red her
house, and drove away her cattle, though her husband was actually in the
service of the government. The castle of Lord Lovat was destroyed.
The French prisoners were sent to Carlisle and Penrith: Kilmarnock,
Balmerino, Cromartie, and his son, The Lord Macleod, were conveyed by
sea to London; and those of an inferior rank were confined in different
prisons. The Marquis of Tullibardine, together with a brother of the
Earl of Dunmore, and Murray, the pretender's secretary, were seized and
transported to the Tower of London, to which the Earl of Traquaire
had been committed on suspicion; and the eldest son of Lord Lovat was
imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh. In a word, all the jails in
Great Britain, from the capital, northwards, were filled with those
unfortunate captives; and great numbers of them were crowded together in
the holds of ships, where they perished in the most deplorable manner,
for want of air and exercise. Some rebel chiefs escaped in two French
frigates that arrived on the coast of Lochaber about the end of April,
and engaged three vessels belonging to his Britannic majesty, which
they obliged to retire. Others embarked on board a ship on the coast
of Buchan, and were conveyed to Norway, from whence they travelled to
Sweden. In the month of May, the Duke of Cumberland advanced with the
army into the Highlands, as far as Fort Augustus, where he encamped; and
sent off detachments on all hands, to hunt down the fugitives, and
lay waste the country with fire and sword. The castles of Glengary and
Lochiel were plundered and burned; every house, hut, or habitation,
met with the same fate, without distinction; and all the cattle and
provision were carried off; the men were either shot upon the mountains,
like wild beasts, or put to death in cold blood, without form of trial;
the women, after having seen their husbands and fathers murdered, were
subjected to brutal violation, and then turned out naked, with their
children, to starve on the barren heaths. One whole family was enclosed
in a barn, and consumed to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance were so
alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days there was
neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be seen within the compass of
fifty miles; all was ruin, silence, and desolation."
I have here presented the reader with one of the most shocking instances
of cruelty ever practised, and I leave it, to rest on his mind, that he
may be fully i
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