manifestos, for future distribution, printed. He was appointed by Charles his Secretary of State, and continued to act as such during the remainder of the expedition.

During this time the English Governor at Fort Augustus, alarmed at the vague reports, but undoubted preparations, that were spreading around him, had determined to send a reinforcement to the advanced post at Fort William. On the 16th of August, two companies marched for this service, commanded by Captain Scott. The whole distance is thirty miles: for above twenty, the soldiers marched without molestation, when suddenly, in the narrow ravine of Spean Bridge, they found themselves beset by a party of Keppoch's Highlanders. Assailed by a destructive fire from the neighbouring heights, and unable to retaliate upon their invisible enemies, they began a retreat; but more Highlanders of Lochiel coming up, and their strength and ammunition being alike exhausted, they were compelled to lay down their arms. Five or six of them had been killed, and about as many wounded: among the latter, Captain Scott himself. All the prisoners were treated with marked humanity, the wounded being carried to Lochiel's own house at Auchnacarrie; nay, more, as the Governor of Fort Augustus would not allow his surgeon to go forth and attend Captain Scott, the generous Chief sent the Captain to the Fort for that object on receiving his parole.

This success, though of no great importance in itself, served in no small degree to animate the Highlanders on the Raising of the Standard. The day fixed for that ceremony, as I have already mentioned, was the 19th of August; the place Glenfinnan, a desolate and sequestered vale, where the river Finnan flows between high and craggy mountains, and falls into an arm of the sea; it is about fifteen miles from Borodale, and as many from Fort William. Charles having left Kinloch Moidart on the 18th, proceeded to the house of Glenaladale, and early next morning embarked in a boat for the place of muster. arriving, attended only by one or two companies of Macdonalds, he expected to find the whole valley alive with assembled clans; but not one man had come, and Glenfinnan lay before him in its wonted solitude and silence. Uncertain, and anxious for his fate, the Prince entered

On

RAISING OF THE STANDARD.

27

one of the neighbouring hovels, and waited for about two hours. At length the shrill notes of the pibroch were heard in the distance, and Lochiel and his Camerons appeared on the brow of the hill: they were above six hundred in number, but many without weapons; and they advanced in two lines of three men abreast, between which were the two English companies taken on the 16th, marching as prisoners, and disarmed. On being joined by this noble clan, Charles immediately proceeded to erect the Royal Standard; the place chosen being a little knoll in the midst of the vale. The Marquis of Tullibardine, tottering with age and infirmities, and supported by an attendant on each side, was, as highest in rank, appointed to unfurl the banner: it was of red silk, with a white space in the centre, on which, some weeks afterwards, the celebrated motto, 66 TANDEM TRIUMPHANS," was inscribed. At the appearance of this Standard, waving in the mountain breeze, and hailed as the sure pledge of coming battle, the air was rent with shouts, and darkened with bonnets tossed on high; it seemed, says an eye-witness, like a cloud.* Tullibardine, after a little pause, read aloud the manifesto of the old Chevalier, and the Commission of Regency granted to Prince Charles. This was followed by a short speech from the Adventurer himself, asserting his title to the Crown, and declaring that he came for the happiness of his people, and had selected this part of the kingdom because he knew he should find a population of brave gentlemen, willing to live and die with him, as he was resolved at their head to conquer or to perish. Among the spectators, but no willing one, was Captain Swetenham, an English officer, taken prisoner a few days before in proceeding to assume the command at Fort William : he was now dismissed by Charles, after very courteous treatment, and with the words, "You may go to your "General; say what you have seen; and add that I am "coming to give him battle!"

On the same day, but after the ceremony, arrived Keppoch with three hundred of his clan, and other

*Letter in the Culloden Papers, p. 387., derived from Captain Swetenham's description. On the spot where the standard was raised, there now stands a monument with`a Latin inscription. See note to Waverley, vol. i. p. 238. ed. 1829.

smaller parties. Some gentlemen of the name of Mac Leod came to offer their services, expressing great indignation at the defection of their Chief, and proposing to return to Skye, and raise as many men as they could. The little army encamped that night on Glenfillan; O'Sullivan, an Irish officer who had lately joined the Prince, being appointed its Quartermaster-General.* Next morning they began their march, Charles himself proceeding to Lochiel's house of Auchnacarrie, and he was joined by Macdonald of Glencoe with one hundred and fifty men; the Stuarts of Appin, under Ardshiel, with two hundred, and Glengarry the younger, with about the same; so that the united forces marching onwards soon amounted to upwards of sixteen hundred men.

While these things were passing in the Highlands, the established Government was neither prompt in its news, nor successful in its measures. It was not till the 30th of July, Old Style, that we find Lord Tweeddale, the Scottish Secretary of State in London, informed that the young Pretender had sailed from Nantes.† This report was immediately transmitted to Edinburgh; yet, even so late as the morning of the 8th of August, nearly three weeks after Charles's first appearance on the coast, it was unknown to the authorities at that capital. "I consider the "report of the sailing as improbable," writes the Lord. President on that day, "because I am confident that young man cannot with reason expect to be joined by any considerable force in the Highlands +," and he then proceeds to show how much the Jacobite party was reduced since 1715: it had indeed died away like a fire for

* There seems some uncertainty as to when Mr. O'Sullivan joined the expedition. It is supposed by some persons that he sailed with Charles in the Doutelle, and that Buchanan being considered the Prince's domestic was not included in the number of seven that came on shore. (Jacobite Memoirs, p. 2.) But it is more probable that O'Sullivan afterwards joined Charles on shore- - one of several officers who came from France and landed on the east coast of Scotland. (See Culloden Papers, p. 398.)

† Lord Tweeddale to Lord Milton, July 30. 1745. Home's History.

Culloden Papers, p. 204. See also p. 360. and 365., and the Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 405., on the diminution of the Jacobites since 1715.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GOVERNMENT.

29

want of fuel, while the strength of prescription (the mightiest after all of any) had gathered round the Reigning Family. But then this inference suggests itself - if the Scottish Jacobites even thus diminished seemed scarcely a minority in 1745 what, under wise direction, might they not have been thirty years before?

At this period the persons in Edinburgh most relied on by the Government, were, first, the commander-in-chief, General Sir John Cope; secondly, the Justice Clerk Andrew Fletcher, Lord Milton; and, thirdly, the Lord President, Duncan Forbes. The last has been highly, yet not too highly, extolled as a most learned and upright judge, a patriot statesman, a devoted and unwearied assertor of the Protestant succession. Few men ever loved Scotland more, or served it better. Opposing the Jacobites in their conspiracies or their rebellions, but befriending them in their adversity and their distresses, he knew, unlike his colleagues, how to temper justice with mercy, and at length offended, by his frankness, the Government he had upheld by his exertions.* When, in 1715, the jails of England were crowded with Scottish prisoners, plundered, penniless and helpless, Forbes, who had lately borne arms against them in the field, set on foot a subscription to supply them with the means of making a legal defence; and when, on the same occasion, the exasperated Government proposed to remove these misguided but unhappy men from the protection of their native laws, to a trial in England, it was Forbes that stood forward to resist, and finally to prevent, this arbitrary measure. His seat lying in the north, (Culloden House, near Inverness,) he had always repaired thither in the intervals of the Court of Session; he had there cultivated a friendly intercourse with the principal Highland gentlemen, and gained a considerable mastery over the minds of many. He was the link that bound the false and fickle Lovat to the Government; it was mainly through him that Mac Leod, Sir Alexander Macdonald, and several other chiefs, were restrained to a prudent neutrality; it was he who inspi

*See some remarks on the character of Duncan Forbes in the Quarterly Review, No. xxviii. p. 321., I believe by Sir Walter Scott.

rited, guided, and directed the Sutherlands, the Mackays, and the other well affected clans in the north. Even before the news of Charles's landing was fully confirmed, he hastened from Edinburgh to Culloden, ready to perform every service that the exigency might demand.

Sir John Cope, on his part, sent orders for drawing together his troops at Stirling. He had two regiments of dragoons (Gardiner's and Hamilton's), but they were the youngest in the service; and the whole force under his command, exclusive of garrisons, fell short of three thousand men. There were also several companies of a Highland regiment, headed by the Earl of Loudon : these, however, besides the doubts of their fidelity, were not at hand for present action, being for the most part in the north, beyond Inverness. Nevertheless, with such force as he could muster, Cope was eager to march forward to the mountains, and crush the rising rebellion in its bud. This scheme he proposed in a letter to the Lords Justices in England, and it was warmly approved; nay, he even received their positive commands to carry it into execution. They also furnished him with a proclamation, issued in the London Gazette several days before, offering a reward of 30,000l. to any person that should seize and secure the pretended Prince of Wales.

Thus instructed by the Government, but at the same time deluded by the Jacobites around him with a multitude of false advices, Sir John set out from Edinburgh on the 19th of August, the very day that Charles was raising his standard at Glenfillan. Next morning he commenced his march from Stirling, at the head of nearly fifteen hundred foot, but leaving behind the dragoons, who could not have afforded much service amongst the mountains, nor yet obtained sufficient forage. He took with him, however, a vast quantity of baggage, a drove of black cattle, to kill for food, when required, and about a thousand stand of arms, which he expected to distribute to native volunteers. Not one such appearing to join him, he sent back 700 of the muskets from Crieff. His march was directed to Fort Augustus, as a central post, from which he hoped to strike a decisive blow against the rebels; and as he advanced, being met by Captain Swetenham, he obtained the first certain accounts of their