proceeding further south than Berwick. While with the marquis during the meeting of the parliament at St. Andrews in September 1646, Cameron found an opportunity, without the knowledge of the marquis, of visiting Sir Robert Spotiswood, then a prisoner in the castle, under sentence of death, whose conversation is said to have had a powerful effect in attaching him to the royal cause. His life at Inverary became irksome, and in his eighteenth year he privately told his uncle of his wish to return home. The principal gentlemen of the clan Cameron addressed the marquis on his behalf, who complied with their request, and young Cameron was conducted to his territory of Lochaber with great pomp by the whole body of the clan, who went a day's journey to meet him. After his return he spent a great part of his time in hunting in his extensive forests, and especially in destroying the foxes and the wolves which still tenanted the highlands. In 1680 he is said to have killed with his own hand the last wolf that was seen in the highlands. Few in the highlands were his equal in the use of the weapons of war or of the chase. In stature he was ‘of the largest size,’ and his finely proportioned frame manifested a perfect combination of grace and strength. Lord Macaulay styled him ‘the Ulysses of the Highlands,’ and the title at least indicates not inaptly the peculiar combination of gifts to which he owed his special ascendency. Shortly after his return to his estates he found an opportunity of manifesting something of his mettle in chastising Macdonald of Keppoch and Macdonald of Glengarry, both of whom had refused to pay him certain sums of money they owed him as chief of the Camerons. After the execution of Charles I he responded to the act for levying an army in behalf of Charles II, but the backwardness of his followers, or his distrust of Argyll, delayed him so much, that when, with about a thousand of his followers, on the way to join the king's forces at Stirling, he was intercepted by Cromwell, and compelled to turn back. He was, however, the first of the chiefs to join Glencairn in the northern highlands in 1652, bringing with him about seven hundred of his clan. Having received the appointment of colonel, he distinguished himself on numerous occasions, especially in defending the pass of Tulloch, at Braemar, against the whole force of the English, when Glencairn on retreating had neglected to send orders for him to fall back. For his conduct he received a special letter of thanks from King Charles, dated 3 Nov. 1653. Cameron persevered in his resistance to General Monck, the English commander, for a considerable time after Glencairn had come to terms with him, and continued pertinaciously to harass the English troops stationed on the borders of his territory, notwithstanding the efforts of Monck to win him over by the offer of large bribes. To hold Cameron in check, Monck resolved to establish a military station at Inverlochy, at the foot of Ben Nevis, and by ship transported thither two thousand troops, with material and workmen for the erection of the fort. On learning of their arrival Cameron hurried down with all his men, but already found the defence so strong as to render a direct attack hopeless. Dismissing the bulk of his men to drive the cattle into places of greater security, and to find provisions for a more lengthened stay in the neighbourhood, he withdrew with thirty-two gentlemen of the clan and his personal servants to a wood on the other side of the loch, where he lay in concealment to watch events. Obtaining information by spies that a hundred and fifty men were to be sent across to the side of the loch where he was concealed to forage for provisions and obtain supplies of timber, he resolved, notwithstanding their numbers were four to one, to attack them in the act of pillaging. Some of the gentlemen having objected, lest no successor to the chiefdom should be left, he tied his brother Alan to a tree to reserve him as the future head of the clan. In the desperate conflict which ensued an Englishman covered Cameron with his musket, and was about to pull the trigger, when his brother Alan—who had persuaded the boy in charge of him to cut the cords which bound him to the tree—appeared upon the scene, in the nick of time to save the chief's life by shooting down his opponent. The onslaught of the highlanders was so sudden and furious that the Englishmen were soon in flight to their ships. In the pursuit Cameron came up with the commander of the party, who remained in wait for him behind a bush. After a desperate struggle, Cameron killed his opponent by seizing his throat with his teeth. The combat formed the model for Sir Walter Scott's description of the fight between Roderick Dhu and FitzJames in the ‘Lady of the Lake.’ In various other raids against the garrisons Cameron made his name a word of terror, but when the other chiefs had all withdrawn, he received a letter from General Middleton advising him to capitulate. Cameron thereupon captured three English colonels in an inn near Inverary, and retaining two of them as hostages, despatched the third to General Monck with overtures of submission. Satisfactory terms were soon arranged, and were
