Chapter II: Macleod 294 (7)

‘P.S.—The young man depends very much on the Duke of Argyle’s
interest.

‘To Major Macdonald at London.’

On September 20, 1748, Glengarry wrote from Amiens, telling James that he ‘waited an opportunity of going safely to Britain,’ on his private affairs. In December he asked James to procure for him the colonelcy vacant by the death of Lochiel. Young Lochiel, a boy, had been appointed. James could do nothing, and was too poor to send money. But, on Glengarry’s request, he dispatched ‘a duplicate of your grandfather’s warrant to be a peer’—Lord Macdonnell and Aros. Glengarry often signs ‘Mackdonell,’ without Christian name.[128]

On June 8, 1749, Glengarry explained his circumstances to Cardinal York and to Lismore, James’s agent at Versailles. ‘I shall be obliged to leave this country, if not relieved.’ Presently he went to London, with Leslie, a priest suspected of treachery by the Jacobites.[129] Leslie says, ‘Glengarry did not intend to appear publicly’ in London, ‘but to have advice of some counsellors about an act of the Privy Council against his returning to Great Britain.’ He was so poor that Leslie pledged for him, to Clanranald, a watch of Mrs. Murray’s of Broughton, wife of the notorious traitor. He had already ‘sold his sword and shoe-buckles.’ This must have been the very nadir of his fortunes, and four years later Campbell of Lochnell told Mrs. Archibald Cameron that now, in 1748 or 1749—the lady could not remember which—Glengarry offered his service, ‘in any shape they thought proper,’ to the English Government and Henry Pelham.[130] Without pausing to discuss the value of Mrs. Cameron’s evidence (given on January 25, 1754) we return to what is actually known of Glengarry in 1749. He had left London, probably little the better for his visit. On September 23, 1749, Glengarry wrote to Lismore from Boulogne. He has been in London, by advice of his friends, ‘ces Messieurs croyant que je ne ferai point de difficulté de me conformer aux intentions du Gouvernement, mais étant toujours determine de ne me point égare[r] des principes de mes Ancêtres, ne du devoir que je dois a mon Roy je [de?] me lui tenir, je puis retire [retirais?].’ If not relieved, he must return to England.[131] We know what his protestations of loyalty were worth. We do not know what occurred to Glengarry, in London, at this time.

Starving in July or August 1749, Glengarry appears (according to Æneas Macdonald, the banker) to ‘have plenty of cash’ at the end of the year (December). In October his father had been released from Edinburgh Castle, a point of no evidential importance, as several other gentlemen were also simultaneously set free. His estates were not forfeited, though remonstrances on this head were addressed to the English Government. They exist in the State Papers.

Before Æneas Macdonald met Glengarry in December, and earlier in the winter of 1749, Young Glengarry and Archy Cameron went North, and helped themselves to the Treasure of Cluny, the gold of Loch Arkaig.[132] On January 16, 1750, Glengarry reported his journey to Edgar, and accused Archibald Cameron of taking 6,000 louis d’or, and damping all hearts in the Highlands.[133] Cameron, on his side, appears to have accused Glengarry of obtaining the money by forging a letter from James. James, writing to Charles about Cameron’s charge, leaves a blank for the name (March 17, 1750). But Æneas Macdonald supplies the name of Young Glengarry (October 12, 1751).

That Young Glengarry was concerned in the looting of the treasure in winter, 1749, is certain from his own admission to Charles, corroborated by the confession of Cameron of Glenevis to Colonel Crawfurd, in October 1751. In that confession appears the earliest charge of treachery against Glengarry, who, Cameron vows, must have betrayed him (p. 153). At about the same time (November 30, 1751, February 14, 1752) Holker (of Ogilvie’s French Scots Regiment) and Blair anonymously warned young Edgar against Glengarry. He is a friend of Leslie, ‘an arrant rogue,’ and is ‘known to be in great intimacy with Murray’—of Broughton, the traitor, an acquaintance which is proved by Murray’s own ‘Memorials,’ already cited. Even if we discount Mrs. Cameron’s story, with those of Archy Cameron and Glenevis, as Camerons were at feud with Macdonnells, we have no reason to suspect hostile animus in Young Edgar, Blair and Holker.[134] They remark (February 14, 1752) that ‘Mr. Macdonald of Glengarrie says that he is charged with the affaires of his Majesty,’ in London.

Now, what was, in 1751 the real situation of Young Glengarry? He had left Rome in September 1750. In January 1751 he was in Paris, and wrote to Edgar, asking for money. He was confined to bed by a severe cold.[135] At an uncertain date, probably April 1751, he was residing publicly in London, for he thence announced to Charles his approaching marriage ‘with a lady of a very Honourable and loyall familie in England,’ after which he will repay his share of the Loch Arkaig gold. On this head he has satisfied James. He discloses the embezzlements of Cluny![136] On July 15, 1751, he wrote from London to James, and to Edgar, with political and loyal observations. Yet, in 1751, Glenevis believed, for very good reasons, that Glengarry was already an informer. If the suspicions of Glenevis were correct, Glengarry was an informer in 1751, the date assigned by Pickle to the beginning of his own service is about 1750.

Thus, in 1751, Glengarry was tolerated in London by the English Government, though still professing loyalty to James. As late as October 1754 he had not ‘qualified’ or taken the oaths. He must, therefore, have made his peace with England—otherwise! He had resigned his French commission. Moreover, while his accomplices in the Loch Arkaig affair, the Camerons, were arrested, Glengarry, the ‘unqualified,’ was allowed to go about London, and travel to France and Scotland, though the English Ministry knew that he was at least as guilty as Glenevis and Downan.

The inferences are obvious. Government had a motive for sparing Glengarry. Again, quite apart from the Pickle letters, Glengarry is assuredly betraying one or the other party. To James he poses as an active conspirator. To the English Government he poses as, at least, ‘one peaceable subject,’ for they allow him to live, and love, in London, and to go where he pleases. He was in Edinburgh in April, 1752, and dined with Bishop Forbes. Later, he seems to have gone to Lochaber, which Government knew, from an Informer.

We now come to the Elibank Plot, to kidnap the Royal Family. It flickered from November 1752 to summer, 1753. Glengarry, writing from Arras on April 5, 1753, gives Edgar, James’s secretary, a veiled account of the affair. ‘The day was fixt,’ on, or for, November 10, 1752, but the English shuffled, and did not act. ‘The concert in Novr. was,’ says Glengarry, ‘that I was to remain in London, as I had above four hundred Brave Highlanders ready at my call, and, after matters had broke out there to sett off directly for Scotland, as no raising would be made amongst the Clans without my presence.’[137] He then alludes to ‘my leate illness at Paris,’ which has left him ‘still very weake’—a phrase used at the same time by Pickle.

Now the Pickle letters begin on November 2, 1752, and Pickle speaks of himself, to his English employers, in precisely the same terms as Glengarry uses about himself when writing to Edgar. Pickle says that, among his Jacobite friends, he explains his supplies of English money as remittances from ‘Baron Kenady.’ Now, in Lord Advocate Craigie’s letters of 1745,[138] we read ‘in most things Young Glengarry is advised and directed by Baron Kennedy,’ a Baron of the Scottish Exchequer. Thus, if Pickle is Glengarry, he would naturally represent his chief adviser, Baron Kennedy, as the source of his supplies. He announces (Boulogne, November 2, 1752) ‘you’l soon hear of a hurly burly,’ and he must make a long journey, first to Paris, then South, as he writes on November 4 to Henry Pelham.[139] The hurly burly is the Elibank Plot. ‘I will see my friend’ (Henry Pelham) ‘or that can happen.’ To Pelham he says, ‘I will lay before you _in person_ all I can learn.’ Pelham knew Pickle _personally_, and could not be deceived as to his identity, as to his being a Chief, as he represented himself. In December 1752 Pickle, in London, informed against Archibald Cameron and Lochgarry, whom Charles had sent to Scotland, also against Fassifern and Glenevegh (Glenevis) as agents for Charles with the Southern Jacobites. Pickle has seen Charles, and, in town, Lord Elibank, who ‘surprised me to the greatest degree by telling me that all was put off for some time.’ He has promised Charles ‘to write nothing to Rome,’ which Glengarry actually did, in April 1753. In later letters to his English employers, Pickle speaks much of a severe illness, at Paris, which ‘nearly tripped up his hiells,’ and left him, like Glengarry at the same date, ‘very weake.’ He had caught a cold, with a relapse at the masked ball of the Lundi Gras, where he met the Prince. ‘They now believe Pickle could have a number of Highlanders even in London to follow him.’ Nothing can be transacted in the Highlands without his knowledge, as his Clan must begin the play.’[140] The scheme is a night attack on the Palace of St. James’s. Pickle has often discussed it with his friend, the Earl Marischal, Frederick’s ambassador to the French Court.[141]

Here, then, are the following points shared in common by Pickle and Glengarry. (1.) Both in November 1752 are engaged in a deep Jacobite Plot. (2.) Both are expected to lead a force of Highlanders, ‘even in London.’ (3.) No rising can take place among the Clans without each of them. (4.) Both are in correspondence with Rome. (5.) Both suffer from a severe illness at the same time, and are left very ‘weake’. (6.) Both are friends of Baron Kennedy. (7.) Both frequently visit the Earl Marischal in Paris.

That Glengarry visited the Earl in 1753 I cannot prove by independent evidence. But I can show, by independent evidence, that he, as well as (by his own statement) Pickle, did so at an approximate date. Glengarry had known the Earl since 1744. Here is another spy’s undated testimony (1752-1754) to Glengarry’s familiarity with the Earl Marischal in Paris, about this date, when Pickle haunts the old exile.[142]

‘Macdonald of Glengarry, goes by the first of these names, lives at a _Baigneur’s_ in the _Rue Guenegaud_, and keeps one Servant out of Livery, and two in Livery. When he first came to Paris he kept a _Carosse de Remise_ by the month, but now only hires one occasionally to make his visits, which are chiefly to

Lord Ogilvie

Mr. Ratcliffe

Mrs. Carryl of Sussex

Mrs. Hamilton (Lord Abercorn’s Cousin who has changed her Religion and lives with Mrs. Carryl)

The 3 Messrs. Hayes (who are cousins and lodge at the _Hotel de Transylvanie, Rue Conde_)

Macloud } at Roisins, a Coffee House in the Rue Vaugirard
Fitzgerald }

Lord Pittenweemys, the Earl of Kelly’s Son, at the _Hotel d’Angleterre, Rue Tarrane_

Sir James Cockburn, at the _Caffe de la Paix_, in the _Rue Tarane_.

Lord Hallardy } at a _Baigneur’s_ on the Estrapade where
Mr. Gordon } they keep themselves conceal’d,
Mr. Mercer }
L. Cromarty }

Frequently to the Jesuits’ College.

‘_And never fails going to Lord Marshal_, whose Coach is often lent him when he has none of his own.

‘N.B.—Tuesday 9th. Janry. Macdonald waited in his own Coach from ten o’clock at night till past eleven, in the _Rue Dauphine_, when a Person took him up in a Chariot, who, by the description, is believed to be Lord Marshal. It is about that time that the Pretender’s Son is suppos’d to have been in Paris.’

Thus Glengarry undeniably frequented the old Earl Marischal, no less than Pickle did, and the English Government knew it. Yet they did not arrest him, as they arrested Glenevis, Downan, Fassifern, Archy Cameron, and tried to arrest Lochgarry, on all of whom Pickle had informed. Moreover Glengarry, in Paris, is not starving, but has a servant out of livery, and two in livery, keeps or hires a carriage, or uses that of the Earl Marischal.

I respectfully submit that these seven common notes of Pickle and of Glengarry cannot possibly be explained, except on one of two hypotheses. Either Pickle is Glengarry, or he is audaciously personating Glengarry, not only by letter, but bodily. For he promises to visit Henry Pelham ‘in person,’ and Henry Pelham, with the English officials and police, cannot but have known the aspect of Glengarry, a man who, for twenty-two months, was an important state prisoner in the Tower, and had, later, lived openly in London, though, as we shall see, under surveillance.

That point I prove thus: on August 12, 1753, Charles, in hiding at Liège, and elsewhere in the Netherlands, desired, as he notes in a draft, an interview ‘with G.’[143] In August, or September, 1753, Pickle sent in accounts of his interview with Charles, in whose company he had travelled from Ternan to Paris. The Prince asked Pickle to allow arms to be landed on his estate, which Pickle refused, ‘nobody knowing as yet in what manner the forfeited estates would be settled.’[144] Pickle himself is now in England.

Now we know, from a report in the State Papers, that, in 1753, the English Government received intelligence from a spy on Glengarry. ‘Mr. McDonald of Glengarry has been several times in France within these three weeks, and is suspected to be an agent for the Young Pretender, who, it is believed, has been lately in Paris, incog. N.B.—The above-mentioned Mr. McDonald lodges at the second House on the right hand side of the way in Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, and is a young, fair, full-made man.’[145]

Thus, just when Charles wishes to meet ‘G,’ Glengarry is coming and going from France to England, suspected by a spy to be a Jacobite agent, while Pickle is reporting to the English Government on his own simultaneous journeys and interviews with the Prince. Yet the English Government, though independently informed of Glengarry’s movements, and his familiarity with the Earl Marischal (whom they know to be intriguing for the Jacobites with Prussia), arrest Clanranald, arrest Fassifern, but never touch Glengarry!

This is not the limit of their favours. Far from incommoding Glengarry, Henry Pelham promises that Government will remit all their large claims on his estate. For this, as least, we have Glengarry’s written word, as has been shown already in ‘The Last Days of Glengarry.’[146]

The Celtic believers in Glengarry’s innocence may explain why, when Pelham was arresting Jacobites all over Scotland, in 1753, he not only allowed Glengarry, who had not ‘qualified,’ and against whom he had copious information, to go free, but also ‘promised an absolute discharge of the heavie claims the Government has against me.’ He made similar promises to Pickle, who complains of their non-fulfilment. And, on the hypothesis of Glengarry’s guilt, his motive is now transparent. In addition to payments of ready money, sorely needed, his estates escaped forfeiture, _and he was promised remission of the fines_. These facts, of course, were unknown before I had access to Glengarry’s MS. Letter Book. My hypothesis colligates the new facts as well as the old, which is the note of a good working hypothesis.

To the seven common points between Pickle and Glengarry, in 1752-53, we now add an eighth: both have been disappointed by Henry Pelham’s promises, broken after his death. Such coincidences cannot be fortuitous, and Glengarry’s friends must explain why he, a known Jacobite agent, was so endeared to Henry Pelham.

At this time, the autumn of 1753, James Mohr Macgregor made his absurd ‘revelations,’ about an Irish plot to invade Scotland. He, his chief, Balhaldie, and a Mr. Trant, were particularly concerned. Government had also news, from Pickle, Count Kaunitz, and other sources, of Frederick’s tampering with the Jacobites, through the Earl Marischal, the friend both of Pickle and of Glengarry. It would have been natural to arrest and examine Glengarry, who, as Government knew, was a familiar friend of the Earl Marischal. In place of doing that—they consulted Pickle! The Duke of Newcastle wrote a paper of Memoranda, proving his agitation, and making a note that Henry Pelham should collogue with ‘the person from whom he sometimes receives information.’[147] That person was Pickle.

Here are Pickle’s answers!

(_Private intelligences concerning some particular persons._)

‘He says Mr. Trent told him there was a Collection already made
for the Pretender of about £40,000, and that his friends here
said he should [not] want for money, tho’ it were £200,000.

‘Mr. Trent and he were very familiar formerly, but as he is
here grown a great man, he does not see so much of him. Trent
is not gone, but is expected to go every day. This Mr. Trent is
son of Olive Trent [once mistress of the Regent d’Orléans, and
complained of by Bolingbroke].

‘He does not know, nor believe, any one has come from Lord
Marshal hither lately with authority. He is sure no Arms have
come to Scotland this year, if there had, he must have known
it. [James Mohr said arms had come.] He says Sullivan’s Brother
has been twice at Rome lately, but does not know his errand.

‘Bohaldie [James Mohr’s Chief] was an Agent of the Pretender
with the late Lord Temple (Sempil?), but the Irish got him
turnd off, and he is sure Lord Marshal would never trust him,
because he will never believe him. [James Mohr had alleged that
the Earl was engaged with Balhaldie.]

‘_MacGregor was a Spy of both sides, and will never be trusted._

‘When he [Macgregor] escaped to Bulloigne he was very poor, but
Lord Strathallan etc took compassion upon him, and he knows the
Old Pretender sent him £20.’

This report damaged poor James Mohr; he was dismissed, and, in a few months, died a destitute exile. General Stewart of Garth claims our sympathy for James, who ‘rejected an employment which he considered dishonourable in itself, and detrimental to the good of his country.’[148] Alas! his employers rejected James!

We now reach the crucial point of the hypothesis that Pickle _personated_ Glengarry. ‘Whoever Pickle was, it was clearly his intention to personate Glengarry,’ says Mr. A. H. Millar.[149] Now on this point, I need scarcely recapitulate what is said at the beginning of this chapter. On September 14, 1754, we find the bereaved Pickle, an orphan now, but also a Chief, by his father’s death, in Edinburgh with Young Lochgarry, who cannot but have known Young Glengarry, his Chief. For this presence of the orphan in Edinburgh, we have not only his written word, but that of Bruce (‘Cromwell’), the ‘Court Trusty’ who accompanied him. We have his testimony to Pickle’s enhanced pride. He it is who tells us how ‘the Army people make up to Pickle, thinking to make something of him,’ how General Bland (unconscious of guile) suspects _him_, as a friend of Pickle’s; how Pickle is going North, to his estates, and how the Governor of Fort Augustus, hard by, is ‘to try his hand upon Pickle.’[150]

All this Pickle himself confirms, in two letters of one of which only the briefest analysis has hitherto been given.[151] But these dull confirmatory letters may be relegated to an appendix. Briefly, we learn from his letters how Pickle has hurried to Edinburgh, for some reason of his own, on the news of a death which coincides with that of Old Glengarry. Coincidently, too, Pickle’s family affairs are in great disorder. He writes again from Edinburgh (October 10, 1754), and this letter is in his feigned hand.[152] In his second epistle from Edinburgh Pickle confirms all that Bruce, the Court Trusty, has said about his approaching journey North, whence Colonel Trapaud, Governor of Fort Augustus, gives a bad account of Glengarry as swindling his wadsetters.[153] Pickle also confirms Bruce’s account of the jealousy of General Bland.

That Young Glengarry, as well as Pickle, was a week’s distance from town after his father’s death (September 1, 1754) I now confirm by the following letter to himself, where he is supposed to be interested in Old Lochgarry. It is probably from the Major Macdonald who, while he was a prisoner in 1747, persuaded him to conform to the English Government.

‘London: Sept. 12, 1754.

‘My dear Cuss,—I have duely received the Honour of yours of 3d
current. I must own that the melancholly news [Old Glengarry’s
death] gave me an inexpressible shock, the only thing that
abates my greife is that my dear late friend is so well
represented in your dear person. I pray that all the powers
above may combine to make you shine even above your noble
Ancestors. I hope that Hevon will long preserve and prosper
you for the protection of a poor name that seems at present in
a very tottering and abject condition; No doubt this accident
will naturally retard your coming to this place [London] yet I
can’t think otherwise than that your interest calls you hither
has soon you may have settled your domestique concerns.

‘I have a line from Samer [probably St. Omer] by which I
understand that the whole Coy [Corps?] seem’d determined to
get ride of Loch[garry] at all events surely he’s a most
incorrigible man, and if a certain person [the Prince] does not
interpose he must fall a sacrafice to his enemies’ resentment
and to his own folly. Mrs. Macdonald and the young folks join
in compliments, our friendes of Crevan street salute you, and I
ever am, My dear Cous,

‘Yours whilst J. M.

‘London: Sept. 12, 1754.

‘I did not receive your note dated wednesday till Thursday 12
o’clock.’[154]

Thus, all Pickle’s movements at this solemn hour of Old Glengarry’s decease tally with those of Young Glengarry. Pickle is adulated by the army people, and goes North to his estates near Fort Augustus, whence the Governor reports on—Glengarry.

Can Pickle, then, while Glengarry is in Scotland, after his father’s death, be posing in Edinburgh as himself a young, newly orphaned chief, going to his lands near Fort Augustus; personating Glengarry, in fact—for no other Chief had just lost his father?

Mr. Millar says: ‘Whoever Pickle was, it was clearly his intention to personate Glengarry.... It is hardly possible to imagine that an impostor could have deceived the Edinburgh folks, to whom Glengarry must have been well known,’ and whom, hurrying to his father’s funeral, and to arrange his affairs, he must just have visited, for Old Glengarry died in Edinburgh. I venture to call such an impersonation a physical impossibility, prolonged, as it was, for some six weeks. It is _physically impossible_ that, both in London and Edinburgh, many men who knew Young Glengarry should have supposed another person—Pickle—to be that hero. Yet, if the personation was played off, it was not discovered, then or later; for Pickle continued to be the informer, and to be the shadow of Glengarry. As soon as it is admitted that Pickle is feigning to be Glengarry, the case for that Chief’s innocence is given up. The personation, among people who knew Glengarry intimately well, is _impossible_.

Pickle’s day of usefulness had gone by. On April 24, 1755, an official gave in a report of a conversation with the Chief, ‘the head of a great Clan of his name,’ who wanted money.[155] In April 1756 Pickle again came to London, and dunned the Duke of Newcastle: ‘not the smalest article has been perform’d, of what was expected and at first promised. I am certain my first friend’ (Pelham) ‘mentioned me to the King....’[156] In an undated letter he speaks of being on an ‘utstation’ in the Highlands, and talks of Glengarry in the third person.[157] He tells of Glengarry’s greatness, of Jacobite overtures to him, and repeats his usual fond demands.

In 1758, 1759, we know, from his own letters, that Glengarry was eager to go to London, to make terms about the fines on his estate. But Macleod would not back his bill for 400_l._ On February 19, 1760, Pickle wrote the last letter to Newcastle extant in the Pelham Papers. He speaks of Pickle in the third person, but he writes in Pickle’s hand. Pickle wants to give information; Pickle wishes to raise a regiment (and so did Glengarry), if he gets ‘the Rank of full Colonel, the nomenation of his Officers, and suitable levie money:’ also ‘a bill payable at sight’ for travelling expenses. He ends, ‘Mack mention of _Pickle_. His Majesty will remember Mr. Pelham did, upon former affairs of great consequence. Direction—_To Alexander Mackdonell of Glengary, by Foraugustus_.’[158]

A reply from Newcastle directed to Glengarry would be opened by Glengarry, and then, if Glengarry did not write Pickle’s epistle of February 19, 1760, where is Pickle? Mr. Millar suggests that, ‘if Pickle were a traitor in Glengarry’s family, he must have been in a position to intercept the reply to this letter, or the whole plot would have been exposed.’ This is a romantic hypothesis. There is no trace of any gentleman (such as Pickle was) eternally in attendance on Glengarry. And why did the hypothetical traitor offer to raise a regiment, which only Glengarry could do? There is no conceivable motive for writing such a letter on the part of any one but Glengarry, who was terribly pressed for money, and could raise a regiment. Besides, the physical impossibility of Pickle’s supposed personation has already been demonstrated. Glengarry, who had long been in very bad health, died on December 23, 1761. The nature of his will has been explained.

The internal evidence of identity in the authorship of Pickle’s and Glengarry’s letters remains to be considered. Both write the same shambling style. In an age of bad spelling both have a long list of blunders in common. I give a few:—

1. aquent acquaint.

2. estime esteem.

3. tow two.

4. dow do.

5. sow so.

6. triffle trifle.

7. { jant } jaunt.
{ chant }

8. { utquarters out quarters.
{ utstation out station.

9. pick pique.

10. { Foraugustus } Fort Augustus.
{ forAugustus }

11. how who.

12. lick like.

13. supplay supply.

14. relay rely.

15. puish push.

Of these, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14 occur, sporadically, in other Scotch writers of the age, as in the Gask Correspondence. Pickle combines them all. But I have not elsewhere met 7, 8, 9, 10, 15. ‘How’ for ‘who’ (11) I have met in Macleod of Raasay’s letters in the ‘Lyon in Mourning,’ and in one letter of 1725, while ‘howse’ for ‘whose’ occurs in a Scotch epistle in the Cumberland MSS. The _accumulation_ of these fifteen mis-spellings is the common note of the orthography of Pickle and of Glengarry. It constitutes a note of identity of authorship.

But, believers in personation may say, ‘Pickle had carefully studied and adroitly copied Glengarry’s orthography, as, _ex hypothesi_, he wished to pass for that Chief.’

Then why did he not also imitate Glengarry’s handwriting?

Glengarry wrote two hands; one is a sprawling scrawl, sloped much to the right, in his rough drafts of letters, preserved in his Letter Book; the other is merely the same hand written smaller, closer, not so sloped, in his letters, for example, to James and Edgar. The Windsor Letters, the neater and more careful, I could not compare with those of Pickle at the British Museum. But I took Glengarry’s Letter Book, or folio of scrawled drafts, thither, and Mr. Millar (author of the criticism in the _Scottish Review_) kindly compared the two sets of documents, he having much experience in such studies. I append what is essential in his report, contributed to the _Dundee Advertiser_ of April 28, 1897.

‘Mr. Lang has come into possession of much new evidence upon
the subject. Amongst other documents he has the Letter-book
in which Glengarry frequently copied his letters with his own
hand and signed them. This book comes from an unchallengeable
source. By Mr. Lang’s invitation I had to-day the pleasure of
comparing the handwriting of Glengarry in this book with the
Pickle letters in the British Museum. At the first glance one
would say that the manuscripts are so unlike superficially
that they were not both written by the same person. Glengarry
wrote a wide, sprawling hand, with a very distinct slope
towards the right. The Pickle letters are all written in
the vertical style, and the lines are small and neat. When
examined more closely, however, there is a striking similarity
in the details. Having selected Pickle letters that contained
similar words to those in the Letter-book, I have made a
careful comparison of them minutely. It is beyond question
that whoever Pickle was he wrote in a feigned handwriting to
prevent identification should any letter miscarry. If Glengarry
wished to feign another hand than his own, the most obvious
way of effecting his purpose would be to change the sloping
style into the upright style. When Pickle wished to disguise
his hand he used the upright style. There are several letters
which Glengarry wrote in a very peculiar manner. The capital
letter “T,” for instance, was distinctly Glengarrian. But
the capital “T” written repeatedly by Pickle is absolutely
identical with that used in the Glengarry book. Such words as
“most,” “humble,” “Sir,” “I,” and “Tho’” are precisely the same
in form in both cases, the only difference being the change of
the slope. There is only one curious fact which comes out after
careful examination. When Glengarry is writing adjectives that
begin with the letter “d” he generally uses a capital. Tickle
never does this, but uses the small “d” instead, yet that small
“d” is exactly similar in form to the same letter written by
Glengarry. This is certainly minute criticism, and might not
be sufficient alone to establish the case against Glengarry;
but when the other fact is borne in mind, that Pickle and
Glengarry make the same errors in the spelling of uncommon
words, the confirmatory proof is very strong. It is not likely
that any letter exists in which Glengarry fully acknowledges
his treachery, and the main evidence must therefore be
circumstantial. If Mr. Lang had now to begin writing his book
with all the additional evidence before him which he has
obtained since its publication, he would probably find few
who would dissent from his conclusion that Pickle the Spy
was no other than Alastair Macdonnell of Glengarry. There may
be coincidences in events in the lives of two men; but it is
incredible that Pickle, when disguising his handwriting, should
fall into the same formation of many of the letters which was
peculiar to Macdonnell of Glengarry. Though begun upon a mere
surmise by Mr. Lang, extended research seems to confirm his
notion as to the identity of these two personages. It is not
a pleasant conclusion for any one who believes that all the
Highlanders engaged in the Rising of 1745 were indomitable and
patriotic heroes. There were blacklegs in the army of Prince
Charles Edward, as there are in every movement of the kind; but
there were also noble characters prepared to shed their blood
and sacrifice their prospects in support of what they believed
to be the rightful cause. Glengarry, apparently, must now take
his place among the execrated traitors.—I am, &c.

‘A. H. MILLAR.

‘London: April 26, 1897.’

I am no expert in handwriting, and I offer no opinion, except that Pickle’s confessedly feigned hand is more like Glengarry’s careful hand, in the Stuart Papers, than like his sloping scrawl, meant only for his own eyes (and these nearly blind) in his Letter Book. The Duke of Atholl has compared letters from Glengarry, in his possession, with those of Pickle, and has arrived at the same conclusion as Mr. Millar. Pickle’s hand is Glengarry’s, disguised.

Such is my chain of evidence towards proving the personal identity of Pickle and Glengarry. Both men, it is hardly worth while to add, had been officers in French service. I am aware of not one discrepant feature to discredit the identity which Pickle practically asserts, when he declares himself (corroborated by Bruce) to have become, by his father’s death, Chief of the Macdonnells, just when Old Glengarry died, and Young Glengarry succeeded to the headship of the clan. To sum up the whole case:

Young Glengarry’s conduct, as far as we know, is stainless, till, after endeavouring to ‘conform’ in October 1747, he presently poses as a religiously faithful subject, or devotee, of James in January 1748. He is starving in London, which he visits in July 1749, his father being soon after released from Edinburgh Castle. Young Glengarry, in the winter of 1749, visits Cluny at Dalwhinnie, in company with Glenevis, Lochgarry, and Angus MacIan. Glengarry obtains, by his own admission, a share of the treasure, and then formally charges Archy Cameron with looting 6,000 _louis d’or_. Archy accuses him of forgery; they carry their quarrel before James in Rome. Early in 1751 Glengarry, though he is not known to have taken the oaths, is allowed to reside in London, and announces his approaching marriage with an English lady. But Glengarry is already suspected, and he knows it; for when Leslie, the priest, is charged with treason by the Jacobites, Glengarry says that the blow is aimed at _him_. Nothing is proved against Leslie, but stories of Glengarry’s intimacy with Murray the traitor, and the spy Samuel Cameron, called Crookshanks, are anonymously brought by Blair and Holker. In October 1751 Samuel’s brother, Glenevis and Downan, arrested for their share with Glengarry in the matter of the French gold, accuse Glengarry of informing against them. They lie in gaol in Fort William; Glengarry (though the Government know him to be their accomplice) lives freely in London, and travels where he pleases.

In November 1752, April 1753, we have the affair of the Elibank Plot. On one side is Pickle, who is to lead Highlanders in London; Pickle, without whom his clan, and the North, can do nothing; Pickle, a friend of Prince Charles, and a correspondent of the exiled King in Rome; Pickle, who is ‘very weake’ after a serious illness in Paris (February-March, 1753); Pickle, the constant associate of the Earl Marischal; and on the other side is Glengarry, who claims every one of these notes for himself. Both Pickle and Glengarry are friends of Baron Kennedy’s. Glengarry is known to Government to be a trafficker with France, and with the dreaded envoy of Prussia, the Earl Marischal, but Government consults Pickle in place of arresting Glengarry. Pickle has had great promises made to him by his employer, Henry Pelham, so has Glengarry. Both complain of the breach of these promises after Pelham’s death. Pickle comes and goes to Prince Charles in France in August 1753. Glengarry is accused, to Government, of visiting France at the same time as a Jacobite agent. Jacobites are being arrested all over the country, but not a finger is laid on Glengarry.

Pickle and Glengarry both leave London for Edinburgh on the news of Old Glengarry’s death, both are then bereaved young chiefs going to their northern estates near Fort Augustus. In this capacity Pickle, for some six weeks, is the centre of military attention in Edinburgh. Pickle wishes Bruce to assist him in drawing up a judicial rent-roll. Bruce surveys the lands of Glengarry. Pickle now, like Glengarry, remains in the North, where both are magnates, but both are poor. Pickle offers to raise a Highland regiment, and asks the Duke of Newcastle to direct his answer to Glengarry. The spelling of Pickle and Glengarry is identical in a score of peculiarities, and Pickle’s handwriting is that of Glengarry in a simple disguise.

What makes Pickle’s design to raise a regiment especially interesting is the fact, now to be proved, that _Glengarry entertained the same wish at the same moment_. He wrote to the Duke of Atholl to that effect, on April 5, 1760, and his letters are printed in the Duke of Atholl’s ‘Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine Families’ (iii. 476-477). Thus Pickle and Glengarry were inseparable to the last.

Whoever is unconvinced by this array of circumstantial evidence against Glengarry must, at least, suggest an alternative hypothesis which will colligate the facts. The hypothesis of a personation of Glengarry by Pickle has been proved absurd and impossible. Recent research, after the publication of ‘Pickle the Spy,’ has added to the original evidence proof of Glengarry’s insincerity as a Jacobite; the Glenevis affair; the promises made to Glengarry, as to Pickle, by Henry Pelham; the identification of ‘Cromwell’ (Bruce); the relations of Glengarry with Pickle’s friend, Baron Kennedy; a few new similarities of Pickle-Glengarry spelling; the identity of their handwriting; and their simultaneous desire to raise a regiment. All these facts confirm the previous conclusion. A false hypothesis is not apt to be strongly confirmed by facts unknown when it was framed, nor would a jury regard the charge against Glengarry as ‘without any proof in the world.’ To say so, as has been audaciously done, is to illustrate prejudice, not to enlighten criticism. In truth, the game was up as soon as the person calling himself Pickle offered to raise a clan regiment, and asked the Duke of Newcastle to reply to Glengarry. More than one interpretation of that fact there could not logically be. But what is logic? A Lowland pedantry!

XII

OLD TIMES AND NEW

Some years ago, when fishing in Loch Awe, I found a boatman, out of Badenoch, who was a charming companion. It may be the experience of others also that an English keeper usually confines his conversation, at least with strangers, to the business in hand, whereas a Scottish or Highland attendant will talk about Darwinism, Mr. Herbert Spencer, history, legend, psychical research, religion, everything. The boatman had a store of legends, and one day we fell to conversing on the old times, in the Highlands, and the new. He voted for the old. Among the advantages, he mentioned the game; and then, with sparkling eyes, the plunder! Property, of old, had been _les vaches d’autrui_, the cattle of Lowlanders and of other clans.

Often, since that day, one has reflected on the old times and the new. The old were not wholly what is supposed. Thus Mr. Mackenzie, in his ‘History of the Camerons,’ contrasts the manly sport of the past with the modern driving up of deer to be shot down by ‘drawing-room’ gunners. Stalking is more common now, but the drawing-room way was the old way! ‘The tenants drive everything before them, while the laird and his friends are waiting with their guns to shoot the deer.’ So writes Burt, between 1726 and 1740. ‘When the chief would have a deer only for his household,’ he does not stalk it himself; ‘the gamekeeper and one or two others are sent into the hills, ... where they often lie night after night to wait an opportunity of providing venison for the family.’[159]

I have seen in the Highlands heart-breaking destitution. I have seen an old shivering woman gathering nettles for food near Tobermory. On one side of a river I have seen scantily clad girls hanging about listless, in the rain, beside hovels more like the nests of birds than human habitations. On the other side of the water were comfortable cottages and thriving crops. The former was the Protestant, the latter the Catholic side of the stream, which the Reformation did not cross. In the bleak cold of June, on Haladale, I have said, ‘Who would stay here that could go away?’ The gillie observed that he had been in America, running the blockade, but he vastly preferred Haladale. He numbered his horses and kine; he was a man of substance. But, poverty for poverty, give me nettles and shell-fish in the North, before fried fish (and too little of that) in the New Cut.

Moved by the extreme wretchedness in which some Highland cotters seem to live, by the cry of ‘congested districts,’ by the laments of the evicted, and by the belief in ‘good old times’ behind the Forty-five, a Lowland observer naturally asks himself if the old times were really so good? In one respect, and that essential, they bear the palm: the people, as a rule, loved and revered their Chiefs, and the Chiefs adopted at least the airs of popularity among the people. Even Young Glengarry, not a model Chief, resented the oppression of tenants falsely accused, as he maintained, of being deserters.[160] Moreover, the poor did not live, generally speaking, in view of the luxurious rich. Clanranald and Glengarry had castles which must have been built at the expense of the undefined ‘services’ of their people long ago; but the warrior Glengarry of Killiecrankie discouraged refinement and delicacy of living. The smaller lairds lived plainly, even poorly. Occasional feasts were given to the Clan. Every man ‘was treated as a blood relation.’ Consequently, if destitution existed, it did not provoke social hatred and discontent. This, at least, is quite certain.

On the other hand, the presence of extreme poverty, of famines, by no means rare, of exactions which Lowlanders considered tyrannical, and the occurrence of evictions, before 1745, seem equally well established. Ignorance was one safeguard against discontent, and in the absence of schools, in the rarity of the Presbyterian clergy, with their innate democratic ideas, ignorance flourished. Over-population was encouraged, by minute subdivision of lands, for the purpose of increasing the Chief’s military following. Thus poverty was artificially fostered, and, with it, idleness and habits of plunder and of tippling.

This little picture of a Highland home is given in a book of 1747:[161] ‘I have seen in their Huts, when I have been walking, and forced to retreat thither for Shelter from the Rain, their Children, sometimes many in a Hut, full of the Small Pox and [at?] their Heighth, they having been lying and walking about in the Wet and Dirt, the Rain at the same time beating through the Thatch with Violence; so that I used to get from one End of the House to the other to keep dry; but it was all in vain, the Rain soon following me. These children at the same time seemed hearty, drinking Whey and Butter-milk, Wet and Cold with the Inclemency of the weather, and yet so well!’

This sketch was drawn somewhere in the country between Inverness and Fort William, after Culloden.

The raising of the early Highland regiments (1756-62) relieved the population, but also diffused knowledge, while the Chiefs’ power, as sanctioned by law, was destroyed. The soldiers, who had seen the New World, whether gentry and officers or privates, did not incline to stay at home when rents were raised. They emigrated to America, almost by clans, in years of famine, as in 1782. The Chiefs were alarmed and indignant; they were also needy. They screwed up rents, introduced sheep, moved populations to the coast, or evicted them. Voluntary emigration (the wisest policy) was succeeded by the removal of clansmen who were reluctant to go, or who could not afford to go, their poor goods not being marketable. Many even sold themselves into voluntary slavery for their passage fare.

Some chiefs became opulent for a generation; their families were ruined by their following of George, Prince Regent; their estates fell into English hands, and forests were made at the expense of new evictions.

This is a brief and gloomy account of what followed Culloden. An example may be given in the case of the great Glengarry family.

On the death of Glengarry, in 1761, his affairs were found, as was natural, in a lamentable condition. To study them and the later changes on his estate is to gain a view into the heart of Highland grievances. Fortunately materials for this examination exist, and have been published by Mr. Fraser Mackintosh in his ‘Antiquarian Notes’ (1897).

Perhaps it may be best to begin by giving a brief account of the way in which such estates as Glengarry’s were usually occupied by the clansmen. The Chief let to tacksmen, or leaseholders, gentlemen of his clan, part of the lands which he did not hold in his own hand. Part of his ‘tack,’ again, the tacksman cultivated; part he let out to cotters, ‘under which general term may be included various local denominations of _crofters_, mailers, &c.... Frequently they have the command only of a small share of their own time to cultivate the land allowed them for maintaining their families. Sometimes the Tacksman allows a portion of his own tillage field for his cotter; sometimes a small separate croft is laid off for him, and he is likewise allowed, in general, to pasture a cow, or perhaps two.’[162]

‘The Tacks,’ says Dr. Johnson, ‘were long considered as hereditary,’ but, in his time, strangers would make larger offers, and the hereditary tacksman was apt to be dispossessed, with cotters, crofters, and all. As to the tyrannical and oppressive conduct of the tacksmen, much will be reported later. According to Young Barisdale’s plea (1754), Old Barisdale held possession, from Glengarry, without a line of written paper. The tacksmen, in war, were officers of the Clan regiment, and led, or drove, the tenants to the field.

Apart from tacksmen and their cotters, were ‘small tenants’ holding direct from the Chief. They usually occupied, in townships, a farm in common: the shares may once have been equal, but, by 1738, one man might hold a fourth, another but a fifteenth. They dwelt in a hamlet near the arable crofts, of which the division might vary from year to year. They had also grazing, and, money being very scarce, their chief wealth was their cattle. Interest and part principal of his patrimony were paid, in cattle, to Glengarry’s younger brother Æneas.[163] Cotters, who acted as labourers, were scattered among the little communities of small tenants. Rents were mostly paid in kind, and in ‘services,’ little money passed.

Another system was that of ‘wadsets.’ A chief simply _pawned_ a farm to a clansman, say Glengarry to Lochgarry, for a certain period, and for a certain sum of money. When he repaid the money, he recovered the farm. The wadsetter might build and improve, but no money was returned on redemption. The wadsetter sublet to tenants of either class, and either he or the Chief might make the better thing of the bargain. There were many poor wadsetters on a small scale. Colonel Trapaud accuses Glengarry of bullying his small wadsetters in Knoydart out of their wadsetts, and making them ‘accept of common interest.’[164] ‘The principal wadsetters refused, on which he ordered them out of his presence.’

Such was the system of a Highland estate; of its working more will be said later. On Glengarry’s death, his heir was his nephew, Duncan, a minor: Glengarry and the boy’s mother had been on the worst terms. In actual money, Glengarry’s rents, at the day of his death, were but 330_l._ yearly. The rent ‘uplifted’ by his wadsetters was larger. There were heavy debts, both on the estate and personal: the amount of the claims of Government I have nowhere found stated. Trustees ruled for the heir, who, however, must have been of age when Morar was sold to the Master of Lovat (Simon of the Forty-five) in 1768. This cleared the personal debts. In 1772, the new Glengarry wedded Miss Marjory Grant, eldest daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Dalvey. Mr. Fraser Mackintosh says that ‘regardless of sufferings, she strove with success to clear off the debts, to raise the rents, and generally to aggrandise the position of the Glengarry family.’

The wadsetts were paid off: the wadsetters must now be tenants, on increased rents, or go. Most of them emigrated to the New England States. Bad years came: the small tenants fell into arrears. In 1782, a year of famine, arrived the first sheep farmer from the Border. In 1785, fifty-five tenants were warned and removed, ‘say 300 souls.’ In 1786, 500 people emigrated under their priest, a Macdonnell of the Scothouse or Scotos family. They settled in Canada. They had fled from famine, as much as from increased rents.

Duncan Macdonnell died in 1788; his son was Sir Walter Scott’s Glengarry, ‘the last of the Chiefs,’ in costume and demeanour, but, it seems, a great evictor. The French war made Highland recruits desirable, and emigration slackened, but there was an exodus in 1802, the settlers peopling Glengarry County in Ontario; sentiment apart, a very happy change.

We have seen Alastair’s free rent in 1761; it was 330_l._ in money. In 1802 the rental was 5,090_l._! The eccentric history of Scott’s friend, Glengarry (for whom he wrote a Death Song) is well known. He was accidentally killed in 1828, and Glengarry was sold some years later. It has changed hands twice, since the first sale, and, says Mr. Fraser Mackintosh, ‘It is a fact not less painful than preposterous that at the present day (1894), some dozen crofters (all remaining) cannot get sufficient land out of the tens of thousands of acres at Knoydart, to maintain them, without the intervention of the Crofters Commission.’[165] Yet in 1753, Lochgarry, perhaps in a sanguine way, reckoned the Macdonald claymores, ‘by Young Glengarry’s concurrence only,’ at 2,600.[166]

This is a typical specimen of the fortunes of a large Highland estate, compromised in the Rising of 1745. There are, of course, happier examples; but, in this instance, we see every stage of the revolutionary changes in the condition of the Highland people.

Now an Englishman, or a Lowlander, asks himself, did the good old times contain the germs of these social maladies, exhibiting themselves in other forms, under other conditions? To this conclusion we appear to be forced by the evidence. If Chiefs were callous and selfish after the Forty-five, if the land could not, or did not, support the people properly after Culloden, these misfortunes, moral and material, existed before the starving and ill-arrayed clansmen died on the English bayonets. There had been no reason to expect better treatment than the Clans have actually received, from several of the powerful families. Extreme destitution had prevailed; evictions had occurred, and had sometimes been bitterly avenged. There had been ‘Agrarian outrages’ before Culloden, attacks on men, and mutilation of cattle.

Our evidence, as to the state of the Highlands, comes from various sources. We have Lowland, English, and Anglified witnesses. The Duke of Argyll cites a Highlander, Forbes of Culloden, but he was a Whig, and President of the Court of Session. Yet there was no juster, more fair, or more wise and tolerant man in the North. We have Captain Burt, author of ‘Letters from Scotland,’ written between the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Some modern Highlanders call him their foe: he certainly looks with English eyes, but he tries to be fair, and is far from unsympathetic. His tenderness for the poor is remarkable. We have the Gartmore MSS. (_circ._ 1748), which is Whiggish, and ‘MS. 104,’ in the King’s Library. It is, apparently, of 1749-50. All these witnesses agree as to the oppression of the people, their involuntary idleness, their dependence on tacksmen, chamberlains and factors, their destitution, while their liability to raised rents and evictions are, by some of these witnesses, insisted upon. But all are writing from the Whig point of view; their desire to improve the popular condition is part of their desire to reduce the power of the Jacobite Chiefs.

On the other side is General Stewart of Garth, enthusiastically Highland, anxious to keep up population for military purposes, as well as from honourable sympathy, and decidedly inclined to overlook the poverty, plundering, enforced idleness, tippling, and blackmail of the good old times. We have also Mr. Fraser Mackintosh, who, while he delights to tell a story against Cluny, for example, maintains that there were no evictions before 1745. Unluckily, we have no authoritative treatise from the Jacobite and ‘old times’ side, written between 1747 and 1790. The best evidence might be found in Gaelic poetry, which, in general, proves one important point.

Whatever the material condition of the Highland people, whatever their lack, in many parishes, of elementary education, they possessed, in legends, _Märchen_, traditional poems, and the living art of popular song, a native culture—rich, dignified, and imaginative—which newspapers merely destroy. This great element of happiness, where it survives, is the bequest of the good old times.

Such is our evidence; and now, having described its nature, we may turn to the details.

A considerable portion of the people were terribly destitute. We have heard what the biographer of Young Barisdale says, about a diet of shell-fish from March to August, about the faces that never wear a smile. Franck, writing in 1654-1660, tells us how, when Monk held Scotland, the Strathnaver crofters bled their cows in winter, and fed on blood mixed with oatmeal.[167] Burt and Knox testify to the same practice, a century later and more. ‘This immoderate bleeding reduces the cattle to so low a plight that in the morning they cannot rise from the ground, and several of the inhabitants join together to help up each other’s cows.’[168] ‘The gentry may be said to be a handsome people, but the commonalty much otherwise; one would hardly think, by their faces, they were of the same species, or, at least, of the same country, which plainly proceeds from their bad food....’[169]