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upon their march, without either meat or sleep, or intermission, or the least refreshment; which, whether foreign nations or aftertimes will believe, I cannot tell; but, I am sure, I deliver nothing but what is most certain of my own knowledge: And truly, amongst expert soldiers, and those of eminent note, both of England, Germany, and France, I have not seldom heard this expedition of Montrose preferred to his greatest victory." *

The endless feuds between the Argyle and Atholemen assisted in preserving the military spirit and the use of arms. In the charter-chest of Stewart of Ballechin there is a commission to his ancestor, the Laird of Ballechin, from the Marquis of Atholl, dated in 1685, authorising him to march with a strong body of Atholemen into Argyleshire, and to take and keep possession of the property of their rivals. In what spirit these orders were carried into effect, will appear from the circumstance that eighteen gentlemen, of the name of Campbell, were executed at Inverary. † The commission granted to Ballechin is highly characteristic of the times. It prescribes all the intended operations and proposed conquests, with an air of authority resembling the solemnity of a royal mandate.

How little the Highlanders were accustomed to attach any ideas of moral turpitude to such exploits may be learn

• Dr Wishart, Bishop of Edinburgh's Memoirs of the Marquis of Montrose.

This melancholy instance of the fierceness of feudal animosities is said to have been occasioned by the accidental discovery of a counterplot or conspiracy, to destroy the invaders, whose indignation, on the disclosure, was not to be controlled. From whatever cause this outrage on humanity proceeded, it shows, in a strong light, the fatal consequences of weak and inefficient laws, when one neighbouring tribe was sent to punish another. When the laws and the government were weak and inefficient, men had no support except what they drew from their personal or combined force. The feelings consequent on the remembrance of former rivalry, thus rekindled and inflamed, were checked by the prudence and authority of Ballechin, Flemyng of Moness, Steuart of Dalguise, and other commanders of the expedition, otherwise many more lives would have been lost.

ed from the conduct and sentiments of several of those freebooters, who, at no very distant period, became the victims of a more regular administration of the laws, and who were unable to comprehend in what their criminality consisted. After the troubles of 1745, many who had been engaged in them, afraid to return to their own country, over which the king's troops were dispersed, and having no settled residence or means of support, formed several associations of freebooters, which laid the borders of the Highlands under contribution.

An active leader among these banditti, Donald Cameron, or Donald Bane Leane, was tried in Perth for cattle stealing, and executed at Kinloch Rannoch in 1752, in order to strike terror into his band in that district. At his execu

tion he dwelt with surprise and indignation on his fate. He had never committed murder, nor robbed man or house, or taken any thing but cattle off the grass of those with whom he was at feud, and therefore why punish him for doing that which was a common prey to all? Another freebooter, Alexander Stewart, (commonly called Alister Breac, from his being marked with the small pox,) was executed in 1753. He was despised as a pitiful thief, who deserved his fate, because he committed such acts as would have degraded a genuine cearnach. But it was not the actors alone who attached no criminality, or at least disgrace, to the "lifting of cattle," as we find from a letter of Field Marshall Wade to Mr Forbes of Culloden, then Lord Advocate, dated October 1729, describing an entertainment given him on a visit to a party of cearnachs. The Marshall says, "The Knight and I travelled in my carriage with great ease and pleasure to the feast of oxen which the highwaymen had prepared for us, opposite Lochgarry, where we found four oxen roasting at the same time, in great order and solemnity. We dined in a tent pitched for that purpose. The beef was excellent; and we had plenty of bumpers, not forgetting your Lordship's and Culloden's health; and, after three hours' stay, took leave of

our benefactors, the highwaymen, * and arrived at the hut at Dalnachardoch before it was dark." +

The constant state of warfare, aggression, and rapine, in which the clans lived, certainly tended to improve their ingenuity, and inured them to hardships and privations, which, indeed, their abstemious mode of living, and their constant exposure to all varieties of weather in their loose and light dress, enabled them to bear without inconvenience. On the other hand, this incessant state of warfare

The Marshal had not at this period been long enough in the Highlands to distinguish a cearnach, or "lifter of cattle," from a highwayman. No such character as the latter then existed in the country; and it may be presumed he did not consider these men in the light which the word would indicate,-for certainly the Commander-in-Chief would neither have associated with men whom he supposed to be really highwaymen, nor partaken of their hospitality.

† Culloden Papers.

Habituated as the people were, from the nature of the country, and their pastoral employment, to traverse extensive tracts exposed to tempests and floods, and to cross rapid torrents, and dangerous precipices, the young Highlander acquired a presence of mind which prepared him for becoming an active and intelligent soldier, particularly in that independent species of warfare practised in the woods of America, and lately so much in use with our light troops, in which men must depend upon their own resources and personal exertions. These habits are not so readily acquired in a level country, where there are few natural obstructions or difficulties, and these few easily surmountable by art.

In Mr Jamieson's excellent edition of Burt's Letters, the following instance is given of presence of mind in a Highland lad, who, with a Lowland farmer, was crossing a mountain stream, in a glen, at the upper end of which a water-spout had fallen. The Highlander had reached the opposite bank, but the farmer was looking about and loitering on the stones over which he was stepping, wondering at a sudden noise he heard, when the Highlander cried out, "Help, help, or I am a dead man," and fell to the ground. The farmer sprung to his assistance, and had hardly reached him when the torrent came down, sweeping over the stones, with a fury which no human force could have withstood. The lad had heard the roaring of the stream behind the rocks, which intercepted its view from the farmer, and fearing that he might be panic struck if he told him of his danger, took this expedient to save him. A young man like this might have been trusted on an out-post in front of an enemy; and, possessing such presence of mind, would have been equally capable of executing his own duties, and of observing the movements and intentions of the enemy.

gave a cast of savage ferocity to their character, while their quarrels and hereditary feuds kept them in a state of alarm and disquietude, and obliged them to have recourse to stratagems and intrigues. These naturally gave rise to habits of duplicity, which had a baneful influence on their morals. Whilst a summary and arbitrary course of proceeding was sanctioned by ideas of honour, passion had no check from legal control, and retaliation must have frequently been accompanied by licentious cruelty, and a disregard of all moderation and justice. * To avoid the disorders produced

* An old historian has drawn the following picture of the state of Scotland after the murder of James I., and during the minority of his son, James II., under the administration of Livingston of Callander, the governor, and the Lord Chancellor Crighton, the imbecility of whose government was such as to leave the turbulence of the nobility without control. The strong arm of the law had never been felt in the Highlands, and hence arose the summary modes of avenging private wrongs, to which the people had recourse in the absence of judicial redress. Yet they may be said to have lived in a state of peace and repose, compared with the distractions and turbulence in the south, whenever the laws and the executive authority were for a time suspended. "Through this manner," says the author, "the whole youth of Scotland began to rage in mischief; for as long as there was no man to punish, much herships and slaughter was in the land and boroughs, great cruelty of nobles among themselves, for slaughters, theft, and murder, were their patent; and so continually, day by day, that he was esteemed the greatest man of renown and fame that was the greatest brigand, thief, or murderer. But they were the cause of this mischief that were the governors and magistrates of the realm. And this oppression and mischief reigned not only in the south-west parts, but also the men of the Isles invaded sundry parts of Scotland at that time, both by fire and sword, and especially the Lennox was wholly overthrown. Traitors became so proud and insolent, that they burned and herried the country wherever they came, and spared neither old nor young, bairn or wife, but cruelly would burn their houses and them together if they made any obstacles. Thus they raged through the country without any respect either to God or man."

Of the reign of James V. the same author writes, "The King went to the south with 12,000 men, and after this hunting he hanged Johnnie Armstrong, Laird of Kilnocky, over the gate of his castle, and his acconplices, to the number of thirty-six persons, for which many Scotchmen heartily lamented, for he was the most redoubted chieftain that had been for a long time on the borders of Scotland or of England. It is said, that,

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by perpetual strife, a plan was adopted for compensating injuries by a composition in cattle. The amount of the reparation to be made was generally determined by the principal men of the tribes, according to the rank and wealth of the parties, and the nature of the injury. Thus the aggressions of the rich could not escape with impunity; and, complete redress being the object of the arbiters, the composition was considered more honourable, as well as affording greater security against future encroachments, in proportion to the largeness of its amount. These ransoms, or compensations were called Erig.

from the borders to Newcastle, every man of whatsoever estate paid him tribute to be free of his trouble. This being done, the king passed to the Isles, and there held justice courts, and then punished both thief and traitor, according to their deserts, syne brought many of the great men of the Isles captive with him, such as Macconnells, Macleod of the Lewis, Macneils, Maclean, Macintosh, John Muidart, Mackay, Mackenzie, with many others that I cannot rehearse at this time, some of them to be put in wards, and some had in courts, and some he took in pledges for good rule in time coming, so he brought the Isles in good rule and peace both north and south, whereby he had great profit, service, and obedience of people a long time thereafter; and as long as he had the heads of the country in subjection, they lived in great peace and rest, and there was great riches and policy by the king's justice."

• Lindsay of Pitscottie's History of Scotland.

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