the Highlanders were
not, except in very peculiar circumstances, a match for good regular
soldiers.

Meanwhile the disorders of Cannon's camp went on increasing. He called
a council of war to consider what course it would be advisable to take.
But as soon as the council had met, a preliminary question was raised.
Who were entitled to be consulted? The army was almost exclusively a
Highland army. The recent victory had been won exclusively by Highland
warriors. Great chiefs, who had brought six or seven hundred fighting
men into the field, did not think it fair that they should be outvoted
by gentlemen from Ireland and from the low country, who bore indeed King
James's commission, and were called Colonels and Captains, but who were
Colonels without regiments and Captains without companies. Lochiel spoke
strongly in behalf of the class to which he belonged: but Cannon decided
that the votes of the Saxon officers should be reckoned, [375]

It was next considered what was to be the plan of the campaign. Lochiel
was for advancing, for marching towards Mackay wherever Mackay might be,
and for giving battle again. It can hardly be supposed that success
had so turned the head of the wise chief of the Camerons as to make
him insensible of the danger of the course which he recommended. But he
probably conceived that nothing but a choice between dangers was left to
him. His notion was that vigorous action was necessary to the very being
of a Highland army, and that the coalition of clans would last only
while they were impatiently pushing forward from battlefield to
battlefield. He was again overruled. All his hopes of success were
now at an end. His pride was severely wounded. He had submitted to the
ascendancy of a great captain: but he cared as little as any Whig for
a royal commission. He had been willing to be the right hand of Dundee:
but he would not be ordered about by Cannon. He quitted the camp, and
retired to Lochaber. He indeed directed his clan to remain. But the
clan, deprived of the leader whom it adored, and aware that he had
withdrawn himself in ill humour, was no longer the same terrible
column which had a few days before kept so well the vow to perish or to
conquer. Macdonald of Sleat, whose forces exceeded in number those of
any other of the confederate chiefs, followed Lochiel's example and
returned to Sky, [376]

Mackay's arrangements were by this time complete; and he had little
doubt that, if the rebels