While the Lowlanders, for nearly fifteen hundred years, had cast on Highland robbers the eyes of hatred and contempt, Sir Walter Scott suddenly taught men to think a cateran a very fine fellow. The unanimity of a non-Highland testimony had previously been wonderful. ‘The Highlanders are great thieves,’ says Dio Cassius, speaking for civilisation as early as A.D. 200-230. Gildas, in the sixth century, calls the Highlanders (Picti) ‘a set of bloody free booters, with more hair on their thieves’ faces than clothes to cover their nakedness.’ Early mediæval writers talk of the bestiales Picts (‘the beastly Picts’), and later Lowland opinions to a similar effect are too familiar for quotation. To Scott was left the discovery of the virtues of the honest cateran, who looked on cattle-stealing as an ennobling occupation in the intervals of war.
Sir Walter’s opinion ran through Europe like the Fiery Cross. His grandson, Hugh Littlejohn, stirred up by the ‘Tales of a Grandfather,’ dirked his small brother slightly with a pair of scissors in a childish enthusiasm! Even the moral Wordsworth, moved by Scott, had a good word for Rob Roy. Yet about that hero Sir Walter cherished no illusions. He knew Rob’s Letter of Submission to General Wade, after 1715. Rob, of course, had been out for King James, but he coolly says to Wade: ‘I not only avoided acting offensively against his Majesty’s’ (King George’s) ‘forces, but, on the contrary, sent His Grace the Duke of Argyle all the intelligence I could from time to time of the strength and situation of the Rebels; which I hope his Grace will do me the justice to acknowledge.’
‘All the demerits ascribed to him by his enemies are less to his discredit than this one merit which he assumes to himself,’ says Jamieson.[49] The double-faced traitor, Rob’s son, James Mohr, one of the bravest of men, chassa de race. The truth is that a life of plunder, however romantic and however little regarded as immoral or degrading by Highland opinion, really did foster, in educated men, the most astonishing perfidy. This is the last vice we look for in the generous cateran; and, indeed, the outlaws of Glen Moriston were as loyal to their Prince as Lochiel. But the prevalent opinion that robbery, sanctioned by tradition, does not degrade the general character, can be proved to be an error. We read about Cluny that, in 1742-5, he held the usual belief. ‘He was certain it’ (the habit of robbery) ‘proceeded only from the remains of barbarism, for he had many convincing proofs that in other respects the dispositions of the people in these parts were generally as benevolent, humane, and even generous, as those of any country whatever.’[50]
Cluny was right about the untutored mass of the people, but he was wrong about a few educated chiefs, who encouraged and lived on an unfortunate tradition. Thus Sir Walter Scott writes about the thief whose history we are to narrate, Macdonnell of Barisdale: ‘He was a scholar and well-bred gentleman. He engraved on his broadswords the well-known lines:
Barisdale knew what was right; his following knew only his will. He was the blackest of traitors; they were true as steel.
The specially robber tribes in 1715-45 were those of the dispossessed Macgregors, whose hand was, necessarily, against every man’s hand; of the Macdonnells in Knoydart; and of some of the Camerons in Lochaber and Rannoch. Old Lovat, too, discouraging schools, kept up sedulously the ancient clan ideas. No other sections of the Highlanders are accused, even by Whigs, of robbery. Mackays, Mackenzies, Grants, Mackintoshes, Macphersons, Macleans are not blamed, and such gentlemen of the Camerons and Macdonnells as Lochiel, Scothouse, and Keppoch are specially exculpated. Lochiel was a reformer within his clan. The gallant Keppoch had forsworn the predatory habits which, in 1689, made his people threaten Inverness. Of Scothouse we shall hear the most excellent report. Now, it cannot be by a mere fortuitous coincidence that all the Highland traitors, James Mohr, Old Lovat, Glengarry, Barisdale, and some others, come precisely from the homes of cattle thieves, and from a factitious hothouse of old clan ideas; from the Macgregor country, Knoydart, the worst part of Lochaber, and Rannoch. Yet, so strange was the condition of the North, that we find Barisdale, the meanest wretch of all, recognised as an acquaintance by so high a Lowland dame as the ‘Great Lady of the Cat,’ the Countess of Sutherland.
We now proceed to the story of the chief who loved a Virgilian quotation.
In the army of Charles Edward there was no man more detested and feared than Col Macdonell of Barisdale. According to a curious tract, ‘The Life of Archibald Macdonell of Barisdale, who is to Suffer for High Treason on the Twenty Second of May, at Edinburgh, By an Impartial Hand,’[52] Col of Barisdale was son (? grandson) of the second brother of Alastair Dubh Macdonnell of Glengarry, the hero of Sheriffmuir, being thus a cousin of Glengarry. He was a man of prodigious muscular force, six feet four inches in height. He is said to have caught and held a roedeer; and, on one occasion, to have heaved a recalcitrant cow, probably stolen property, into a boat. There lay, in the present century, on the gravel-drive before Invergarry House, a large boulder, and beside it a short pin of iron was fixed into the ground. Only a very powerful man could lift the boulder on to the pin, a few inches in height, but Barisdale could heave it up to his knees. So write, from tradition, the two ‘Stuarts d’Albanie,’ in ‘Tales of the Century’ (1847). They add that Barisdale’s courage did not match his strength, and that he yielded in single combat to Cluny.
Returning to our ‘Impartial Hand’ (by his minute local knowledge a native of Ross or Moray), we find him nowise partial to Barisdale. ‘Colonel Ban,’ as he calls him, married a Miss Mackenzie of Fairburn, and, having a small estate in Ross-shire, could raise two hundred of the clan. He thus, says Murray of Broughton, declared himself independent of Glengarry, his chief, an indolent drunkard. Being acquainted with the Mackenzie estates, he used his knowledge in the surreptitious acquisition of cattle. He would then throw the blame on the Camerons; and that, says our author, is precisely the cause of the bad name for cattle-stealing which the Camerons have unhappily acquired. One day Barisdale, with his Tail, met Cameron of Taask, with his Tail, and was charged by Cameron with his misdeeds. Words grew high, claymores were drawn, and a finger of Cameron’s left hand was nearly lopped off. The intrepid chieftain, acting on the Scotch proverb, ‘Better a finger off than aye wagging,’ tore the injured limb from his hand, bound the wound with a handkerchief, ‘and so fell to work on Barisdale,’ whom he sliced on the pate. ‘The skin and a lock of his hair hung down,’ and their devoted tenants, anxious observers of the fray, separated the infuriated chieftains. Barisdale was presently arrested on a charge of theft, but his Tail perjured themselves manfully, and he got off on an alibi.
The neighbours, finding the hero so stubborn, paid him ‘black meal’ (sic), in return for which he promised to protect their herds. But his genius pointed out to him a more excellent way, and Barisdale became the Jonathan Wild (as Waverley says) of Lochaber and Knoydart. He was a thief-catcher, and also an accomplice of thieves, as interest directed or passion prompted.[53] He kept his tenantry, or gang, in rare order, and ‘had machines for putting them to different sorts of punishment.’ One machine was merely the stocks, where, outside of the chieftain’s drawing-room windows (which commanded a fine view of the sea), many a poor thief sat for twenty-four hours, with food temptingly placed just out of his reach. Thus Barisdale struck terror, inspired respect, and accumulated wealth.
A more cruel engine than the stocks had Barisdale, a triumph of his own invention. In ‘The Lyon in Mourning,’ Mackinnon, who helped Prince Charles to escape from Skye, says that Captain Fergusson (noted for his ferocity) threatened him with torture. ‘The cat or Barisdale shall make you speak,’ said the Captain. The engine is described as one in which no man could live for an hour. The Impartial Hand’ gives this account of it: ‘The supposed criminal’ (that is, any man who would not give Barisdale a share of his booty) ‘was tied to an iron machine, where a ring grasped his feet, and another closed upon his neck, and his hands were received into eyes of iron contrived for that purpose. He had a great weight upon the back of his neck, to which, if he yielded in the least, by shrinking downwards, a sharp spike would infallibly run into his chin, which was kept bare for that very purpose.’ Barisdale was also apt to waylay herring-fishers, and make them pay, as toll, a fifth of what they had captured, alleging certain seignorial rights.
‘It is well known,’ says the author of 1754, ‘that, from the month of March to the middle of August, some poor upon the coast have nothing but shell-fish, such as mussels, cockles, and the like, to support them. Poverty reigns so much among the lower class that scarce a smile is to be seen upon their faces.’ Barisdale also reigned upon the coast.
Such was life in the Highlands in the golden days of the Clans, before sheep, Lowlanders, evictions, emigration, and deer forests brought, as we are told, discontent and destitution. The poor lived on mussels and cockles, some tenants eked out a scanty livelihood by stealing their neighbours’ cows, and the genial Barisdale kept all in good order. For Barisdale’s prowess we are not obliged to rely on the ‘Impartial Hand’ and the Gartmore MS. alone. In ‘The Highlands of Scotland: a Letter from a Gentleman at Edinburgh to a Friend in London,’ we meet our Col again. This manuscript[54] is in the King’s Collection, 104, in the British Museum. The author is an enragé Whig and Protestant, but a close observer. From him we learn how cattle-stealing paid; for at first blush it looks like the practice of those fabled islanders ‘who eke out a livelihood by taking in each other’s washing.’ The business was extended over a wide area; the Macdonells did not merely harry the Mackenzies and Rosses.
Speaking of Knoydart, our author says: ‘Coll. Macdonell of Barisdale, cousin-german of Glengarry, took up his residence here, as a place of undoubted security from all legal prosecution. He entered into a confederacy with Lochgarry and the Camerons of Loch Arkaig, with some others as great villains in Rannoch. This famous Company had the honour to introduce theft into a regular trade; they kept a number of savages dependent on them for the purpose, whom they out-hounded’ on predatory expeditions.
They robbed from Sutherlandshire to Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and Argyle. When the thieves were successful these gentlemen had a dividend of the spoil. When unsuccessful, the thieves lived on the country which they traversed. To denounce them was ill work. A gentleman, known to our author, was nearly ruined by Barisdale & Co. He caught two of the Macdonalds, who were hanged. Fifteen years later his son, going to Fort William, vanished. The tribe, says our author, demanded ‘blood for blood.’
By these devices Barisdale compelled his neighbours to pay, in blackmail, ‘above double their proportion of the land-tax in Seaforth’s, Lovat’s, and Chisholme’s country.’ He captained a kind of ‘Watch.’ But Barisdale’s ‘Watch’ was expensive and unsatisfactory to his subscribers. As early as 1742 we have found Cluny setting up an opposition in business. Cluny’s Watch is described at great length by the author of a kind of memoir of the chief, written in France in 1755-1760. The writer’s object is to show how much Cluny lost by his loyalty to the Stuarts, and how much he deserves the encouragement of Louis XV. He established, for the discouragement of theft, ‘a watch or safeguard of his own trusted followers.’ The nobility and gentry ‘were surpris’d at Cluny’s success, and enveyed so much his happiness, that they applyed to him with one accord, to take them under his protection, and cheerfully offered to join in a voluntary subscription....’ Among the subscribers are the Duke of Gordon, the Earl of Airlie, the Earl of Aberdeen, Forbes of Culloden, the Mackintosh, Grant of Grant, and even the Duke of Argyll. These facts attest the extent of Barisdale’s raids.
Cluny was highly successful, rescuing ‘even those who had never applyed to him.’ The subscriptions amounted to 20,000 livres, and the Dukes of Atholl and Perth, with Seaforth, were about to join. It was now that a preacher, thundering against theft, was interrupted by a listener who ‘desired him to save his labour upon that point, for Mons. de Cluny alone would gain more souls to heaven in one year, than all the priests in the highlands could ever do in fifty.’
The English Ministry, hearing of Cluny’s fame, now sent him, unasked, a captain’s commission in Loudon’s regiment, worth 6,000 livres yearly. But he threw up his new commission when he joined Prince Charles. Cluny’s spirited behaviour, says MS. 104, ‘took the bread out of their mouths,’ the mouths of Barisdale & Co. But ‘Barisdale, by the former trade (theft) and the latter expedient (blackmail), lived at a very high rate, and mortgaged a large sum of money on Glengarry’s estate,’ where he was a wadsetter.
Cluny’s opposition may have led to his duel with Barisdale, as reported by the Stuarts d’Albanie. Barisdale was, as we have seen, like Lochgarry, a wadsetter of Glengarry’s; that is, he received from Glengarry certain lands, redeemable after a specified interval of time, in exchange for money paid, or bills, or perhaps for cattle, which he was skilled in procuring. We do not find that the chief, Glengarry, could or did exercise any authority in controlling the excesses and depredations of his independent cousin Col. For this he is blamed by the author of the Gartmore MS., but his Mackenzie following made Col too strong for his chief.
Ignorant, perhaps, of the character of Barisdale, unwilling, at least, to dispense with his aid, Prince Charles visited him in August 1745, made him a colonel, and gave a major’s commission to his son, young Archibald Macdonnell of Barisdale, a lad of twenty in 1745. Our ‘Impartial Hand’[55] declares that Coll, though at Prestonpans, was not under fire, which seems improbable. Barisdale may have been with the Prince in the second line (fifty yards behind the first, says the Chevalier Johnstone), or, in the oblique advance of the first line, Lochiel and James Mohr may have routed the English before Barisdale could engage. But, in a letter of Thomas Wedderburn to the Earl of Sutherland, we read (September 26, 1745), ‘Three troops that were making their way for Berwick were pursued by Barisdale, and 150 men, who all stript to their shirts, on foot, who overtook the dragoons, I suppose by turning a hill and gaining ground that way, and made them prisoners, for which Barisdale was made a knight bannarett’[56]—knighted, that is, like Dalgetty, on the field.
After Prestonpans, according to the Impartial one, confirmed by the ‘Culloden Papers,’ and by Broughton’s ‘Memorials,’ Barisdale, by Sheridan’s advice, was sent north, to work on Old Lovat. Sheridan reckoned that no man was likely to have so much influence with that subtle schemer as the bluff Barisdale, with ‘his devouring looks, his bulky strides, his awful voice, his long and tremendous sword, which he generally wore in his hand, with a target and bonnet edged broad upon the forehead.’ Barisdale, thus accredited, worked both on Lovat and Lord Cromarty, who raised his peaceful tenants by threats of burning their cottages and cattle.[57] Cromarty might have reported, like a Highland recruiting officer in later days, ‘The volunteers are ready; they are all lying bound hand and foot in the barn.’ Many of the Highlanders did not want to fight, though they fought so well. Barisdale also sent ‘the bloody cross,’ we are told, through the Frazers, who marched reluctantly under the Master of Lovat, a St. Andrews student, himself as reluctant as he was brave. At Falkirk, Barisdale is said to have been with the second line, and later ‘he set out to collect the public money, the greater part of which he kept to himself.’
Just before Culloden, Barisdale was engaged in the not uncongenial duty of reducing the shires of Ross and Sutherland. In the latter county Lord Reay, with the Mackays and the Earl of Sutherland, were for King George; Lord Loudon also was quartered with his force in Ross-shire. Lord Cromarty, with the Mackenzies, Mackintoshes, Mackinnons, Macgregors, and Barisdale’s Macdonnells, did little, retiring to his own house. Barisdale was anxious to burn the house of Ross of Balnagoun, but Lochiel, who had arrived with Lord George Murray, intervened. At Dornoch, Barisdale went to church, where the Rev. Mr. Kirk, a gentleman connected with the Duke of Argyll, had the courage to pray for King George. Barisdale leaped up, swaggered, fumed, and, it is rather absurdly said, threatened to put Mr. Kirk in his famous engine of torture. The chivalrous Duke of Perth protected Mr. Kirk, saying that all brave men were his friends, and asked the clergyman to dinner.[58] Lord George Murray, finding Cromarty incompetent, and Barisdale mainly occupied in burning granaries, now took the command, and Loudon crossed the Firth into Sutherland. Perth then led the Prince’s forces across the Firth, and Loudon hastened to withdraw into central Sutherland.
Neither side was anxious to come to blows. Macdonnell of Scotus, a man ‘brave, polite, obliging, of fine spirit and sound judgment,’ says the Chevalier Johnstone, had a son with Lord Loudon, and was reluctant to engage. Later, to his intense joy, he took this son a not unwilling prisoner. Meanwhile Barisdale, on March 20, captured the Castle of Dunrobin. The Earl of Sutherland fled, under cover of a fog, and escaped to an English ship. The Countess stayed at home; she was a daughter of the Earl of Wemyss by his third wife, was a young lady, of twenty-eight, and had a young nephew, Lord Elcho, with the Prince. According to the ‘Sutherland Book’ (i. 420), one of Barisdale’s officers threatened her with a dirk, and, some one jogging his elbow, she was actually scratched. To this the Countess, as we shall see, herself bears witness. But it is by no means certain that the lady, coming of a Jacobite family, was an unwilling prisoner of the Prince’s men. It was irksome to her, no doubt, to see her rooms littered with hay on which the Highlanders slept, and to observe the robbery of her plate. But the two following intercepted letters, from the Cumberland Papers, display the Countess as an adorer of Prince Charles, and Barisdale as a preux chevalier.
Letter from The Countess of Sutherland to the Young Pretender, written with MacDonell of Barisdale’s own Hand.
‘March 26, 1746.
‘The treatment I mett with Friday Last oblidges me to presume to oCoast your Royall Hyness For a protection to prevent the Lyke Usadge in the Future. However my Lord Sutherland Acted, It’s known over the most of this Kingdome my particular attachment to your Royall Hyness’ Family, and were itt ordinaire in one of my sex to go to the Field to Fight For my Prince and Country, I would make as aerly ane appearance as anie, and hade not my Coch horses and sadle horses being caryed away I woud presume the Honnaire to waith of your Royall Hyness. Least my letter be too tediouse I will only give one Instance of my usadge, a man holding a drawn durk to my brest gave a scrach of a wound which merk itt well beare: but this day Barisdale coming here, being my aquaintance, in his presence I sent a gentleman to all the men of my Lord Sutherland’s that were in arms desiring them to disperse and return to their homes in order a proper Draught be made of them For your royall Hyness service. My success I can not determine as I can not Depend upon much assistance, but if matters were further att my Disposall all the Fensable men in Sutherland woud be on your Royall Hyness armie as I am quite affrighted. From the Hylanders I beg to petition your Royall Hyness protection how Soone pasable and I always am and ever will,’ &c.
On March 27, 1746, from Tarbat House Lord Cromarty writes in answer to the Countess of Sutherland, acknowledging her letter, and promising protection to all her people who submit.
Then we have Barisdale’s billet to the lady:
Col McDonell to Lady Sutherlande
‘Ardmore: March 27, 1746.
‘My Faire Prisoner,—I presume these with the offer of my most Respectfull humble Duty to my Lady Sutherland, my Regiment is ordered back againe to Sutherland For which I am verrie sorrie, if anie hardships must be used, itt shoud in the Least Fall to my Shaire. I will have one Certaine pleasure in Itt that it well give the oportunity of being For once more my Lady Sutherland’s Saife guard. I Forwarded your Ladyship’s letter by one Captt Lewlessnent, and sent itt Inclosed to his Grace, and held Forth my Lady Sutherland’s zeall For our Cause, and the Friendship she particullarlie expected From him, and represented the Horses taken away, and pleaded For her Interest to have them, att Least my Ladys Favourites, returned. I go this Day to Inverness myself and shall talk to His Royall Hyness in regard to what my Lady Sutherland woud Exspect off Favours From our side, and what is Actuallie Deue to her. After my return, shall have the pleasure of waitting off your Ladyship att Dunrobine, and allways will be Nott onlie your Lady’s prisoner in the strictest Confinement, but your Ladyships most obdtt. and most humble sertt. while
‘Col. McDonell.’[59]
An odious tale is told by the ‘Impartial Hand,’ about Barisdale’s conduct to his wife’s young sister. We do not trust the Impartial one where we have not corroboration, and, to his fair prisoner, Lady Sutherland, Barisdale certainly displays a tender gallantry. But she may not have regretted that her Barisdale was occasionally absent. Cumberland was approaching, and, on the eve of Culloden, Lord Cromarty was captured in ‘The Battle of Golspie,’ while dallying over his adieux to ‘his favourite Amazon,’ the Countess of Sutherland, as the Impartial one invidiously declares.
The Countess must have managed her diplomacy adroitly, for the Whig author previously cited says, ‘It is a pity the present Earl of Sutherland should be such a weak man, but his lady behaved very honourably, though her brother (nephew) the Lord Elcho, was engaged in the Rebellion.’[60] The lady’s letter to Prince Charles was not known to our author.
Barisdale, leaving his fair prisoner, marched south, and halted at Beauly, on the night before Culloden. ‘He might easily have reached the field, had he been any way resolute or brave.’ But like the Master of Lovat and Cluny, Barisdale came up too late. The fugitives passed through Inverness, under his eyes, and Barisdale also made off.
He was at the Meeting of the Chiefs at Murlagan, on May 8, when it was determined to rally in a week, and a treaty was made, that all should hold together, in spite of the Prince’s defection.[61] When the week ended, nobody came to the tryst but Lochgarry, who retired at once, Lochiel, and Barisdale, with three or four hundred of their clans. But the Rev. John Cameron, in ‘The Lyon in Mourning’ (i. 88) accuses Barisdale of promising to return next day, as a blind, and of sending instead two companies of infantry in English service, to capture Lochiel. They were recognised by their red crosses, and Lochiel escaped, ‘which was owing to its not being in Barisdale’s power’—to catch him, ‘rather than to want of inclination,’ says Mr. Cameron. Murray of Broughton represents Barisdale as accusing his cousin and enemy, Lochgarry, of treachery, and believes that both were equally guilty, but Lochiel was as incapable of suspecting as of being guilty of treason. In his Letter to the Chiefs, of May 26, he says that Clanranald’s men refuse to leave their own country, that Glengarry’s men have yielded up their arms (induced thereto, we shall see, by Old Glengarry), that Lochgarry promised to return, but did not, and that, ‘trusting to Lochgarry’s information, we had almost been surprized.’ But he never hints at a suspicion of Barisdale.[62]
On June 10, says the ‘Impartial Hand,’ Barisdale and Young Barisdale both surrendered to Ensign Small, in a cave. But Barisdale, it is known, got a protection, on his promise to deliver up Prince Charles. He laid several schemes to this end, and had two companies to seize the Prince at Strathfillan. Sheridan, however, ‘who had a talent for reading men with as great freedom and judgement as others do books,’ warned the Prince, who kept out of Barisdale’s clutches.[63] So says the Impartial Hand.
His story of the protection for Barisdale was true, as witness the following letters from the Cumberland Papers, at Windsor Castle.
From G. Howard to Col. Napier, A.D.C. to D. of C.
‘July 5th....
‘A person passed me here yesterday morning whom I took to be lawful Prey, but, to my great concern, he produced a Pass-port for himself and 4 servants with their arms &c., syned by Sir E. Faulkner: it was dated only the day before yesterday. The person was McDonald of Barisdale, who is so particularly zealous for hanging our officers. I asked him if he had seen H.R.H. (Cumberland). He said no, but that a friend got him his Protection.’
Lord Albemarle to Duke of Cumberland
‘July 26th.
‘The Complaint is universal against Barisdale, therefore I shall not renew his protection, but drive and burn his country to punish him for having made such a bad use of your goodness. Glengarry is much commended for his behaviour.’
Finally, Barisdale had already induced several Macdonnells to lay a written information against Old Glengarry, their chief.
How did Barisdale, who had played a part so conspicuous, manage to obtain a protection from Sir Everard Faulkner? That is the point which we shall later find him explaining with singular candour. Protected he was, and, in pursuit of information, he had the singular impudence to venture, with his son, in September 1746, on board the ship which was to carry the Prince, Lochiel, Lochgarry, and other gentlemen to France. They could not but be aware that Barisdale had made his submission, and was come on no good errand. Lochgarry was his bitter enemy. They therefore put Barisdale and his son in irons, shut them down under hatches, carried them to France, and there imprisoned these gentlemen of Knoydart on a charge of treason. Mr. Fraser Mackintosh, a very innocent writer, thus describes the high-handed outrage: ‘Barisdale was so unpopular with the Camerons, that, without the slightest warrant, they took it on themselves to deport Coll Macdonnell, and his son Alexander [Archibald?] to France.’ Mr. Fraser Mackintosh attributes this unwarrantable action to ‘the Camerons,’ with whom Barisdale was generally ‘unpopular.’ But, of course, the seizure was warranted by Charles, Prince Regent, who is said to have knighted Barisdale on a stricken field. The seizure was more than justified, and was not due to poor Col’s ‘unpopularity.’
Col languished in a French prison till 1749. In March he ventured back to Scotland, finding himself, after his release, very ‘unpopular’ in Flanders. He was promptly culled like a flower by his old captor, Ensign Small, and was brought before Erskine for examination. Erskine writes that he found the tall bully ‘under visible terror.’ France had imprisoned him. England was likely to give him what ‘he wad be nane the waur o’’—a hanging. His house was left unto him desolate; he would flirt no more with fair captive Countesses: no one trembled at his frowning brows: it was Barisdale’s turn to tremble, as he did. He was locked up in Edinburgh Castle, where, at least, he was safe from avenging dirks. He there penned the following explicit confession, in hopes of a pardon, and pay as a spy. Perhaps Cumberland refers to Barisdale’s earlier services in this capacity, in a letter of August 2, 1749. Cumberland speaks of ‘the goodness of the intelligence’ now offered to Government. ‘On my part I bear it witness, for I never knew it fail me in the least trifle, and have had very material and early notices from it.’[64]
Here, then, follows Barisdale’s confession to the Justice Clerk in Edinburgh. It entirely disposes of Mr. Fraser Mackintosh’s suggestion that the Camerons seized Barisdale because he was ‘unpopular.’
Narrative given in by Barrisdale to the Justice Clerk
(H. O. Scotland. Bundle 41. No. 13. State Papers. Domestic)
April 10th, 1749.
‘His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland, sent a protection by Sir Alexr. Macdonald to Barisdale, upon delivering to him of which, he told him, in Consequence of the Favours the Duke intended for him, he should cause all such as he would have any Influence with, surrender their arms directly, which Barisdale did at the Barracks of Glenelg immediately thereafter; by which the Concert of those that imagined to make any further resistance was broke, and he gave all the Assurances Sir Alexr. desired of him, to be a good faithful subject, yt would give all obedience to the Government, which Since he has perform’d. But from that time the Jacobite party design’d to ruine Barisdale, and endeavoured, with all Calumny’s, to make him odious to all partys and all Persons. The Pretender’s Son having returned from the Isles to the Continent (mainland), Sir Alexr. Macdonald wrote to Barisdale, desiring to inform him of some particulars, which he did very distinctly, and soon after his R. Highness [Cumberland] left Fort Augustus, my Lord Albemarle, then Commander in Chief, desired Sir Aler. McDonald to send for Barisdale to Fort Augustus. Sir Alexr. Macdonald wrote to him, and accordingly Barisdale waited of my Lord Albemarle at Fort Augustus, at Sir Alex. McDonald’s Lodgings, where before Sir Alex. McDonald, his Lordship told Barisdale, as the Pretender’s Son was now returned from the Isles to the Continent (mainland), if he hop’d for the Continuance of his R. Highness’s Favours, he must lay himself out in giving Assistance to have the Person of ye Pretender’s Son sez’d.
‘Barisdale answered, in Sir Alexander’s Presence, that Sir Alexr. never made any such Proposal to him from his R. Highness (Cumberland); and if he was a Man supposed formerly in the Jacobite Interest, and upon getting a better Light, to forsake them it would be very inconsistent wth. Honour, for a Man so supposed, to go such Lengths. But for his share, were he to do his utmost to comply with his Lordship’s desire, he could expect little success in it, since all the Jacobite Party were upon their Guard, even the meanest Highlander, to give no Intelligence to any he had Influence with.
‘His Lordship and he parted that Day: my Lord Loudoun, Sir Alexr. McDonald, and Barisdale, being at a Bottle that night, resumed all that past at that Communing—Loudoun said, “I own what his Lordship desires of you, may not be easy for you to perform, but such Information as you can best receive, you can transmit to his Lordship and you can make an Observe upon each, according to the Credite you give yourself to the Information.”
‘My Lord Albemarle, the next day, at Sir Alexander’s Lodgings, insisted as the Day before; and Barisdale agreed, such Informations as he could learn, he would transmit them, wt. Remarks upon them of the Credite he thought they deserved—My Lord Albemarle gave a Continuance upon the Protection for ten Days more, which was a short time for Barisdale to go to his country, and find Informations and then transmit them to Fort Augustus.
‘However he sent two different Informations wt. Remarks upon them: is not certain which of the two, my Lord Albemarle or my Lord Loudoun’s Hands they came to, as the Bearer of them brought back no Answer in writing: But at the End of the Ten Days of my Lord Albemarle’s Protection, B. was rather more distrest than any who were not before protected.
‘Some few days thereafter, being at Sir Alexr. McDonald at Slaite, hearing two French ships coming to Ariseg, Sir Ar. McDonald desired Barisdale to go to these Ships, in order to learn some things he wanted to be inform’d of, and Barisdale coming to the shore before the Ships, under Pretension of great Friendship was invited aboard, there being at the Ships severals he was acquainted with; But soon after he was aboard, found his Mistake, would not be allow’d afterwards to come ashore, was carried to St. Malos, seated upon the River La Luare where he was prisoned about 2 years and four months. The 7th. of February last, with a Sentence of Banishment to leave France in a few Days, was liberated: which Sentence is now in the hands of the Governor of Fort Augustus.
‘The Accusations laid against him by the Pretender’s son and likewise laid before the Court of France were sent to Barisdale enclosed in a Letter, wrote and signed by George Kelly, the Pretender’s Son’s Secretary, of which there is a Copy herewith.’
He now offers services unconditionally[65]—‘but is sorry to be prevented in his Design of going to London as he entended to throw himself in his R. Highness the Duke of Cumberland’s Hands, hoping, as he still does, for his Highness’ Protection and Friendship, as promised to him by Sir Alexander MacDonald in his R.H’s. Name at their first Conference, when he delivered to him the protection, in the obtaining of which Barisdale will be capable, as he is most willing, of doing essential Services to his R. Highness and the Government in the North of Scotland:—and says ‘it may appear most reasonable, however, for the Family he is descended from, or the Clan he is of, have been attach’d to the Pretender’s Family, that his cruel, uncommon, and severe usage from that Family will not only make him most faithfull to the Government, but as stiff an Enemy as that Family have upon Earth. For it is well known the Pretender’s Son exprest at Paris to some of the Scots, who were sorry for Barisdale’s treatment, that while it was in his power, Barisdale woud never recover his Liberty, at least while he was in France, for that he was well assured, if ever he return’d to Scotland, being well assured B. being both resolute and Revengefull, he woud prove a very destructible Instrument to his Interest.’
Here are the Jacobite charges against Barisdale:—
Copy of George Kelly, the P.’son’s Secretary’s Letter
‘Paris, May 3rd, 1747.
‘... Did you not own publickly, that upon his R.H’s. Approach to Inverness, you advertised the Lord President and the Lord Loudoun of the same, and advised them for their further Safety to retire from thence?... Did you not, without asking their Advice or Approbation, Surrender yourself to the Enemy, and enter into certain Articles with them?...
‘Whether, after receiving a Protection from the Enemy, you did not engage and promise to apprehend the Person of H.R.H. and deliver him up to them within a limited time?...
‘Whether or not you did not impose on several Gentlemen of Glengary’s Family, by asserting that he had promised to deliver them up to the Enemy, and that he was to receive 30l. sterling Premium for Each Gentleman he should put into their Hands? Did these gentlemen sign an information against Glengary? And were his letters ordering them to take up arms delivered up to Lord Albemarle, upon which your Cousine, Glengary, was apprehended?’
And now the whole truth is out, as concerns Col, third of Barisdale. His cruelties, his thefts, his swaggerings, have ended in deliberate treachery, and this worthy chieftain is found endeavouring to do what the humblest peasant disdained even to contemplate, to deliver up the fugitive Prince.
Barisdale took no profit by his iniquity. The Ross people, whom he had harried, burned his famous stocks, and his house, with its ‘eighteen fire-rooms, and many others without fires, beautifully covered’ (roofed) ‘with blue slates.’
He himself died in 1750, in Edinburgh Castle; six soldiers, with no mourners, carried his bulky and corpulent carcase to a grave ‘at the foot of the talus of the Castle.’
So says the Impartial Hand. Of Barisdale’s classical lore, and of his courtesy to a fair captive, we have seen proof. For the rest, a more worthless miscreant has seldom stained the page of history. It was time that such a career as his should be made impossible.
Young Barisdale skulked for years in the Highlands, a kind of Hereward, pursued by the English troops. He was usually accompanied by five or six of his Clan, armed, and in the prohibited Highland dress. He supported life in his father’s fashion, mainly by robbing the herring fishers of a fifth of their takes, under some pretence of a legal claim. His tenants, spoiled by the English troops, probably could contribute little to his maintenance. He is often mentioned in the Cumberland Papers, and, after he had been the guest of young Glengarry’s uncle, Dr. Macdonnell, that physician talked indiscreetly as follows.
On Sept. 30, 1751, Captain Izard, of the Fusiliers, writes: ‘Dr. Macdonald, brother of Glengarry, living at Cailles on Loch Nevis, told that young Barisdale lay at his house the Monday before, and took boat thence to carry his sister home, and he proposed going to the Isle of Skey’ (Skye).[66]
He was taken at last on July 18, 1753, in a wood near Lochourn in Morar, and was tried in Edinburgh on a charge of High Treason, on March 11, 1754. With him was Macdonald of Morar, five or six other Macdonalds, and Mackinnons, a MacEachan, and others. He disputed the indictment, which described him as ‘of Barisdale,’ on the score that his grandfather had only been ‘a moveable tenant of Glengarry’s, without any right in writing whatsoever.’ This plea was disregarded, and he was condemned to be hanged on May 22, bearing his sentence ‘with great composure and decency.’ Being respited, he lay in the Castle till 1762, when he took the oaths, and was released.
By a curious freak of fortune, young Barisdale’s son Col, in 1788, ‘held a Commission to regulate the Fisheries. This, in the height of the fishing season, was no easy task, and required a firm hand. Not only were there disputes among the fishermen themselves, but, apparently, thieves made it a regular trade to attend, and pick up what they could.... The poor fishermen now suffer from piracy in another form. If there were officials like Barisdale armed with sufficient powers, trawling within the limits would soon be extirpated,’ writes Mr. Fraser Mackintosh.[67] The fishermen have never been fortunate. Before trawling came in they had to do with the portentous Col of Barisdale. Perhaps, of the two, they may prefer the trawlers.
Thus, in a generation, the son of Archibald and grandson of Col, the former a brigand and thief alike of cattle and herrings, became a peaceful subject, and protector of the very class of fishermen whom his grandsire had plundered. We may drop a tear over old romance, but reality has its alleviating features. There is absolutely no kind of villainy of which Col of Barisdale was not eminently guilty. Oppression, cruelty, cowardice, theft, and treachery were all among his qualities, were all notorious, yet, till after Culloden, Col could laugh at the law, and was not shunned by society.
We have seen that Col accuses Sir Alexander Macdonald of Sleat of corrupting his honour, and advising him to sell himself. This may, or may not, be true. The sympathies of Sir Alexander had been Jacobite, before 1745, but Murray of Broughton states that in 1741 he was very angry when Balhaldie put his name on a list of adherents presented to the French Court. ‘He declared he had never given him any authority to do so.’ A statement to the contrary effect will be found in Mr. Mackenzie’s ‘History of the Macdonalds,’ page 234. In 1744, Murray represents him as ready to rise if French troops were landed. Murray repeats, in justice, that Sir Alexander’s promises were purely contingent; they depended on the existence of a ‘well-concerted scheme,’ and there was none. But Sir Alexander not only did not come out, he was won over by Forbes of Culloden to the Hanoverian Cause. ‘I should be sorry,’ says Murray, ‘to have so bad an opinion of mankind as to think any of them cappable of attempting an apologie for him.’ Murray, in his examination, lied in Sir Alexander’s interests, saying ‘he always absolutely refused to have anything to do with the Pretender.’ But, after Preston Pans, Sir Alexander, moved by that victory, said, in the hearing of Malcolm Macleod of Raasay, that he would now raise 900 of his clan and march south to fight for King James. Next morning, however, he received a letter from Forbes of Culloden, and instantly ‘was quite upon the grave and thoughtful, and dropt the declared resolution of his own mind.’[68] In fact, he turned Hanoverian.
Later, in the crisis of the Prince’s wanderings, Sir Alexander was not at home when his wife, Lady Margaret, connived with Flora Macdonald to secure Charles’s escape from Skye. Lady Margaret wrote to Forbes of Culloden that Flora was ‘a foolish girl,’ and thanked God that she knew nothing of the Prince’s being in hiding near her house. Sir Alexander, on the other hand, confessed to Forbes that Flora put his wife ‘in the utmost distress by telling her of the cargo she had brought from Uist.’[69] It was fortunate for everybody, himself included, that Sir Alexander was away from home. He wrote the following letter to Cumberland, confessing nothing:—