying them off. When at the grave, 
 the main thing is wanting ; and while all the friends are 
 
 * Tliis is a manifest exaggeration. So late as the census of 1791, 
 there were not so many Imman beings witliin an area of ten miles round 
 CuUodeu House, including the town of luvcruess.
 
 OF CULLODEX. 303 
 
 crowding to perform the last duties to the deceased, be- 
 hold the subject is no nearer than the place in which she 
 died. A messenger is instantly sent off to hasten up the 
 corpse, "which was done with all imaginable speed, and 
 the lady was laid in the grave with all the decorum and 
 decency that could be expected from gentlemen who had 
 fared so sumptuously, and drank so plenteously at her 
 house."* 
 
 The death of this lady must have occurred in 1716. 
 On the 29th of September of that year we find Lovat 
 writing to her son John, saying he has just heard of her 
 death. "I sincerely partake," he says, "of your grief, 
 for she was one of the best of women, always doing good 
 to her grandchildren and the poor. I had a very great re- 
 spect for her, and I always foimd her my passionate friend."f 
 
 In 1722, Duncan Forbes was chosen member of Par- 
 liament for the Inverness district of Burghs, where, as the 
 list of election returns for that Parliament show, he was 
 unsuccessfully opposed by an Alexander Gordon. 
 
 He had henceforth to be frequently in London in 
 attendance on his parhamentary duties, and much of his 
 time must have been spent in travelling. It was no light 
 journey in that day to travel from London to Edinburgh; 
 and crossing the Grampians to Inverness was, for its 
 length, a still more formidable enterprlze. He did not 
 distinguish himself greatly in debate, restricting himself 
 to matters of pure business; and the only occasion on 
 which he made a very marked address, was the Por- 
 teous affair, to be speedily noticed. He perhaps felt that 
 his strength lay rather in forensic than in senatorial 
 eloquence. His figure was fine, his voice sonorous, and 
 
 * Jfemoirs of the Eight Hon. Duncan Forbes, p. 12. 
 •)• CuUoden Papers, 66,
 
 304 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 his face expressive of a happy mixture of benignity and 
 firmness. These external advantages, added to great ca- 
 pacity in business, an oratory that without being flowery 
 was clear, strong, and impressive, and the faculty of 
 seizing the prominent parts of a question and sinking the 
 irrelevant details, gave his pleading at the bar great 
 influence. When he came to the bench, this union of 
 quahties, physical and moral, imparted strength to the 
 law, while it inspired confidence in the person who admi- 
 nistered it. Immediately before he entered Parliament, 
 we find that he had begun to be employed in appeals 
 from the Court of Session to the House of Lords. The 
 first reported case in which his name is mentioned, was 
 decided on the 19th of February, 1720. Thence of 
 eleven cases decided during the remainder of that year, 
 there are only three in which his name does not appear. 
 There is then a hiatus in his practice from the 21st of 
 May, 1720, to the 21st of December, 1722. From tlie 
 latter date, to the end of " Robertson's Eeports of Appeal 
 Cases," on the 17th of April, 1727, of forty-two cases re- 
 ported, there are only seven in which he was not counsel. 
 This period of his life, in which he divided his time 
 between London and Scotland, affords a suitable occasion 
 for casting a glance around the circle of his friends. The 
 harmony of his intercourse with his patron, the Duke of 
 Argyle, seems to have been once broken in a manner 
 not dishonourable to his good feeling. In the Culloden 
 Papers there is a correspondence, somewhat acrimonious, 
 in which Forbes defends his friend George Drummond, 
 against some charges made against him by the duke, while 
 he appears to have made a considerable pecuniary sacrifice 
 in his cause. The friend he so vindicated was worthy of 
 his esteem. Though George Drummond has not left an
 
 OF CULLODEN. 305 
 
 European reputation, yet -within tlie not unimportant 
 circle of his local exertions it shines brightly. In the 
 public hall of the Infirmary of Edinburgh, -which in the 
 deficiency of such institutions in other parts of Scotland, 
 has been rather a national than a merely local blessing, 
 there is a bust of Drummond, by Nollekins, under which 
 is an inscription, composed by his friend Robertson the 
 historian: " George Drummond, to -whom this country 
 is indebted for all the benefits which it derives from the 
 Koyal Infirmary." He -was for several years Lord Pro- 
 vost of Edinburgh. The patronage of the University of 
 Edinburgh is among the functions of that important officer, 
 and Drummond holds a worthy place in the annals of 
 literature and science, by having accomplished the insti- 
 tution of five professorships; viz., those of Chemistry, 
 the theory of Physic, the practice of Physic, Midwifery, 
 and Rhetoric. Such a man could not well live in the 
 same circle with Duncan Forbes, without the common 
 excellence of their natures bringing them into close fel- 
 lowship ; and the head as well as the heart was justified, 
 in the stand that Forbes made against the unworthy pre- 
 judices of his noble patron. 
 
 Forbes was on terms of intimacy with Sir Robert 
 Walpole, and with Lyttleton, Mansfield, and Hardwicke ; 
 names which require only to be enumerated. In magazine 
 notices of his life, he is said to have been a welcome 
 guest in the Hterary circles of London, and to have been 
 frequently in the society of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and 
 Gay;* but we do not possess the same evidence of these 
 intimacies, which liis correspondence afibrds us of his 
 intercourse with official men. In his attendance on Par- 
 liament as a member of tlie government, he was brought 
 
 * See Scots' Magazine, vol. Ixiv., p. 539. 
 X
 
 306 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 frequently in contact with Walpole's brother Horatio, the 
 Pelhams, Lord Stair, Onslow, and the whole tribe o£ 
 minor statesmen. He seems to have entertained a friend- 
 ship, arising out of official intercourse, with Scrope, the 
 Secretary of the Treasury; the same who refused to take 
 the oath of discovery in the Inquiry into the conduct 
 of Walpole, and said " that he had consulted the ablest 
 lawyers and divines, and that they had made his scruples 
 strono-er." He had much intercourse with General Wade, 
 when that celebrated engineer was conducting his opera- 
 tions in Scotland, for fortification and internal transit. 
 Among his Scottish Hterary friends, the most distinguished 
 was Thomson the poet, who owed much to his patronage 
 and friendship, and thus repaid him, in the immortal 
 shape in which poets show their affection and esteem: 
 
 " Thee Forbes too, whom every worth attends, 
 As truth sincere, as weeping friendship kind ; 
 Thee truly generous and in silence great, 
 Thy country feels through her reviving arts, 
 Plann'd by thy wisdom, by thy soul inform'd, 
 And seldom has she kno\\-n a friend hke thee." 
 
 Henry Home, afterwards Lord Kames, was encouraged 
 by liis kindness, and he patronised the modest and pro- 
 found scholar Ruddiman, the Librarian of the Advocate's 
 Library. His relation, Mr. Forbes of Newhall, was the 
 owner of that small estate near Edinburgh, the pictur- 
 esque beauties of which, arc so widely known by the 
 descriptions in Ramsay's *' Gentle Shepherd." Here the 
 tired lawyer frequently sought a retreat, and spent many 
 a pleasant liour with the accomplished landlord, and liis 
 frequent guest, the pastoral poet. Forbes appears to 
 have been on terms of friendship with a man of whom 
 too Httlc is known — Cunningham, the annotator of Horace,
 
 OF CULLODEN. 30? 
 
 of whom the following notice, dated the 30th of Januaiy, 
 1731 , was sent to him by a correspondent. 
 
 " I wrote to Mr. Logan of Dunbar, as I told you I would 
 do, both in your name and mine, about his uncle, Mr. Cun- 
 ningham's papers; and I have since had an evening's conversa- 
 tion with him, the sum of which was, that his uncle has not left 
 one single scrap of any thing ready for the press, or even in any 
 tolerable order. His notes on Horace are written on the mar- 
 gin of six volumes, whereof three are the text of Horace as he 
 pubHshed it, and the other three are his animadversions on 
 Bentley — the use of all these I am promised against next week : 
 the Lord have mercy on the patients till I have done with them! 
 His notes on Phaedrus are likewise only on the margins of two 
 editions of Pheedrus ; but he thinks them fuUer than the others, 
 and is talking of giving them to Mr. Ruddiman, if he will be 
 at pains to put them in order and publish them. He has mar- 
 ginal notes upon several other authors, as Virgil, Statius, Quin- 
 tilian, Cicero, any of which he offers to send me after I have 
 done with Horace. His notes on the Corpus are larger than 
 any of the rest, and not writ on the margin as the rest. His 
 copy of the Corpus is interleaved with clean paper, so that there 
 is a leaf of written notes for every printed leaf He told me the 
 Advocates' Library has applied to him to have it, but he has 
 given the curators no answer as yet, nor did he seem determined 
 when he spoke to me. 
 
 " What will surprise you most is, that he has left nothing of 
 his scheme of the Christian religion ; Mr. Logan told me he had 
 inquired at him about it when he was in his perfect senses ; but 
 that he declared to liim that he had never put it in writing, 
 and that he would dictate it to him any day, for he had it all in 
 his head, and that it could be contained in four or five sheets 
 of paper; however, every day that Logan pressed him to do it 
 he always found some reason for shifting it till he was incapable 
 of doing any thing.''* 
 
 The writer of this letter, Dr.'Clark, is himself among 
 the meritorious obscure.f His letters are lively and ex- 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 120, 121. 
 
 t He signed his letters with the initials J. C, written, however, with 
 such a peculiar flourish, that the innocent editor of the Culloden Papers 
 
 x2
 
 308 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 presslve, and written in the tone of one conversant witli 
 literature and literary men. He appears to have been one 
 of the best employed practitioners of his day, and in this 
 capacity to have been a privileged member of all political 
 circles. His professional services are often thankfully 
 alluded to by Forbes, and also by Lovat, who irreverently 
 styles him " Little Clarky."* 
 
 It was said of Lord ]\Iansfield, that he expressed a 
 nervous dislike to meeting out of court with persons inte- 
 rested in the litigations before him, lest he might chance 
 to be influenced in his views. When this was repeated 
 to his rival, Camden, he said: " I care not what I 
 hear, or how much I hear; be it what it may, I never 
 can be influenced by it." Somewhat similar appears 
 to have been the firmness of Forbes's mind, in liis in- 
 tercourse ■v\4th the baser spirits of his day. He seems 
 to have felt that he could live in close contact with 
 all the profligacy, political and social, of that age, yet 
 " keep the whiteness of his soul." He who could remain 
 so long attached by the outward bonds of friendship to 
 such a person as Lovat, and be the man he was, could have 
 little assimilation or impressibility in his nature. Yet 
 Lovat, strange as it may somid, was not altogether the 
 least reputable of his associates. So much as the devotion 
 of the whole energies of a life to the mere animal vices, 
 
 read them T. P., and attributes them to Sir Thomas Pringle. The 
 letter above cited commences Avith " Dear Duncan," and is witten in 
 tlie tone of intimate and equal friendship. Pringle Avas born in 1707, 
 and was, in 1731, an obscure youth, who liad just commenced to prac- 
 tise as a physician, while Forbes was Lord Advocate. 
 
 * In the account of the family of Eattray of Craigliall, in " Douglas's 
 Baronage," lie is mentioned as having married the daughter of Dr. 
 Eattray, and being " one of the most celebrated physicians of his time." 
 His library, which was sold in 17C9, Avas very rich in classics, many of 
 which contained his own manuscript notes. Such are the petty facta 
 now known about a man of great local celebrity in his day.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 309 
 
 and tlie dishonest gathering of money, is more despicable 
 than a life spent in bold macliinations and political schemes, 
 was Francis Charteris, of Amisficld, a more degraded 
 name than that of Simon Fraser. There is good reason 
 to believe that there was at least an exchange of courte- 
 sies between Forbes and this man, whose monstrous cha- 
 racter has obtained epigrammatic immortality, in the 
 epitapli by Arbuthnot, beginning, " Here continueth to 
 rot the body of Francis Charteris, who, with an inflexible 
 constancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in 
 spite of age and infirmities, in the practice of every 
 human vice, except prodigality and hypocrisy: his insa- 
 tiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless 
 imjDudencc from the second." 
 
 There does not appear to have been much intimacy, 
 however, between them ; and no correspondence on either 
 side exists among Forbes's papers. Charteris was the 
 occupant of a very old manor-house near INIusselburgh, 
 and about nine miles distance from Edinburgh, called 
 Stoney Hill. It has now been removed; but the but- 
 tressed wall of an outhovise projecting on the public road, 
 still attests the antiquity of the mansion. The gardens 
 around Stoney Hill were long celebrated for the supe- 
 riority of their horticulture and the excellent fruit and 
 vegetables they produced.* The old mansion had re- 
 ceived occupants of a very varied description. Arch- 
 bishop Sharpe had been residing in it wdth his son, and 
 was returnino; to St. Andrews when he was slain on 
 Magus Moor. It was the scene of many of the atrocities 
 of Charteris, and thence his body was carried forth amidst 
 the execrations of the people. To complete the variety, 
 * Statistical Account of Scotland, i., 82.
 
 310 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 it was liired by Duncan Forbes, and occupied by lilra as 
 a country residence, when the labours of business admitted 
 of temporary absence from Edinburgh, too brief to be 
 spent in Inverness-shire. 
 
 Charteris left Forbes a legacy and the liferent of his 
 mansion. This circumstance, with the other incidents 
 
 attending the profligate's last moments, are thus told to 
 
 Forbes, in a letter from Dr. Clark, dated the 22nd of 
 
 February, 1732. 
 
 " But the terrlblest patient I ever had in my life, is your 
 monster of a landlord. I was obliged to go sixteen miles out of 
 town to meet him on the road from Hornby, where they thought 
 [he] would have expired. I lived two days in hell upon earth, 
 and [conveyed] him with much difficulty, on Wednesday last, 
 to Stoney Hill [ ] * dying exactly as he lived, only 
 
 I think, since he was [made aware that he w]as dying, he 
 swears little or none at all. He can [neither] sleep nor eat, 
 and has no other complaint either of pain or sickness, so that he 
 seems to be dying of a decay of nature, his blood being ex- 
 hausted. I understand he has remembered you in his testa- 
 ment, he having left you the lif [erent] of Stoney Hill, with 
 some acres about It, and 1000/f. sterling [ ] son. I 
 
 should think his legacy is not a dishonest purchase ; but what 
 you will think of it, since it comes out of [ ] heap, is 
 
 more than I can tell, for he told me that your honesty was so 
 whimsical, that it was 45 per cent, above Don Quixote. As 
 for his own, the only sign he has shown of it, was one day when 
 he thought he was going off, he ordered with a great roar that 
 all his just debts should be paid.";]' 
 
 * These blanks are caused by a part of the letter being decayed. 
 
 t MS. at CuUoden House. This account of his death corresponds with 
 that given by the Hon. John Crawford, in " Private Letters now first 
 printed." Edinburgh, 1829, p. 79.
 
 OF CULLODEN 311 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Political Events— The Disarming Act — State of Parties — Forbes made 
 Lord Advocate— The Malt Tax— The Shawfield's Mob in Glasgow 
 — The Lord Advocate's Proceedings — Robert Wodrow — Remarkable 
 Exercise of Power by the Lord Advocate — War with the Brewers 
 of Edinburgh— Sir Robert Walpole — Illness — A Journey to the High- 
 lands — Abolition of the Scottish Secretaryship — The Lord Advocate 
 and the Origin of his Multifarious Duties— Proposals as to the 
 Revenue Laws. 
 
 We have seen that Lovat taught the Jacobites the 
 vahie of the Highlanders as a ready-made army, -which 
 could he put in motion on the shortest notice, when the 
 favourable moment for an attempt to regain the British 
 throne was to be made by the exiled house. Forbes saw 
 the same fact very clearly from his own point of view, and 
 was a great advocate of disarming projects. He held them 
 to be the precautionary measures that should be adopted 
 by a government in its hour of tranquillity, as tlie means of 
 superseding the forfeitures and executions of the hour of 
 triumphant war. He was quite aware that the generation 
 which had possessed the arms, would not be deprived of 
 their skill by merely losing their tools; and that a mere 
 disarming would not, of itself, be sufficient to civilise the 
 Highlands. But he held that the next generation, igno- 
 rant of the use of weapons, would have little taste for the 
 warlike propensities of their parents, and would form the 
 materials out of which wholesome and humane laws might 
 make peaceful and useful citizens. His own intimate prac-
 
 312 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 tlcal knowledge of the state of the Highlands, taught him 
 that the Disarming Act, which followed the rebellion of 
 1715, had not been effective. It subjected Highlanders, 
 who appeared armed in the fields, or when attending " any 
 church, markets, fairs, burials, huntings, meetings, &c.," or, 
 who went armed into the Lowlands, to a penalty; but it 
 did not contain measures for seizing the arms in possession ot 
 individuals, or establish any sufficient machinery for in- 
 vestigation and enforcement. Forbes is stated to have been 
 the author of the Disarming Act which was passed early 
 in the year 1725, and before he took office.* The main 
 objects of this act were, to fix a day on which all the clans 
 should give up the arms in their possession, and to insti- 
 tute a system of searching for hidden arms, and of pun- 
 ishing those who failed to give them up.-f 
 
 The bill met with little opposition in the Commons, 
 and five peers, none of them Scotsmen, entered a protest 
 against it in the House of Lords. This measure was con- 
 temporary with a sort of military survey by General 
 Wade, and the project of the system of roads and garrisons 
 with which his name is associated. Those proceedings cre- 
 ated much exasperation among the Highlanders, but it was 
 not the nature of that people to express their feelings in 
 the boisterous constitutional manner adopted by the other 
 inhabitants of the island, and amid the turmoil which we 
 shall find attending on the contemporary Malt Tax, the 
 Disarming Act passed over in comparative quiet. That 
 it did not accomplish the cfiects expected of it, was too 
 distinctly told in the events of twenty years later; and 
 even before these occurred, we shall find that Forbes was 
 devising methods for saving the country from the military 
 
 * Lockhart Papers, ii., 159. •[■2 Geo. I. c, 26.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 313 
 
 propensities of tlie Highlanders, which did not begin with 
 coercion. 
 
 In the earher part of the eighteenth century the varia- 
 tions in pohtical parties in Scotland and in England were 
 not precisely parallel to each other, and in the year 1725 
 a revolution took place among the Scottish officials, 
 scarcely noticed in the general history of the country. 
 We have seen that at the conclusion of the insurrection 
 of 1715, Forbes was the advocate of concihatory measures. 
 He held these opinions in common with his patron, Argyle, 
 the victorious general of the civil war, who looked with 
 a right-hearted soldier's feehngs on the fallen enemy. The 
 party called the Squadrone, however, who had a stronger 
 appetite for blood, met more sympathy in the English 
 court, and were for a time intrusted with the manage- 
 ment of Scotland. It was next to universally the case 
 at that period, that a disappointed statesman looked to- 
 wards the exiled court, and there is some reason to pre- 
 sume that even Argyle, deep as seemed his stake in the 
 Hanover cause, and irretrievably as he had identified 
 himself with it, did not scornfully repel the insinuation 
 conveyed in certain beckonings and signals from St. Ger- 
 main's.* 
 
 After continuing for a short time in opposition, the 
 duke took office as Lord Steward of the Household, in 
 1718.t In this capacity he had to divide the government 
 of Scotland with the Squadrone — a position too insig- 
 nificant for his ambition. When Walpole had conso- 
 lidated his own power by allaying the South Sea panic, 
 and had got rid of Carteret by sending him to subdue the 
 excitement he had been fostering in Ireland, it seemed a 
 
 *See Lockhart Papers, ii., 12, etseq. 
 
 + Lockhart (ii. 34) says he was made lord-chamberlain— but see 
 " Beatson's Pohtical Index."'
 
 314 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 good arrangement to consolidate the ministerial authority 
 in the north, by deputing its whole powers there to some 
 one man, provided he were strong enough in local influ- 
 ence to give a sufficient equivalent, in support to the minis- 
 ter. The Duke of Argyle's party thus triumphed. Robert 
 Dundas, afterwards Lord Arniston, who became the 
 successor of Forbes as the head of the Court, was the 
 Squadrone Lord Advocate. He had been Solicitor-general 
 when Forbes was made a Depute-advocate ; and in the 
 usual course of promotion, if the latter had not been con- 
 sidered a political opponent, he would have succeeded him 
 in the office of Solicitor-general. When Dundas resigned 
 as Lord Advocate, Forbes was appointed his successor, on 
 the 29th of May. 1725.* 
 
 Among the chief difficulties with which the statesmen 
 of last century had to contend, in Scotland, was the pre- 
 servation of a just equilibrium in taxation between that 
 country and England. At the period of the Union, the 
 possibility of Scotland being ever subjected to the heavy 
 taxation of England was carefully kept out of view by 
 the friends of that measure; and though some Scottish 
 statesmen predicted that the country would suffer under 
 the pressure of the English fiscal system, the danger was 
 indignantly denied, because such a prospect would have 
 raised inseparable popular obstacles to the Treaty. The 
 predictions of the alarmists were fulfilled in a shape which 
 contradicted the spirit of both anticipations. The country 
 grew rich and able to bear increased burdens ; and so long 
 as this stringent method of taxation was to be followed 
 at all, it was a question of justice for the statesmen of 
 both nations, whether the Scotsman, whose wealth was 
 increasing by the alliance in a far greater ratio than that 
 
 *Brunton v. Haigs, College of Justice, 510.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 315 
 
 of the Englishman, should be exempt from a proportional 
 contribution to the fund, by which industry and property 
 •were protected. Every approach to equalisation, however, 
 created a ferment in the north, about the breaking of 
 solemn treaties, and the oppression of the weaker nation 
 by the stronger. 
 
 With one of the most serious of these national out- 
 breaks, Duncan Forbes had to contend in liis first year of 
 office. The Malt Tax had just been extended to Scot- 
 land,* and Daniel Campbell, of Shawfield, the member 
 for Glasgow, as a supporter of the measure, became the 
 object of the indignation of the citizens. On the 23rd 
 of June, 1725, the day on which the measure came into 
 operation, a crowd formed in the street, and interrupted 
 the excisemen in the performance of their functions. On 
 the two succeeding days the crowd re-assembled in a more 
 formidable shape, and on the 24th, the magistrates sent 
 to Dunbarton Castle, whence two companies of foot, 
 commanded by Captain Bushell, proceeded to the city. 
 The city officers were directed to clear out the guard-house 
 to receive the troops, but the mob took tliis matter into 
 their own hands, driving out the officials and locking the 
 guard-house. The provost of the city, whose conduct 
 exposed him to much censure, but whose chief defect 
 appears to have been want of energy and a desire to be 
 relieved of the trouble, responsibiHty, and danger of any 
 sort of action, declined to direct the guard-room to be 
 forced, and quartered the military among the citizens. 
 Late at night, when the provost and the other city 
 officials were consoling themselves in a tavern for the 
 anxieties of the day, a rumour reached them that the mob 
 "were attacking the house of Mr. Campbell, of Shawfield, 
 
 2 Geo. I., c. 7.
 
 316 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 who formed one of tlieir convivial party. Captain Busliell 
 sent to the provost desirin^ to know if he should beat to 
 arms and parade his men. The provost declined giving 
 any order on the subject, and gave two reasons against 
 the proposal ; that the troops must be tired with their day's 
 march and it were a pity to disturb them, and that the 
 beating to arms would alarm the peaceful citizens. Next 
 morning, the mob led by a man in woman's clothes, 
 armed themselves with bludgeons and weapons, and com- 
 pleted the gutting of Shawfield's House. 
 
 In the meantime the miHtary were put in possession 
 of the guard-house, but they had received no instructions 
 for their conduct, and speedily there happened some of 
 those calamitous incidents, which are almost invariably 
 the consequence, when the civil magistrate evades the 
 responsibility attached to his constitutional privilege of 
 sanctioning the proceedings of the military for the pro- 
 tection of the public peace. The sentinels were attacked 
 by the mob. The companies were then ordered out ot 
 the guard-house, and forming in a hollow square, they 
 fired on the mob from the four sides. Two men were 
 killed on the spot and several wounded. The mob roused 
 to fury, rushed to the town-house magazine where some 
 old arms were preserved, with which they speedily armed 
 themselves. The provost at last acted. He sent to 
 Captain Bush ell, to request that he would leave the 
 town! The captain marched his men back to Dunbar- 
 ton, but it was in the fishion of a military retreat, and 
 being harassed in the rear, the men turned and fired. 
 The whole casualties in the affair amounted to nine per- 
 sons killed and seventeen wounded. 
 
 When this calamitous event became known to the 
 government. General Wade was despatched to Glasgow*
 
 OF CULLODEK. 317 
 
 on tlie 9tli of July, 1725, with a force, consisting of 
 Deloraine's regiment of foot, six troops of the Royal 
 Scottish dragoons, one of the Earl of Stair's dragoons, 
 and an independent company of Highlanders. The Lord 
 Advocate accompanied the expedition, for the purpose 
 of making the preliminary inquiry, or " precognition," 
 ■which precedes a criminal trial in Scotland, and to con- 
 sider, as an adviser of the crown, what methods should 
 be adopted to secure the peace of the district.* 
 
 The Lord Advocate"'s proceedings on this occasion 
 were noticed by a minute and not very charitable ob- 
 server, the Reverend Robert Wodrow, the historian of 
 the " Troubles of the Church of Scotland." That reve- 
 rend gentleman, to great industry and many good quali- 
 ties, united the unfortunate peculiarity, that in those who 
 differed from him in his opinions, religious or political, 
 he could find nothing but the most revolting intellectual 
 and moral deformities. It was not, properly speaking, a 
 spirit of malicious misrepresentation that caused this pro- 
 pensity. He was perfectly honest and sincere in recording 
 his impressions, but they were the fruit of a confirmed 
 obliquity in the perceptive organs. If he observed a 
 person belonging to a different persuasion muttering or 
 whispering, the murmurs that reached his ears resolved 
 themselves into blasphemy and profane swearing; if the 
 midnight lamp were seen to illumine an episcopal divine's 
 study late of a Saturday night, it roused in his imaginative 
 senses, sights and sounds of unholy reveby. When these 
 horrors were recorded, the next act of the tragedy was 
 probably some fearful judgment which had fallen from 
 
 * For an account of the Shawfield mob, see " Clelland's Annals of 
 Glasgow," i., 25, et seq. The "Lockhart Papers," ii., 162, et seq. Coxe's 
 Walpole, ii., 438, et seq.
 
 318 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 Heaven on the profane head, of tlie obnoxious thinker. 
 Wodrow's writings are full of preternatural events, which 
 always favour his own way of thinking ; and on the 
 whole, it requires a very considerable amount of faith in 
 his simplicity and sincerity, for any one whose opinions 
 correspond with those of the people he denounces, to 
 read his curious narratives in the spirit of good- will. 
 Wodrow's dislike of Forbes and his proceedings, must 
 have been only temporary, for they were on the same 
 side both in the political and polemical disputes, in wliich 
 they were contemporaries. As we shall see in the ex- 
 tracts to be presently cited, a person named Wodrow 
 was concerned in the tumults. He was probably a rela- 
 tion of the historian, and this circumstance may account 
 for his temporary wrath. Had Wodrow recorded the 
 events in a history destined for publication, he might 
 have given them a different tone. The medium through 
 which we read them, happens to be, however, his " Ana- 
 lecta," or private note-book. 
 
 " After informations had been got, then suddenly and to- 
 wards night, on the 12th of July, with much severity, about 
 forty of the mobbers were taken up, many of them out of their 
 beds ; women and children were carried naked out of their beds 
 to the guard and tolbooth, and harslily enough treated. All 
 this on private information. 
 
 " The Advocate tm-ned extremely surley and acted in a very 
 sovereign arbitrary way. He taunted and abused the magis- 
 trates in examining them, and scoffingly asked, ' And are you a 
 Bailey? John Wodrotv, in his examination, surprised him a Jittle 
 when he asked if he had heard of a design to rabble Shaw- 
 field's liouse before it happened ? He said he had, and that 
 from some burn-bearers,* and the like, some weeks before ; that 
 he had told Shawfield's servants of it, and desired them to tell 
 him, and they brought him for an answer, Shawfield's thanks, 
 and that he knew of it. In examining James Cleeland, after 
 
 * Burden-bearers, or porters.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 319 
 
 some other queries, he asked him Avhat he thought of that rab- 
 ble? Mr. Ckeland asked him pardon, and said, matters were 
 not come to that pass as to be obliged to tell people's thoughts. 
 The Advocate gave great offence by his open, profane cursing 
 and swearing at Glasgow, and his taking the x'ight hand of the 
 general, and talking in time of sermon, when in the aftemooa 
 in the church, and mocking Major Gardiner for his strictness. 
 
 " But the last part of the scene surprises every body. On 
 the loth of July, the advocate a second time examined the ma- 
 gistrates, and put many cross questions to them. And on the 
 16th, about an hour before he and the general left the town, 
 he sent a mittimus to the gaoler, to receive the provost, three 
 baillies, dean of guild, and deacon convener, to prison as abet- 
 tors in the mob, or negligent in their office. 
 
 " I am well informed that the general was peremptorily 
 against this, and said to the Advocate it was a bold stroke, that 
 he desired convener Spottswood to deal with the advocate 
 against this motion, for he had been dealing half-an-hoiu- in 
 vain ; and went back again with Spottswood and dealt with him 
 but in vain. The magistrates offered bail, but he would not hear 
 of it. When the Advocate w^as asked how the town should be 
 governed when the magistrates were incarcerate, he said there 
 was no fear of dispeace, when the heads of the mob were im- 
 prisoned. Accordingly, on Friday the 16th, 'twixt twelve and 
 one, the magistrates went up the broad stairs and were im- 
 prisoned."* 
 
 The magistrates were taken in a sort of triumphal cap- 
 tive procession to Edinburgh. They were not, however, 
 without powerful friends. The Duke of Roxburgh, the 
 Secretary of State for Scotland, discouraged the proceed- 
 ing, and was for that reason dismissed from his office as 
 we shall presently see. Dundas, the Lord Advocate of 
 the party previously in power, took up the cause of the 
 imprisoned magistrates, in the performance of his duties 
 as the legal leader of the opposition, and denounced the 
 conduct of his successor as illegal and unconstitutional. 
 
 * "Analecta; or. Materials, for a History of remarkable Providences 
 mostly relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians," by the Rev. Kobert 
 Wodro-vr, Printed for the Maitland Club, iv. 2 15—2 1 7.
 
 320 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 Forbes had applied for no magistrate's warrant, but bad 
 acted on bis own authority as Lord Advocate, appealing 
 also, probably to meet any constitutional argument against 
 Ills possessing the power of imprisonment, to his being a 
 qualified justice of peace for the county of Lanark. He 
 had, however, committed the magistrates to prison be- 
 yond that county; and to authorise this imprisonment, he 
 sought no better sanction than his ofl[icial power as Lord 
 Advocate. 
 
 On this occasion he certainly undertook a very serious 
 responsibility. Although the Lord Advocate is generally 
 in the commission of the peace, he has long ceased to act 
 as a committing magistrate, and there is no doubt that a 
 union of judicial authority with the other wide powers 
 of this important officer, would be a dangerous accumula- 
 tion of functions. The Lord Advocate was before the 
 Union always a member of the Scots privy council, and 
 after this event there seems to have been for some time 
 an understandins: that he succeeded in his individual 
 person to the power of imprisonment exercised by that 
 body. The present was certainly a very bold and flagrant 
 exercise of this supposed power. Accompanied by a 
 military force, he appears to have made his committals 
 with the cool rapidity and precision of military opera- 
 tions, and to have brought the maofistrates and the rioters 
 in a body to Edinburgh, hke so many prisoners of war. 
 In his despatches to the government in London, he says, 
 the magistrates " sent off an express to the Lords of Justi- 
 ciary, complaining in very harsh terms of the injustice 
 which they had met with, excepting to the power of his 
 Majesty's Advocate as such to commit, and therefore pray- 
 ing that they might be dismissed from custody, or at least 
 that they might be admitted to bail. But as this petition
 
 OF CULLODEN. 321 
 
 was not accompanied by a copy duly attested of tlie war- 
 rant of commitment, the court could not proceed upon 
 it." Tliey then demanded an " attested copy" from their 
 gaoler, but " he having refused to grant their request as 
 not being thereto obliged by law, they took a protest 
 against him, and upon that protest renewed their applica- 
 tion to the Lords of Justiciary yesterday. But the re- 
 gular copy of the warrant not being in court, after some 
 debate the petition was rejected."* Thus, if a person 
 were'imprisoned, he could only obtain redress if he were 
 able to produce a certified copy of the warrant for his 
 imprisonment; and if that were refused, he had no means 
 of exacting it. There w^^s certainly Httle to admire in 
 the system; but much to wonder at in finding one who 
 having such machinery in his hands, appears not to have 
 turned it to sinister purposes. If every public ofJfice were 
 so filled, perhaps some truth might be found in the per- 
 nicious maxim : 
 
 " For forms of government let fools contest 
 Whate'er is best aJininister'd is best." 
 
 This exercise of power did not go unquestioned. Wod- 
 row gives the following passage from the pleadings of 
 Dundas before the Court of Justiciary, on July the 19th: 
 
 " Before the Union, indeed, the Advocate as Privy Coun- 
 cillor, had much power of imprisonment, but there was no room 
 for that now ; that he was merely a servant, and as to his 
 being a justice of peace in the shire of Lanark, that gave him 
 no power over other the justices of peace, and that the Provost 
 of Glasgow had better right to imprison the Advocate, till con- 
 victed of a crime, in his own jurisdiction, than he, as a justice of 
 peace, had to imprison him." 
 
 On the 20th of July they were liberated on bail, "and 
 the whole town of Edinburgh," says Wodrow, " that were 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House. 
 T
 
 322 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 in multitudes on the street, received them with wel- 
 come."* 
 
 The conflict with the Malt Tax in Edinburgh was con- 
 ducted in the shape generally called " passive resistance.'* 
 The Court of Session, which in its original constitution 
 was a committee of Parhament for judicial and remedial 
 purposes, had not entirely shaken off its legislative pro- 
 pensities; and arrogated to itself the right of finding a 
 remedy for any evil that might make its appearance in 
 the body social. On the passing of the IMalt Tax Act, the 
 court prepared the way for its enforcement, in the true 
 spirit of the old sumptuary laws, by passing an order 
 with the very attractive title of, "An Act for preventing the 
 Sale of bad Ale." It began with the narrative, that " The 
 Lords of Coimcil and Session, taking into their considera- 
 tion the frequent abuses in vending and retailing bad two- 
 penny ale : and that, from the present duties and burdens 
 wherewith the brewers of ale in and about the city of 
 Edinburgh are charged, occasion may be taken by ill- 
 designing persons, to impose on the lieges, and undersell 
 fair dealers, unless the prices for brewers and retailers be 
 certain and fixed." It then enacted, " That the brewers shall 
 sell to retailers and private families the aforesaid ale at the 
 rate of one merk Scots per gallon, and are not to give 
 any allowance by way of drink money or otherwise, 
 above the rate of one barrel to the score; and that the 
 detailers shall sell the said ale at the rate of two-pence the 
 rint." 
 
 For the purpose of counteracting this order, and em- 
 barrassing the government in the enforcement of the 
 Malt Tax, the brewers adopted a resolution to cease brew- 
 ing when the tax should come in force. On this, the 
 
 * Analecta, iv., 222.^
 
 OF CULLODEN. 323 
 
 Lord Advocate presented a solemn memorial to tlie court, 
 sliowing : 
 
 " That should this wicked project, through any neglect in 
 tliose that have the oversight of this city, or through any other 
 accident, be put in execution, the immediate and unavoidable 
 effect would be, in a course of five or six days, to reduce the 
 city to a state of utter want of beer and ale, and also of bread, 
 to the working whereof barm or yeast from new ale is necessary. 
 
 " That the necessary consequence of a famine and absolute 
 want, so suddenly produced, would be a total and universal dis- 
 tress upon the good people of this populous city, and that general 
 calamity must, almost to a certainty, produce the greatest tu- 
 mults and confusions, the overthrow of all right and government 
 in the city, and irreparable misfortunes to the most innocent of 
 Lis Majesty's subjects." 
 
 He proceeds to argue with an air of plausibility, " That 
 in all cases it is much more expedient for the public 
 welfare and utility, to prevent than to punish offences of 
 so dangerous a nature." A just conclusion, were it ad- 
 mitted that men ought to be punished for declining to 
 brew beer on the terms dictated to them by a body of 
 lawyers. 
 
 The court agreed to administer the remedy demanded. 
 They declared: 
 
 " That it is illegal and inconsistent with the public welfare, 
 for common brewers or others, whose employment is to provide 
 necessary sustenance for the people, all at once to quit or forbear 
 the exercise of their occupation, when they are in the sole pos- 
 session of the materials, houses, and instruments, for to carry on 
 the trade ; so that the people may be deprived of, or much 
 straightened in their meat or drink, and that so to do in de- 
 fiance and contempt of the laws, is highly criminal and severely 
 punishable." 
 
 Issuing their order on the 29th of July, they com- 
 manded the brewers to continue their trade, " In the 
 way and manner, that for the space of one month, they 
 did exercise and carry on the same," until the 1st of 
 
 y2
 
 324 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 November; and for three montlis after that date, not 
 individually to give vip business without a formal notice 
 intimated by a notary public. The act required the 
 brewers to appear on the following day, and find security 
 for their obedience to its injunctions. Only one of the 
 brewers appeared ; and immediately another act was passed, 
 declaring that if they did not attend and find their re- 
 cognisances, before the 10th of August, they would be 
 committed to prison. 
 
 The king was then at Hanover, and the Lords Justices 
 had frequently before them the state of affairs in Edin- 
 burgh and Glasgow. Forbes, after his first proceedings 
 against the brewers, applied for instructions from govern- 
 ment, but was told by Mr. Delafaye, on the 5th of Au- 
 gust, " I am commanded to acquaint your lordship with 
 their excellencies' entire approbation of your conduct 
 upon this occasion ; of whose vigilance, care, and wisdom, 
 they have such signal proofs, that their excellencies 
 judged the best direction they could give for your further 
 proceedings in this matter was to leave them entirely to 
 your own discretion i""^ and on the 25tli of August, while 
 the affair was in progress, Mr. Delafaye wrote saying, 
 *' The Lords Justices have commanded me to signify to you, 
 to be communicated to the rest of the Lords of Council and 
 Session, their highest approbation of so wise and so season- 
 able a proceeding ; and to return their excellencies' thanks 
 to your lordship for this instance of your zeal for his 
 Majesty's service and the good of your country, and of your 
 great care for the preservation of peace and good order, "f 
 
 Ludicrously as these proceedings are at variance with 
 modern views, both of political economy and constitu- 
 tional right, there is sometliing to be admired in the 
 
 * CuUoden Papers, 353. f ^^S. at Culloden House.
 
 .OF CULLODEN. 325 
 
 firm courage and the honest industry with which Forbes 
 enforced the principle he had conscientiously adopted. 
 It was with him no ostentatious or tyrannical exercise of 
 authority, but an earnest desire, pursued with intense 
 anxiety and the hardest labour, to accomplish an object 
 which he considered essential to the public peace and 
 safety. His correspondence at this period bears deep 
 traces of a nervous anxiety about the result of his opera- 
 tions, not unmixed Avith apprehension. Writing to Mr. 
 Delafaye, he says: " I have had divers meetings, per- 
 sonally, with deputies from their number, in which I used 
 all the skill I was master of to flatter them into their duty, 
 and to frighten them out of a design, which could not 
 fail to be pernicious to themselves and their families 
 should it be put in execution. However, the public should 
 by prudent precautions be rendered safe."* He was 
 much distressed and perplexed by a rumour that the 
 brewers were to allow themselves to be committed to pri- 
 son in a body, in order that the clamours, occasioned by 
 the failure of ale and the scarcity of bread, might procure 
 them their release on their own terras. Hearin<x of this 
 design, Forbes proposed that they should be criminally 
 prosecuted for a conspiracy. At length the " plaguey 
 obstinacy," for which the Justice clerk characterised him, 
 prevailed ; and saved the law and the executive from what 
 probably, in other hands, would have been a ludicrous de- 
 feat. One of the brewers had been induced to give 
 way, and the others presently followed. 
 
 The manner in which Forbes had conducted this war, 
 
 elicited the highest commendations from the ministry, or 
 
 rather from Walpole, who was then supreme at Wlntehall 
 
 both in name and in effect. Mr. Scrope, on the 2nd of 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House.
 
 326 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 September, 1725, saj^s: " The news wliicla came yester- 
 day by an express from my Lord Islay, of your having 
 put an end to the confederacy of the brewers, gave great 
 pleasure to every body here; and Sir R. W. told me this 
 morning, that he would very soon write to you himself, 
 to return you thanks for the part you have taken in it, 
 and the zeal you have shown in this whole affair." The 
 letter written by Sir Robert was as follows : 
 
 " London, September 4, 1725. 
 " Dear Sir, — I have not hitherto ti-oubled you since you left 
 this place, because you gave me leave to make use of Mr. 
 Scrope's correspondence with you, both to inform myself of 
 what was transacting among you, and likewise from time to 
 time express the great satisfaction I had in your vigilance and 
 ability in struggling with the greatest difficulties that a man 
 could possibly be engaged in ; but the great prospect that there 
 now is of success in all your endeavours, calls upon me, not only 
 to congratulate with you, but to return you my thanks for the 
 zeal you have shown for his Majesty's service, and the indefa- 
 tigable pains you have taken to extricate the government out 
 of the greatest difficulties ; and it is hard to determine whether 
 your zeal, abilities, or resolution, is most to be commended. But 
 I hope now you will find the work easier, and if the alteration 
 his Majesty has been pleased to make, will tend at all towards 
 facilitating your future proceedings, it will be an additional 
 satisfaction to me that I have been able to contribute to your 
 convenience, in advising what 1 thought absolutely necessary 
 for his Majesty's service. You will go on, sir, to co-operate 
 with the Justice-General, and I doubt not but, by your joint 
 endeavours, we shall soon see all those black clouds dissipated 
 that so lately threatened storms and confusion. 
 " I am very truly, 
 " Dear sir, your most faithful, humble servant."* 
 
 Forbes acknowledged the minister's letter on the 21st of 
 September, in the following terms: 
 
 *' Sir, — I deferred returning you an answer to the kind letter 
 you did me the honour to write me the 4th instant, in hopes of 
 
 * CullocTen Papers, 96.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 327 
 
 getting rid of the indisposition under which I laboured, when I 
 flattered myself I should be able to express in a better manner 
 my gratitude for your goodness to me. But as I continue as 
 ill as ever, and as my physicians can give me no certain hopes 
 ■when or whether I shall at all get free of this distemper, I choose 
 rather to trouble you with a few confused lines more than to be 
 thought forgetful. When you commend my industry and con- 
 duct in the late confused scene here, you see through the eyes 
 of a friend, and magnify circumstances which had no other merit 
 in them but that they flowed from a moderate degree of honesty 
 and attention. The part you take in looking into and so 
 warmly approving my behaviour is, I own to you, a strong in- 
 ducement to me in my present clrcmnstances to wish that I may 
 get the better of this illness and live, that I may have an op- 
 portunity to show you how strong, in my opinion, the bonds are 
 by which you have knit me to you. I never courted office or 
 promotion. I ever dreaded dependence on the great. But as 
 your friendship found me out and marked me for your service, 
 and as your conduct towards me flows still in the same channel 
 of friendship, I feel the same familiar sentiments of love and 
 good-wiU grow upon me when I think of Mr. Walpole, as if 
 Mr. Walpole and I were in every respect equal. 
 
 " If I recover, sir, I hope to give constant and undoubted 
 proof that what I say to you now is true ;' if otherways you'll 
 accept of my hearty thanks for all your favours in this manner, 
 together with the most sincere wishes that all your endeavours 
 for your coimtry's service, and for your own honour, may be 
 crowned with success. 
 
 " I am, sir, your most faithful and most obedient, humble 
 servant."* 
 
 About the year 1725, lie appears to have been sub- 
 jected to a tedious illness, in some measure occasioned 
 by the toilsome and responsible duties he had to perform. 
 He saw that his constitution was not capable of continuing 
 his serious duties to his country, on the one hand, and his 
 convivial duties to society on the other ; and, like a conscien- 
 tious man, he sacrificed the latter. The author of the " Let- 
 ters from the North," states, that the Lord Advocate, "Were 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House.
 
 328 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 it not for a valetudinary state of health, and the avocations 
 of his office, would be as highly pleased to see his friends 
 about him at table, and over a bottle, as his hospitable 
 brother."* But, however much his illness may have in- 
 terfered with the hilarities of Midlothian or Inverness, it 
 appears never to have stood in the way of the public busi- 
 ness. In a letter from his medical friend, Dr. Clark, on 
 the 6th of April, 1725, there is reference apparently to 
 the commencement of this illness. The reader will observe 
 that the jovial doctor does not enforce a very rigorous 
 or abstemious regimen. 
 
 " Dear Duncan, — I am soiry for the return of your mis- 
 fortune, because I think you become the hypo as ill as 
 any man I know, the Peer of Lovat not excepted. The method 
 you are put under is very good, and what your great doctor 
 must know to be so, by real experience. AH that I have to 
 add is that you use exercise with it, that is riding out when 
 you can, and when that is not practicable, driving through 
 the roughest streets in a hack. Shun long sitting. Therefore, 
 when in the house imitate the squu-e In making many bows to 
 the chair. If you do this you ought to eat and drink heartily, 
 especially at dinner. Taste no malt liquor nor tea, nor greens 
 of any kind, nor broth. Drink pymeut to your meat, dashed 
 with strong ■wlne."t 
 
 On the 21st of September, 1725, we find him writing 
 rather despondingly to some friend whose name is not 
 mentioned in the scroll. 
 
 " I have yours of the 16th, testifying a much greater concern 
 for my recovery than I could desire any otherwise than by my 
 wishes for your service. I am sorry 1 cannot tell you that I 
 am any better, because I own to you I have strong desires to 
 recover health, that, If possible, I may be able to convince you 
 that by truth and sincerity I wish to testify my gratitude for 
 the many favours you have so disinterestedly done me. But 
 as my physicians talk but dubiously about ray case, I must 
 recommend myself to your good will in this manner, and beg^ 
 
 • II. 243, t MS. at Culloden House.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 329 
 
 that you would believe that the sense of your friendship will 
 not leave me but with my life,"* 
 
 During liis illness, Forbes took a ramble in the High- 
 lands, uniting the pursuit of health with tliose inquiries 
 into the poHtical state of the country, which he never 
 lost an opportunity of carrying on. He pursued neither of 
 the objects that now carry multitudes into the bosom of 
 the mountains — the scenery and the game. He has left 
 nothincr behind him to show that he had much love of 
 scenery of any description. If he had been an admirer 
 of the mountains of his native north, he would have been a 
 remarkable exception to his contemporaries, botli Scottish 
 and English ; for no writer of the age ever thinks that he 
 ought, in ordinary courtesy, to speak of " the mountain 
 and the flood," except to abuse both; and even those who 
 have afforded the most lively accounts of the scenery — such 
 as Burt, the engineer officer — have given their pictures 
 the animation of bitterness and contempt. Among all the 
 changes of opinion which a century has produced, few 
 would probably give more astonishment to the writers of 
 the age of which we speak, than the admiration with which, 
 since the " Lady of the Lake" entered the fashionable 
 circles, it has become the etiquette to characterise High- 
 land scenery. We find then no traces of the picturesque 
 in Forbes's correspondence in his wanderings ; and it was a 
 matter of much deeper interest than the scenery or the 
 weather, to be able to tell his friend Scrope, on the 2nd of 
 September, 1726: 
 
 "The Highlands are at present in full rest. There is 
 not the least complaint of robberies or depredations, and 
 a great stick is become as fashionable an instrument in 
 
 • MS. at Culloden House. The letter to Sir Eobert Walpole already 
 cited, in which he also complains of the state of his health, was for- 
 warded through the person to whom this is addressed.
 
 330 ' DUNCAN FORBES, • 
 
 a Higlilander's hand, as a broad-sword or pistol by bis 
 side used formerly to be." * 
 
 We have but few accounts of the out-door avocations ot 
 such men ; and in the absence of others, perhaps this little 
 notice of his practising the Scottish game of golf with his 
 son, on the links of Musselburgh, may not be uninterest- 
 ing. It is dated the 1st of November, 1728. 
 
 " A run of feast days and fast days has keeped me out 
 of town this week. This birthday, and the preparation 
 for the Sacrament, has employed all the gay and all the 
 serious people so much, that there is not the least whisper 
 of that sort of private intelligence, which is as entertain- 
 ing to our street newsmongers as it is commonly false. 
 
 " This day, after a very hard pull, I got the better of 
 my son at the gouf in Musselburgh links. If he was as 
 good at any other thing as he is at that, there might be 
 some hopes of him."t 
 
 Towards the end of this year we find tokens of con- 
 valescence, in the old conviviality resuming its sway, in- 
 stead of ffolf and Hidiland tours. On the 29th of No- 
 vember he writes to his brother : — 
 
 " Francy Farquhar is not yet come this length, nor do 
 they hear any thing of the squire, which makes us dread 
 that they may be lying together somewhere in a wreath of 
 snow — the storm is very deep here, and the frost very 
 keen. 
 
 " Peter Stewart is here from Ireland. He drinks very 
 near as well as ever. I see him and some other of our 
 friends now and then salute you in a bumper."| 
 
 On the 19th of December, the Lord Lyon gives Mr. 
 John Forbes the following significant information: 
 
 " Last Saturday, eight of us attended Duncan, to intro- 
 * MS. at CuUoden House. t Hi^id. t Ibid.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 331 
 
 duce Justice Vauglian to Jolin Steeles, where we drank so 
 late, that the J. C, Peter Stewart, Vaughan, and I were 
 overturned on the high plain road. Meantime, I have 
 the satisfaction to tell you that Duncan and all your friends 
 are very well."* 
 
 At length, on the 18th of December, 1730, Lovat, 
 whose authority may be safely taken on such a subject, 
 says to John Forbes, in his usual emphatic manner: 
 
 " I conscientiously assure you that your brother, the 
 Lord Advocate, has not been so strong, and vigorous, and 
 healthy these several years past, as he has been since the 
 middle of November; and Clarkey swears, if he keeps to 
 his directions, that in two years he will be as strong, and 
 as heal, and as fit for drinking as he was twenty years 
 
 ago."t 
 
 Tlie manner in which the business of Scotland was con- 
 ducted by Duncan Forbes, was productive, for a time, of 
 an important constitutional alteration, which subsequently 
 became permanent. On the 24th of August, 1725, the 
 Duke of Newcastle wrote to him, saying: 
 
 " His Majesty not intending-, for the future, to have any par- 
 ticular Secretary of State for Scotland, has been pleased to re- 
 move the Duke of Roxburgh from that employment, and or- 
 dered his other Secretaries of State to take care of the depart- 
 ment that his Grace had. As, in my Lord Townshend's absence, 
 that must lie singly upon me, I must beg your lordship will be 
 pleased to send me, from time to time, such accounts as you shall 
 judge to be for his Majesty's service. It is a very great pleasure to 
 me, that in the execution of the king's commands, I shall have 
 the honour of your lordship's correspondence, and the happiness 
 of your assistance ; which will be the more necessary to me, 
 ■who must be unacquainted with the laws and methods of pro- 
 ceeding in your country.";}: 
 
 » MS. at Culloden House. f Ibid. J CuUoden Papers, 94.
 
 332 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 It is wortliy of notice tliat this office, with its great 
 amount of patronage and official power, was not one of 
 those conferred on Argyle. While the great offices of 
 England, or the empire in general, were plentifully be- 
 stowed on him, the minister was probably too cautious to 
 invest him with one which would add the authority 
 of the prerogative and the influence of government 
 patronage, to the vast local power exercised by the great 
 house of M'^Callum Mhor. But in whatever hands the 
 office was placed, the minister very probably felt that it 
 was likely to be abused. It must be given to a Scotsman, 
 to prevent a national outcry, which would rest with 
 apparent justice on the argument that no man could so 
 aptly deal with the institutions of the country as a native. 
 The reasons why a Scotsman should not have the office, 
 were not such as it would be prudent in any minister to 
 express. It must be confessed that if in England party 
 spirit prevailed in the conduct of official persons, in Scot- 
 land they were subject to the still more objectionable 
 influence of family predilections; and a man hke Walpole, 
 accustomed to make every consideration yield to the 
 aggrandisement of his political ascendency, must have 
 felt the clannish disposition of the Scottish officials to 
 hold kinship more Important than sound Whig principles, 
 to be a provoking counteraction of his system. He therefore 
 came to the conclusion, not unwisely, that there should be 
 no official person having the power and patronage of a 
 Secretary of State in Scotland; but that the principal 
 Secretary for the Home Department should enjoy the 
 power and the responsibility of a secretary for Scotland, 
 wliile he might be able to obtain the proper information 
 from tlac Lord Advocate, or any other trustworthy source. 
 In a letter, of which the scroll is preserved, Forbes, in
 
 OF CULLODEX. 333 
 
 allusion to a communication which he had received from 
 Mr. Under-Secretary Delafaye about the new arrange- 
 ments, makes some remarks of a very empliatic character 
 on the manner in which the Scottish secretaryship had 
 been used. The letter is dated the 7th of September. 
 
 " I am perfectly well pleased with what Mr. Delafaye writes 
 me about the method into which Scots' business is to be flung-, 
 because it yields a prospect, that for some time at least, we shall 
 not be troubled with that nuisance, which we so long have com- 
 plained of, a Scots' Secretary, either at full length, or in minia- 
 ture. If any one Scotsman has absolute power, we are in the 
 same slavery as ever, whether tbat person be a fair man or a 
 black man, a peer or commoner, six-foot or five-foot high; and 
 the dependence of his country wUl be on that man, and not on 
 those that made him."* 
 
 The Scottish secretaryship was only discontinued for 
 a short period. It was revived in 1731, in the person 
 of the Earl of Selkirk. He was succeeded by the Mar- 
 quis of Tweeddale, in 1742, and the office was finally 
 abolished on this nobleman's resignation in 1746. 
 
 In the mean time, Duncan Forbes had a considerable 
 addition to the multifarious duties of his professional 
 office, and he seems to have set the precedent, by which 
 the Lord Advocate, if he be an able man, is generally 
 burdened with a certain proportion of every department 
 of ministerial duty in Scotland. The Lord Advocate's 
 proper official functions are those of legal adviser of the 
 crown, and acting counsel in all questions in the courts 
 of law in which the crown is a party. In a great por- 
 tion of the latter department of his business, he is the 
 mere lawyer, who differs from other practising barristers 
 in the nature of his employer. But even as an acting 
 lawyer, he has duties to perform of vast importance to 
 
 * MS, at Culloden.
 
 384 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 tlie public, and extending widely beyond tlie verge of 
 those of the Attorney-general in England. The advo- 
 cate of the crown became, by a series of not imfortu- 
 nate accidents which it would be tedious to enumerate, 
 the advocate of the public in the prosecution of crimes; 
 and thus he came to hold the reins by which that system 
 of pubHc prosecution, which distinguishes the Scottish 
 from the EngHsh administration of the criminal law, is 
 regulated. In his other functions of legal adviser for the 
 crown, he is the responsible officer who points out the 
 course to be adopted by the government in doubtful cases, 
 and especially in state offences, when it is a question whe- 
 ther a prosecution should be instituted or not. It is true, 
 that the cabinet frequently direct state prosecutions to 
 be instituted; but a Lord Advocate conducting a prose- 
 cution so originating, even if he personally disapproved 
 of it, would still, undoubtedly, be considered for all 
 purposes of pohtical responsibility to have given it the 
 sanction of his official advice. Then this function of 
 legal adviser to the crown, when the Lord Advocate 
 comes in contact with statesmen unacquainted with the 
 peculiar institutions of Scotland, possesses the quahty of 
 indefinitely expanding in bulk, and ramifying itself into 
 a multitude of matters, which are all, more or less, dis- 
 tinct from the simple administration of the law. He 
 is generally looked on as the reviser of all the minis- 
 terial bills regarding Scotland, and thus, as the author, or 
 perhaps more properly the editor, of the .whole legislature 
 for that part of the empire, during his tenure of office. 
 In ecclesiastical affairs, in the administration of the reve- 
 nue, in projects relating to the means of transit, the 
 ports and harbours, and other matters of public engineer- 
 ing, the Lord Advocate has been always looked to, at least
 
 OF CDLLODEiV. 335 
 
 "by the people of Scotland, as the person who can forward 
 or impede the public service. If there are riots or dis- 
 turbances in any part of the country, the assigned duties 
 of his office naturally throw on him the responsibility of 
 makiag the necessary arrangements for the preservation 
 of the pubHc peace. But if a portion of the community 
 is afflicted with scarcity, or an epidemic disease has broken 
 out with unusual violence, it is always expected that the 
 Lord Advocate is to devise the proper arrangements for 
 the protection of the public. 
 
 These multifarious functions, and indeed a still wider 
 range of duties, which the increase made by Scotland in 
 wealth, population, and business transactions, would ren- 
 der it impossible for any one man satisfactorily to perform 
 at the present day, appear to have been cheerfully and 
 zealously undertaken by Forbes. It has been already said, 
 that we may date the precedent of so many duties falling on 
 the Lord Advocate to the circumstance of one so willing 
 and able to fulfil them, holding the office when the secre- 
 taryship of State for Scotland was for a time discon- 
 tinued. It is an additional reason for holding this opinion, 
 that Forbes seems to have continued the performance of 
 his adopted functions after he became Lord President of 
 the Court of Session; and probably the inconvenience and 
 general impropriety of uniting these heterogeneous fimc- 
 tions with the office of a judge, may be the reason why 
 they fell upon the Lord Advocates instead of the Lord 
 Presidents of subsequent times. Subdivision of functions, 
 and perfection in their performance, are the characteristics 
 of modem times. The fiu'ther back we go, the more 
 valuable do men of varied capacities appear to have been ; 
 and before the middle of last century Forbes exercised, 
 to the advantage of the public and the admiration of his
 
 336 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 contemporaries, many functions which a lawyer, how- 
 ever capable of performing them, could not in the present 
 day adopt without ridicule. 
 
 It was not in any spirit of persiflage that Lovat ad- 
 dressed him as his general. In those days, the gentlemen 
 who acted the temporary soldier, had too many opportu- 
 nities for mingling in actual warfare, and Forbes gathered 
 no contemptible laurels in the field. But it is a circum- 
 stance more remarkable at the present day, that seeming 
 to feel the incapacity of Cope and other military com- 
 manders, he gave them occasional directions for the dis- 
 posal of their troops, and the general conduct of their 
 operations, which seem to have been deferentially followed. 
 Among his papers there are many such instructions ex- 
 pressed in the brief and imperative form of military 
 orders, and in a tone, which military men of the present 
 day, brought up with different notions of professional 
 distinctions and responsibilities, would never tolerate in a 
 civilian. The ports, and harbours, and the state of navi- 
 gation occasionally occupied his attention. Thus there is 
 extant in his handwriting a scroll of a memorial to the 
 Lords of the Admiralty, relating to the dangerous navi- 
 gation between the west coast of Scotland and the Isles, 
 very scientific in its tenor and nautically technical in its 
 details. The manufactures of the country he considered 
 the peculiar children of his adoption, and he nursed them 
 with only too much fostering tenderness. The commerce 
 of Scotland was in the same manner taken under his pro- 
 tection, as something that had not vitaHty enough for its 
 own support, and required his organising directions. His 
 exertions in adjusting the revenue system to his own 
 views, we have abeady seen in part; and future incidents 
 will bring it again under our notice. He did not as we
 
 OF CULLODEN. 337 
 
 sliall see, neglect the progress of agriculture. He looked 
 from the mere administration of the law, which was the 
 regular sphere of his duties, to the means of its reform ; 
 and as we shall presently find, his exertions for the re- 
 organisation of the Scottish records were arduous and 
 extensive. 
 
 Some of his proposals for the enforcement of the revenue 
 laws were adopted at a later period, and became a pro- 
 minent feature of our revenue code. It is the curse of all 
 restrictive systems that every statesman feels it necessary 
 to widen the circle of coercion and interference, findinor 
 that his predecessors have not made it large enough. It 
 was in vain that the coasts were guarded, if vessels with 
 smuggled goods were allowed to keep the sea, waiting 
 for the proper place and the proper moment for a landing. 
 *^ A ship," says Forbes, " chock-full of brandy in small 
 casks, and of tea, being met with anywhere on the coast, 
 produces clearances from Holland, suppose, or Dunkirk, 
 for Norway, or any other foreign port; pretends she came 
 on the coast by stress of weather, or some other accident, 
 and must be permitted to proceed on her feigned voyage ; 
 while the use she makes of these indulgences is to put 
 on land her prohibited goods on some less guarded corner 
 of the coast, and if she have any bulky entrable goods on 
 board, she comes boldly into port, enters those fairly at the 
 Custom House, and reports her prohibited goods for some 
 foreign port. Wliilst she is unloading the entrable goods, 
 the runners are settling their correspondence privately 
 with the boats on that side of the coast where they intend 
 to run their tea or brandy." He finds a test of the inten- 
 tion to smuggle, in the division of commodities into small 
 lots during transit. Of brandy he says, "When it is 
 carried in the fair way in the course of trade, no man in 
 
 z
 
 338 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 his senses puts it in small casks — the expense of the cask, 
 the freightage, the leakage, are so much greater in the one 
 way than in the other, that no honest trader ever did, or ever 
 •will, make use of small casks." He proposes that the im- 
 portation of tea and sugar in small bulks should be pro- 
 hibited; and he thinks a further remedy might be ob- 
 tained by *' a total prohibition of carrying tea in any 
 British ship in any part of the seas, -within fifty or any 
 other number of leagues of the coast, upon any pretence 
 whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting the tea, and a further 
 penalty to the master," unless where there is a proper 
 clearance. 
 
 He complains that individuals may have in their pos- 
 session large quantities of brandy without being hable 
 to account for the manner in which it has been obtained ; 
 and he proposes as a remedy that the possessor and all 
 those through whose possession it had previously passed, 
 should be bound to produce certificates until the pedigree 
 of possession is traced to the importer. He fears this 
 arrangement might be evaded by linking into the chain 
 some obscure person unable to pay penalties, and his re- 
 medy for this is characteristic : 
 
 " This I think may be obviated by giving a power to punish 
 by whipping at the cart's tail such offenders as could not 
 answer the penalty — a punishment which I wish also were in- 
 flicted on boatmen, seamen, carters, and others, who knowingly 
 assist in smuggling, and cannot answer the penalties. And to 
 prevent unwary persons falling under the penahies, I would 
 have the law read over from the pulpit immediately after divine 
 service four times every year, in all chm-ches that are within five 
 miles of the coast."* 
 
 • MS. at Culloclen House.
 
 OF CULLODEX. 339 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Domestic Matters — His Brother John — His Succession to the Estates — 
 His Son— His Son's Tutor, LIurdoch — Forbes as an Author — The 
 Porteous Mob — The Lord Advocate's Inquiries — The Proceedings in 
 the House of Lords — The Scottish Judges — The Opposition in the 
 Commons to the Measures against Edinburgh — The Dangerous As- 
 pect of the Discussion — The Part taken by Forbes, and its Effect — 
 Made Lord President of the Court of Session — State of the Bench— In- 
 fluence of his Cliaracter and Exertions — Paper on the Scottish Peer- 
 age — The State of the Records — War against the Consumption of 
 Tea. 
 
 We here give a brief notice of some domestic events in 
 wMcli Duncan Forbes and liis family were concerned. 
 His brother John had been member for the county of 
 Inverness from 1715 to 1722, when he was successfully 
 opposed by the Laird of Grant. He attributed this defeat 
 to the treachery of Lovat, with whom the CuUoden family 
 were subsequently on bad terms, until he found it expedient 
 to be restored to their favour. He says to John Forbes on 
 the 29th of December, 1732 : " Duncan and I are now as 
 •we were in 1715, that is, without reserve to each other."* 
 At that time some effort seems to have been made by 
 John Forbes to regain his seat through Lovat's aid, for 
 we find him saying to his brother, on the 2nd of De- 
 cember : 
 
 " I gave you by last post the best journal I could of the Lyon; 
 his business to this corner was to solicit for Grant against me. 
 He says that all the Erasers will be for Grant, except Robert, 
 but I know the contrary, if I can trust Lovat and the gentle- 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 129. 
 z2
 
 340 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 men themselves. The beast stayed here two nights, hut not 
 one word of politics. From hence he went to G. Macintosh's, 
 where he stayed a night, but got no favour of the laird — which 
 vexed him very much — and from thence he went to Castle 
 Grant, but I have not yet learned what was concerted there. 
 But one thing is certain, that they, the Lyon and Grant, are in 
 concert against me."* 
 
 The trust in Lovat had been probably as fallaciously 
 bestowed as on the previous occasion, for Forbes was not 
 re-elected. Very soon afterwards his [constitution gavey, 
 and we find Duncan, in a letter to Mr. Scrope of the Trea- 
 sury, dated 23rd of November, 1734, desiring to be excused 
 for absenting himself from Parliament, on account of the 
 state of his brother's health. 
 
 " You can recollect, that since first I had the honour to serve 
 the crown, I never was one day absent from Parliament. I 
 attended the first and the last and every intermediate day of 
 every session, whatever calls I had from my private affairs to he 
 here ; while at the same time my friend the Solicitor-General 
 was permitted to stay out the whole term in this place, the at- 
 tendance of one of us upon the courts in term time being thought 
 necessary for his Majesty's service. 
 
 " You know the friendship I bear my brother, and can easily 
 guess how painful it must be to me to part with him in the 
 extremity of his distress. "f 
 
 This letter must have been written a very short time 
 before John's death, which occurred before the end of the 
 year ; and as he left no children, Duncan succeeded to all 
 the family property. He had commenced a series of agri- 
 cultural improvements on his small appanage of Bunchrew, 
 and he now continued the system on the larger field thus 
 opened to him. His memory still lives as that of a kind 
 landlord in the traditional recollections of a peasantry, who 
 could have little opportunity of appreciating his merits as 
 a statesman or a lawyer. Probably his military exploits 
 
 * MS. at CuUoden House. t Ibid.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 341 
 
 may liave swelled his reputation ; for it is rare tliat the 
 Celtic races show a lasting appreciation for merits which 
 do not partake of the character of chiefship. Of the high 
 legal office which he held, they would not easily under- 
 stand the nature. A president of a deliberative body was 
 probably a character with which it would be as difficult 
 for them to identify a powerful judge, as it was to Hajji 
 Baba to recognise the types of the Emperors of Hindustan 
 in a chairman and deputy-chairman of a Company. The 
 name, mdeed, by which his title is generally expressed by 
 these worthy people in English is that of the Lord Pre- 
 senter. Of his intercourse with his tenantry, the follow- 
 ing extracts from a letter addressed by him to his factor, 
 Thomas Stewart, on the 28th of November, 1735, partly 
 relating to the establishment of a spinning-school, and 
 partly about arrears of rent, may be considered a fair 
 specimen. 
 
 " As to the spinning mistress, a hut must be put up for her 
 in the place which you and the tenants shall judge the most 
 centrical for the service of all of them, the design being for the 
 benefit of all. The expense not only of putting up the house 
 but of supporting the woman, must, I believe, be supported by 
 me for some time, because, though it is for their good, they are 
 not yet sensible of it, and therefore would without reason 
 grumble if they were charged with it. You will, therefore, 
 consult with Provost Hossack, and make the establishment as 
 prudently and frugally as possible, yet not so as to starve the 
 child. 
 
 " As to what you say of the tenants' capacity to pay their 
 arrears, and the proposition of exacting from them payment of 
 one-half, though I should perhaps be satisfied with receiving 
 the half at this time, yet I should think it very imprudent to let 
 them think that I did not look for the whole— at least as much 
 as they respectively are able to pay. I do not by this mean 
 tliat I would have them really distressed, but as their circum- 
 stances may vary, and some may be able to pay the whole,
 
 342 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 wbefeas others may not be able to answer the half, I would 
 have each believe, that, acting on to his ability, he would be en- 
 titled to my favour as to the acceptance of boll for boll."* 
 
 Forbes had, as a relic of his brief married Hfe, an only 
 son, John, whom he must have seen pretty far advanced 
 in life before his own death. This son was a cause for some 
 time of much anxiety, but afterwards of comfort and satis- 
 faction. He showed in early life the convivial spirit of 
 his race, without their energy and perseverance. He was 
 the boon companion of Thomson, Armstrong, and a wide 
 circle of choice spirits, who seem to have loved and appre- 
 ciated him after the fashion expressed in the following 
 short but eloquent epistle by the author of the " Seasons." 
 
 Richmond, Aprill the 25th, 1736. 
 " Dear Jock, — I am willing to inform you, before you leave 
 France, that your salmon are very salt, and that we often drink 
 your health Avith more than devotion — with love. Had I time, 
 I have many things to say to you, but must defer them till ano- 
 ther opportunity. Here are some, and Peter among the rest, 
 who are, heartily, heartily yours. 
 
 " J. THOMSON."t 
 
 The following picture from the " Castle of Indolence," 
 has been held on very good grounds to represent young 
 Porbes. 
 
 " One day there chanced into these lialls to rove, 
 A joyous youth, who took you at first sight. 
 Him, the wild wave of pleasure hither drove 
 Before the sprightly tempest tossing light. 
 
 * MS. at Cullodcn House. 
 
 t MS. at Culloden House. This has already hecn printed in the 
 " Higliland Note-book'' of Mr. Carrutliers of Inverness, to Avhom the 
 public are indebted for many curious literary and critical discoveries. 
 Among these are the types of the two characters in the " Castle of 
 Indolence," to be presently mentioned. Mr. Carruthers has adduced cri- 
 tical reasons for believing in the coincidence of which the scope of the 
 present narrative will not admit of a repetition.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 343 
 
 Certes, he -was a most engaging wight, 
 Of social glee and wit humane though keen, 
 Turning the night to day, and day to night: 
 For him the merry bells had rung, I ween, 
 If in this nook, of quiet, bells had ever been. 
 
 *' But not even pleasure to excess is good, 
 What most elates, then sinks the soul as low. 
 "When spring- tide joy pours in with copious flood, 
 The higher still the exulting billows flow, 
 The further back again they flagging go, 
 And leave us grovelling on the dreaiy shore. 
 Taught by this son of joy, we found it so, 
 Who, whilst he stay'd, kept in a gay uproar 
 Our madden'd Castle all, th' abode of sleep no more." 
 
 An inhabitant, for however brief a period, of this en- 
 chanted castle, was not likely to prove a very satis- 
 factory son to Duncan Forbes, and many are the anxious 
 inquiries and admonitions which his early conduct elicited. 
 But he assumed by degrees many of the solid virtues of 
 his parentage. He chose the profession of a soldier, and 
 before going abroad to the Flemish war, left the following 
 characteristic note addressed to Thomas Stewart, the 
 factor or steward at Culloden. 
 
 " Dear honest Thomas, — I am going to carry your son 
 Sandy to Flanders with me to fight the French. When I am 
 a general, Sandy and Duncan St. Clair shall be captains — as 
 I am on haste, dr honest Thom, I wish you well while — John 
 
 Forbes.* 
 
 " London, 27th of May, 1742." 
 
 He behaved gallantly, had a horse shot under him at 
 Fontenoy, and partook in the dangers of other conflicts. 
 We find his father thus writing about him to Sir An- 
 drew Mitchell. 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House.
 
 344 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 " Edinburgh, 5th July, 1743. 
 " Dear Sir, — The concern which you show for John, and 
 the care you have lately taken to prevent my being affected 
 with the reports that prevailed of the sufferings of the Blue Re- 
 giment in the action on the Maine, are fresh proofs of what I 
 never doubted, your good-will for me, and claim, at least, this 
 return, to let you know that by a letter which the last Satur- 
 day's post brought me from the young gentleman himself, it 
 appears he has had no harm, and that he has been well diverted 
 with the scene which to him was undoubtedly a novelty. — I am, 
 as every honest Briton must be, greatly pleased with the success 
 of this first encounter, and entertain strong hopes that as it has 
 happened at a very critical conjuncture, it may be so managed 
 as to put an end to the troubles which have lately afflicted 
 Germany and threatened Europe, without much more expense 
 of blood or treasure." 
 
 He afterwards lived a life of retirement at Stradisliall,. 
 in Suffolk, endeavouring, as we shall find, to retrieve the 
 losses which his father had incurred in the public service^ 
 
 The tutor to whom John Forbes was intrusted, was 
 the Reverend Patrick Murdoch, who, though his name 
 is not to be found in the biographical dictionaries, was a 
 writer of considerable eminence both in science and lite- 
 rature. Pie was a friend and pupil of Colin Maclaurin, 
 and probably derived from his example a desire to teach 
 and propagate the Newtonian philosophy. He edited the 
 illustrations of Perspective from Conic sections; Genesis 
 curvarum per umbras, in 8vo, 1746. f To his friend's ac- 
 
 * Mitchell Papers, British Museum. 
 
 t It appears from the followinj; passaj^es of letters addressed by liira 
 to Sir Andrew Mitchell, (Mitchell Tapers, British 'Museum) that he had 
 contemplated and afterwards abandoned a complete edition of Sir 
 Isaac's Works. 
 
 " Stradishall, 12th July, 17G6. 
 
 " I should be quite happy, my deai'cst friend, to embrace you at Berlin, 
 to be witness of the favour you enjoy, and of the universal respect that 
 will ever be paid you in that country, but an object has risen upoa 
 which I wisli to have your advice. On my M^ay down, I passed, as 
 usual, two days with Mr. Smith (quite lame with the gout, other- 
 wise cheerful, and who kindly remembers you), Mr. Shepherd, the Tlu-
 
 OF CULLODE??. 345 
 
 count of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical discoveries, he 
 prefixed an " Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. 
 Colin Maclaurin, Professor of jMathcmatics in the Univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh." He wrote a book called " INIcrca- 
 tor's Sailing applied to the true Theory of the Earth," 
 and several papers in the " Transactions of the Royal So- 
 ciety." A work more widely circulated, is his short but 
 clear and lively memoir of James Thomson, prefixed to 
 nearly all the later editions of this poet's work. The com- 
 memoration of Thomson was, in some measure, an acknow- 
 ledgement of a corresponding favour, for the poet had 
 given Murdoch, like his pupil, a place in the " Castle of 
 Indolence," and one that a clergyman cannot have felt to 
 be a perfectly dignified one : 
 
 " A little fat round oily man of God 
 
 Was one I chiefly mark'd among the fry; 
 
 He had a rogueish twinkle in his eye, 
 
 And shone all glittering with ungodly dewe, 
 
 If a tight damsel chaunced to trippen by; 
 
 Which when observed he shrunk into his mew, 
 
 And strait would recollect his piety of new." 
 
 mean professor, joined us one evening, and I was afresh importuned to 
 give a complete edition of Sir Isaac, towards -wliich Sheplierd [offered] 
 the use of all the manuscripts that came into Lord Portsmouth's pos- 
 session, through ]\lr. Conduitt; and their arguments were such, that I 
 could not help promising to set the edition agoing, though I miglit he 
 obliged to leave the finishing it to some other. My time of life is 
 rather too late, indeed, for such undertakings, yet my health and spirits 
 are never better than when I am least idle; provided the subject is 
 useful, suited to my taste, and within my reach. Here I shall have to 
 give little more than a close attention to the press, and to the scheme, 
 and to add to what M. Castiglione has done, those pieces that may 
 have hitherto remained in manuscript. I have not yet told jMill.ir, 
 and I shall be glad to have your opinion, as you commonly judge better 
 for me than I can for myself." 
 
 " Hampstead, 21 April, 1767. 
 — " As to Newton, Millar, I find, has not given over all thoughts 
 of his edition, but I have of being concerned in it. I feel the weight of 
 years in weakness and loss of appetite, and cannot now bear the intense 
 and long application which that undertaking would reciuire."
 
 346 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 A partiality for literary ease, and a dislike oi tlie busi- 
 ness of life, so far qualified tlie worthy tutor to soj ourn in the 
 castle; but the less creditable attributes of the picture are 
 probably the fulfilment of some wicked jest of the poet. 
 Murdoch was happily married in 1742. His orders were 
 from the Episcopal church, and he obtained the rectory 
 of Stradishall in Sufiblk, where he often kindly entertained 
 his old jDupil. 
 
 It is necessary to say something of Duncan Forbes 
 himself as an author, though his claims to notice are 
 here on a much smaller scale than his other merits. In 
 1732, he pubHshed " A Letter to a Bishop, concerning 
 some Important Discoveries in Philosophy and Theology," 
 which passed through at least three editions. Forbes was 
 one of those who were charmed with the series of curious 
 analogies, by which the Rev. John Hutchinson showed 
 that the Old Testament, in the original Hebrew, pre- 
 sented not only the truths of the Christian religion, but 
 the elements of all natural science. This small quarto 
 brochure professes to do no more than to give an account, 
 exegetical and analytical, of " Moses's Principia," and the 
 other works of Hutchinson. In his admiration of this 
 singular author, he was in good intellectual company, for 
 lie was joined by many of the ablest scholars of the day; 
 and some works of no small pretension show us that the 
 Hutchinsonian doctrines are still prevalent in a great seat 
 of learning, though they are not associated with their 
 founder's name. It is remarkable, that these quaint ana- 
 logies seem to have had a peculiar charm for men very 
 learned in the language from which they were extracted. 
 Parkhurst, the lexicographcrj was numbered among the 
 Hutchinsonians, Forbes himself had the character of 
 being a ripe Hebrew scholar, and he handles that Ian-
 
 OF CULLODEN. 347 
 
 guage witli a freedom which he could not have ventured 
 to use without a full practical acquaintance with its struc- 
 ture. He seems to have been on terms of intimacy with 
 the singular man whose doctrines he thus promulgated ; 
 for among his papers there is a letter from a W. Gardner, 
 at "Walton-upon-Thames, dated the 16th of September, 
 1837, stating that his wife was a relation of Hutchinson, who 
 died about three weeks before the date of the letter. The 
 writer says: — " If he left no will with your lordship, I am 
 afraid there is none at all. He told me when he lay ill, that if 
 youlived, as you had a general idea of what was to come, we 
 should have it." He expresses a hope that a complete 
 edition of the works may be forthcoming. " If yoiur 
 lordship has no formal commission about his papers, I 
 most humbly entreat you to interpose, and to use your en- 
 deavours that they may be preserved and published."* 
 
 A complete edition of Hutchinson's works was pub- 
 lished in 1748, but there is no reason to presume that 
 Forbes assisted in preparing it for the press. 
 
 In 1735 he published another work bearing on the same 
 class of subjects as that already mentioned, but more 
 original and ambitious in its character, called " Some 
 Thoughts concerning Religion, natural and revealed, and 
 the Manner of Understandinsr Revelation: tendinof to 
 show that Christianity is, indeed, very near as old as the 
 Creation." The concluding words are an allusion to 
 Matthew Tindal's " Christianity as old as the Creation; 
 or, the Gospel a Re-publication of the Religion of Na- 
 ture." Among many propositions maintained in the 
 " Thoughts," with somethino' like the close los;ic of a 
 lawyer, this appears to be the most important: — That it 
 being the mark of an over-ruling power to predict what 
 
 * MS. at CuUoden House.
 
 348 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 sliall be done by it in future ages, and to fulfil that pre- 
 diction, — we have, in the Old Testament, and the pre- 
 sent history of the Jews, full evidence of the existence 
 of that power; because it can be conclusively shown, both 
 historically and critically, that the predictions regarding 
 the coming and the reception of the Messiah, were pro- 
 mulgated among the Jews, and believed by them ; while we 
 have equally conclusive evidence of these predictions being 
 fulfilled ; and that evidence, in one material part at least — 
 the rejection of the new dispensation by the Jews, and 
 their continuance as a peculiar people — is independent of 
 the existence of the New Testament.* 
 
 The editor of the " CuUoden Papers" attributes to 
 Forbes the pretty song which commences, 
 
 " Ah Cloris ! That I now coiild sit 
 As unconcern'd as when 
 Your infant beauty could beget 
 No pleasui'e nor no pain. 
 
 " When I the dawn used to admire 
 And praised tlie coming day, 
 I httle thought the growing fire 
 Must take my rest away." 
 
 But imfortvmatcly for the poetical reputation of one who 
 has reaped worthy laurels in other departments of intel- 
 lectual labour, this song may be found in " The Mulberry 
 Garden," of Sir Charles Scdley, printed in 1675, where it 
 is presented by Wildish to Olivia, justifying her prognos- 
 tication, " Ever since I saw you last I have been in most 
 terrible apprehension of a whining copy of verses." There 
 are some small attempts at versification — chiefly transla- 
 tions — in the early hand-writing of Forbes ; but undoubt- 
 edly he never made any serious efforts to acquire a poet's 
 
 * These Tracts were re-published as " The "Works of the Right Hon. 
 Duncan Forbes, 8vo., 1816.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 349 
 
 fame, and left nothing that would justify a biographer in 
 star tin Of such a claim. 
 
 The last momentous piece of oflScial business with which 
 Forbes was engaged in his capacity of Lord Advocate, 
 was the inquiries into the Porteous Mob: an incident 
 nearly as renowned at the period when it occurred for the 
 remarkable audacity and skill with which it was conducted, 
 as it has been at a later day for the picturesque eloquence 
 with which its tragic history has been narrated. In this 
 inquiry all the skill and industry of the Lord Advocate, 
 all his natural sagacity as a man, and his experience as a 
 crown lawyer, were hopelessly bafHed.* In the House of 
 Commons, General Cope paid the conspirators the compli- 
 ment of saying, " If we take a view of the whole proceed- 
 ings in that barbarous murder, we find nothing in it that 
 looks like the precipitate measures of a giddy mob; no, they 
 went coolly and regularly to work, and for my share, I 
 never was witness to or ever heard of any mihtary disposi- 
 tion better laid down or more regularly executed than 
 their murderous plan was." This feature, adduced 
 as a reason for supposing that the authorities should 
 have been aware of the design, ratlier indicated those 
 causes of profound secrecy which alike evaded the 
 
 * A case actually brought to trial, for the purpose, probably, of 
 showing that some inquiry had been made, was a ludicrous antithesis 
 to the tragic horrors of the murder. William I^Iaclauchlan was in- 
 dicted by the Lord Advocate " for mobbing, murder, and other crimes." 
 He was a footman, and it turned out that Avandering deviously about on 
 the evening of the trial, in a state of advanced intoxication, some of the 
 mob, to humour a wild freak, had put a Lochaber axe in his hand, and 
 kept him in a rather conspicuous place during their proceedings. As 
 he had on his livery, some casual spectators belonging to the upper 
 ranks recognised this singular apparition as having figured behind their 
 chairs on festive occasions, and thus he was the only person in the mob 
 whose identity was attested. The poor man Avas not aware i;ntil next 
 morning that he had cut so conspicuous a figure, in a great historical 
 tragedy. See his casein the State Trials, xvii,, 994.
 
 350 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 provident care of the magistrates, and baffled the skill 
 of the public prosecutor. It was very clearly the work 
 of no ordinary rabble, subject to the momentary im- 
 pulses of ferocity and of regret, which actuate such a 
 body: ready to perpetrate an atrocity at one moment, 
 disposed to conciHate and secure their personal safety 
 from the consequences at another. It is difficult to be- 
 lieve that Forbes could have failed to see, how much his 
 own favourite exclusive trade system and formidable 
 revenue laws, had their influence on the national feehngs 
 of which this act, and the mystery in which it was 
 shrouded, were the types. The suppression, by the adop- 
 tion of the Enghsh system of customs' duties, of the old 
 national commerce with France — so wide an interference 
 in general with old notions, by a legislature of which so 
 small a portion was supposed to represent the people of 
 Scotland — had raised a national feeling against the reve- 
 nue system, through which the people viewed the smuggler, 
 not as a paltry adventurer for gain, but as one who 
 risked his life in the holy cause of national indepen- 
 dence. Wilson the convict, at whose execution Porteous 
 fired on the people, had robbed the Custom House ; and 
 deeming he had done a good deed, met his death with 
 the approving conscience of a suffering patriot. The 
 reprieve of Porteous, following the pardon of the officer 
 who had fired on the Glasgow mob in the Malt Tax riots, 
 made the people say to each other, that the alien govern- 
 ment of England had come to the resolution, that no 
 person should be punished for violence done on the side 
 of the revenue. Acting on none of the minor motives 
 which Influence violent mobs, but following the dictates 
 of a sort of political fanaticism, the rioters supported 
 each other with all the firmness and faith of state conspi-
 
 OF CULLODEN. 351 
 
 xators; and tliey were successful in leaving to posterity 
 one of the most profound mysteries, which history carries 
 in its bosom. 
 
 The temper in which the affair was discussed in both 
 Houses of Parliament, spread the national feehng up- 
 wards, and made all classes of Scotsmen, with the charac- 
 teristic unanimity of their country, resist the spirit of 
 national oppression exliibited by the EngHsh statesmen. 
 The spirit of the Scots was first roused in a matter of 
 etiquette, arising in the preliminary inquiries. As the 
 presence of some of the Scottish judges was required in 
 the House of Lords, the Duke of Argyle and their other 
 countrymen in that august assembly, maintained that they 
 should take their seats, like the English judges, on the 
 woolsacks, or come forward to the table. There was no 
 exact precedent for such a step, and analogy was allowed 
 to have no influence ; for in adducing precedents after the 
 Union, England and Enghsh practice were alone looked to, 
 and as the Scottish judges, though they had been originally 
 a committee of the supreme Court of Parliament in 
 Scotland, had never been in use actually to sit on those 
 woolsacks, or to stand at that table, they could not be in 
 any way distinguished from other citizens who are heard 
 at the bar. The arguments employed on the occasion, 
 are reported in the Johnsonian system, without the names 
 of the speakers, and among them it is said : 
 
 " I am sure no Judge of Scotland was ever yet admitted to 
 be present, nor have any of them now a right to come within 
 this House ; for no man can come within our bar but by patent, 
 by writ, or by custom. The Judges of England have their 
 places upon the woolsacks by the king's writ, and till the 
 Judges of Scotland get writs of the same nature, they have no 
 right to come within our bar, nor have we, I think, a power to 
 bring them within the bar; because it would, in my opinion.
 
 352 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 be an encroachment upon the king's prerogative. Nay, I must 
 go further, I do not think the king himself, even with the con- 
 sent of this House, can issue out any such writ ; for even the 
 king's power of issuing such writs is limited by custom." 
 
 Trifles of less weight will be sufficient, in moments of 
 public excitement, to rouse suspicions of intended national 
 indignities ; and this was an unfortunate prelude to the mea- 
 sure which subsequently passed, through the House of Lords, 
 *' To disable Alexander Wilson, Esq., from taking, holding, 
 and enjoying any office or place of magistracy in the city 
 of Edinburo'h or elsewhere in Great Britain : and for im- 
 prisoning the said Alexander Wilson : and for abolishing" 
 the guard, kept up in the said, city, commonly called the 
 Town Guard : and. for taking away the Nether-bow port 
 of the said city, and keeping open the same." The mea- 
 sure was not intended for the purpose of facilitating the 
 punishment of guilty persons, or of remedying the injury, 
 but was in a modified shape the treatment which an exas- 
 perated military commander bestows on a capitulating 
 'city. It was the threat of angry enemies, not the wise 
 legislation of a national parliament. The gate was to be 
 removed as a humiliation to tlie city, and to the nation of 
 which it was the capital. The city guard was to be 
 abolished with a like view ; and in this part of the mea- 
 sure, its insulting object was rendered peculiarly conspi- 
 cuous, because that body was the police force of the city; 
 and thus, in consequence of a successful riot, it was pro- 
 posed that the means, however small, which the citizens 
 had of protecting themselves from violence, should be 
 removed, without any substitute being established. The 
 city guard had been established at the revolution, when it 
 superseded the old feudal system by which the burghers 
 " watched and warded" the city from foes both external
 
 OF CULLODEX. 353 
 
 and internal in tlieir turn. Nearly fifty years laavino- 
 elapsed since this system was abolished, none of the 
 existing generation capable of performing the duty could 
 have ever been subject to it. Yet, in the debate in the 
 House of Commons, the Solicitor-general for England 
 said, " Great complaints have been made of the hardships 
 imposed upon the citizens of Edinburgh by the present 
 bill, as it takes away their guard, and consequently 
 deprives them of their watch. But I cannot sec any 
 hardship in this at all, because the citizens have only 
 enjoyed that guard since the revolution, when it was 
 granted them in place of watching and warding, and I 
 know not what should hinder them from returnin2: to the 
 same custom aerain." 
 
 In the House of Lords, the measure was denounced 
 by the Duke of Argyle. Not one Scotsman is reported 
 to have spoken in its favour in either house.* Its charac- 
 ter as an intentional act of hostility was attested by the 
 Attorney and Solicitor-general of England supporting it, 
 while Duncan Forbes, the principal law officer of the 
 crown for Scotland, opposed it, and was joined by the 
 SoHcitor-general of Scotland, and his old opponent James 
 Erskine, of Grange, Two speeches by Forbes, mild and 
 rational, but very decided, are reported in the Parlia- 
 mentary History. A portion of his speech against the 
 commitment of the bill has abeady been cited.f It con- 
 cludes in these words : 
 
 " Thus, sir, I have given my opinion -with respect to the 
 insufficiency of the evidence for passing the present bill into a 
 
 * The bill does not appear to have had the assistance of a person 
 acquainted with Scottish Institutions in its preparation. The Baillies 
 of Edinburgh — a highly worshipful body — figure in it under the equi- 
 vocal title of " Bailiffs." 
 
 t See Chap. I. 
 
 2a
 
 354 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 law, and I have done it in the sincerity of heart ; for what 
 motive can I have, sir, for what I have spoken, but the dis- 
 charge of my duty as a member of this house ? It is more than 
 probable, sir, that I shall never trouble you again with my sen- 
 timents upon this or any other subject, but my conscience 
 would ever afterwards have accused me, if I had quitted ray 
 Beat here, before I had given my reason why I tliink the pre- 
 sent bill should not be committed." 
 
 That sucli a man considered himself to have an allegi- 
 ance to liis country wliicli was stronger than allegiance to 
 party — that men of character could not be found to be 
 the instruments of accomplishing what they viewed as a 
 slight on their country, was a state of matters calculated 
 to make a minister like Walpole hesitate. Then he could 
 not fail to notice that this grave resistance was followed 
 up by men, whose tone was sterner and fiercer, and a 
 more direct echo of the spirit of defiance that filled 
 Scotland. Lindsay, the member for Edinburgh, signifi- 
 cantly alluded to the tone taken up by people of rank 
 in England: 
 
 "That the legislature may be unconcerned and indifferent 
 as to any public measure as to Scotland; that it is a matter of 
 no moment how or in what manner any public law affects that 
 country ; whether these people are dissatisfied or not — should 
 they be ever so much displeased, ever so much angry, it is of no 
 consequence ; should they even take it into their heads to 
 mutiny and to rise in rebellion It signifies nothing, for we have 
 always as many troops quartered amongst them as are sufficient 
 to conquer them. This Is easily said, sir, and I admit it might 
 be as easily done too ; but because such a thing might be done, 
 would such a measure be just? — would it be a wise measure ? 
 Sir, so foolish and so foul a deed as this would be falsely called 
 conquest — it would be an act of treachery — it would be trea- 
 son, sir — treason of the blackest kind — treason against the 
 people. * * * But would the conquest be so 
 
 easily maintained as made ? No, sir, it is a common saying, 
 that oppression makes all men of one mind. In that event, ten 
 times the number of forces that made this conquest, and per-
 
 OF CULLODEN. 355 
 
 haps made it with ease too, would prove too few to maintain 
 it." 
 
 Ominously for the peace of the empire and the stability 
 of the Union, as this aifair had dawned, it brightened as 
 it advanced. It was a strong test of the soundness of 
 the principles on which the two countries were amalga- 
 mated. Had the Scottish statesmen been left to fight 
 the battle alone, they must have been overpowered, and 
 there would have been an instance too clearly in point 
 presented to those who had prophesied that whenever the 
 feelings or the interest of the two countries came into 
 colHsion, Scotland would be beaten down, and the English 
 parhamentary majority would trample her in the dust. It 
 soon appeared, however, that Scotland could not be injured 
 without touching common sympathies and interests among 
 tlie English parties in the House. Wyndham and others, 
 jealous about the old privileges of the Commons, took 
 umbrage at the haughty and unscrupulous manner in 
 which the bill had been passed by the Lords. Sir John 
 Barnard, the representative of the city of London, be- 
 came alarmed for the effect of such a precedent on 
 the privileges and franchises of the corporations; while 
 " Honest Shippen" saw, in the removal of a city gate 
 to give more ready access to troops, the first step of the 
 minister towards a deep-laid scheme for establishing a 
 military government. Walpole, to whom all these 
 symptoms were a matter of valuable instruction, had re- 
 served himself for the end of the debate on the committal; 
 and then, with some compliments to the opponents of the 
 measure, and censures of the violence of its advocates, he 
 concluded a very moderate speech in favour of the com- 
 mittal, with the remark, " If after it is committed, gentle- 
 men should think fit to make such amendments upon it 
 
 2 a2
 
 356 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 as may leave the privileges of tlie incorporation of Edin- 
 burgh untouched, and remit the most penal part of the 
 punishment of the Lord-provost ; and if these amendments 
 should be founded upon reason and equity, I shall by no 
 means be against them." The motion for going into 
 committee Avas carried by a majority of six, in a house of 
 242. " The preamble, and every clause of the bill," says 
 the Parliamentary History, " was opposed, and upon each 
 there was a distinct debate, several of which were pushed 
 so vigorously, and with so much success by the opposing 
 party, that the bill not only changed its name, but in 
 some manner its form." The portions of the bill chiefly 
 obnoxious to the Scots, — those abolishing the city gate and 
 the town guard, were lost in committee; and the mea- 
 sure, much abbreviated, was simply called " An Act to 
 disable Alexander Wilson, Esq. from taking, holding, or 
 enjoying any office or place of Magistracy in the City of 
 Edinburgh, or elsewhere in Great Britain; and for im- 
 posing a Fine upon the Corporation of the said City."* 
 The fine, amounting to 2000/., was destined "for the use 
 and benefit" of the widow of Captain Porteous. Even as 
 thus modified the Bill made a narrow escape. On the mo- 
 tion for reporting it to the House, the division was 130 on 
 each side, and the reporting was carried by the chair- 
 man's casting vote. It is said that there would have been 
 a majority of two against the reporting, had not Erskine 
 of Grange and the Solicitor-general for Scotland been 
 designedly detained in the House of Peers, where they 
 were engaged in an appeal case. On the question of the 
 passing of the Bill, the majority was 128 to lOl.f 
 
 When Forbes spoke of the probability of his not again 
 troubling the Commons with his sentiments, he appears 
 
 * 10 Geo. II., c. 35. t Parliamentary History, x., 187—319.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 357 
 
 to liave alluded to the arrangements for raising liini to 
 the head of the principal Civil Tribunal in Scotland. The 
 speech was delivered on the 9th of June, and on the 21st 
 he took his seat as Lord-president of the Court of Session, 
 succeeding Sir Hugh Dalrymple, who had died on the 
 preceding February.* The elevation to the head of his 
 profession, of a law officer of the Crown, who had just 
 carried on a successful opposition to the Ministry, is not 
 a common occurrence; and it illustrates by deeds the 
 sentiment too often expressed only in words, that the de- 
 sire either of retaining his office, or of mounting to a 
 higher one, did not, in his instance, hold out inducements 
 sufficient to make liim part with his independence. 
 . One who now worthily occupies a seat in the court in 
 which Forbes presided, has briefly but eloquently described 
 liim as displaying " one of those characters which are 
 sometimes to be found in what Hume calls ' The corners of 
 History,' but which deserve to be blazoned at large on its 
 broadest page. He is in every situation so full of honour, 
 of gentleness, of true wisdom, of kindness and intrepidity, 
 that we doubt if there be any one pubHc man of tlois part 
 of the empire, or of the age that is gone, whose quahties 
 ouo-ht to be so strongly recommended to the contempla- 
 tion of all those who wish truly to serve their country. "f 
 
 To understand the influence Avhich such a mind was 
 likely to exercise over the administration of the law in 
 Scotland, let us take a sweeping glance of the promi- 
 nent characteristics of the Court of Session at the time 
 when Forbes began to preside over it. There was no 
 jury, and the fifteen judges assembled together discussed 
 
 * Brunton and Haisc's History. 
 
 t Article on tlie Ciilloden Papers, " Edinburgh Review," XXVL, 
 108. Tills celebrated article, generally attributed to Sir James Mac- 
 intosh, was written by Lord Cockburn.
 
 358 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 both tlie fact and tlie law. They were thus a jury not 
 chosen by chance for the occasion, but a perpetual jury, 
 in whose minds all the influences which are supposed to 
 be evaded by a sudden and fortuitous selection of indivi- 
 duals from the public at large, had hardened, and moulded 
 themselves into fixed principles. Until the high example 
 of legal and political impartiality was set by President 
 Forbes, those who had no meaner motives, were the 
 avowed partisans of political sects or great families, and 
 would have considered that they did their friends injus- 
 tice by a vote against them, just as a member of ParHa- 
 ment of the present day commits the unpardonable offence 
 against liis political friends by a " wrong-headed" vote. 
 To continue the comparison with a jury, they were not a 
 set of men, silently, and in the solitary calmness of their own 
 breasts, making up their mind, or adjusting their opinions 
 in the privacy of a chamber. They made public speeches, 
 disputatious, acrimonious, and declamatory — full of grave 
 reasoning, or sarcasm, or violent invective, as the natures 
 of the men might be. Tliey caballed among each other 
 for votes and majorities; were influenced by "pressure 
 from without;" and after each conflict, carried the impulse 
 to improve a victory, or to remedy a defeat, into the next 
 campaign. A conflict in such an arena seems to have 
 almost compensated Lovat for the wild intrigues and 
 perilous enterprises to which his previous life had been 
 devoted, and in his correspondence we find such instances 
 as the following, of the excitement attending on an ani- 
 mated debate. The letter from which the passage is 
 taken, was addressed to John Forbes, on the 2nd of 
 July, ] 730. 
 
 " I am persuaded that you will be very well pleased to know, 
 that I bless God, I have this afternoon gamed my cause two to
 
 OF CULLODEN. 359 
 
 one. There was but four votes upon the bench against me, Dunn, 
 Roiston, Newhall, and the justice clerk, -who showed his spite to 
 the last, but to little purpose. The eight for me are the president, 
 Grange, Coupar, Milton, Drumore, Mnto, Mimy [^-iz. JNIonzie], 
 and Haining. * * * The speakers on my side were 
 Grange, Drumore, Milton, and the president ; and I am told 
 that they beat to pieces all the arguments that Royston, Dtmn, 
 and Newhall advanced. In short I have gained it with honour 
 and advantage."* 
 
 Here the influence of a strong and -well-regulated mind 
 •was likely to be powerfully efFective. The men -were 
 seldom actuated by direct personal motives, or by palpable 
 dishonesty; but the circumstances in -which they per- 
 formed their functions, left their prejudices and passions so 
 free of any permanent efFective check, that a pilot capable 
 of keeping them in the direction of their strict duty, and 
 the honest fulfilment of their services to the public, was 
 all the more valuable a member of society. It may not, 
 perhaps, be in good keeping with the tenovu' of the present 
 •work, to test the extent of the services of the Lord Presi- 
 dent Forbes as a lawyer, by an inquiry into the various 
 cases which came under his observation, and a critical ex- 
 amination of the manner in which he treated them. There 
 is, however, fortunately, 'a general and well-known fact in 
 the critical liistory of Scottish jurisprudence, the mere 
 statement of which will probably supply more than such 
 an inquiry could develop. The practitioner and the stu- 
 dent of Scots law are acquainted with Kilkerran's deci- 
 sions, as a volume of reports, quite distinct alike from 
 those which precede and those which immediately follow 
 them, in the large proportion of leading cases which they 
 contain, in the connexion of these cases with each other 
 throughout, and in the importance of their influence on 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 113.
 
 360 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 tlie existing practice of tlie law of Scotland. They fill, appa- 
 rently, a proportionably more important period in the deci- 
 sions of the Court of Session, than the Chief-justiceship of 
 Lord Mansfield does in those of the King's Bench in Eng- 
 land. Sir James Ferguson, of Kilkerran, commenced his 
 reports of the decisions of the Court of Session in 1738, the 
 second year of the presidency of Duncan Forbes, and car- 
 ried them down to the year 1752. Of the fourteen years 
 covered by this series of cases, nine were during the presi- 
 dency of Forbes. The clearness of expression, the sys- 
 tematic arrangement, and many other valuable c[ualities of 
 this collection, are certainly due to the reporter; but no 
 true reporter can make good precedents out of cases im- 
 properly decided; and though happily, in this Instance, a 
 competent interpreter was found, it is very clear that a large 
 individual share of the merit, of providing this body of 
 valuable precedents, must rest with the man who was the 
 leader of the court at the commencement, and during so 
 great a proportion of the period embraced by them. So 
 early as the 5th of April, 1740, we find Lord Hardwick 
 writing to the new president : " I am just got to this place? 
 quite fatigued and worn down by the attendance of two 
 causes from your court. But though I sensibly feel the 
 labour of going through them, yet I conceive great plea- 
 sure in tlie different degree of weight and credit with which 
 your decrees come now before the house, from what they 
 did a few years ago; an alteration which I presaged 
 would happen, and do most sincerely congratulate your 
 lordship upon the event."* 
 
 Tlie first act or rule of the court, under the presidency 
 of Forbes, was characteristic of the career he was to 
 pursue. It was called " An Act for the more speedy dis- 
 
 • Cullodcn Papers, 158.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 361 
 
 cussing of processes tlie next -vvinter session." It vrsis 
 followed by a rule, *' to the end, that the court may be 
 satisfied of the necessity of the occasional absence of any 
 of the judges, they will, for the future, admit of no 
 excuse for the absence of any of their number, but upon 
 notification being made to the court, of the special cause 
 of avocation, in writing."* It was his nature, not only 
 to be a conscientious performer of his own functions, but 
 a rigid disciplinarian of others. This general control 
 over the conduct of his colleagues, and of any other 
 official person, with whom he came in contact, was of 
 that peremptory and vigilant description, which, in a man 
 of less commanding character, would have been called 
 presumptuous interference. The result of his exertions 
 was, that the business of the court was conducted with 
 unprecedented precision and despatch, and he was able 
 to say, when transmitting a laborious report on the 
 Scottish Peerafje to Lord Hardwick, on the 29th of 
 February, 1740, " One thing, however, I think of with 
 some satisfaction, that, though it has cost me several hun- 
 dred hours extraordinary labour this winter, the business 
 of the court has sufiered no discontinuance. When the 
 term ended this day, no cause ripe for j udgment remained 
 undetermined ; none that, within the rules of the court, 
 could possibly have been decided, was laid over to the 
 next term ; a circumstance which has not liappened in 
 any man's memory, and of which the mob are very 
 fond "t 
 
 He became a terror to evil-doers of every grade; and 
 the risins; manufacturino- and trading interests of the 
 country, looked down upon and discouraged by the feudal 
 aristocracy, could trust to his strong arm for legal protec- 
 
 * Books of Siderunt. fCulloden Papers, 157.
 
 362 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 tlon — a far greater service than the fostering encourage- 
 ment which he sought to extend to them in other shapes. 
 Thus the middle classes were taught to rely on the su- 
 preme court, as a protection from the evils of the here- 
 ditary jurisdictions. The Lord President was peculiarly 
 severe in his visitation of official dehnquency; and the 
 records of his court while he presided, exhibit many 
 instances, where petty officers are brought before them 
 and punished for neglect of duty or abuse of power. He 
 was very jealous of the dignity of his court, and the 
 supreme majesty of the law; resenting it as a disrespect, 
 when any great man aspired to services or courtesies from 
 the administrators of justice, to which the public at large 
 were not entitled. Thus, the Earl of Breadalbane, appa- 
 rently believing that some of the judges likely to be 
 absent, would have favoured him in a cause before the 
 court, had requested that his case might be taken out of 
 its proper order, to await their return ; and we find an 
 entry in the books of the court, that " They did reject 
 the same, as disrespectful to the court, and indiscreet 
 to the judges who were absent." 
 
 About the year 1739, several cases of difficulty had 
 occurred to the officers of the Eno-lish courts of law in 
 dealing with persons who claimed the privilege of Scot- 
 tish peers. A bailiff who had arrested the Lord Mor- 
 dington, pleaded that he would not be expected to con- 
 cede the privilege of peerage to a man, who had " a worn- 
 out suit of clothes, and a dirty shirt on, and but sixpence 
 in his pocket."* At the desire of the House of Lords, 
 for the purpose of preserving a permanent record of those 
 entitled to the privileges of peerage, an inquiry, in- 
 volving the most arduous antiquarian and genealogical 
 
 * Fortescue's Beports, 165.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 363 
 
 investigations, "was instituted and conducted entirely by 
 the President, to supply as far as was practicable tbe want 
 indicated by tlie House of Lords. On the 29tli of Fe- 
 bruary, be transmitted to the Lord Chancellor, as the 
 fruit of his research, a full critical report on the origin and 
 history of the several Scottish peerages.* This investi- 
 gation rendered Forbes painfully ahve to the state of mi- 
 serable disorder in which the Scottish records had been 
 allowed to lie, and he commenced with his usual zeal 
 and energy a struggle for their redemption and application 
 to useful purposes, which appears to have been unfortu- 
 nately single-handed, as the officer whose immediate 
 function it was to attend to this department of the public 
 service, was too high in rank to think of musty parch- 
 ments and unintelligible records. 
 
 In his onerous duties as the head of the Supreme Court, 
 he was not too fully occupied to abandon his old favourite 
 projects of taxation, and he rendered himself amusingly 
 conspicuous by a crusade against the use of tea. An allu- 
 sion to his views on this matter can do no more either of 
 good or harm than the resuscitation of GaHleo's notions on 
 the exhaustion of the air in pumps. It may be thought 
 therefore, that as it conveys no instruction on political eco- 
 nomy, and is calculated to depreciate our notions of a good 
 anc^^ise man, it should be passed over in silence. If 
 there be any who come to this conclusion, the author 
 cannot agree with them, as he considers the Lord Presi- 
 dent's crusade against tea a very curious specimen of indi- 
 vidual character, and also an instructive illustration of 
 the nature of the old prohibitory legislation, because it 
 gives us the ultimate views of an honest and earnest man 
 who was a behever in the beneficial effect of this kind of 
 
 * See the report in the Acts of Siderunt.
 
 364 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 iuterference, and endeavoured to drive it to the extreme 
 point of coercion and eifectiveness. In a memorial ad- 
 dressed to the Marquis of Tweeddale, in 1742, he com- 
 mences with this attractive picture of the state of trade, 
 " That our linen manufacture is in a very thriving way; 
 that we have hopes of succeeding in our endeavours of 
 propagating the manufactures of coarse linen, the fine 
 being already very well understood ; that we have expec- 
 tations of discoverinaj a method of bleachinc^ or whiteninsj 
 such coarse cloth under one penny per yard; that a com- 
 mendable spirit of launching out into new branches of the 
 linen manufacture, such as thread, stockings, tapes, incle- 
 coloured thread, figured work for table linen, &c. is raised, 
 and would certainly be encouraged if our funds had an- 
 swered our expectation." The worm at the root of all 
 these promising prognostics, is the drain of inoney from 
 the country to buy articles of foreign produce, particularly 
 tea, and the evasion of the excise duties, occasioned by a 
 taste for that luxury being propagated among classes who 
 cannot pay a duty on it. 
 
 " The cause of the mischief we complain of is, evi- 
 dently, the excessive use of tea, which is now become so 
 common, that the meanest families even of labouring 
 people make their morning's meal of it, and thereby 
 wholly disuse the ale, which heretofore was their accus- 
 tomed drink ; and the same drug supplies all the labour- 
 ino: women with their afternoon's entertainment, to the 
 exclusion of the two-penny."* 
 
 It was not customary witli Forbes to start a suggestion, 
 make some eloquent remarks on it, and leave it to be put 
 in practice by other people, when they had leisure and in- 
 chnation to adopt it. On the contrary, when he had de- 
 
 • Cullodea Papers, 190.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 365 
 
 vised any sucli project as that under our notice, lie gave 
 tliose persons capable of furthering his opinions to whom 
 he had access, very little peace till they had either acted on 
 his views, or allowed him to put them in force in his own 
 way. Accordingly, we find him writing in all directions 
 on this text. As a specimen merely of the character of 
 the contents of a large mass of letters on the subject, the 
 following passages are extracted from a letter to Sir Andrew 
 Mitchell, in August, 1743, which Forbes commences by 
 stating that there is a deficiency of a quarter of a million 
 in the revenue. 
 
 " This deficiency of the revenue is certainly and obviously 
 occasioned by the expensive and universal use of run tea, and 
 foreign spirits, which being purchased at very low prices, are 
 become the entertainment of the very lowest class of people, 
 even of the fish-carriers of Musselburgh and the blewgown- 
 men beggars, and thereby supplant the consumption of malt 
 liquor and home-brewed spirits, which has effectually reduced 
 the excise and malt duty to the miserable plight wherein they 
 now are and must continue to depress them." 
 
 He then opens up a project, with the details of which 
 
 many of his letters are at this period fiUed, for prohibiting 
 
 the use of tea to persons under 50/. a year of income; stating 
 
 that he had actually prepared a measure on the subject, 
 
 and had uro-ed the Lord Advocate to take it under liis 
 
 charge. 
 
 " I pressed him with great earnestness to prepare out of hand 
 drafts of such clause or clauses as might answer the purpose, to 
 be transmitted now this summer to London, to be considered 
 and examined by the men of business there at leisure, assuring 
 liim that If a scheme relating to Scotland, contrived with the 
 utmost perfection by an angel, came to be layed before^ an 
 English minister or member, sitting the Parliament, or even just 
 before It, when their heads are usually full of business more 
 interesting, they could not so much as afford It attentive con- 
 sideration."
 
 366 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 In anotlier letter, lie begins with the preamble, " As I 
 have this matter mightily at heart, I had resolved to 
 baulk myself of the pleasure of the country, and of the 
 necessary attendance on my private business at home, for 
 some weeks, that I might be able to give him some assist' 
 ance here;" and then he expresses himself much mortified 
 by hearing that the Lord Advocate had gone off in pur- 
 suance of his own affairs, but he adds with much sim- 
 plicity, " I am confident it arises from my Lord Advo- 
 cate not having the same impression of the danger that I 
 have."* 
 
 On this subject Forbes wrote letters, or more properly 
 speaking memorials, to Scrope of the Treasury, to Sir 
 Andrew Mitchell, to William Murray, who had just been 
 appointed Solicitor-general of England, — to every one, in 
 short, from whom he beheved or hoped that his earnest 
 appeal in favour of a project, which he honestly believed 
 was the only method of rescuing Scotland from destruction, 
 would receive a sympathetic response. All his friends 
 answered him politely ; but none of them were prepared to 
 attempt so formidable and so laborious an interference 
 with private habits, as to attempt a legislative extirpation 
 of the use of tea. He had written to the Lord Advocate in 
 a tone somewhat like reproof, as one who having once oc- 
 cupied the same office found his successor somewhat negli- 
 gent of his duties. Mr. Craigie complained that the sharp 
 rebuke he received, deprived him of all the pleasure of a 
 temporary sojourn in the country, in which he was indulg- 
 ing himself after a long period of official labour. The 
 discussion was dropped on the appearance of other dan- 
 gers more real and immediate. 
 
 * MS. nt Culloden House.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 367 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Anticipation of a Rising Hn the Highlands — His Scheme for raising 
 Highland Eegiments — Outbreak of the EebeUion — The President 
 proceeds to the North — His Interposition with the Clans— Sir John 
 Cope — Lord Loudon — The President's solitary Exertions — Want of 
 Support from Government — Retreat to the Isle of Skye — Return — 
 Despondency — Intercession for the Rebels — Disappointment — Death. 
 
 We must now turn to otlier scenes where the abiHties 
 and enersfies of Forbes were better fitted to shine. We 
 have seen that, at an early period, he beheved that the 
 main danger of disturbance to the pubhc peace would be 
 found among the mountains of the North. Like Lovat, 
 he was well aware of the capacity of the Highlanders to 
 conduct any desperate enterprise, but he turned his know- 
 ledsfe to a different end. Dissimilar as were their natures, 
 he had a warm sympathy with the Celtic patriarchs. He 
 had spent liis early days, and many of the years of his 
 later life, among their mountains; he had enjoyed the 
 rude magnificence ot their hospitality; he respected the 
 pristine simphcity of their lives; and, regretting that they 
 were so ignorant and so indolent, he yet bitterly grieved 
 to reflect, that a thoughtless and unsympathising govern- 
 ment had left them exposed in the defencelessness of their 
 simplicity, to be sacrificed to the selfish ambition of poli- 
 tical intriguers. He had devised a remedy for this danger 
 worthy of his sagacious and benevolent mind: it was
 
 368 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 afterwards adopted by one -witli whom lie had some 
 jDoints of similarity, and many of contrast — tlie great Lord 
 Chatham. 
 
 Andrew Fletcher, Lord Milton, one of the judges of 
 the Court of Session, was spending his autumn leisure in 
 the year 1738, at the old house of Brunston, which stands 
 in the middle of an ancient deer-park, four miles from Edin- 
 burgh. One morning at an untimely hour, he was startled, 
 on being told that the Lord President had arrived, and 
 desired instantly to see him. Li the year after the Porteous 
 mob, such a visit betokened something alarming; but it was 
 the eagerness of the President to impart a scheme he had 
 just devised, not any immediate emergency that had oc- 
 casioned it. He plunged at once into tlje middle of his 
 scheme, saying: 
 
 " A war with Spain seems near at hand, which, it is pro- 
 bable, will soon be followed by a war with France and there 
 will be occasion for more troops than the present standing 
 army. In that event, I propose that government should raise 
 four or five regiments of Highlanders, appointing an English 
 or Scotch officer of undoubted loyalty to be colonel of each re- 
 giment ; and naming the lieutenant- colonels, majors, captains, 
 and subalterns, from this list in my hand, which comprehends 
 all the chiefs and chieftains of the disaffected clans, who are 
 the very persons whom France and Spain will call upon, in 
 case of a war, to take arms for the Pretender. If government 
 pre-engages the Highlanders in the manner I propose, they 
 will not only serve well against the enemy abroad, but will be 
 hostages for the good behaviour of their relations at home ; 
 and I am persuaded that it will be absolutely impossible to 
 raise a rebellion in the Highlands. I have come here to 
 show you this plan and to entreat, if you approve it, that you 
 will recommend it to your friend Lord Islay, who I am told is 
 to be here to-day or to-morrow on his way to London."* 
 
 Forbes carried his plan to Fletcher, because he beHeved 
 him to have the ear of Lord Islay, who was at that mo- 
 
 * " Home's History of the EobellioD," chap. I.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 369 
 
 ment dictator of Scotland. It is said to have been ■well 
 received by Fletcher and Lord Islay, and to have secured 
 the assent of Sir Robert Walpole. If this be so, it is one 
 of the few instances in which he allowed himself to be 
 out- voted; and not long after his death, some of those who 
 opposed him at the council-table must have had bitter 
 reasons for wishing that their votes had been different. 
 
 We find from passages scattered through the Lord Presi- 
 dent's correspondence between 1742 and 1745, that he 
 repeatedly and earnestly pressed upon the government the 
 pohcy and the justice of preventive arrangements which 
 might protect the Highlanders from being led into temp- 
 tation. But the policy of the ministry was unfortunately not 
 preventive but retributive, and no one would move, except 
 to put down actual rebellion. More than once there were 
 alarms before the actual outbreak, and Forbes was then 
 always appealed to as the person whose activity and energy 
 must remedy the evils likely to be caused by the neglect 
 of his advice. On these occasions we find him making 
 his inquiries, after the manner of the following letter 
 addressed to his respectable friend and follower John 
 Hossack, Provost of Inverness. 
 
 '•' Edinburgh, February 5, 1744. 
 " My Dear, John, — What brings you the trouble of this 
 message, is a letter -which I have lately had by express from 
 London, communicating an apprehension the government has, 
 that there is some correspondence carrying on in the Highlands 
 in favour of the Pretender, and those that are, or may be, the 
 declared enemies of his Majesty's person and government ; and 
 desiring that I may contribute, what may be in my power, for 
 the detection and prevention of such designs. It is, I confess, 
 my present opinion, and I am very glad that I can think so, 
 that there is little probability of danger from that quarter; at 
 the same time, supine neglect is always blameable. I, at this 
 distance, can do little, and can possibly know nothing; and it's 
 
 2b
 
 370 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 very probable tliat though designs of this nature were on foot, 
 you having no word at all of the matter, might not pay suffi- 
 cient attention to cii'cumstances, which, were you on your 
 guard, you might mind. It is for this reason I send you this 
 word by express, to desire, that without communicating what I 
 write, or the cause of it, to any body liAT.ng, you will, in a 
 prudent manner, listen to what you hear, and inquire where 
 you may think it proper ; and particularly, that without losing 
 one moment, you may send to our friend Mr. Nicholson, and 
 know from him, what he may lately have observed, and direct 
 him to observe closely for the future. You vnW return this 
 express immediately, with notice whether you have observed 
 any thing or not, to Mr. Wm. Forbes who forwards it ; and if, 
 after conversing with Nicholson, or any other whom you think 
 fit in your own discretion to converse with, concealing the 
 cause of your inquiry, you may discover any thing worthy 
 to be known, you may send it by a fresh express to Mr. Forbes ; 
 if not, you may reserve the further correspondence to the course 
 of the post. I am, my dear John Hossack, «&c."* 
 
 The first alarm wlilcli took liim frora his legal duties in 
 Edinburgh to the seat of "war, was thus announced by 
 him in a letter to Mr. Pelham. 
 
 " August 2, 1745. 
 " Deak Sir, — In a state of profound tranquillity, we have 
 been alarmed with advices, which are said to have been received 
 at London, of intended invasions ; and particularly of a visit 
 which the Pretender's eldest son is about to make to us, if he 
 has not already made it. These informations, particularly as to 
 the visit just mentioned, I must confess have not hitherto gained 
 my belief. This young gentleman's game seems at present to 
 be very desperate in this country ; and so far as I can learn, 
 there is not the least apparatus for his reception, even amongst 
 the few Highlanders who are suspected to be in his interest. 
 However, as, when so much is at stake, no advice, how im- 
 probable soever, is to be neglected, I have (our session being 
 now over) resolved to make my accustomed journey north- 
 wards, a little earlier than usual ; to the end that, though my 
 fighting days are over, I may gi^^e some countenance to the 
 
 * MS. at Culloden House.
 
 OF CULLODEX. 371 
 
 friends of the government, and prevent the seduction of the 
 unwary, if there should be any truth in what is reported."* 
 
 In a letter from Lord Loudon to the commanding 
 officer of Inverness, the 9th of August, 1745, there is 
 this statement — " The President has set off this morninfr 
 for Inverness. He is a civil magistrate, and a man of 
 great consequence in this country. It will be right for 
 you to attend him, as you will certainly be justified for 
 what you do in consequence of his directions."f 
 
 His first labour was one of mercy and prevention. He 
 felt assured — we may attribute the assurance either to his 
 sagacity or his political prejudice — that the rebellion 
 would be crushed, and he desired to stand in the gap and 
 stop those who were rushing to destruction. He wrote 
 many letters to the heads of clans; calling on them to 
 support the government, if they had not already offered 
 their adherence to the Jacobite cause; reasoning with 
 them, and beseecliing them to pause, if their designs 
 were evidently hostile. Of this correspondence, a full 
 and fair specimen has already been before the reader, 
 in the diplomatic controversy with Lovat; and we may 
 here turn our attention more exclusively to the military 
 operations in which the President became engaged. 
 
 Soon after proceeding northward, he was joined by Sir 
 John Cope, who triumphantly wrote to him: "I am 
 marching with a body of troops, too formidable for the 
 enemy to dare to attack ; and we only wish they may give 
 us an opportunity of attacking them."| But Forbes 
 seems to have very early seen that this martinet com- 
 mander, brought up among campaigns where the rules of 
 war were religiously observed on both sides, might make 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 203. 
 t MS. at Culloden House, 203. + IMS. at Culloden House. 
 
 2 B 2
 
 372 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 some fatal blunder, if lie judged that his troops were as 
 far above the Highlanders in actual warfare, as they were 
 more correct in the performance of the legitimate ma- 
 noeuvres of the modern discipline. He seems to have been 
 tremulously alive to the danger incurred by sucli a com- 
 mander, if lie should meet the Highlanders on their own 
 mountains. 
 
 " I was astonished," he said, in a letter to Lord Harrington, 
 of the 3rd of September, " to hear, that after the rebels had 
 got together to a head. Sir John Cope, with a handful of troops, 
 had been ordered into the mountains to attack and disperse them; 
 and that he had actually engaged himself so far as to reach 
 the Spey, and to be within a few hours' march of them. My 
 concern grew, as I was perfectly well acquainted with the Passes 
 of Corryaric, over which he must pass, if he would go the direct 
 road to Fort Augustus, and which, by a very small body of 
 clever Highlanders, who should mar the roads, and break down 
 the bridges, could be easily defended against a much greater 
 force than he commanded ; and I was relieved from my appre- 
 hensions only upon finding that he turned to the right, and by 
 forced marches reached this place Thursday last at night."* 
 
 It was owing to his full knowledge of these difficulties 
 and dangers, that he refused to swell the cry of vulgar 
 opprobrium with which the defeat of Cope was hailed, and 
 wrote thus to the unfortunate and unpopvdar commander, 
 on the 21st of June, 1746 : 
 
 " What impressions may have been given of your conduct in 
 the north, I who was at a distance cannot guess at ; but it is 
 to be hoped that the duke, who has had experience of the 
 nature of marches through the Highlands, and whose eyes must 
 show him Avhat sort of ground the Corryaric is, must have a 
 more perfect knowledge of the difficulties you had to grapple 
 with, than he had when he left London ; and I should think 
 that his officers who were present at Falkirk, would hardly ven- 
 ture to make observations on what happened at Preston."| 
 
 The march of Cope towards the south appears to have 
 
 * Cullodea Papers, 395. t Ibid-. 281.
 
 OF CULLODEX. 373 
 
 relieved lilm of mucli anxiety. If tlie troops marched to 
 a defeat at Preston Pans, they left extermination at Cor- 
 ryaric ; and on their departure he seems to have breathed 
 freely, like one on a perilous path, reheved of the presence 
 of a companion imbecile and heedless of danger, whose 
 presence added to his responsibility and increased his 
 risk. Cope passed through Inverness towards the south, 
 at the commencement of September. Prom that time 
 till the 10th of October, Forbes concentrated in his own 
 person the whole elements of government, civil and 
 mihtary, deliberative, judicial, and executive, in the 
 north. At the latter end of this period, he could find no 
 means of communication with the south, either by land 
 or water, and had just failed in an abortive attempt to 
 send a vessel to Berwick with despatches, when on the 
 10th of October he was joined by a companion in some 
 respects worthy to share in his labours and responsibilities 
 — the Earl of Loudon. In the meantime, an express had 
 reached him, dated the 4th of September, enclosing a 
 •quantity of blank commissions, to be distributed among 
 the well affected clans ; it was a high trust, but worthily 
 reposed. His correspondence at this juncture is pregnant 
 with his earnest and conscientious endeavours to make 
 the distribution subservient to its proper end; and we 
 have already met with some specimens of his negotiations, 
 in the controversy with Lovat. He had a negotiation of 
 an almost similar character with Cromarty, and both these 
 lords lost their heads by defeating his vigilant efforts for 
 their preservation. In the letter from the Lord Tweeddale 
 accompanying the commissions, and in other communica- 
 tions from the government, he was informed that whatever 
 sums he advanced in the aid of the cause should cer- 
 tainly be repaid. This method of treating the matter
 
 374 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 sliowed a tliouglitlessness that stung liim sliarply. The 
 sums that a private individual could advance or raise, 
 were totally inadequate to the emergency. He complained 
 bitterly of the want of available funds : 
 
 " Such," he says to Lord Tweeddale, on the 20th of- Sep- 
 tember, " 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 command a shil- 
 Hng that is owing to me, and even bank bills are of no cur- 
 rency. 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 wiU there- 
 by be preserved, may be eifectual, the new companies cannot 
 speedily be of half the use they otherwise might be of."* 
 
 A fortnight afterwards he had still to complain that 
 he received no supplies and no assistance : 
 
 '' Give me leave to express my very great concern that 
 so fine a game as has been in our hands, should be in danger 
 of being lost for lack of the supply I have so often men- 
 tioned, w-hich might have been very easily sent, and which 
 may still be of very great service if it come before it is too 
 late. To me it seemed to be of vast consequence to keep out 
 of the rebelHon a greater body of men than those who are 
 hitherto engaged in it ; and that I think would certainly have 
 happened, had the supply expected come in due time * * * The 
 necessity of sending us arms, I have mentioned often, because 
 without them the well-aflFected, who have none, can make no 
 figure. I am hopeful tliey will be speedily sent us ; but the 
 vessel with money and credit, if any such is to be sent, ought 
 not to wait one hour for that which may carry the arms, because 
 if we had the money, we could bring our troops together to 
 receive arms, which might arrive some days later."f 
 
 Thus left to the task, proverbially arduous, of going a 
 warfare on his own charges, — solitary, firm, and self-rely- 
 ing in the midst of open foes and questionable friends, — 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 408. f CuUoden Papers, 417.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 375 
 
 he formed, in liis own character and his own exertions, a 
 barrier against the progress of the rebellion, such as no 
 treasure could have purchased, and no armament ensured. 
 " Upon a strict review," he says, " I am satisfied with 
 my own conduct — I neither know nor care what critics 
 who have enjoyed ease with safety may think,"* appro- 
 val, all-sufficient, to him who could say, " I value not 
 the opinion of any man but of him of whom I have a 
 good one myself"! The battle of Preston Pans increased 
 his difficulties: but that which raised the hopes of his 
 adversaries never sunk his own in the scale ; and whether 
 the young adventurer were gathering his scanty followers 
 before the door of a hut in Barra, or stepping in princely 
 pride through the halls of Holyrood, he saw that it was 
 but a vision and a hallucination that must disperse, and he 
 prayed only that it might disperse without leaving a 
 deadly mark behind it. " In a very little time," he says, 
 in the midst of his greatest difficulties, " we shall be able 
 to speak to the unhappy people who would disturb us in 
 another style ; but, I hope we shall do it gently ."J 
 Through his multifarious correspondence the tone is al- 
 ways steady: it never exhibits the flutter of sanguine 
 excitement or the tremor of apprehension — better still, it 
 never sinks to abject apprehension in defeat, or rises to 
 ungenerous exultation with victory. Ever equal and ever 
 firm, he saw in the final triumph of his own principles 
 the destiny that the commencement of the drama shadowed 
 forth, and he had no sympathy with those who shrunk 
 from its commencement in frantic apprehension, and who 
 aided in concluding it with heartless cruelty. Let us take 
 his own history of the troubles he had to contend with, 
 and the manner in which he encountered them, written 
 * Culloden Papers, 275. f ^^^- 282. t I^i^. 435.
 
 376 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 in a simple and very familiar letter to his friend Sir An- 
 drew Mitchell. 
 
 " Though I was not just treading in the path of a chief 
 justice, the prospect was very flattering, and the errand I came 
 on had no appearance of difficulty. But the Rebells' successes 
 at Edinburg-h and Preston Pans soon changed the scene. All 
 Jacobites, how prudent soever, became mad, all doubtful people 
 became Jacobites, and all bankrupts became heroes, and talked 
 nothing but hereditary rights and victory; and what was more 
 grievous to men of gallantry, and if you will believe me, much 
 more mischievous to the public, all the fine ladies, if you wUl 
 except one or two, became passionately fond of the yoimg ad- 
 venturer, and used all their arts and Industry for him In the 
 most intemperate manner. Under these circumstances, I found 
 myself almost alone, without troops, without arms, without 
 money or credit ; provided with no means to prevent extreme 
 folly, except pen and Ink, a tongue, and some reputation ; and, 
 if you will except Macleod, whom I sent for from the Isle of 
 Skye, supported by nobody of common sense or courage. Had 
 arms and money come Avhen they were first called for, before 
 these unexpected successes blew up foUy to madness, I could 
 have answered It with my head, that no man from the north 
 should have joined the original flock of rebels that passed the 
 Forth ; and even as It has happened, It is no small consolation 
 to me, that, except Macpherson of Clunie, whose force does not 
 exceed 300, none from the north have reached them In time to 
 march alongst with them southwards from Edinburgh, that no 
 more than 200 of the clan Chattan have marched, who had 
 got, as last Saturday, no further than Perth, and that notwith- 
 standing the restless endeavours of the Earl of Cromartie, 
 the Master of Lovat and others, no more than 150 or 100 of 
 the Mackenzies have been debauched, and that even those have 
 not as yet passed the Corryaric; no more than the Erasers, 
 who to the number of 5 or 600 have flocked to arms, and who 
 possibly may think better, if the weather permit the force, 
 which we hourly expect from the Isle of Sky, to join us quickly, 
 before they leave the country exposed."* 
 
 The testimonies to the efficacy of his exertions, made by 
 • Cullodcn Papers, 250,
 
 OF CULLODEX. 377 
 
 friends and partisans, need hardly be referred to ; and per- 
 haps -we can take the most accurate measure of the extent 
 of his services, in the notices with which his adversaries 
 occasionally favoured them. The amiable Jacobite, Max- 
 well of Kirkconnell, says : 
 
 " The President was soon joined by the Earl of Loudon, who 
 had a commission to raise a regiment in that country. In a 
 short time they got together about 2000 men, of which the 
 M'^Leods made part, with their chief at their head. It is cer- 
 tain that body was of vast service to the estabhshed government. 
 While it was at Inverness, it was impossible for those that lived 
 beyond that town to rise ; they must be crushed before they 
 could assemble and be in a position for defence. I cannot help 
 taking notice, by the bye, that the Earl of Loudon and the 
 President, who were more useful to government than any two 
 men in that island, behaved all along like men of honour, and 
 their attachment to their cause never made them forget the 
 duty of humanity,"* 
 
 A friend who, at the commencement of 1746, warns 
 him of his danger, says: "We form many schemes for 
 your safety, and are very anxious; as, by their discourse 
 here, you was the chief object of their resentment, espe- 
 cially when tliey came back from England; for it was 
 their fixed opinion, that, with the Macdonalds andMac- 
 leods of Sky, the IMackenzies and Erasers, they might have 
 been masters of London had all these joined them soon 
 enough, the faihng of which they place to your lordship's 
 account. However, we hope for the best."t 
 
 This is responded to by a letter from Lochiel to Lovat, 
 whom he praises for his constancy, and his acuteness in 
 baffling the designs of the President, " who has rendered 
 Hmself," says the Jacobite chief, " a scandal to all Scots- 
 men, and a nuisance to all society. "| 
 
 * Narrative, p. 92. t Culloden Papers, 272. 
 
 J State Trials, xviii., 771.
 
 378 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 Between tlie departure of Sir Jolin Cope, in Septem- 
 ber, 1745, and tlie retreat of tlie insurgents before Cum- 
 berland, in April, 1746, every public officer, civil or mili- 
 tary, beyond the Grampians, who could get his difficulties 
 brought before the Lord President, felt that a weight of 
 responsibility had been removed from him. Even in the 
 circumstance of no election of a chief magistrate having 
 been made for the city of Aberdeen, we find him applied 
 to, to state how the citizens should proceed ; and he tells 
 them, with much discretion, that " the good people must, 
 therefore, at present live in the most neighbourly way 
 they can."* 
 
 The tone of his military instructions has been noticed 
 in an early part of this memoir. The following passage, 
 from a letter to the laird of Macleod, may stand as an 
 instance of their systematic professional precision. 
 
 " If, by your information, the rebels under Lord Lewis Gor- 
 don can be dealt with by the force you now have, you will 
 march for Strathbogie Monday's morning-, whether the second 
 company I have mentioned come to you before that time or not. 
 If you want the assistance of those companies, which I imagine 
 will not be the case, you will wait for them ; and if, after their 
 arrival, more force should still be wanted, you must expect my 
 Lord Loudon ; but if, what I presume is most likely shall be 
 found to be the case, that the force now with you is more than 
 sufficient to deal with Lord Lewis's recruits, you will then march, 
 Monday morning, in yom' way to Strathbogie ; and unless Spey 
 prove too great a hindrance to you, you may reach Keith that 
 night ; where, and in the neighbouring villages, you will meet 
 with tolerable quarters for one night, and the next day by noon 
 you may reach Strathbogie, where, and in the neighbourhood, 
 you may rest till further orders, sending out parties to dissi- 
 pate any assembly of rebels you may be informed of, if any such 
 should be.''t 
 
 * Cullodcn Papers, 423. t Ibid. 456.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 379 
 
 We liave already had to record the attack made by the 
 Frasers on Culloden House, in October : it may be taken 
 as a specimen of the dangers which the President had 
 made up his mind to encounter as the natural consequence 
 of the duties he had undertaken. In February, the march 
 of the Highland army northwards rendered it necessary 
 that Forbes and Loudon should retreat to a district 
 ■where the small body of men under their charge would 
 not be liable to encounter an enemy of overwhelmmg 
 numbers. On the 18th of February they crossed the 
 ferry of Kessock, on the Moray Frith, and entered Rosslaire. 
 Here they behoved themselves to be safe, as a ship-of- 
 war watched the Frith. A portion of the Highland 
 army, however, under the conduct of Moir of Stonywood, 
 crossed the ferry in small boats, with the protection of 
 a fog, and compelled Forbes and his friend to make a 
 second retreat on the 20th of March.* As the Earl of 
 Cromarty — one of the slippery correspondents with whom 
 Forbes had been in treaty about the independent com- 
 panies — was approaching from the north to join the rebels, 
 the retreat was chiefly westward. There is a MS. not very 
 important in the nature of its contents, which is yet cu- 
 rious, as it enables one to trace the steps of the journey 
 made by Forbes. It is called, "Account of money laid out 
 by John Hay for the President, l745-6."t Many of the 
 entries in this account are for the items of expenditure 
 in providing for the President and his guard. Thus on 
 March the 3rd there is charge " to a cow bought for the 
 table at Overskibo, II Us. 4.d" On the 11th there is 
 " to a cow that the guard killed without orders, 2/. Is 
 
 * Letter to the Duke of Newcastle— MS. at Culloden House, 
 f MS. at Culloden House. 
 
 j>
 
 380 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 There are entries for aqua-vitce to tlie guard, and for wine 
 to their superiors. On the 22nd of March they appear 
 to have reached Loch Broom, a long, wild arm of the 
 sea, on the west coast of Rosshire. On the 23rd they 
 reached Loch Carron, farther south, in reference to which 
 there is the entry " to the minister's daughter at Loch 
 Carron, ]Z. Is." On the 26th there is an entry " two 
 hired horses from Loch Carron to Loch Alsh, 2s. 6d." 
 Loch Alsh is the isthmus between the main land and the 
 Isle of Skyc, and they appear to have crossed over to the 
 island, the greater part of which belonged to the friendly 
 Chief of Macleod, on that or the following day. Few of the 
 payments appear to have been made for entertainment at 
 inns, of which there were not perhaps above three or four 
 on the whole route. Yet the fu^-itives seem to have lived 
 well, if we may judge from some of the charges — thus, 
 " April the 11th, to a man that brought butter, a large 
 cheese, and a black cock, 2s" " To the Laird of Macleod's 
 servant, that brought wine, &c., 2s. 6d.^' " April the 19th, 
 to the Baillic of Glenelg's servant for a roebuck, 2s. 6(7." 
 One item in their viands was " four creels of oysters," a 
 luxury not much known to this day in tlie Isle of Skye. 
 On the 18th of April there is an entry "to Lord Sea- 
 forth's servant that brought a letter, 25." We can easily 
 imagine what must have been the momentous purport of 
 the letter. The battle of Culloden had been fought two 
 days previously. From this time the fugitives turned 
 their steps eastward, and on the 26th of April we find an 
 entry *' to the ferry-boat at Kessock, and a yaule that 
 came to the pier at Inverness, 4^. Gd." 
 
 The triumphant return was not a joyous one. He had 
 not infused his own humane and manly spirit into the people
 
 OF CULLODEX. 381 
 
 ■wlio were the mechanical instruments of that triumph 
 in which he was the chief agent ; and it was followed 
 by cruelties, that to his beneficent and patriotic spirit 
 must have made victory but a small degree better than 
 defeat. He returned to find the home of his fathers — of 
 old the abode of honest hospitality, of studious seclusion, 
 and of the higher studies of statesmanship — converted 
 into the shambles of the great butcher of tlie age. There 
 was scarce an old grey stone on the moor, or a venera- 
 ble tree, or a solitary stream hallowed by the sweetest 
 of early recollections, that was not stained with blood, 
 and doomed to be for ages associated with some legend 
 of cruelty. He, who had been the advocate of strong 
 preventives, but of a mild retaliation, was destined, as 
 if it were to throw the greater contempt on his media- 
 tion, to have the bleeding trophies of the exterminating 
 sword laid down at his own door. To few did these 
 memorable cruelties bring a more bitter heart-ache than 
 to the strong-hearted kind old man, who had borne so 
 much of the burden and heat of the struggle, that gave 
 others the power of so bitterly employing the victory. 
 
 He made few complaints of the manner in which his 
 counsels were received, but we have many indications 
 in the observations of others, that he in vain recom- 
 mended merciful measures. Among the Jacobites, who 
 may probably be viewed as the best judges of the com- 
 parative merits of men who had been great enemies of 
 their cause, this anecdote was preserved. 
 
 " What do you think of the return the Lord President of 
 the Coiu-t of Session, the gracious Duncan met with for all his 
 remarkable services ? Remarkable indeed tliey were, and yet 
 the utmost scorn and contempt lie had in return for them. 
 When his lordship was paying his levee to the Duke of Cum-
 
 382 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 berland at Inverness, he thought fit (as it well became his 
 character and station) to make mention of ' The laws of the 
 country, &c.' To which the Duke of Cumberland was pleased 
 to say, ' The laws of the country! my lord, I'll make a brigade 
 give laws, by God.' "* 
 
 Forbes's friend already mentioned, Dr. Clark, told 
 a tea party in the house of Lady Bruce, in Leith, in 
 1751, " That the duke had a very odd unlucky ex- 
 pression when in Inverness, wloich made him very low 
 in the opinion of many; and it was this, that when the 
 duke spoke of the President, he used to say, ' That old 
 woman who talked to me about humanity.' "f 
 
 In truth, the rebellion was taken in that old spirit of 
 national domination, which has but lately been disappear- 
 ing from the policy of England, in regard to another and a 
 larger part of the emjjire. The whole Scottish nation was 
 branded with a common charge of disaffection ; and every 
 one who spoke of justice or compassion, was believed to 
 be exliiblting that latent discontent common to all his 
 countrymen, which could only be kept down by the 
 strength of England, employed as a victorious govern- 
 ment uses its power against a conquered people. Sir 
 Andrew Mitchell, writing to the President, on the 23rd of 
 October, said: 
 
 *' I am really in the deepest distress. The ruin of my coun- 
 try, and the disgrace and shame to which it is, and will con- 
 tinue to be exposed, have affected me to that degree that I am 
 hardly master of myself. Already every man of our comitry 
 is looked on as a traitor — as one secretly inclined to the Pre- 
 tender, and waiting but an opportunity to declare. The guilty 
 and the innocent are confounded together, and the crimes of a 
 few imputed to the whole nation. But I hope your lordship 
 
 * Chambers's Jacobite Memoirs, 333. 
 f The Lyon in Moiurning. MS. belonging to IMr. Chambers.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 383 
 
 will soon do something' to assist your principles, to save your 
 country, and to recover, if possible, its honour,"* 
 
 In relation to one among his many acts of intercession, 
 
 too often vain, the Reverend Henry Etough is found 
 
 saying : 
 
 " Greater advantages and encouragements cannot be ima- 
 gined for rebels than in Scotland. The late President Forbes, 
 notwithstanding his applauded letters to Lovat, was as bad 
 as the worst. His private character as a man of notice and 
 good temper enabled him to protect the vilest of his coun- 
 trjmen. In captain Hamilton's and other instances he was a 
 true Hlglilander."f 
 
 It was owing to the prevalence of such unworthy sen- 
 timents as these, that Forbes was not only unrewarded 
 for liis great exertions, but allowed to be a loser by them. 
 He had expended all the money which he could make 
 available, and had borrowed considerable sums on his own 
 personal security, to make up for the culpable negligence 
 of the government. 
 
 " I doubt not," he said in a letter to Lord Stair. " I shall 
 meet with several [severe ?] critics of my conduct ; but the cen- 
 sures of such as durst have put themselves in my place will be few, 
 and the faults flowing from my heart will be none. For such as 
 may have been owing to my head, 1 have no other excuse, but 
 that I acted according to the best of my understanding ; and as 
 to who shall have the thanks, or the merit of what may have 
 been done in support of the government, I am very indifferent. 
 I have done what I think every honest man ought to have 
 done, and upon this single principle, that I thought it was my 
 duty."t 
 
 Yet he was probably scarcely prepared for the ingrati- 
 tude he encountered, or to find that the successful ter- 
 mination of his great services was to leave his family 
 impoverished. For the repayment of those from whom 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 426, 
 
 t Dr, Birch's MSS., British Museum, 4326, B. 
 
 J Culloden Papers, 465.
 
 384 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 he liad obtained loans, ■we find liim requiring, in sucli 
 letters as the following addressed to Mr, Scrope, on the 
 13th of May, 1746, to appeal to his friends of the English 
 government as if for a boon he had not earned. 
 
 " About nine months ago my zeal led me into this country, 
 to quench a very furious rebellion, without arms, without 
 money, without credit ; and if the king's enemies are to be cre- 
 dited, my endeavours were attended with some success. His 
 Majesty was pleased to entrust me with the disposition of com- 
 missions for raising some Independent companies, which 1 accord- 
 ingly raised, and employed I hope usefully. The Marquis of 
 Tweedal, then Secretary of State for Scotland, acquainted me by 
 order, that for supplying any extraordinary expense, I was to draw 
 on Mr. Pelham ; but the total interruption of correspondence 
 made my receiving money on such draughts impossible, and I 
 was forced to supply the necessary expense, after employing what 
 money of my own I could come at in this country, by borrow- 
 ing upon my proper notes such small sums as 1 could hear of. 
 Tlie rebellion is now happily over, and the persons who lent me 
 this money at a pinch, are now justly demanding payment ; and 
 I who cannot coin, and who never hitherto Avas dunned, find 
 myself uneasy. The whole of the small sums does not exceed 
 1 500/. Now if Mr. Pelham would either impress that money into 
 the hands of George Ross, or any other pei-son, to be remitted 
 to me to account, or if he would authorise me to draw upon 
 him or upon any other person whom he may direct for that sum, 
 in like manner to account. It w'ould tend much to the quiet of my 
 mind."* 
 
 Fifteen hundred pounds was a very considerable sum in 
 Scotland at that period. It constituted " the whole of the 
 small sums borrowed," but it did not include the money, 
 undoubtedly a far greater sum, which he was able to ad- 
 vance from his own peculiar resources, equal, we are told,, 
 to three years' rent of his estate. Whether he was repaid 
 any portion of his advances is doubtful ; he certainly did 
 not receive the whole, or a sufficiency to prevent his estate 
 
 * CuUodea Papers, 474.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 385 
 
 from passing to Lis son much attenuated ; and the appli- 
 cation of the savings of the many years which John Forbes 
 spent in obscure retirement in England, are attested by the 
 title of a huge heap of documents at Culloden House, 
 Tvhich the worthy heir of the old man's high spirit, as well 
 as of his fortunes, had marked " bonds of my father's re- 
 tired." " My boy," he says in a letter to Sir Andrew 
 Mitchell, while he was thus occupied, " is doing extremely 
 well at school, and is every way as promising as any thing 
 of that age can be. I hope to see him at least free and 
 happy."* 
 
 We have now but few events to record before the 
 closing scene. Parhament was for some time occupied with 
 the celebrated measure for abolishing the old hereditary 
 jurisdictions in Scotland, and for remodelling the judicial 
 institutions of the country. Forbes watched this measure, 
 now known as the " Jurisdiction Act," with a jealous eye; 
 and his letters on the subject, few of which would be in- 
 teresting beyond the circle of the Scottish legal profession, 
 yet deserve notice from one circumstance, that they contain 
 several complaints, very mild and decorous, but for this 
 characteristic not the less striking, that he was not suffi- 
 ciently consulted about this measure. He seemed to feel 
 that there was a want of some one who, when the interests 
 of Scotland were so much at stake, might, as he himself 
 did on the occasion of the Porteous mob, sacrifice all other 
 considerations to what he felt as the demands of national 
 justice. 
 
 At the time when he stood nearly alone as the champion 
 of order and law, and the established government, the 
 fatigues and anxieties he was able to endure, show that 
 he must have enjoyed unimpaired health and the full pos- 
 
 * Dated 26th of February, 1759. IMitchell MSS., British Museum. 
 
 2 C
 
 386 DUNCAN FORBES, 
 
 session of his faculties. We have no distinct account of 
 his state of health immediately before his death, but there 
 is much reason to believe that mortification of spirit, more 
 than hardship or any specific disease, hastened his end. 
 A contemporary said of him, " He was one of a very high 
 spirit, and the usage he met with for all his services, joined 
 with the miseries of his country, bore so hard upon him, 
 that it is, indeed, a prevaiHng opinion among us in Scot- 
 land that he died of heartbreak."* 
 
 Among the family papers, the following short letter, 
 addressed to his son, without date, but certainly written 
 in November, 1747, was a few years ago discovered. 
 
 "Dear John, — I am very sorry for you. The great charges 
 and expenses I have been at In supporting his Majesty in the 
 Rebelhon, have far exceeded the sum I thought it would have 
 cost when I saw you last. I would advise you to go to Loudon, 
 where I believe I may have some friends yet. Mr. Scroop, Mr. 
 Littleton, and Mitchell are kind-hearted, affectionate men, and 
 they will tell the king that his faithful servant, Duncan Forbes, has 
 left you a very poor man. Farewell — may the God of Heaven 
 and earth bless you. 
 
 " Dun. Forbes." f 
 
 John Forbes preserved the following memorandum of 
 
 his last interview with his father. 
 
 "Edinburgh, 10th December, 1747. 
 " My father entered into the everlasting life of God, trust- 
 ing, hoping, and believing through the blood of Christ, eternal 
 life and happiness. When I first saw my father upon the bed 
 of death, his blessing and prayer to me was, ' My dear John, 
 you have just come in time to see your poor father die. May 
 the great God of Heaven and earth ever bless and preserve you! 
 You have come to a very poor fortune, partly by my own ex- 
 travagance and the oppression of power. I am sure you will 
 forgive me, because what 1 did was with a good intention. I 
 know you to be an honest-hearted lad, Andrew Mitchell loves 
 you affectionately ; he will advise you and do what he can for 
 
 * Jacobite Memoirs, 334. f MS. at Culloden House.
 
 OF CULLODEN. 387 
 
 you. I depend upon Scroop too, which you may let him know. 
 I will advise you never to think of coming into Parliament. I 
 left some notes with the two William Forbes's, in case I had not 
 seen you ; they are two affectionate lads, and will be able to 
 help you in some affairs better than you would have done your- 
 self. John Hossack will help you in your affairs in the North. 
 "' 3Iy heart bleeds for poor John Steel ; I recommend him to 
 you. When I was in the North I paid some considerably large 
 sums, that I never dreamt of before, towards the defraying the 
 charges occasioned by the rebellion. There is but one thing I 
 repent me of in my whole life, not to have taken better care of 
 you. May the great God of Heaven and earth bless and pre- 
 serve you ! I trust in the blood of Christ. Be always religious ; 
 fear and love God. You may go, you can be of no service to 
 me here.' "* 
 
 His life closed on tlie lOtli of December, 1747. So died 
 a man both great and good, who, like all the erring human 
 race, mingled some defects with his virtues; yet they were 
 with him so open and natural, that they enable us the 
 better to feel the reality of his excellences, as part of a 
 character that is set before us in all its merely human 
 proportions, and claims no ideal perfection. Five years 
 after his death, his fellow lawyers erected a statue to his 
 memory, worthily placed in that noble old hall, where 
 the memory of his services and his character still lives, as 
 of one, who altered and elevated the tone of professional 
 and judicial morality in his day, and left even to the pre- 
 sent generation a greater legacy of sound and honest prin- 
 ciples, than they might have been able to achieve without 
 his aid. There is something' in this statue of the florid 
 drapery and excited manner of its French artist, Roubiliac; 
 but the accuracy with which the features are portrayed, 
 is sufficient to impart a solemn dignity to the marble face, 
 whence a slightly profuse tone in the adjuncts of the statue, 
 
 * Culloden Papers, 38.
 
 388 DUNCAN FORBES, OF CULLODEN. 
 
 makes a scarcely perceptible deduction. In tliis and in the 
 other representations of President Forbes, — for his portrait 
 holds a respected place in many a household and many a 
 public institution of his native country, — we can see that 
 nature, by a harmony of mental and corporeal qualities, 
 not often exemplified, represented the excellences of his 
 mind with singular precision, in a countenance wliich has 
 scarcely been excelled for the united expression of open 
 honesty, firmness, intellect, and gentleness. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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