to a resolution that, before the end of the summer, they would muster all their followers and march into the Lowlands. In the mean time twelve hundred mountaineers of different tribes were placed under the orders of Buchan, who undertook, with this force, to keep the English garrisons in constant alarm by feints and incursions, till the season for more important operations should arrive. He accordingly marched into Strathspey. But all his plans were speedily disconcerted by the boldness and dexterity of Sir Thomas Livingstone, who held Inverness for King William. Livingstone, guided and assisted by the Grants, who were firmly attached to the new government, came, with a strong body of cavalry and dragoons, by forced marches and through arduous defiles, to the place where the Jacobites had taken up their quarters. He reached the camp fires at dead of night. The first alarm was given by the rush of the horses over the terrified sentinels into the midst of the crowd of Celts who lay sleeping in their plaids. Buchan escaped bareheaded and without his sword. Cannon ran away in his shirt. The conquerors lost not a man. Four hundred Highlanders were killed or taken. The rest fled to their hills and mists.[1]
This event put an end to all thoughts of civil war. The gathering which had been planned for the summer never took place. Lochiel, even if he had been willing, was not able to sustain any longer the falling cause. He had been laid on his bed by a mishap which would alone suffice to show how little could be effected by a confederacy of the petty kings of the mountains. At a consultation of the Jacobite leaders, a gentleman from the Lowlands spoke with severity of those sycophants who had changed their religion to curry favour with King James. Glengarry was one of those people who think it dignified to suppose that every body is always insulting them. He took it into his head that some allusion to himself was meant. "I am as good a Protestant as you." he cried, and added a word not to be patiently borne by a man of spirit. In a moment both swords were out. Lochiel thrust himself between
- ↑ Balcarras; Mackay's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Livingstone's Report, dated May 1; London Gazette, May 12, 1690.
