On the third day after the rebels left Derby, they arrived at Manchester, and proceeded to Preston, without the loss of a single man; though the bridges were broken down, the roads damaged, the beacons lighted to alarm the country, and detachments of horse sent from hoth the royal armies to harass them on their march. They were overtaken, however, at the village of Clifton, near Penrith, by the duke of Cumberland in person, at the head of his cavalry. Lord George Murray, who commanded their rear-guard, composed of the clan of the Macpherson's, the most ferocious of all the Highland tribes, threw himself into the village,in order to obstruct the pursuit; and perceiving that the royal army consisted only of cavalry (for which, instead of their former terror, the Highlanders had acquired a contempt, since the battle of Prestonpans), he sent an express after the main body of the rebels, entreating them to return, and hazard an engagement. No regard was paid to his message, yet he resolved to maintain his post. He accordingly put himself in a posture of defence; repulsed a party of horse; combated for an hour a body of dismounted dragoons; and then, having fully accomplished his purpose, proceeded unmolested to the rendezvous of the pretender at Penrith.

DEC. 18.

On the arrival of lord George Murray, it was deliberated by the rebel chiefs, whether they should prosecute their march, or turn back and give battle to the duke of Cumberland, before he could be joined by his infantry. But it appearing, upon inquiry, that such a junction might be soon formed, and without their knowledge, they continued their retreat to Carlisle. There they drew up their forces, and seemed determined to wait the approach of their pursuers. Understanding, however, that the duke of Cumberland's army had been reinforced by several battalions of foot, and a squadron of horse, from Wade's division, they changed their resolution; and having augmented the garrison of Carlisle, by throwing into the place the Manchester volunteers,

VOL. V.

Y

they

they crossed the river Eden, and passed into Scotland, without losing above fifty men, during their whole expedition, by sickness, fatigue, the sword of the enemy, or leaving one straggler behind them's.

After the action of Clifton, the duke of Cumberland found it necessary to halt, and give his troops, which had been roughly handled, some respite. He was there joined by his infantry: and his whole army advanced to Carlisle, in three columns. The garrison, though ill supplied with engineers, made a shew of resistance; but no sooner were the batteries opened against the place, than the rebels found themselves under the necessity of surrendering at discretion. The prisoners, amounting to about four hundred, were committed to close confinement; and the duke of Cumberland returned to London, where he was received with as much eclat as if he had gained a complete victory; every one supposing that the rebellion was eventually extinguished.

The pre

This, however, was by no means the case. tender's force was yet unbroken; and, if the failure of his expedition into England had discouraged some of his more sanguine followers, his rapid progress and gallant retreat had shed new lustre over his arms. The English jacobites, whom fear alone had withheld from joining him, thinking every moment that his slender band would be crushed, now reproached themselves for their pusillanimity, in not abetting that cause which they loved, and to which their aid might have given the ascendant. In a word, had he been properly supplied with arms, money, and military stores, from France, and with what he wanted no less, a few able engineers and experienced officers, the contest might still have been doubtful whether the house of Stuart or that of Hanover should sit upon the throne of Great-Britain.

But let us leave these political conjectures, and take a view of the state of Scotland, and of the daring adventurer in his course.

15. Id. ibid.

Soon

Soon after the rebels left Edinburgh, general Wade, who commanded in the north of England, sent a body of troops for the protection of that city. The inhabitants of Glasgow raised a regiment for their own defence: other towns followed their example; and all the Argyleshire Highlanders were in arms for the support of government. The people of the south and west of Scotland, animated by the harangues of the presbyterian clergy, and stimulated by their intuitive, or habitual horror against popery and arbitrary power, appeared only to increase in loyalty during the most prosperous fortune of the pretender. Their zeal for the protestant succession, as settled in the family of Brunswick, became warmer in proportion to his success, and the danger to which it seemed exposed; for they paid no regard to his declarations in regard to religion, and very little to those of a civil nature. "Kirk and King!" was the universal cry.

The state of affairs was very different in the north of Scotland. The majority of the people, beyond the river Tay, being chiefly papists, nonjurors, or luke-warm presbyterians, were disposed to favour the re-establishment of the house of Stuart. But many of the leading men were attached to the reigning family by motives of interest, ambition, inclination, and gratitude; and exerted themselves zealously for the support of government. One of the most distinguished of those was Duncan Forbes, of Culloden, lord president of the court of session, a man of extensive knowledge, great talents, engaging manners, and equally respected for his public and private virtues. To him, perhaps, the house of Hanover owes its continuance on the throne of Great-Britain, and we the enjoyment of our happy constitution. He confirmed in their allegiance several chieftains, who began to waver: some he induced, by the force of his arguments, to renounce their former principles, and oppose that cause which they meant to abet; others he persuaded to remain quiet, from prudential considerations. In these views he was warmly seconded by the earl of Lou

don,

don, who commanded the king's forces at Inverness; where he was joined by twelve hundred men, under the earl of Sutherland; by a considerable number, under lord Rae; and, beside the Grants and Monroes, by a body of hardy islanders from Skie, under sir Alexander Macdonald and the laird of Macleod 6.

These advantages, however, were counterbalanced by the prevailing spirit of the people, and the activity of a few rebel leaders. At the head of those stood lord Lewis Gordon; who, though his brother, the duke, was in the interest of government, had been remarkably successful in arming the retainers of the family, as well as in engaging all disaffected persons in the the neighbourhood of Aberdeen. The earl of Cromartie had raised a body of men for the support of the pretender; a considerable sum of money had been received for his use from Spain; and lord John Drummond, brother to the duke of Perth, had landed with a small reinforcement, and with liberal promises of farther assistance, from France.

Encouraged by those flattering appearances, and by the rapid progress of the pretender, lord Lovat, one of the most extraordinary characters in ancient or modern times, who had long temporized, ordered his son to put himself at the head of his clan, and repair to the rendezvous of the rebels at Perth17. He even sent round his whole estate the fierycross,

16. Contin. of Rapin, vol. ix. Smollett, vol. xi.

17. Simon Fraser, lord Lovat, was born with insinuating talents, and exerted his whole force upon mankind through the channel of their vanity. Utterly destitute of principle, and despising veracity as a useless quality, he accommodated all his actions to his immediate interest, and all his words to the deceitful purpose of drawing the credulous into his views. And although his natural address was homely, his personal appearance remarkably forbidding, and his flattery too obvious to escape the observation even of the weak and the vain: it was too strongly applied to be resisted entirely by men of the most moderate tempers, and of the soundest understanding Though his projects were generally formed with little judgment, he was bold and fearless in the execution of them. In 1697, he had entered with an armed band, the house of a woman of quality, seized her person, and ordered the marriage ceremony to be performed, while he endeavoured

cross, or general denunciation of spoil, sword, and fire, made by the Highland chiefs against such of their vassals as should refuse to take arms at their command. Near a thousand Frasers were instantly levied, and the master of Lovat invested fort Augustus. The earl of Loudon marched to the

with the sound of a bag-pipe to drown her cries; and having stripped her naked, by cutting off her stays with his dirk or dagger, he forced her to bed, and consummated the pretended marriage amid the noise and riot of his bar. barous attendants.

Obliged to abandon the kingdom, and declared a rebel and an outlaw for this and other violences, Fraser found means to obtain a pardon from king William; to ingratiate himself with the court of St. Germains, by becoming a cotholic; and was employed by the court of France in attempting to raise a rebellion in Scotland in 1703. For that purpose, he was furnished with proper credentials by the pretender; but instead of making use of those for the restoration of the exiled family, he discovered the whole plot to the English government, and returned to France, in order to procure more full proofs of the guilt of the principal conspirators. His treachery being there discovered, he was thrown into the Bastile, where he remained some months, and must have suffered the punishment due to his crimes, but for his consummate dissimulation. He had the address to make it be believed, that all he had done was for the interest of the pretender; and on his return to GreatBritain, his sufferings in France recommended him not only to the protection but the favour of government,

In 1715, Lovat was highly serviceable to the house of Hanover, by assist ing in the suppression of the rebellion: and becoming afterward a personal favourite of George I. he was nobly rewarded for his loyalty. He even formed the scheme of erecting himself into a kind of viceroy in the Highlands; pretending, that if he had the distribution of twenty-five thousand pounds annually among the heads of the clans, he could effectually prevent all their future insurrections, and draw them insensibly into the interest of the reigning family. Disappointed, however, in his ambitious hopes, and otherwise disgusted with the established government, he again relapsed into jacobitism; and, concluding that the young pretender would be support. ed by a powerful foreign force, he was at no pains to conceal his principles. But when Charles landed without such force, Lovat refused to join him, though he had accepted the office of lord-lieutenant of all the counties north of the Spey. Yet was he industrious in arming his clan; in order, as is supposed to procure a pardon for his treasonous speeches and practices, by throwing his interest into the scale of government, if the unexpected success of the pretender had not induced him to take part in the rebellion. See Stuart's Papers. Lockhart's Mem. Lovat's Trial.