red that evening from Scone to Perth, where having
supped at Provost Hay's, he rested some hours; and next morning[57]
about ten o'clock, the rebels abandoned Perth, marching over the Tay
upon the ice, and, leaving their cannon behind them, took their rout
towards Dundee. About noon the Pretender himself, with the Earl of Mar,
followed his flying adherents with tears in his eyes, complaining that
instead of bringing him to a Crown, they had brought him to his
grave....

The rebels having retired from Dundee to Montrose, his Grace, on the
3rd,[58] sent a detachment towards Aberbrothick[59] within eight miles
of that place; and on the fourth, in the morning, ordered Major General
Sabine, with 3 battalions, 500 detached foot, and 50 dragoons, to march
to Aberbrothick. The same day his Grace detached Colonel Clayton with
300 foot and 50 dragoons, to march by the way of Brechin; giving orders
to the one as well as the other to summon the country people to remove
the snow on the roads, which, being then very deep, made their march
very heavy and tedious. His Grace having divided the rest of his army
into two bodies, for marching with the greater expedition; and the rebel
army having marched in two columns, on the 5th, in the morning, General
Cadogan with the infantry marched towards Aberbrothick, and at the same
time the Duke himself, with all the cavalry, proceeded by the Upper Road
towards Brechin; the whole army being to join the next day at
Stonehive,[60] intending on Tuesday hereafter to be at Aberdeen, to
which place they supposed the Pretender was gone.

But by this time the Pretender was out of their reach; for having
received advice at Montrose, on the 4th of February, about four in the
afternoon, that part of the King's army was advancing towards
Aberbrothick, he ordered the clans who remained with him to be ready to
march, about eight at night, towards Aberdeen, where he assured them a
considerable force would soon come to them from France. At the hour
appointed for their march, the Pretender ordered his horses to be
brought before the door of the house in which he lodged, and the guard
which usually attended him to mount, as if he designed to go on with the
clans to Aberdeen; but at the same time he slipped privately out on
foot, accompanied only by one of his domesticks, went to the Earl of
Mar's lodgings, and from thence, by a byway to the water-side, where a
boat waited and carried him and the Earl of Mar on b