The appearance of ‘Pickle the Spy’ was welcomed by a good deal of clamour on the part of some Highland critics. It was said that I had brought a disgraceful charge, without proof, against a Chief of unstained honour. Scarcely any arguments were adduced in favour of Glengarry. What could be said in suspense of judgment was said in the Scottish Review, by Mr. A. H. Millar. That gentleman, however, was brought round to my view, as I understand, when he compared the handwriting of Pickle with that of Glengarry. Mr. Millar’s letter on the subject will be found in this book (pp. 247, 248).

The doubts and opposition which my theory encountered made it desirable to examine fresh documents in the Record Office, the British Museum, and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, while General Alastair Macdonald (whose family recently owned Lochgarry) has kindly permitted me to read Glengarry’s MS. Letter Book, in his possession. The results will be found in the following pages.

Being engaged on the subject, I made a series of studies of persons connected with Prince Charles, and with the Jacobite movement. Of these the Earl Marischal was the most important, and, by reason of his long life and charming character—a compound of ‘Aberdeen and Valencia’—the most interesting. As a foil to the good Earl, who finally abandoned the Jacobite party, I chose Murray of Broughton, who, though he turned informer, remained true in sentiment, I believe, to his old love. His character may, perhaps, be read otherwise, but such is the impression left on me by his ‘Memorials,’ documents edited recently for the Scottish History Society by Mr. Fitzroy Bell.

In Barisdale, whose treachery was perfectly well known at the time, and was punished by both parties, we have a picture of the Highlander at his worst. Culloden made such a career as that of Barisdale for ever impossible.

In the chapters on ‘Cluny’s Treasure’ and ‘The Troubles of the Camerons’ I have, I hope, redeemed the characters of Cluny and Dr. Archibald Cameron from the charges of flagrant dishonesty brought against them by young Glengarry. Both gentlemen were reduced to destitution, which by itself is incompatible with the allegations of their common enemy.

‘The Uprooting of Fassifern’ illustrates the unscrupulous nature of judicial proceedings in Scotland after Culloden. A part of Fassifern’s conduct is not easily explained in a favourable sense, but he was persecuted in a strangely unjust and intolerable manner. Incidentally it appears that public indignation against this sort of procedure, rather than distrust of ‘what the soldier said’ in his ghostly apparitions, procured the acquittal of the murderers of Sergeant Davies.

‘The Last Days of Glengarry’ is based on a study of his MS. Letter Book, while ‘The Case against Glengarry’ sums up the old and re-states the new evidence that identifies him with Pickle the Spy.

The last chapter is an attempt to estimate the social situation created in the Highlands by the collapse of the Clan system.

I have inserted, in ‘A Gentleman of Knoydart,’ an account of a foil to Barisdale, derived from the Memoirs of a young member of his clan, John Macdonell, of the Scotus family. The editor of Macmillan’s Magazine has kindly permitted me to reprint this article from his serial for June 1898.

A note on ‘Mlle. Luci’ corrects an error about Montesquieu into which I had fallen when writing ‘Pickle the Spy,’ and throws fresh light on Mlle. Ferrand.

It is, or should be, superfluous to disclaim an enmity to the Celtic race, and rebut the charge of ‘not leaving unraked a dunghill in search for a cudgel wherewith to maltreat the Highlanders, particularly those who rose in the Forty-five.’ This elegant extract is from a Gaelic address by a minister to the Gaelic Society of Inverness.[1] I have not raked dunghills in search of cudgels, nor are my sympathies hostile to the brave men, Highland or Lowland, who died on the field or scaffold in 1745-53. The perfidy of which so many proofs come to light was in no sense peculiarly Celtic. The history of Scotland, till after the Reformation, is full of examples in which Lowlanders unscrupulously used the worst weapons of the weak. Historical conditions, not race, gave birth to the Douglases and Brunstons whom Barisdale, Glengarry, and others imitated on a smaller scale. These men were the exceptions, the rare exceptions, in a race illustrious for loyalty. I have tried to show the historical and social sources of their demoralisation, so extraordinary when found among the countrymen of Keppoch, Clanranald, Glenaladale, Scotus, and Lochiel.

I must apologise for occasional repetitions which I have been unable to avoid in a set of separate studies of characters engaged in the same set of circumstances.

My most respectful thanks are due to Her Majesty for her gracious permission to study the collection of Cumberland Papers in her library at Windsor Castle. Only a small portion of these valuable documents has been examined for the present purpose. Mr. Richard Holmes, Her Majesty’s Librarian, lent his kind advice, and Miss Violet Simpson aided me in examining and copying these and other papers referred to in their proper places. Indeed I cannot overestimate my debt to the research and acuteness of this lady.

To General Macdonald I have to repeat my thanks for the use of his papers, and the Duke of Atholl has kindly permitted me to cite his privately printed collections, where they illustrate the matter in hand.

Sir Thomas Gibson Carmichael was good enough to lend me, for reproduction, his miniature of the Duke of York and Prince Charles.

The earlier portrait of the Earl Marischal is from the Scottish National Museum, the later (of 1752?) is from the National Portrait Gallery. It gives a likeness of one of the good Earl’s menagerie of young heathens. The miniature of Prince Charles (p. 140) is a copy or replica of one given by him to a Macleod of the Raasay house in September, 1746. The Royal Society of Edinburgh kindly permitted me to have copies made of several of the Earl Marischal’s letters to David Hume, in their possession. In some of these (unprinted) the Earl touches on a theme for which le bon David frankly expresses his affection in a letter to the Lord Advocate.