One of the first acts of severity committed by the Duke of Cumberland, was to hang thirty-six deserters from the royal army who had joined the standard of the adventurer. Nineteen wounded officers belonging to the Highland army, were dragged from a wood in which they had sought refuge, and carried into the court-yard of Culloden House, where the greater number were shot, and the rest, who showed any symptoms of life, had their brains knocked out by the soldiery. In one instance, a hut, which contained a number of wounded Highlanders, was set fire to by the soldiers, when not only was every individual who attempted to escape immediately bayoneted, but when the building was burnt to the ground, as many as thirty corpses were found blackened by the flames.

The fate of such of the survivors of the battle of Culloden, who were dragged to prison, was scarcely less terrible. Great numbers were confined in the church and tolbooth of Inverness, where, deprived of clothes, and allowed only so small a quantity of meal daily as was scarcely sufficient to support life, they passed a miserable existence, till they were carried on board ship, in order to be sent to London and placed at the disposal of the Government. Their condition at sea was even worse than on land. They were thrust half naked into the holds of the different vessels, where they slept on the stones which formed the ballast; their sole allowance of drink being a bottle of cold water, and their amount of daily food being no more than about ten ounces of an inferior kind of oatmeal to each man. Even at this distance of time the heart almost sickens with the details of the horrors and privations to which these faithful and gallant people were subjected. Of a large number of human beings who were shipped to Barbadoes, many died on shipboard; and of

eighty-one who reached their pestilential destination, three years afterwards only eighteen were left to point out the graves of their companions, and to bewail their own fate. Human nature revolts at such sickening details. On board of one vessel, in which one hundred and fifty-seven of these brave but unfortunate men had been embarked, so great was the mortality occasioned by the cruel deprivations which they had to endure, that after the lapse of eight months,-during the whole of which time they were kept huddled together on board ship,only forty-nine individuals survived to tell the tale of the miseries to which they had been exposed.*

In regard to the terrible policy adopted by the Duke of Cumberland, and carried out by his brutal agents, the following account, extracted from the dying declaration of one of the unfortunate victims on the scaffold, may be taken as a specimen.t "I was put," says the unhappy sufferer, "into one of the Scotch kirks, together with a great number of wounded prisoners, who were stripped naked, and then left to die of their wounds without the least assistance; and though we had a surgeon of our own, a prisoner in the same place, yet he was not permitted to dress their wounds, but his instruments were taken from him on purpose to prevent it; and in consequence of this many expired in the utmost agonies.

* See Donald Macleod's Narrative, Jacobite Memoirs, p. 406, &c.

+ The principal agents in carrying out the Duke's brutal policy, were his "executioner-in-chief," General Hawley, Lieutenant-colonel Howard, Captain Caroline Scott, and Major Lockhart. It is natural, perhaps, as an Englishman, to feel some satisfaction in recording that two out of the number were Scotchmen.

Several of the wounded were put on board the 'Jean' of Leith, and there died in lingering tortures. Our general allowance, while we were prisoners there, was half a pound of meal a-day, which was sometimes increased to a pound, but never exceeded it; and I myself was an eye-witness, that great numbers were starved to death. Their barbarity extended so far as not to suffer the men who were put on board the Jean,' to lie down even on planks, but they were obliged to sit on large stones, by which means their legs swelled as big almost as their bodies. These are some few of the 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, I assert nothing but what I know to be true."*

These merciless inhumanities, it must be remembered, were independent of the numerous legal executions which were permitted by the Government, and to which we shall not at present refer. The details, indeed, of the almost demoniac retribution exacted by the Duke of Cumberland and his myrmidons, would appear almost too dreadful to be credited, were they not fully substantiated on the most undoubted authority. Their truth, indeed, is built, not on the partial exaggerations of the defeated Jacobites, but by persons of high integrity, station, and honour, and, in many instances, by the partisans of the Government, and by the victors themselves.

"Paper read by Mr. James Bradshaw, and delivered by him to the Sheriff of Surrey, just before his execution, on Friday, November 28, 1746."

CHAPTER III.

Precautions to prevent the escape of the Chevalier-Reward for his apprehension-His retreat through Scotland as a fugitive-Writes from Glenbiasdale, taking leave of his followers-Charles's embarkation-His extremities at seaLands and takes shelter in a "Grass-keeper's hut" in Benbecula-Visited in his retreat by Clanranald.

We now commence the eventful history of the adventures and escapes of Charles Edward after his defeat at Culloden. The feelings of the unfortunate young Prince when he beheld the slaughter of his gallant followers and the downfall of his own ambitious hopes, may be more casily imagined than described. His situation was perhaps even more critical than that of his great-uncle, Charles the Second, after the battle of Worcester. Already the enemy's cavalry were on his track; the royal troops were being despatched to every part of the Highlands where it was probable that the unhappy fugitive might seek to conceal himself; numbers of vessels of war were cruising along the coast for the purpose of intercepting any foreign ship which might be sent to carry him off; and, moreover, the large sum of 30,000l. was offered for his capture, a reward which-held out as it was to a poor, and, as it was believed, an avaricious people-it was thought would inevitably lead to his speedy discovery and certain arrest.

In order to insure the Prince's safe retreat from the field of battle, the French troops, supported by a small band of Highlanders, made a last and desperate stand

against the onset of the royal forces, which enabled Charles to place a considerable distance between himself and his pursuers. Followed by a large body of horsemen, and with a faithful Highlander, one Edward Burke,* for his guide, Charles rode rapidly forward till he reached the river Nairn, about four miles from Inverness. Having crossed the stream, the fugitives spent a few minutes in deliberation, when it was decided that the Prince should make the best of his way to the western coast,-where it was hoped that he would find a French vessel to carry him to France, and that the majority of the party should separate, and each endeavour to insure his own safety as he best might.

"A

Accordingly, accompanied by only ten individuals,† Charles made the best of his way to Gortuleg, where he had an interview with the too-celebrated Lord Lovat, the only occasion apparently on which they ever met. lady," says Sir Walter Scott, "who, then a girl, was residing in Lord Lovat's family, described to us the unexpected appearance of Prince Charles and his flying attendants at Castle Dounie. The wild and desolate vale, on which she was gazing with indolent composure, was at

* Burke, who accompanied the Prince as a guide during a great part of his wanderings, and who resisted the temptation of thirty thousand pounds, drudged out the remainder of his days a sedan-carrier in Edinburgh. He was at this period a servant to Mr. Alexander Macleod, of Muiravonside.

+ These persons were, Sir Thomas Sheridan, O'Sullivan, O'Neal, Sir David Murray, Alexander Macleod, the two latter being the Prince's aides-de-camp, John Hay, who was acting as secretary in the absence of Murray of Broughton, Allan Macdonald a priest, Edward Burke the guide, and two servants.