 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER XIII. PART XI. While Mackay from one side, and Dundee from the other, were advancing towards Blair Castle, important events had taken place there. Murray's adherents soon began to waver in their fidelity to him. They had an old antipathy to Whigs, for they considered the name of Whig as synonymous with the name of Campbell. They saw a raid against them a large number of their kinsmen, commanded by a gentleman who was supposed to possess the confidence of the Marquis. The besieging army therefore melted rapidly away. Many returned home on the plea that, as their neighborhood was about to be the seat of war, they must place their families in cattle in security. Others more ingeniously declared that they would not fight in such a quarrel. One large body went to a brook, filled their bonnets with water, drank a health to King James, and then dispersed. Their zeal for King James, however, did not induce them to adjoin the standard of his general. They lurked among the rocks and thickets which overhang the Gary, in the hope that there would soon be a battle, and that, whatever might be the event, there would be fugitives and corpses to plunder. Murray was in a strait. His force had dwindled to three or four hundred men. Even in those men he could put little trust, and the McDonald's and Cameron's were advancing fast. He therefore raised the siege of Blair Castle, and retired with a few followers into the defile of Killey Cranky. There he was soon joined by a detachment of two hundred fusiliers whom McKay had sent forward to secure the pass. The main body of the lowland army speedily followed. Early in the morning of Saturday the twenty-seventh of July, Dundee arrived at Blair Castle. There he learned that McKay's troops were already in the ravine at Killey Cranky. It was necessary to come to a prompt decision. A council of war was held. The Saxon officers were generally against hazarding a battle. The Celtic chiefs were of a different opinion. GlenGerry and Locule were now both of a mind. "'Fight,' my lord,' said Locule with his usual energy. "'Fight immediately. Fight if you have only one to three. Our men are in heart. Their only fear is that the enemy should escape. Give them their way, and be assured that they will either perish or gain a complete victory. But if you restrain them, if you force them to remain on the defensive, I answer for nothing. If we do not fight, we had better break up and retire to our mountains.'" Dundee's countenance brightened. "'You hear, gentlemen,' he said to lowland officers. "'You hear the opinion of one who understands Highland War better than any of us.'" No voice was raised on the other side. It was determined to fight, and the confederated clans in high spirits set forward to encounter the enemy. The enemy, meanwhile, had made his way up the pass. The ascent had been long and toilsome, for even the foot had to climb by twos and threes, and the baggage-horses, twelve-hundred in number, could mount only one at a time. No willed carriage had ever been tugged up that arduous path. The head of the column had emerged and was on the table-land, while the rear-guard was still in the plain below. At length the passage was effected, and the troops found themselves in a valley of no great extent. Their right was flanked by a rising ground, their left by the gary. Wearyed with the morning's work, they threw themselves on the grass to take some rest and refreshment. Early in the afternoon they were roused by an alarm that the Highlanders were approaching. Regiment after regiment started up and got into order. In a little while the summit of an ascent, which was about a musket-shot before them, was covered with bonnets and plaids. Dundee rode forward for the purpose of surveying the force with which he was to contend, and then drew up his own men with as much skill as their peculiar character permitted him to exert. It was desirable to keep the clans distinct. Each tribe, large or small, formed a column separated from the next column by a wide interval. One of these battalions might contain seven hundred men, while another consisted of only a hundred and twenty. Locule had represented that it was impossible to mix men of different tribes without destroying all that constituted the peculiar strength of a Highland army. On the right, close to the gary, were the MacLanes. Next to them were Cannon and his Irish foot. Then came the McDonald's of Clan Ronald, commanded by the Guardian of their young Prince. On the left were other bands of McDonald's. At the head of one large battalion towered the stately form of Glingery, who bore in his hand the royal standard of King James VII. Still further to the left were the Calvary, a small squadron consisting of some Jacobite gentlemen who had fled from the lowlands to the mountains, and of about forty of Dundee's old troopers. The horses had been ill-fed and ill-tended among the Grampians, and looked miserably lean and feeble. Beyond them was Locule with his Camerons. On the extreme left the men of the sky were marshaled by MacDonald of Sleet. In the Highlands, as in all countries where war has not become a science, men thought at the most important duty of a commander to set an example of personal courage and a bodily exertion. Locule was especially renowned for his physical prowess. His clansmen looked big with pride when they related how he had himself broken hostile ranks and hewn down tall warriors. He probably owed quite as much of his influence to these achievements as to the high qualities which, if Fortune had placed him in the English Parliament or at the French court, would have made him one of the foremost men of his age. He had the sense, however, to perceive how erroneous was the notion which his countrymen had formed. He knew that to give and to take blows was not the business of a general. He knew with how much difficulty Dundee had been able to keep together during a few days an army composed of several clans, and he knew that what Dundee had effected with difficulty Cannon would not be able to effect at all. The life on which so much depended must not be sacrificed to a barbarous prejudice. Locule, therefore, adjured Dundee not to run into any unnecessary danger. Your Lordship's business, he said, is to overlook everything and to issue your commands. Our business is to execute those commands bravely and promptly. Dundee answered with calm magnanimity that there was much weight in what his friend Sir Iwan had urged, but that no general could effect anything great without possessing the confidence of his men. I must establish my character for courage. Your people expect to see their leaders in the thickest of the battle, and today they shall see me there. I promise you, on my honor, that in future fights I will take more care of myself. Meanwhile a fire of musketry was kept up on both sides, but more skillfully and more steadily by the regular soldiers than by the mountaineers. The space between the armies was one cloud of smoke. Not a few highlanders dropped, and the clans grew impatient. The sun, however, was low in the west before Dundee gave the order to prepare for action. His men raised a great shout. The enemy, probably exhausted by the toil of the day, returned a feeble and wavering cheer. We shall do it now, said Locule. That is not the cry of men who are going to win. He had walked through all his ranks, had addressed a few words to every Cameron, and had taken from every Cameron a promise to conquer or die. It was past seven o'clock, Dundee gave the word. The highlanders dropped their plaids. The few who were so luxurious as to wear rude socks of untanned hide spurned them away. It was long remembered in Lockabur that Locule took off what probably was the only pair of shoes in his clan, and charged barefoot at the head of his men. The whole line advanced firing. The enemy returned the fire and did much execution. When only a small space was left between the armies, the highlanders suddenly flung away their firelocks, drew their broadswords, and rushed forward with a fearful yell. The lowlanders prepared to receive the shock. But this was then a long and awkward process. And the soldiers were still fumbling with the muzzles of their guns and the handles of their bayonets when the whole flood of MacLanes, McDonald's, and Camerons came down. In two minutes the battle was lost and won. The ranks of Balfour's regiment broke. He was cloven down while struggling in the press. Ramsay's men turned their backs and dropped their arms. MacKay's own foot were swept away by the furious onset of the Camerons. His brother and nephew exerted themselves in vain to rally the men. The former was laid dead on the ground by a stroke from a claymore. The latter, with eight wounds on his body, made his way through the tumult and carnage to his uncle's side. Even in that extremity MacKay retained all his self possession. He had still one hope. A charge of horse might recover the day. For of the horse the bravest highlanders were supposed to stand in awe. But he called on the horse in vain. Bellhaven indeed behaved like a gallant gentleman, but his troopers, appalled by the root of the infantry, galloped off in disorder. Ann and Dale's men followed. All was over. And the mingled torrent of red coats and tartans went raving down the valley to the gorge of Kilicrankey. MacKay, accompanied by one trusty servant, spurred bravely through the thickest of the claymores and targets, and reached a point from which he had a view of the field. His whole army had disappeared, with the exception of some borderers whom Levin had kept together, and of Hastings Regiment, which had poured a murderous fire into the Celtic ranks, and which still kept unbroken order. All the men that could be collected were only a few hundreds. The general made haste to lead them across the carry, and having put that river between them and the enemy, paused for a moment to meditate on his situation. He could hardly understand how the conquerors could be so unwise as to allow him even that moment for deliberation. They might with ease have killed or taken all who were with him before the night closed in. But the energy of the Celtic warriors had spent itself in one furious rush and one short struggle. The pass was choked by the twelve hundred beasts of burden which carried the provisions and baggage of the vanquished army. Such a booty was irresistibly tempting to men who were impelled to war quite as much by the desire of raping as by the desire of glory. It is probable that few, even of the chiefs, were disposed to leave so rich a price for the sake of King James. Dundee himself might at that moment have been unable to persuade his followers to quit the heaps of spoil and to complete the great work of the day. And Dundee was no more. At the beginning of the action he had taken his place in front of his little band of Calvary, he bade them follow him and rode forward. But it seemed to be decreed that, on that day, the lowland scotch should in both armies appear to disadvantage. The horse hesitated. Dundee turned around and stood up in his stirrups, and waving his hat, invited them to come on. As he lifted his arm, his cuirass rose and exposed the lower part of his left side. A musket ball struck him. His horse sprang forward and plunged into a cloud of smoke and dust, which hid from both armies the fall of the victorious general. A person named Johnston was near him and caught him as he sank down from the saddle. How goes the day? said Dundee. Well for King James, answered Johnston, but I am sorry for your Lordship. If it is well for him, answered the dying man, it matters the less for me. He never spoke again. But when, half an hour later, Lord Dunfermline and some other friends came to the spot, they thought that they could still discern some faint remains of life. The body, wrapped in two plaques, was carried to the castle of Blair. CHAPTER XIII. PART XII. Mackay, who was ignorant of Dundee's fate and well acquainted with Dundee's skill and activity, expected to be instantly and hotly pursued, and had very little expectation of being able to save even the scanty remains of the vanquished army. He could not retreat by the pass, for the Highlanders were already there. He therefore resolved to push across the mountains toward the valley of the Tey. He soon overtook two or three hundred of his runaways who had taken the same road. Most of them belonged to Ramsay's regiment, and must have seen service. But they were unarmed. They were utterly bewildered by the recent disaster, and the general could find among them no remains either of martial discipline or of martial spirit. His situation was one which must have severely tried the firmest nerves. Night had set in. He was in a desert. He had no guide. A victorious enemy was in all human probability on his track, and he had to provide for the safety of a crowd of men who had lost both head and heart. He had just suffered a defeat of all defeats the most painful and humiliating. His domestic feelings had been not less severely wounded than his professional feelings. One dear kinsman had just been struck dead before his eyes. Another, bleeding from many wounds, moved feebly at his side. But the unfortunate general's courage was sustained by a firm faith in God, and a high sense of duty to the State. In the midst of misery and disgrace he still held his head nobly erect, and found fortitude not only for himself, but for all around him. His first care was to be sure of his road. A solitary light which twinkled through the darkness guided him to a small hovel. The inmates spoke no tongue but the Gaelic, and were at first scared by the appearance of uniforms and arms. But Mackay's gentle manner removed their apprehension. Their language had been familiar to him in childhood, and he retained enough of it to communicate with them. By their directions, and by the help of a pocket-map in which the routes through that wild country were roughly laid down, he was able to find his way. He marched all night. When day broke his task was more difficult than ever. Light increased the terror of his companions. Hastings men and Leavens men indeed still behaved themselves like soldiers, but the fugitives from Ramses were a mere rabble. They had flung away their muskets. The broadswords from which they had fled were ever in their eyes. Every fresh object caused a fresh panic. A company of herdsmen in plaid's driving cattle was magnified by imagination into a host of Celtic warriors. Some of the runaways left the main body and fled to the hills where their cowardice met with a proper punishment. They were killed for their coats and shoes, and their naked carcasses were left for a prey to the eagles of Ben Laws. The desertion would have been much greater had not Mackay and his officers pistol in hand threatened to blow out the brains of any man whom they caught attempting to steal off. At length the weary fugitives came in sight of Weems Castle. The proprietor of the mansion was a friend to the new government and extended to them such hospitality as was in his power. His stores of oat meal were brought out, kind was slaughtered, and a rude and hasty meal was set before the numerous guests. Thus refreshed they again set forth, and marched all day over bog, moor, and mountain. Thimly inhabited as the country was, they could plainly see that the report of their disaster had already spread far, and that the population was everywhere in a state of great excitement. Late at night they reached Castle Drummond, which was held for King William by a small garrison, and on the following day they proceeded with less difficulty at a sterling. The tidings of their defeat had outrun them. All Scotland was in a ferment. The disaster had indeed been great, but it was exaggerated by the wild hopes of one party, and by the wild fears of the other. It was at first believed that the whole army of King William had perished, that Mackay himself had fallen, that Dundee, at the head of a great host of barbarians, flushed with victory and impatient for spoil, had already descended from the hills, that he was master of the whole country beyond the fourth, that Fife was up to join him, that in three days he would be at sterling, that in a week he would be at Holyrood. Messengers were sent to urge a regiment which lay in Northumberland to hasten across the border. Others carried to London earnest entreaties that his majesty would instantly send every soldier that could be spared, nay, that he would come himself to save his northern kingdom. The factions of the Parliament House, awestruck by the common danger, forgot to wrangle. Courtears and malcontents with one voice implored the Lord High Commissioner to close the session, and to dismiss them from a place where their deliberations might soon be interrupted by the mountaineers. It was seriously considered whether it might not be expedient to abandon Edinburgh, and to send the numerous state prisoners who were in the castle and the toll booth on board of a man of war, which lay off lease, and to transfer the seat of the government to Glasgow. The news of Dundee's victory was everywhere speedily followed by the news of his death, and it is a strong proof of the extent and vigor of his faculties that his death seems everywhere to have been regarded as a complete set-off against his victory. Hamilton, before he adjourned the estates, informed them that he had good tidings for them, that Dundee was certainly dead, and that therefore the rebels had on the whole sustained a defeat. In several letters written at that conjuncture by Abel and experienced politicians a similar opinion is expressed. The messenger who rode with the news of the battle to the English court was fast followed by another who carried a dispatch for the king, and not finding his magistates and James' galloped to Hampton Court. Nobody in the capital ventured to break the seal, but fortunately after the letter had been closed some friendly hand had written hastily on the outside a few words of comfort. Dundee is killed, Mackay has got to sterling, and these words quieted the minds of the Londoners. From the pass of Kilikranky the Highlanders had retired proud of their victory and laden with spoil to the castle of Blair. They boasted that the field of battle was covered with heaps of the Saxon soldiers, and that the appearance of the corpses bore ample testimony to the power of a good Gaelic broadsword in a good Gaelic right hand. Heads were found cloven down to the throat, and skulls struck clean off just above the ears. The conquerors, however, had bought their victory, dear. While they were advancing they had been much galled by the musketry of the enemy, and even after the decisive charge Hastings Englishman and some of Leven's borderers had continued to keep up a steady fire. A hundred and twenty Camerons had been slain, the loss of the McDonald's had been still greater, and several gentlemen of birth and note had fallen. Dundee was buried in the church of Blair Athol, but no monument was erected over his grave, and the church itself as long disappeared. A rude stone on the field of battle, Marx, if local tradition can be trusted, the place where he fell. During the last three months of his life he had approved himself a great warrior and politician, and his name is therefore mentioned with respect by that large class of persons who think that there is no excess of wickedness for which courage and ability do not atone. It is curious that the two most remarkable battles that perhaps were ever gained by irregular over regular troops should have been fought in the same week, the Battle of Kilicrankey and the Battle of Newton Butler. In both battles the success of the irregular troops was singularly rapid and complete. In both battles the panic of the regular troops in spite of the conspicuous example of courage set by their generals was singularly disgraceful. He taught also to be noted that of these extraordinary victories one was gained by Celts over Saxons and the other by Saxons over Celts. The victory of Kilicrankey indeed, though neither more splendid nor more important than the victory of Newton Butler, is far more widely renowned, and the reason is evident. The Anglo-Saxon and the Celts have been reconciled in Scotland, and have never been reconciled in Ireland. In Scotland all the great actions of both races are thrown into a common stock, and are considered as making up the glory which belongs to the whole country. So completely has the old antipathy been extinguished that nothing is more usual than to hear a lowlander talk with complacency and even with pride of the most humiliating defeat that his ancestors ever underwent. It would be difficult to name any eminent man in whom national feeling and clannish feeling was stronger than in Sir Walter Scott. Yet when Sir Walter Scott mentioned Kilicrankey he seemed utterly to forget that he was a Saxon, that he was of the same blood and of the same speech with Ramsay's foot and Annadale's horse. His heart swelled with triumph when he related how his own kindred had fled like hares before a smaller number of warriors of a different breed and of a different tongue. In Ireland the feud remains unhealed. The name of Newton Butler, insultingly repeated by a minority, is hateful to the great majority of the population. If a monument were set up on the field of battle it would probably be defaced. If a festival were held in Cork or Waterford on the anniversary of the battle it would probably be interrupted by violence. The most illustrious Irish poet of our time would have thought it treasoned to his country to sing the praises of the conquerors. One of the most learned and diligent Irish archaeologists of our time has laboured, not indeed very successfully, to prove that the event of the day was decided by a mere accident from which the Englishry could derive no glory. We cannot wonder that the victory of the Highlanders shall be more celebrated than the victory of the Ennis Killeners, when we consider that the victory of the Highlanders is matter of boast to all Scotland, and that the victory of the Ennis Killeners is matter of shame to three-fourths of Ireland. As far as the great interests of the state were concerned it mattered not at all whether the battle of Kilicrankey were lost or won. It is very improbable that even Dundee, if he had survived the most glorious day of his life, could have surmounted those difficulties which sprang from the peculiar nature of his army, and which would have increased tenfold as soon as the war was transferred to the Lowlands. It is certain that his successor was altogether unequal to the task. During a day or two, indeed, the new general might flatter himself that all would go well. His army was rapidly swollen to near double the number of claymores that Dundee commanded. The stewards of Apin, who, though full of zeal, had not been able to come up in time for the battle, were among the first who arrived. Several clans, which had hitherto waited to see which side was the stronger, were now eager to descend on the Lowlands under the standard of King James VII. The grants, indeed, continued to bear true allegiance to William and Mary, and the Macintoshes were kept neutral by unconquerable aversion to Keppock. But Macphearsons, Tharkissons, and Fraser's came in crowds to the camp at Blair. The hesitation of the Atholmen was at an end. Many of them had lurked during the fight among the crags and birch trees of Kilicrankee, and, as soon as the event of the day was decided, had emerged from these hiding places to strip and butcher the fugitives who tried to escape by the pass. The Robertsons, a Gaelic race, though bearing a Saxon name, gave in at this conjuncture their adhesion to the cause of the Exiled King. Their chief, Alexander, who took his appellation from his lordship of Stroon, was a very young man and a student at the University of St Andrews. He had there acquired a smattering of letters, and had been initiated much more deeply into Tory politics. He now joined the Highland Army and continued through a long life to be constant to the Jacobite cause. His part, however, in public affairs was so insignificant that his name would not now be remembered if he had not left a volume of poems—always very stupid and often very profligate. Had this book been manufactured in Grubstreet it would scarcely have been honoured with a quarter of a line in the Danciad, but it attracted some notice on a count of the situation of the writer. For a hundred and twenty years ago an eclog or a lampoon written by a Highland chief was a literary portent. But though the numerical strength of Canon's forces was increasing, their efficiency was diminishing. Every new tribe which joined the camp brought with it some new cause of dissension. In the hour of peril the most arrogant and mutinous spirits will often submit to the guidance of superior genius. Yet even in the hour of peril, and even to the genius of Dan D., the Celtic chiefs had gilded but a precarious and imperfect obedience. To restrain them when intoxicated with success and confident of their strength would probably have been too hard a task even for him, as it had been in the preceding generation, too hard a task for Montrose. The new general did nothing but hesitate and blunder. One of his first acts was to send a large body of men, chiefly Robertsons, down into the Low Country for the purpose of collecting provisions. He seems to have supposed that this detachment would without difficulty occupy Perth. But Mackay had already restored order among the remains of his army. He had assembled round him some troops which had not shared in the disgrace of the late defeat, and he was again ready for action. Cruel as his sufferings had been, he had wisely and magnanimously resolved not to punish what was past. To distinguish between degrees of guilt was not easy. To decimate the guilty would have been to commit a frightful massacre. His habitual piety, too, led him to consider the unexampled panic which had seized his soldiers as a proof rather of the divine displeasure than of their cowardice. He acknowledged with heroic humility that the singular firmness which he had himself displayed in the midst of the confusion and havoc was not his own, and that he might well, but for the support of a higher power, have behaved as pusillanimously as any of the wretched runaways who had thrown away their weapons, and implored quarter in vain from the barbarous marauders of Athol. His dependence on heaven did not, however, prevent him from applying himself vigorously to the work of providing, as far as human prudence could provide, against the recurrence of such a calamity as that which he had just experienced. The immediate cause of his defeat was the difficulty of fixing bayonets. The firelock of the Highlander was quite distinct from the weapon which he used in close fight. He discharged his shot, threw away his gun, and fell on with his sword. This was the work of a moment. It took the regular musketeer two or three minutes to alter his missile weapon into a weapon with which he could encounter an enemy hand to hand, and during these two or three minutes the event of the battle of Kilikranky had been decided. Mackay therefore ordered all his bayonets to be so formed that they might be screwed upon the barrel without stopping it up, and that his men might be able to receive a charge the very instant after firing. As soon as he learned that a detachment of the Gaelic army was advancing towards Perth, he hastened to meet them at the head of a body of dragoons who had not been in the battle, and whose spirit was therefore unbroken. On Wednesday the 31st of July, only four days after his defeat, he fell in with the Robertsons near St. Johnston's, attacked them, routed them, killed 120 of them, and took 30 prisoners with the loss of only a single soldier. This skirmish produced an effect quite out of proportion to the number of the combatants, or of the slain. The reputation of the Celtic arms went down almost as fast as it had risen. During two or three days it had been everywhere imagined that those arms were invincible. There was now a reaction. It was perceived that what had happened at Kilicrankey was an exception to ordinary rules, and that the Highlanders were not, except in very peculiar circumstances, a match for good regular soldiers. Meanwhile the disorders of Cannon's camp went on increasing. He called a council of war to consider what course it would be advisable to take, but as soon as the council had met a preliminary question was raised. Who were entitled to be consulted? The army was almost exclusively a Highland army. The recent victory had been won exclusively by Highland warriors. Great chiefs who had brought six or seven hundred fighting men into the field did not think it fair that they should be outvoted by gentlemen from Ireland and from the Low Country, who bore indeed King James's commission and were called colonels and captains, but who were colonels without regiments and captains without companies. Lockeels spoke strongly in behalf of the class to which he belonged, but Cannon decided that the votes of the Saxon officers should be reckoned. End of Chapter 13, Part 12 History of England, Chapter 13, Part 13 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The History of England from the Excession of James II by Thomas Babbington Macaulay Chapter 13, Part 13 It was next considered what was to be the plan of the campaign. Lockeel was for advancing, for marching towards Makai wherever Makai might be, and for giving battle again. It can hardly be supposed that success had so turned the head of the wise chief of the Camerons as to make him insensible of the danger of the course which he recommended. But he probably conceived that nothing but a choice between dangers was left to him. His notion was that vigorous action was necessary to the very being of a Highland army, and that the coalition of clans would last only while they were impatiently pushing forward from battlefield to battlefield. He was again overruled. All his hopes of success were now at an end. His pride was severely wounded. He had submitted to the ascendancy of a great captain, but he cared as little as any wig for a royal commission. He had been willing to be the right hand of Dundee, but he would not be ordered to bite by cannon. He quitted the camp, and retired to Lokava. He indeed directed his clan to remain, but the clan deprived of the leader whom it adored, and aware that he had withdrawn himself in ill humour, was no longer the same terrible column which had a few days before kept so well the vow to perish or to conquer. MacDonald of Sleet, whose forces acceded in number those of any other of the confenderate chiefs, followed Laquille's example and returned to Skye. MacKay's arrangements were by this time complete, and he had little doubt that if the rebels came down to attack him, the regular army would retrieve the honour which had been lost at Kilikranky. His chief difficulties arose from the unwise interference of the ministers of the crown at Edinburgh, with matters which ought to have been left to his direction. The truth seems to be that they, after the ordinary fashion of men who, having no military experience, sit in judgment or military operations, considered success as the only test of the ability of a commander. Whoever wins a battle is, in the estimation of such persons, a great general. Whoever is beaten is a bad general, and no general had ever been more completely beaten than MacKay. William, on the other hand, continued to place entire confidence in his unfortunate lieutenant. To the disparaging remarks of critics who had never seen Skirmish, Portland replied by his master's orders that MacKay was perfectly trustworthy, that he was brave, that he understood war better than any other officer in Scotland, and that it was much to be regretted that any prejudice should exist against so good a man and so good a soldier. The unjust contempt with which the scotch-privileged councillors regarded MacKay led them into a great error, which might well have caused a great disaster. The Cameroonian regiment was sent to garrison Dunkeld. Of this arrangement, MacKay altogether disapproved. He knew that at Dunkeld these troops would be near the enemy, that they would be far from all assistance, that they would be in an open town, that they would be surrounded by a hostile population, that they were very imperfectly disciplined, though doubtless brave and zealous, that they were regarded by the whole Jacobite party throughout Scotland with peculiar malevolence, and that in all probability some great effort would be made to disgrace and destroy them. The general's opinion was disregarded, and the Cameroonians occupied the post signed to them. It soon appeared that his forebodings were just. The inhabitants of the country round Dunkeld furnished canon with intelligence, and urged him to make a bold push. The peasantry of Athol, impatient for spoil, came in great numbers to swell his army. The regiment hourly expected to be attacked, and became discontented and turbulent. The men, intrepid indeed both from constitution and from enthusiasm, but not yet broken to habits of military submission, expostulated with Cleland, who commanded them. They had, they imagined, been recklessly, if not perfidiously, sent to certain destruction. They were protected by no ramparts. They had a very scanty stock of ammunition. They were hemmed in by enemies. An officer might mount and gallop beyond reach of danger in an hour, but the private soldiers stay and be butchered. Neither I, said Cleland, nor any of my officers will, in any extremity abandon you. Bring out my horse. All our horses. They shall be shot dead. These words produced a complete change of feeling. The men answered that the horses should not be shot, that they wanted no pledge from their brave colonel, except his word, and that they would run the last hazard with him. They kept their promise well. The Puritan blood was now thoroughly up, and what that blood was, when it was up, had been proved on many fields of battle. That night the regiment passed under arms. On the morning of the following day, the 21st of August, all the hills round Dunkeld were alive, with bonnets and plads. Cannon's army was much larger than that which Dundee had commanded, more than a thousand horses laden with baggage accompanied in his march. Both the horses and the baggage were probably part of the booty of Kilikrankee. The whole number of Highlanders was estimated by those who saw them, at from four to five thousand men. They came furiously on. The outposts of the Cameroonians were speedily driven in. The assailants came pouring on every side into the streets. The church, however, held out obstinately. But the greater part of the regiment made it stand behind a wall which surrounded a house belonging to the Marquis of Athol. This wall, which had two or three days before been hastily repaired with timber and loose stones, the soldiers defended desperately, with musket, pike, and halberd. Their bullets were soon spent, but some of the men were employed in cutting lead from the roof of the Marquis's house and shaping it into slugs. Meanwhile, all the neighbouring houses were crowded from top to bottom with Highlanders who kept up a galling fire from the windows. Cleland, while encouraging his men, was shot dead. The command devolved on Major Henderson. In another minute, Henderson fell pierced with three mortal wounds. His place was supplied by Captain Monroe, and the contest went on with undiminished fury. A party of the Cameroonians salad forth, set fire to the houses from which the fatal shots had come, and turned the keys in the doors. In one single dwelling, sixteen of the enemy were burnt alive. Those who were in the fight described it as a terrible initiation for recruits. Half the town was blazing, and with the incessant roar of the guns were mingled the piercing shrieks of wretches perishing in the flames. The struggle lasted four hours. By that time the Cameroonians were reduced nearly to their last flask of powder, but their spirit never flagged. The enemy will soon carry the wall. Be it so, we will retreat into the house, we will defend it to the last, and, if they force their way into it, we will burn it over their heads and our own. But, while they were revolving these desperate projects, they observed that the fury of the assault slackened. Soon the Highlanders began to fall back. Disorder visibly spread among them, and whole bands began to march off the hills. It was in vain that their general ordered them to return to the attack. Perseverance was not one of their military virtues. The Cameroonians, meanwhile, was shouts of defiance, invited Amalek and Moab to come back and to try another chance with the chosen people. But these exhortations had as little effect as those of Cannon. In a short time the whole Gaelic army was in full retreat towards Blair. Then the drums struck up. The victorious Puritans threw their cats into the air, raised with one voice a psalm of triumph and thanksgiving, and waved their colors, colors which were on that day unfurled for the first time in the face of an enemy, but which have since been proudly born in every quarter of the world, and which are now embellished with the Sphinx and the Dragon, emblems of brave actions achieved in Egypt and in China. The Cameroonians had good reason to be joyful and thankful, for they had finished the rear. In the rebel camp all was discord and ejection. The Highlanders blamed Cannon. Cannon blamed the Highlanders, and the host which had been the terror of Scotland, melted fast away. The Confederate chiefs signed an association, by which they declared themselves faithful subjects of King James and bind themselves to meet again at a future time. Having gone through this form, for it was no more, they departed, each to his home. Cannon and his Irishman retired to the Isle of Marl. The Lowlanders, who had followed Dundee to the mountains, shifted for themselves as best they could. On the 34th of August, exactly four weeks after the Gaelic army had won the Battle of Kilikranke, that army ceased to exist. It ceased to exist, as the army of Montrose had more than forty years earlier ceased to exist, not in consequence of any great blow from without, but by a natural dissolution, the effect of internal malformation. All the fruits of victory were gathered by the vanquished. The Castle of Blair, which had been the immediate object of the contest, opened its gates to Mackay, and a chain of military posts extending northward as far as in Venice, protected the cultivators of the plains against the predatory inroads of the Monteneers. During the autumn the government was much more annoyed by the wigs of the Low Country than by the Jacobites of the Hills. The club, which had, in the late session of Parliament, attempted to turn the kingdom into an oligarchical republic, and which had induced the estates to refuse supplies and stop the administration of justice, continued to sit during the recess, and harried the ministers of the crime by systematic agitation. The organisation of this body, contemptible as it may appear, to the generation which has seen the Roman Catholic Association and the League against the Corn Laws, was then thought marvellous and formidable. The leaders of the Confederacy boasted that they would force the king to do them right. They got up petitions and dresses, and tried to inflame the populace by means of the press and the pulpit, employed emissaries among the soldiers, and talked of bringing up a large body of covenanters from the west to overall the Privy Council. In spite of every artifice, however, the ferment of the public mind gradually subsided. The government, after some hesitation, ventured to open the courts of justice, which the estates had closed. The lords of Session, appointed by the king, took their seats, and Sir James Dalrymple presided. The club attempted to induce the advocates to have sent themselves from the bar, and entertain some hope that the mob would pull the judges from the bench, but it speedily became clear that there was much more likely to be a scarcity of fees than of lawyers to take them on. The common people of Edinburgh were well pleased to see again a tribunal associated in their imagination with the dignity and prosperity of their city, and by many signs it appeared that the false and greedy faction which had commanded a majority of the legislature did not command a majority of the nation.