who had excited their male relations to bear arms in
his favour. But the circumstance which weighed the most heavily against
James, was the order which he published, on hearing that the Duke of
Argyle was making preparations to march against him, for burning the
towns and villages, and destroying the corn and forage, between Dumblane
and Perth. This act of destruction, from the effects of which the
desolate village of Auchterarder has never recovered, was determined on,
in order that the enemy might be incommoded as much as possible upon
their march; it added to the miseries of a people already impoverished
by the taxes and contributions which the Jacobites had levied. It
appears, however, from a letter of James's, since discovered, or
perhaps, only suppressed at the time, to have been an act which he
bitterly regretted, and the order for which he signed most unwillingly.
He was desirous of making every reparation in his power for the ravages
which were committed in his name.[136]

On the ninth of January a council of war was held by the Duke of Argyle
at Stirling, where, by a singular coincidence, the council sat in the
same room in which James the Second, then Duke of York, had, in 1680,
been entertained by the Earl of Argyle, to whom he had proposed the
repeal of the sanguinary laws against Papists. The refusal of Argyle to
concur in that measure, the consequences of his conduct, and his
subsequent death, are circumstances which, doubtless, arose to the
remembrance of his descendant, as he discussed, in that apartment, the
march towards Perth.

The country between Stirling and Perth was covered with a deep snow; the
weather was one continual storm; it was therefore impossible for the
army of Argyle to proceed until the roads were cleared,--a process which
required some time to effect. It is asserted, nevertheless, by an
historian, that upon Colonel Ghest being sent with two hundred dragoons
to reconnoitre the road leading to Perth, that the greatest panic
prevailed in that town: immediate preparations were made for defence,
and nothing was to be seen except planting of guns, marking out
breastworks and trenches, and digging up stones, and laying them with
sand to prevent the effects of a bombardment.[137] The Earl of Mar,
nevertheless, does not appear, if we may accredit his own words, to have
even then despaired of a favourable issue. The following letter betrays
no fear, but speaks of some minor inconvenience, whi