teenth, not even when he was encamped between Utrecht and Amsterdam,
treat the States General with such despotic insolence, [332] By the
intervention of the Privy Council of Scotland a compromise was effected:
but the old animosity was undiminished.

Common enmities and common apprehensions produced a good understanding
between the town and the clan of Mackintosh. The foe most hated and
dreaded by both was Colin Macdonald of Keppoch, an excellent specimen of
the genuine Highland Jacobite. Keppoch's whole life had been passed
in insulting and resisting the authority of the Crown. He had been
repeatedly charged on his allegiance to desist from his lawless
practices, but had treated every admonition with contempt. The
government, however, was not willing to resort to extremities against
him; and he long continued to rule undisturbed the stormy peaks of
Coryarrick, and the gigantic terraces which still mark the limits of
what was once the Lake of Glenroy. He was famed for his knowledge of all
the ravines and caverns of that dreary region; and such was the
skill with which he could track a herd of cattle to the most secret
hidingplace that he was known by the nickname of Coll of the Cows,
[333] At length his outrageous violations of all law compelled the Privy
Council to take decided steps. He was proclaimed a rebel: letters of
fire and sword were issued against him under the seal of James; and, a
few weeks before the Revolution, a body of royal troops, supported
by the whole strength of the Mackintoshes, marched into Keppoch's
territories. He gave battle to the invaders, and was victorious. The
King's forces were put to flight; the King's captain was slain; and this
by a hero whose loyalty to the King many writers have very complacently
contrasted with the factious turbulence of the Whigs, [334]

If Keppoch had ever stood in any awe of the government, he was
completely relieved from that feeling by the general anarchy which
followed the Revolution. He wasted the lands of the Mackintoshes,
advanced to Inverness, and threatened the town with destruction. The
danger was extreme. The houses were surrounded only by a wall which
time and weather had so loosened that it shook in every storm. Yet the
inhabitants showed a bold front; and their courage was stimulated by
their preachers. Sunday the twenty-eighth of April was a day of alarm
and confusion. The savages went round and round the small colony of
Saxons like a troop of fami