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IT IS PAINFUL to have
to recur to the extraordinary barbarities which formed the sequel to
this decisive battle, on the issue of which hinges so much of our
subsequent national history. Excuses have been offered, even of late
years, for the Duke, as if the cruelties practised ere no more than a
somewhat excessive degree of severity dictated by a sense of duty; and
the go-by has been attempted to be given to the circumstantial and
accredited narratives of these atrocities, as if they were little else
than mere Jacobite fictions; but the enormities were of a nature no such
palliation can serve to extenuate ate, and the means of proof are such
as can with no propriety be disregarded.
Local tradition in the Highlands is unvarying as to the excesses
committed by the English soldiery under the express orders of the Duke
of Cumberland; or under circumstances which leave the responsibility
upon him. It could not be for fictitious or exaggerated cruelties that
the Duke of Cumberland's name was branded as it has been. Contemporary
annals must at all times be held worthless, should such singularly
circumstantial and well-attested evidence as has been preserved of the
atrocities perpetrated, be deemed unworthy of credit. The truth is, not
only was there a deal of coarseness and brutality among the common
soldiers and seamen of the period, but the like features were strongly
characteristic of all ranks in both services. It is of the British army
Swift writes to Wogan, as a fraternity "where the least pretension to
learning, to piety, or to common morals, would endanger the owner to be
cashiered."
On the topic of the cruelties perpetrated after the battle, the most
detailed repertory is a very remarkable MS. series of memorabilia, now
in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, extending to ten
volumes, bound in black, with black-edged leaves, and quaintly styled,
The Lyon in Mourning. The collection was formed with much pains and
industry during the twenty years ensuing upon the event, by the Rev.
Robert Forbes, Episcopal minister at Leith, and latterly (titular)
Bishop of Ross and Caithness, and known as Bishop Forbes. The Bishop
seems to have been extremely solicitous to arrive at the exact truth
from his correspondents; and while he "nought extenuates," he "nought
sets down in malice." The disclosures seem, therefore, worthy of due
credit, corroborating, as they do, the general statements of tradition
and history; and they certainly reveal a systematic perpetration of
barbarities such as the tortures practised by the most savage Indian
tribes on their victims can hardly exceed in atrocity such as were
scarcely credible had they not been well authenticated. Dr. Robert
Chambers made use of the collection when compiling his Jacobite Memoirs
in 1834; and The Lyon in Mourning was printed in extenso by the Scottish
History Society in 1895-96.
DUKE OF CUMBERLAND.
Of the Duke of Cumberland, Lord Mahon, in his History of England, vol.
iii. p. 436, says:
"The Royal Duke, destined to wield so decisive an influence over the
fortunes of his cousin and competitor, was of very nearly the same age,
being only four months younger. (The Prince was then in his twenty-sixth
year.) He had not, however, the same graces of person, being corpulent
and unwieldy to a remarkable degree, and in his manner rough and
displeasing. His character was adorned by considerable virtues honesty
of purpose, adherence to his promises, attachment to his friends. He was
a dutiful son and a liberal patron; as a soldier, he was
enthusiastically fond of his profession; he had closely studied its
details, and might even be lauded for capacity, in an age which, to
England at least, was singularly barren of military merit. His unwearied
activity, and his high personal courage would, however, at any period,
have justly claimed applause. But, as one of his own friends complains,
'his judgment is too much guided by his passions, which are often
violent and ungovernable.' Against his foreign adversaries he displayed
no undue asperity, and towards his soldiers he could sometimes show
compassion. Thus, for instance, on arriving at Edinburgh, he immediately
arrested the course of Hawley's savage executions, yet even his own army
often murmured at his harshness and rigour; and as to any rebel, he
treated him with as little mercy as he would a wolf. Never, perhaps, did
any insurgents meet a more ungenerous enemy. From the deeds of blood in
Scotland committed by his own order in some cases and connived at in
many more his contemporaries branded him with a contemptuous by-word
THE BUTCHER and the historian, who cannot deny the guilt, must
confirm and ratify the name."
Home's History, though fair and candid so far as it goes, is tainted
with suppressio veri. It is materially different from what it had been
before publication; is silent as to the manner in which the battle of
Culloden was used a reticence ascribed to his having unadvisedly
resolved to dedicate it to the King; and great public disappointment was
expressed in Scotland when it appeared. Home, too, had submitted his
narrative to the correction of both Whigs and Jacobites. They were both
profuse in their compliments, but each struck out such anecdotes as made
against their own party. "Thus," as has been quaintly remarked, "if he
imitated the confidence, so he shared also the fate, of the unhappy man
and his two mistresses the one with an utter antipathy to grey, and
the other to black, hairs who, on committing his abundant but mixed
locks to their discretion, soon found himself completely despoiled of
both."
"The bravery of the Duke of Cumberland," says Macaulay, "was such as
distinguished him even among the princes of his brave house. The
indifference with which he rode about amidst musket-balls and
cannonballs was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless
maladies, horrible surgical operations, far from unmanning him, did not
even discompose him. With courage, he had the virtues which are akin to
courage. He spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and
upright in all his dealings. But his nature was hard; and what seemed to
him justice, was rarely tempered with mercy. He was, therefore, many
years one of the most unpopular men in England. The severity with which
he treated the rebels after the battle of Culloden had gained him the
name of 'The Butcher.' His attempts to introduce into the army of
England, then in a most disorderly state, the rigorous discipline of
Potsdam, had excited still stronger disgust. Nothing was too bad to be
believed of him. Many honest people were so absurd as to fancy that, if
he were Regent during the minority of his nephews, there would be
another smothering in the Tower."(Essays: Chatham).
Hill Burton (History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 523) says of him:
"What he did was, we may be assured from his character, not done in a
spirit of wantonness, but after a sense of duty. But that duty led him
to severity. He was a soldier, according to the German notions of a
soldier, and a rebel province was a community to be subjected to martial
law. The Duke, brought up in the German military school, seems to have
been unable to distinguish between a rebellion suppressed in
constitutional Britain, where all men are supposed to be innocent but
those proved to be guilty, and a revolted German province, where every
awarded grace to the unfortunate people proceeds from the will of the
conqueror. Thus there was a propensity to subject all the northern
districts to something too closely resembling military law or licence."
BUTCHERY OF THE WOUNDED.
One of the first spectacles which the inhabitants of Inverness had to
endure, was the execution of no fewer than thirty-six unfortunates as
deserters. To this, however, perhaps no reasonable exception can be
taken. But what is to be said for the following occurrences:
"Immediately after the conclusion of the battle, the men, under the
command of their officers, traversed the field, stabbing with their
bayonets, or cutting down with their swords, such of the wounded of the
defeated party as came under their notice. This was done as much in
sport as in rage; and, as the work went on, the men at length began to
amuse themselves by splashing and dabbling each other with blood! They
at length looked, as one of themselves has reported, more like so many
butchers than an army of Christian soldiers."(Chambers's 6th edit., p.
258; Scots Magazine, vol. viii. p. 192).
"Riding over the field, attended by some of his officers, the Duke
observed a young wounded Highlander resting on his elbow and staring at
the Royal party. He asked the man to whom he belonged; and received for
answer, 'To the Prince.' He instantly called to an officer to shoot
'that insolent scoundrel.' The officer Major Wolfe declined the
task, saying that his commission was at the disposal of his Royal
Highness, but he could never consent to become an executioner. The Duke
asked several other officers in succession to 'pistol' the wounded man,
but with the like result. Then, seeing a common soldier, he asked him if
he had a charge in his piece, and the man answering in the affirmative,
he commanded him to do the required duty, which was immediately
performed. The youth thus slain was Mr. Charles Fraser, younger of
Inverallochy, lieutenant-colonel of the Master of Lovat's regiment. The
officer who first refused was afterwards observed to decline in favour
with his commander." (Chambers, p. 258; "Critique upon 'Home's Hist.
Reb.'" in Anti-Jacobin Review, vol. xiii., p.125, by the late Sir Henry
Steuart of Allanton, Bart.; Jacobite Memoirs, p.255).
"All the wounded on the field of battle were killed on the Thursday; and
the wounded in houses were carried to the field on Friday, where they
were killed."
"Upon Thursday, the day after the battle, a party was ordered to the
field of battle to put to death all the wounded they should find upon
it, which accordingly they performed with the greatest despatch and the
utmost exactness, - carrying the wounded from the several parts of the
field to two or three spots of rising ground, where they ranged them in
due order, and instantly shot them dead.
"Upon the day following (Friday) parties were ordered to go and search
for the wounded in houses in the neighbourhood of the field, to carry
them to the field, and there to kill them."
"John MacLeod of MacLeod, junior, Esquire, has had the honesty and
courage to declare, oftener than once, that he himself saw seventy-two
killed in cold blood."
"At a small distance from the field, there was a hut for sheltering
sheep or goats in cold and stormy weather. To this hut some of the
wounded men had crawled, but were soon found out by the soldiery, who
(immediately upon the discovery) made sure the door and set fire to
several parts of the hut, so that all within perished in the flames, to
the number of between thirty and forty persons, among whom were some
beggars who had been spectators of the battle in hopes of sharing in the
plunder. Many people went and viewed the smothered and scorched bodies
among the rubbish of the hut. Among the number was Colonel Orelli, a
brave old gentleman, who was either in the French or Spanish service."(Jacobite
Memoirs: Lyon in Mourning).
The house to which this hut belonged is still to be seen ("Old Leanach,"
already mentioned) within the inclosure of one of the Leanach fields,
between the Graves and the Duke's Stone, near the former.
Mr. Chambers makes the number butchered on the Thursday to be 70, and on
the Friday, 72; burnt in the hut, 32.
"I myself was told by William Rose, who was then grieve to my Lord
President, that twelve wounded men were carried out of his house and
shot in a hollow, which is within a very short distance of the scene of
action. William Rose's wife told this fact to creditable people, from
whom I had it more circumstantially: She said that the party came to
her house and told the wounded men to get up, that they might bring them
to surgeons to have their wounds dressed; upon which, she said, the poor
men, whom she thought in so miserable a way that it was impossible they
could stir, made a shift to get up; and, she said, they went along with
the party with an air of cheerfulness and joy, being full of the thought
that their wounds were to be dressed; but, she said, when the party had
brought them the length of the hollow above mentioned, which is at a
very short distance from her house. she being then within the house
heard the firing of several guns, and coming out immediately to know the
cause, saw all those brought out of her house under pretence of being
carried to surgeons, were dead men."
"Upon the same day the party was despatched to put to death the wounded
men in and about the field of battle, there was another party detached,
under the command of Colonel Cockeen, to bring in the Lady MacIntosh
prisoner from her house at Moy. Though Cockeen himself was reckoned a
most discreet, civil man, yet he found it impossible to restrain the
barbarity of many of his party, who, straggling before, spared neither
sex nor age they met with; so that the lady has told many that she
herself counted above fourteen dead bodies of men, women, and children,
betwixt Moy and Inverness" 12 miles (Jacobite Memoirs: Lyon in
Mourning, ii. 188).
Mr. Ronald MacDonald of Belfinlay (a cadet of Clanranald's family)
narrates that, being shot in both legs, "he remained likewise in the
field all night, after he was strips of all his clothes, his very
shirt and breeches being taken from him; and as he was young and of a
robust constitution, he lived till next morning, when he saw that cruel
command coming to execute their bloody orders, and saw many of his
unhappy companions (the number is elsewhere stated to be 17] put to
death in cold blood."(Lyon, id. 4).
MASSACRE OF WOUNDED OFFICERS.
The following is the description of the well-known massacre of a group
of wounded officers, taken from a vault in Culloden House, and of the
remarkable escape of one of their number, Alexander or John Fraser,
commonly called MacIver:
"This man was an officer of the Master of Lovat's regiment. He was very
early shot through the knee at the battle of Culloden: he was carried
off in the heat of the action, and left at a dyke-side pointing towards
Culloden House. Some hours after the defeat of the Highland army, he,
with other seventeen wounded officers of that army (who were either
carried or made their escape towards a little plantation of wood near to
the place where Fraser lay), were carried to the close and office houses
of Culloden, where they remained for two days, wallowing in their blood,
and in great torture, without any aid from a doctor or surgeon, though
otherwise kindly entertained by Mr. Thomas Stewart, chamberlain and
chief housekeeper to the late Lord President, and this he did to some at
the hazard of his life. The third day, Fraser and the other seventeen
wounded officers were, by a party of soldiers under the command of a
certain officer, put on carts, tied with ropes, and carried a little
distance from the house to a park dyke, when the officer who commanded
the party ordered Fraser and the other prisoners to prepare for death;
and all who were able bended their knees and began to pray to God for
mercy to their souls. In a minute, the soldiers who conducted them were
ordered to fire, which they did; and being at the distance of only two
yards from the breasts of the unhappy prisoners, most of them all
expired in an instant; but such was the humanity of the commanding
officer, as, thinking it right to put an end to so many miserable lives,
that he gave orders to the soldiers to club their muskets and dash out
the brains of such of them as he observed with life, which accordingly
they did; and one of the soldiers, observing John Fraser to have the
signs of life after receiving a shot, he struck him on the face with the
butt of his musket, broke the upper part of his nose and cheek-bone, and
dashed out one of his eyes, and left him for dead. In this miserable
situation a certain young nobleman (Lord Boyd), riding out by the House
of Culloden and park-dyke, observed some life in Fraser, and, calling
out to him, asked what he was. He told him he was an officer in the
Master of Lovat's regiment. This young lord offered him money, saying he
had been acquainted with his colonel; upon which Fraser told him he had
no use for money, but begged, for God's sake, either to cause his
servant to put an end to his miserable life, or carry him to a
cot-house, which he mentioned, at a little distance. This the young lord
had the humanity to do; and Fraser, being put in a corn kiln-logie,
where he remained for three months, and with the assistance of his
landlord, is so far cured as to be able to step upon two crutches, and
is now a living object, and witness of all I relate to you." (Lyon, ii.
328).
The late Rev. Alexander Campbell of Croy, in his account of that parish,
thus attests this shocking incident: "The man died near Beauly, about
the year 1796, where many are still living who may have known him; but
to put the bloody deed beyond the shadow of doubt, the writer of this
account knew for several years a John Reid, who fought that day in the
second battalion of the Royal Soots, and heard from his lips that he saw
the cruel deed, and thanked God that he had nothing to do with the black
work. John fought at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and only
died about the year 1807, in the 105th year of his age, and in the full
enjoyment of all his mental faculties. He was a lively little man, and
retained a correct and vivid recollection of what he had seen and
heard." (New Stat. Account xiv.).
The spot where this wholesale butchery took place is well known, and is
marked by a large stone in the wood in the hill face, about half-a-mile
nearly right above Culloden House, and due south of the west end of the
village of Balloch. It is a very large, flattish boulder, fifteen paces
in circumference, and situated a little below and to the east of the
westerly group of old pine trees previously mentioned, higher than the
rest of the wood, and is nearly in a line on the hill face with the
park- dyke east of the Dog Kennel. The victims are usually described as
having been ranged against the park-wall; but the late Sandy Bain Sage,
Smithton of Culloden, son of one of the men in the President's service
who were compelled to drive the carts with the unfortunates, often told
Culloden and his brother that this stone was the actual shambles.
A significant testimony to the wanton cruelty of the English troopers
existed to a comparatively recent period, in the person of Provost John
MacIntosh of Inverness, father of the late Mr. Charles MacIntosh of
Aberarder. Being an infant of eighteen months at the time of the
Prince's stay at Inverness, he had been sent with his nurse, to be out
of the way, to a house somewhere in the neighbourhood of Culloden. A few
days after the battle a party of dragoons had gone into the house in the
nurse's absence, and, finding the child in a cradle, they, after
pillaging the house, placed the cradle, with the infant in it, on the
fire. When found by the nurse, the embryo magistrate was a good deal
scorched: and till his dying day he bore the marks on his arms. In
convivial moods, Provost MacIntosh used jocularly to boast that he had
been wounded at Culloden.
TREATMENT OF THE PRISONERS.
The treatment of the prisoners was of a piece with the foregoing
details.
"When we had filled all the jails, kirks and ships at Inverness with
these rebel prisoners, wounded and naked as they were, we ordered that
none should have any access to them, either with meat or drink, for two
days. By this means, no doubt, we thought at least the wounded would
starve, either for want of food or clothes, the weather being then very
cold. The two days being passed, there was a quorum of officers pitched
upon to go and visit them, in order to take down their names and
numbers, which was diminished pretty well, without having the least
regard to order the remaining part either meat or drink to support
nature. Amongst the number I was myself; but oh, heavens! what a scene
opened to my eye and nose all at once! The wounded weltering in their
gore and blood ... Their groans would have pierced a heart of stone; but
our corrupt hearts were not in the least touched; but, on the contrary,
we began to upbraid them the moment we entered their prison. Doctor
Lauder's case of instruments was taken from him, for fear he should aid
any of the wounded; and one John Farquharson of Aldlerg, who was, I
believe, a kind of a Highland-blooder, his lances was taken out of his
pocket, for fear he should begin to blood them, after his Highland way,
to save some few of the wounded to have fallen in fevers. That night it
was determined in the Privy Council that each person should have
half-a-pound oatmeal per day (but Hawley thought it too much); and,
accordingly, they sent some of their commissaries to distribute the
meal. I could not help laughing, in the time of the distribution, when
the poor things had nothing left them to hold their meal but the
foreskirt of their shirts ... Some were handcuffed, especially Major
Stewart and Major M'Lachlan. Their handcuffs were so tight that their
hands swelled, and at last broke the skin, so that the irons could not
be seen. I can compare their case to nothing better than a horse sore
saddle-spoiled ...
"In this excessive agony were they kept ten days notwithstanding all the
application they made, only to get wider handcuffs, or their being
changed and put upon their other hands. Amongst the rest I saw a
Frenchman in the agonies of dying, lying in nastiness up to his stomach,
and I myself put a great stone under his head, that he might not be
choked, which he lay on. We always took care not to bury their dead
until such time as we had at least a dozen of them. Only imagine to
yourself what for an agreeable smell was there ..."
"Amongst the wounded I pitied none more than one Cameron of Callort, who
was a gentleman. He had his arm broke, a great many friends in the
place, even im our army; notwithstanding all, he could not have a
surgeon to dress him for ten days' time; that at last Mr. Menzie, at
Inverness, made stolen marches to see his friend. The Sunday se'n-night
after the battle, there was orders given that all the prisoners should
be reviewed publicly in the streets of Inverness; and accordingly there
were two lines of our men from one end of the Bridge Street to the
other, and 'twixt these two lines the prisoners were to pass muster.
Such a scene was never seen; some entirely naked, others in their
shirts, and their meal tied as before; the wounded even behoved to come
out; neither cries nor entreaties would save them; and those who were
not able either to stand or walk, were carried by their fellow-
prisoners, amongst the loud huzza of officers and soldiers, none more
delighted than Mr. Bruce." (Jacobite Memoirs; p. 339; Lyon iii. 155).
CRUELTIES ON BOARD SHIP.
Numbers were sent to London by sea. The system of torture was continued
on board.
"Gentlemen, This comes to acquaint you that I was eight months and
eight days at sea, of which time I was eight weeks upon half-a-pound and
twelve ounces oatmeal, and a bottle of water in the twentyfour hours,
which was obliged to make meal-and-water in the bottom of an old bottle.
There was one hundred and twenty-five put on board at Inverness, on the
'James and May' of Fife. In the latter end of June, we was put on board
of a transport of four hundred and fifty ton, called the 'Liberty and
Property,' in which we continued the rest of the eight months, upon
twelve ounces of oat sheelin as it came from the mill. There was
thirty-two prisoners more put on board of the said 'Liberty and
Property,' which makes one hundred and fifty-seven; and when we came
ashore there was only in life forty-nine, which would have been no great
surprise if there had not been one, conform to our usage. They would
take us from the hold in a rope, and hoisted us up to the yardarm, and
let us fall in the sea, in order for ducking of us; and tying us to the
mast and whipping us if we did anything however innocent that offended
them: this was done to us when we was not able to stand. I will leave it
to the readers to judge what condition they might be in themselves with
the above treatment. We had neither bed nor bed-clothes, nor clothes to
keep us warm in the day- time. The ship's ballast was black earth and
small stones, which we was obliged to dig holes to lie in to keep us
warm, till the first of November last, that every man got about three
yards of gross harn filled up with straw, but no bed-clothes. I will not
trouble you more till I see you. There is none in life that went from
Elgin with me, but William Innes in Fochabers; James Brander in Condloch
died seven months ago; Alexander Frigge died in Cromarty Road; John
Kintrea, that lived in Longbride, died also. Mr. James Falconar is well,
and remains on board of a ship called the 'James and Mary,' lying off
Tilbury Fort. I am, gentlemen, your most humble servant,
(Signed) WILL. JACK.
"Tilbury Fort, March 17th, 1747."Jacobite Memoirs, p. 299; Lyon, iii.
15).
"But at last, by hunger, bad usage, and lying upon the ballasts and
'twixt decks, exposed to all weathers, they were seized with a kind of
plague which carried them off by dozens; and a good many of those who
would have outlived their sickness were wantonly murdered by the sailors
by dipping of them in the sea in the crisis of their fevers. This was
the sailors' diversion from Buchanness Point till we came to the Nore;
they'd take a rope and tie about the poor sicks' waists; then they would
haul them up by their tackle, and plunge them in the sea, as they said,
to drown the vermin, but they took special care to drown both together;
then they'd haul them up upon deck, and tie a stone about one of the
legs, and overboard with them. I have seen six or seven examples of this
in a day. After we brought them up the river Thames, we got orders to
separate their officers from what they called soldiers, and bring the
officers to Southwark New jail, and leave the commons at Tilbury Fort
without meat, drink, money, or clothes; and actually they would have
starved, had it not been for the charity of the English, the government
not giving them one sol to live upon, except those few that turned
evidence; it's no great wonder if they had all turned evidence to get
out of this miserable situation, the prospect of which behoved to appear
worse than death, for, in my opinion, nothing could come up to it, save
the notion we conceive of hell; and I do not know if hell itself be so
bad, only that it may be of a longer duration. But to return to our
gentleman officers: they were brought up in rank and file, exposed to
the fury of a tumultuous mob, who neither spared them with their
outrageous words, spittles, dirt, and even stones and bricks, and in
that manner carried through all the streets in Southwark, and at last
delivered over to the hands of a jailer, who neither had the least fear
of God, nor humanity, a creature entirely after their own heart, who
loaded them, the moment they entered his gates, with heavy irons and bad
usage.
"After every execution the mangled bodies were brought back to the jail,
and remained there some days, to show the remaining prisoners how they
were to be used in their turn. I am very sure nothing could be more
shocking to nature than to see their comrades, their friends, brought
back in such a condition all cut to piece - the very comrades they
parted with about an hour-and-a-half before in perfect good health and
top spirits. They had even the cruelty to keep up the reprieves of those
that were to be saved till some hours before their execution." (Jacobite
Memoirs," p. 343; Lyon, iii. 167).
The Rev. George Innes, Forres, in communicating to Bishop Forbes the
above letter, which was from a William Jack, who had been a merchant in
Elgin, to his friends there, writes:
"From this letter you may easily see wherein consisted the great lenity
of the Government to their unfortunate prisoners, viz., in starving and
murdering them in the most barbarous manner that it might not be said
there were many brought to public execution. And, indeed, their public
executions were the least part of their cruelty."
One peculiarly discreditable act was committed by the Duke at Inverness
the seizure, on some specious pretext, of sixty-nine men from
Glenmoriston, and twelve from Glen Urquhart, who, induced by the Laird
of Grant to come to Inverness to surrender, were made prisoners and put
on board ship; and such as did not die there, were sent to Barbadoes,
where, three years after, only eighteen of the whole number were
surviving. Certain of these atrocities the stripping of the wounded
prisoners naked, and leaving them to die of their wounds, without the
least assistance; the taking from the Prince's surgeons of their
instruments, and preventing them from giving professional aid to their
fellows; the lingering tortures in which the wounded died on board ship
(the "Jean of Leith"); the scrimp allowance there of oatmeal
half-a-pound a-day, sometimes increased to, but never exceeding, a
pound; the starvation of numbers to death; the compelling of the poor
sufferers to sit on large stones, denying them even the indulgence of
lying on planks are thus solemnly and emphatically attested in the
dying declaration, dated 28th November, 1746, of Mr. James Bradshaw, an
English gentleman, previous to his execution:-
"These are some of the few cruelties exercised which, being almost
incredible in a Christian country, I am obliged to add an asseveration
to the truth of them; and I do assure you, upon the word of a dying man,
as I hope for mercy at the day of judgment, that I assert nothing but
what I know to be true."(Anti-Jacobin Review, vol. xiii. p. 126).
But enough of such details.
VINDICTIVE OUTRAGES.
"The Duke of Cumberland now fixed his headquarters near Fort-Augustus,
in the very centre of the insurgent districts. It would have been a task
welcome to most generals, and not unbecoming in any to have tempered
justice with mercy; to reserve the chiefs and principal delinquents for
trial and punishment: but to spare, protect, and conciliate the people
at large. Not such however, was the Duke of Cumberland's opinion of his
duty. Every kind of havoc and outrage was not only permitted, but, I
fear, we must add, encouraged. Military license usurped the place of
law, and a fierce and exasperated soldiery were at once judge, jury,
executioner. In such transactions it is natural and reasonable to
suppose that the Jacobites would exaggerate their own sufferings and the
wrongs of their opponents; nor, therefore, should we attach weight to
mere loose and vague complaints. But where we find specific cases
alleged, with names and dates, attested on most respectable authority,
by gentlemen of high honour and character, by bishops and clergymen of
the Episcopal Church in some case even by members of the victorious
party then are we bound not to shrink from the truth, however the
truth may be displeasing. From such evidence, it appears that the
Rebels' country was laid waste, the houses plundered, the cabins burnt,
the cattle driven away. The men had fled to the mountains, but such as
could be found were frequently shot, nor was mercy always granted to
their helpless families. In many cases the women and children, expelled
from their homes, and seeking shelter in the clefts of the rocks,
miserably perished of cold and hunger; others were reduced to follow the
track of the marauders, humbly imploring for the blood and offal of
their own cattle, which had been slaughtered for the soldiers' food!
Such is the avowal which historical Justice demands " Lord Mahon's
History of England, iii.).
To the same purport Smollett expresses himself as follows:
"In the month of May the Duke of Cumberland advanced with the army into
the Highlands, as far as Fort-Augustus, where he encamped, and sent off
detachments on all hands to hunt down the fugitives, and lay waste the
country with fire and sword. The castles of Glengarry and Lochiel were
plundered and burned; every house, hut, or habitation met with the same
fate without distinction, all the cattle and provisions were carried
off; the men were either shot upon the mountains like wild beasts, or
put to death in cold blood, without form of trial; the women, after
having seen their husbands and fathers murdered were subjected to brutal
violation, and then turned out naked, with their children, to starve on
the barren heaths. One whole family was inclosed in a barn, and consumed
to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance were so alert in the execution of
their office that in a few days there was neither house, cottage, man,
nor beast, to be seen in the compass of fifty miles all was ruin,
silence, and desolation."
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"Yet when the rage
of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased,
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames and murdering steel!
"The pious mother, doomed to death,
Forsaken wanders o'er the heath;
The bleak wind whistles round her head;
Her helpless orphans cry for bread.
"Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shade of light descend;
And, stretched beneath the inclement skies
Weeps o'er her tender babes and dies.
"While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpaired remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat."
Tears of Scotland.
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In Dr. Chambers's
words: "Before the 10th of June the task of desolation was complete
throughout all the western parts of Inverness-shire; and the curse which
had been denounced upon Scotland by the religious enthusiasts of the
preceding century, was at length so entirely fulfilled in this remote
region, that it would have been literally possible to travel for days
through the depopulated glens, without seeing a chimney smoke, or
hearing, a cock crow."
"It is generally allowed that the Duke himself, though the instigator of
these cruelties, did not show so much open or active cruelty as some of
the more immediate instruments of the Royal vengeance. General Hawley
was one of the most remorseless of all the commanding officers,
apparently thinking no extent of cruelty a sufficient compensation for
the loss of honour at Falkirk. The names of Lieutenant-Colonel Howard,
Captain Caroline Scott, and Major Lockhart, are also to be handed down
as worthy of everlasting execration."
The mansions of Lord Lovat, Cluny, Keppoch, Kinlochmoidart, Glengyle,
Ardshiel, and many others, were plundered and burnt; those of also many
inferior gentlemen, and even the huts of the common people, were
destroyed.
GROUNDLESS IMPUTATIONS.
A very flimsy excuse was attempted for all these outrages. This was the
allegation, that an order signed by Lord George Murray had been found on
the person of a Highlander, that no quarter was to be given to the
Duke's troops. Had this been a fact, it would have indeed been but a
sorry solvent to wash out the blood-marks of such doings. But, in truth,
the pretended order was never produced. It is certain that no such order
was issued to the Insurgent army. There is no trace of any such; and the
story was repeatedly and emphatically denied by the prisoners. Had there
been, it would, beyond all question, have been noticed in the official
documents of the time; while the atrocities never were contradicted. The
tenor is quite at variance with all the previous actings of the
Insurgents, which had been marked by the very reverse of cruelty in cold
blood.
Had an order for no quarter been actually issued, the Prince would have
been not without a plausible justification. From his ambulatory army
being constantly in motion, it was a very perplexing problem how to
dispose of the numerous prisoners made from time to time. They were
constantly making their escape, and reappearing in arms; so that the
Insurgents had to encounter anew the same men whom they had vanquished,
and whose lives they had spared.
But this is not all. With regard to the many officers discharged upon
parole, some of whom, having been appointed to reside in different
places in Forfar and Fifeshire, had been released by parties of the
country people, and brought ostensibly by force to Edinburgh,
"incredible as it may appear," to use Dr. Chambers's words, "this Prince
(the Duke of Cumberland), declaring their oath and parole to be
dissolved, commanded them to return to duty in his army, and sent
similar orders to all who still remained 'non-delivered,' threatening
them with the loss of their commissions if they refused. A small number,
including Sir Peter Halket, Mr. Ross, son of Lord Ross, Captain Lucy
Scott, Lieutenants Farquharson and Cumming, refused compliance remarking
that the Duke was master of their commissions but not of their honour.
But the greater number rejoined their regiments, and served during the
remainder of the campaign."
Chevalier Johnstone says that the expedient had been suggested of
cutting off the thumbs of the right hands of the common soldiers, to
render them incapable of holding their muskets; but the proposition was
not entertained. It is to the honour of George II., "that the conduct of
Sir Peter Halket and the few gentlemen who, like him, adhered punctually
to their parole, was approved of by that monarch."
On the other hand, Captain John MacPherson, Strathmashie, has left it on
record, in a letter to Bishop Forbes (Lyon in Mourning, id. 92), after
detailing the capture of the Athol garrisons by Lord George Murray,
"I must observe to you that among some papers found with the officers at
Kynachan, there was ane order subscribed (if I well remember) by General
or Colonel Campbell, setting furth it was the D--- of C---ds peremptor
orders, if they could meet with any party of the rebels, whom they could
at all expect to overcome, to engage them, and to give them no quarter,
as they would be answerable. That of Kynachan was the attack assigned
me, and this order I saw upon the word of ane honest man, and coppied,
which coppy I kept, and had the bad luck since to lose it, by the
iniquity of the times, as I did many more things; but it's possible it
may come to my hands yet. The prin|| Cluny kept."
So far from any likelihood of such an order, the Prince on several
occasions exhibited undue clemency, while even in the matter of plunder,
discipline and general conduct had been preserved during the march into,
and though doubtless with less complete success, even on their retreat
from, Englandthe taking of horses for carrying their baggage and for
sick men being what the Highlanders committed greatest excess in. These,
however, when identified, were restored and all possible care was taken
to restrain such noted thieves, as no army is free of, in which respect
an army of Highlanders at that time was not singular.
"The Highland army were utter strangers to military discipline; but its
place was supplied by implicit obedience to the will of their chiefs,
who were many of them men of education and urbanity. No symptom of
outrage, no ebullition of insolence, was discernible in the deportment
of these lawless mountaineers. They regularly paid for everything they
got. They left behind them neither sick nor stragglers; and we ourselves
can attest that, from the Prince himself down to the private man, the
correctness of their conduct was, many years after, recorded with
applause, and advantageously compared with the excesses of the regulars,
in the several towns through which both had passed. From these facts two
things are apparent, first, the astonishing influence and authority of
the chiefs, and, secondly, the humane and generous motives by which they
must have been actuated." (Anti-Jacobin Review, vol. xiii.)
The bearing of the Royalist leaders was scarcely more conciliatory
towards the friends than merciless to the enemies of government. The
following occurrences in their intercourse with the civic rulers of
Inverness are well known. The narrative is from one of the letters in
the Jacobite Memoirs, p. 331; Lyon in Mourning, iii. 72.
"I am afraid I have been too long upon the gloom, and therefore I shall
shift the scene a little, and touch upon something that is farcical, if
I dare take upon me to call anything farcical that rubs upon dignities.
But if dignities will affront and insult dignities, let them answer for
it at whose door the blame lies.
"When John Fraser, Esq., the then Lord Mayor (in Scotch, Provost) of
Inverness, and the aldermen (attended by Mr. Hossack, the then late Lord
Mayor), went to pay their levee to the Duke of Cumberland, the Generals
Hawley and Husk happened to be deliberating and making out orders about
slaying the wounded upon the field of battle, etc. Mr. Hossack (a man of
humanity, and the Sir Robert Walpole of Inverness, under the direction
of President Forbes) could not witness such a prodigy of intended
wickedness without saying something, and therefore, making a low bow to
the generals, he spoke thus: 'As His Majesty's troops have been happily
successful against the rebels, I hope your excellencies will be so good
as to mingle mercy with judgment.' Upon this General Hawley bawled out,
'D--n the puppy! Does he pretend to dictate here? Carry him away?'
Another cried, 'Kick him out! kick him out!' The orders were instantly
and literally obeyed; for good Mr. Hossack received kicks upon kicks,
and Sir Robert Adair had the honour to give him the last kick upon the
top of the stair, to such purpose that Mr. Hossack never touched a
single step till he was at the bottom of the first flat, from which he
tumbled headlong down to the foot of all the stair, and then was he
discreetly taken up and carried to the provost-guard. A notable reward
for zeal! on which Mr. Hossack was warm enough, but with discretion
and good-nature, as I was informed.
"But this is not all. Mr. Mayor himself (John Fraser) behoved to have a
specimen of their good sense and genteel manners; for he was taken from
dinner at his own table by an officer and some musketeers, with a volley
of oaths and imprecations, to a stable, and was ordered to clean it
instantly upon his peril. Mr. Mayor said he never cleaned his own
stable, and why should he clean that of any other person? After some
debate upon the dirty subject, Mr. Fraser was at last indulged the
privilege to get some fellows to clean the stable. However, he was
obliged to stand a considerable time almost to the ankles in dirt, and
see the dirty service performed. Oh! notable treatment of a king's
lieutenant!
"This singularity of military conduct towards Messrs. Hossack and Fraser
is the more amazing, as none in Great Britain can be more firmly
attached to the present establishment, as settled in the illustrious
House of Hanover, than they are; but whether or not this unaccountable
treatment has thrown a dash of lukewarmness into their zeal, I shall not
take it upon me to determine. Had it been my case, I am afraid my zeal
would have fumed as chill as ice itself.
"The wanton youngsters, in and about Inverness, distinguish these two
gentlemen by the names of the kick provost, and the muck or dirt
provost.
"Several others who were zealous friends to the government were thrown
into jail at the same time with Mr. Hossack. Liberty and property with a
witness! Mere empty sounds without a meaning.
"In the north of Scotland I happened to fall in with a venerable old
gentlemen, an honest Whig, who, looking me seriously in the face, asked
if the Duke of Cumberland was not a Jacobite. 'A Jacobite,' said I; 'How
comes that in your head?' 'Sure,' replied the old gentleman, 'the
warmest zealot in the interests of the Prince could not possibly devise
more proper methods for sowing the seeds of Jacobitism and disaffection
than the Duke of Cumberland did!'"
EXECUTIONS.
Besides the hundreds of victims who were put to death in the north of
Scotland, without form of law, numbers were brought to trial in England
for high treason. Immediately after the battle, the passes to the
Highlands were carefully guarded by troops and militia, and the coasts
vigilantly watched by ships of war, and many prisoners were secured and
lodged in various prisons throughout Scotland. Measures of the utmost
severity were instigated by the Duke of Cumberland on his return to
England. The proceedings took place at St. Margaret's Hill, Southwark,
at Carlisle and at York. With reference to the trials at Carlisle, Mr.
Chambers says:
"About the beginning of August, a herd for such it might be termed
of these ill-fated persons was impelled, like one of their own droves of
cattle, from the Highlands towards Carlisle, where, on being imprisoned,
they were found to amount to no less than three hundred and eighty-
five. To try so many individuals with the certainty of finding almost
all of them guilty, would have looked something like premeditated
massacre, and might have had an effect on the nation very different from
what was intended. It was therefore determined that, while all the
officers and others who had distinguished themselves by zeal in the
insurrection should be tried, the great mass should be permitted to cast
lots, one in twenty to be tried, and the rest to be transported. Several
individuals refused this extrajudicial proffer of grace, and chose
rather to take their chance upon a fair trial."
In all, about eighty persons selected from the condemned, suffered death
the executions taking place at Kensington Common, Carlisle, Brampton,
Penrith, and York. The sufferers of highest rank were Lords Kilmarnock,
Balmerino, and Lovat, and Charles Ratcliffe, taking upon himself the
title of Earl of Derwentwater. These were beheaded, and the composure
and courage with which they met their fate have been frequently recorded
with circumstantial detail. Of the others;
"According to the atrocious treason-law of Edward III., the culprits
were only allowed to hang three minutes (in the later executions the
period was lengthened). Then with life scarcely extinct, their bodies
were placed on a block, disemboweled, and beheaded, the viscera being
thrown into a fire. All these unhappy individuals are said to have
behaved throughout the last trying scene with a degree of decent
firmness which surprised the beholders. Every one of them continued till
his last Moment to justify the cause which brought him to the scaffold;
and some even declared that, if set at liberty, they would act in the
same way as they had done. They all prayed in their last moments for the
exiled Royal family, particularly for Prince Charles, whom they
concurred in representing as a pattern of all 'manly virtues, and as a
person calculated to render the nation happy should it ever have the
good fortune to see him restored." (Chambers).
Acute diseases require sharp remedies, and the public men of that day
are entitled, at the bar of posterity, to the benefit of such plea. The
character of the insurrection, too, was sufficiently formidable to
prompt, at the inspiration of a panic fear a stamping-out policy, which,
however, though as judicious as effective in the treatment of a public
calamity like the cattle plague, must be rigidly judged when applied to
human beings, much more to fellow-countrymen.
"Few probably," Mr. Chambers remarks, "would deny that the late attempt
to disturb a settlement in which the bulk of the nation acquiesced,
called for some exercise of the law's severity; but I would hope that,
in the present age, there are still fewer who can behold unmoved a cruel
death falling as a punish ment upon men, who, so far from being actuated
by the spirit of crime, had been prompted by nearly as high a sense of
duty as the mind of man ever experiences. The conduct of the men
themselves, in their last moments, and the declarations they left behind
them, form a most affecting commentary on the laws which dictate death
and ignominy for offences of mere sentiment and opinion."
TREATMENT OF PRESIDENT FORBES.
"The reader will naturally expect," as remarked by Sir Walter Scott in
the already mentioned Review of the Culloden Papers,
"to hear of the rewards and honours which were showered on President
Forbes, for his admirable conduct during a period so difficult and
dangerous. Of these we learn nothing. But we suspect that the memory of
his services was cancelled by the zeal with which, after the victory, he
pressed the cause of clemency. We have heard that, when this venerable
judge, as well became his station, mentioned the laws of the country, he
was answered, not, as the editor supposes, by the Earl of Albemarle, but
by a personage greater still, 'What laws - By God, I'll make a brigade
give laws to the land!' that his repeated intercessions in favour of
those who, from prejudice of education, or a false sense of honour, had
joined the Chevalier, were taken in bad part; and his desire to preserve
to the Highlanders a dress fitted to their occupations, was almost
construed into disaffection; in fine, that he died broken in spirit by
witnessing the calamities of his country, and impoverished in estate by
the want of that very money which he had, in the hour of need, frankly
advanced to buy troops for the service of Government. But he left behind
him a name endeared, even in those days of strife and bitterness, to
enemies as to friends, and doubly to be honoured by posterity, for that
impartiality which uniformly distinguished between the cause of the
country and political party. By a sort of posthumous ingratitude, the
privilege of distilling, without payment of duty, upon his barony of
Ferintosh, an immunity conferred to compensate his father's losses and
reward his services at the Revolution, and hence termed by Burns, 'Loyal
Forbes's chartered boast,' was wrenched from the family by Government
in 1785, for a most inadequate recompense."
In like terms, Sir Henry Steuart, in the AntiJacobin, thus expresses
himself:
"As to the Lord President Forbes, it deserves to be recorded, to the
honour of that excellent judge and disinterested patriot, that, by his
zeal, his prudence, and his unwearied assiduity, he, beyond question,
saved the Highlands. From his extensive influence among the Highland
chiefs, he was enabled to encourage the loyal, to overawe the timid, and
to confirm the wavering; and, in fact, he generously exhausted an
opulent fortune in the public service. It was owing to his countenance
and timely counsels that the MacDonalds of Skye, the MacLeods of
MacLeod, and many other families, preserved their loyalty, together with
their estates, amidst the dangers and intrigues of a disastrous period.
If Parliament with propriety voted £25,000 of additional annuity to the
Duke of Cumberland for gaming the battle of Culloden, by what measure of
remuneration should it have recompensed the man by whose previous
exertions that victory was achieved, and but for whom. the Pretender
would in all probability have brought into the field a force greatly
superior to the Royal troops? For, from the first day of the Rebellion
to the last, the President's exertions were unremitted, and frequently
successful in stopping the infection of Jacobite principles, and in
usefully strengthening the hands of government. How he was recompensed
may be seen from the following anecdote, which we are desirous should be
preserved in our pages. Although well-known, as we believe, to Mr. Home,
it is not to be found in his book. But it is important in marking the
temper of the times, and the astonishing violence of party spirit.
"When the Lord-President went to London, in the end of the year 1746,
for the purpose of settling his accounts, and recovering the large sums
he had expended in the Royal cause, he, as usual, went to Court. The
King, whose ears had been offended with repeated accounts of the conduct
of the military after the battle of Culloden, thus addressed the
president: 'My Lord President, you are the person I most wished to see.
Shocking reports have been circulated here of barbarities committed by
the army in the north: your Lordship is, of all men, the best able to
satisfy me.' 'I wish to God,' replied the President, with a noble
firmness, 'that I could, consistently with truth, assure your Majesty
that such reports are destitute of foundation!' The King, as was his
custom when exceedingly displeased, turned abruptly away from the
President, whose accounts, next day, were passed with difficulty; and,
as report says, the balance, which was immense, was never fully paid
up."
Bishop Forbes, too, is not far wrong in the remark, that "the liberation
of Rattray and Lauder (two medical officers of the Prince's army) was
the only favour the President ever received for his extraordinary
services." (Lyon, ii. 313).
So ruinous had been the private outlays of the President that, to save
the family estate, his son and successor, John Forbes, on the death of
his father, repaired to Hampstead, where, for the long period of sixteen
years, he lived in retirement, paying off debts incurred by the
President in his efforts to suppress the Rebellion.
PENAL STATUTES.
Several Acts were now passed with the view of suppressing the system of
clanship, and to make it impossible for the Highlanders again to take up
arms against the lawful government of the country. After the Rising of
1715 a disarming Act had been passed; but while obeyed by the Whig
clans, it had been evaded by those favourable to the exiled family. In
1747-8 various important Acts were promulgated which struck at the root
of the authority of the chiefs. One Act enforced that already in
existence for disarming the Highlanders. By another the Highland dress
and the very tartan were proscribed; an enactment which occasioned the
most violent indignation throughout the Highlands. Heritable
jurisdiction and wardholding (of which last military tenure was an
essential) were abolished.
Episcopacy, which had already been marked as the religion of the
Jacobites, was still further discountenanced by additional severe penal
laws, which were not removed till 1792. Ordination, excepting by Bishops
of the English or Irish Church, or deriving their orders from them, was
declared inadequate to qualify for the pastorship in Scotland. All
nonjuring Episcopalian clergymen, officiating to five or more persona,
were made subject to imprisonment; and for repetition of the offence, to
transportation to the American plantations; and the laity were required,
under pain of fine and imprisonment, to give notice of resort to an
illegal Episcopal meeting house. An Act of Indemnity, but excepting
certain individuals, was passed in 1747. The forfeited estates were put
under the charge of Scotch commissioners, and were, after a time,
generously and judiciously restored.
The progress of Scotland since the middle, more particularly towards the
close, of the eighteenth century, has been almost unexampled. It seems
perfectly astonishing, at this time of day, to look back and reflect
what an anomalous state of society had existed within little more than a
century and a half, in a portion of the British islands; such a
segregation of the inhabitants of the different glens and valleys of the
Highlands of Scotland from the rest of the community, and from other
tribes, all living under a peculiar patriarchial system, and ever ready
to take up arms at the bidding of their chiefs. How different now!
Proverbially none of His Majesty's subjects are more peaceful and loyal
than the Highlanders of Scotland, whom the halo of romance, round the
setting rays of the days of other years, invests with an interest in
keeping with the attractions of the varied scenery of their "land of
mountain and flood," which may render this attempt at a compendious
compilation of the story of the Battle of Culloden not altogether labour
misapplied.
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