lord president encouraged them, these gentlemen were undoubtedly not cordial for the government. Lovat most certainly was not, and had Charles, according to his advice, come east by Inverness, he would no doubt have joined him on the instant. But the clans having rushed down into the Lowlands, while Sir John Cope, with the whole regular troops that were in Scotland, came north, added weight to the lord president's remonstrances, and for a time neutralized all who were not previously committed, till the unfortunate affair of Gladsmuir gave a new impulse to their hopes. Sir Alexander Macdonald and Macleod of Macleod were assured by a special messenger, that their past conduct was not imputed to any want of zeal for the cause or want of affection to the person of Charles, who considered their services to be now more useful to him than ever, and was ready to receive them as his best friends. Lovat had a message of the same kind, and, sure that now his right master, as he called him, would prevail, set himself to forward the marching of his Frasers without delay. Still he continued his correspondence with the president, and laboured hard to keep up the farce of loyalty, as did Macleod of Macleod, at the very moment when he was pledging his faith to that arch hypocrite to send his Macleods to join the Frasers, the Mackintoshes and the Mackenzies at Corryarrack, within a given number of days. Happily for Macleod, he was greatly under the influence of Sir Alexander Macdonald, whose judgment the lord president had completely opened upon the subject, and he not only did not fulfil his engagement with Lovat, but actually raised and headed his men to fight on the opposite side.
The Frasers, in the mean time, formed a scheme for seizing upon the house of Culloden, and either killing or making the president a prisoner. The execution of this plot was intrusted to the laird of Foyers, who made the attempt on the night of Tuesday, the 15th of October, the day when the clans were engaged upon honour to assemble at the pass of Corryarrack, for the purpose of reinforcing the army of Charles at Edinburgh. The president, however, who, had arms been his profession, would probably have been as celebrated a soldier as he was a lawyer, knew his situation, and the men he lived among, better than to suffer himself to be so surprised. The castle itself was naturally strong; several pieces of cannon were planted upon its rampart; and it was occupied by a garrison, able and willing to defend it; so that, leaving behind them one of their number wounded, the assailants were obliged to content themselves with carrying off some sheep and cattle, and robbing the gardener and the house of an honest weaver, who, it would appear, lived under the protection of the president. Like all other projectors of wicked things which fail in the execution, Lovat seems to have been very much ashamed of this affair, and he was probably the more so, that the Macleods, the Macdonalds, &c., who, that same day, were to have joined his clan at Corryarrack, had not only not kept their word, but were actually on the road to take their orders from the president, which compelled him once more to send, in place of troops, an apology to Charles, with an abundance of fair promises, in which he was at all times sufficiently liberal. The president had assured him, that, by killing and eating his sheep in broad daylight, the men who had made the attack upon his house were all known, but that if they did no more harm he forgave them; only he wished they would send back the poor gardener and weaver their things, and if they sent not back the tenant his cattle, they knew he must pay for them. Lovat, with well-affected concern, and high eulogiums upon his lordship's goodness, declares the actors in this villanous attempt to have been ruffians without the fear of God or man, and that he has ordered his son and Gortuleg to send back all the plunder, particularly his lordship's sheep, which he was ready to give double value
