No More Learning

But by him the power of
putting a Veto on laws which had been passed by the Estates of the Realm
was used on several important occasions. His detractors truly asserted
that he rejected a greater number of important bills than all the Kings
of the House of Stuart put together, and most absurdly inferred that the
sense of the Estates of the Realm was much less respected by him than by
his uncles and his grandfather. A judicious student of history will
have no difficulty in discovering why William repeatedly exercised a
prerogative to which his predecessors very seldom had recourse, and
which his successors have suffered to fall into utter desuetude.

His predecessors passed laws easily because they broke laws easily.
Charles the First gave his assent to the Petition of Right, and
immediately violated every clause of that great statute. Charles the
Second gave his assent to an Act which provided that a Parliament should
be held at least once in three years; but when he died the country had
been near four years without a Parliament. The laws which abolished
the Court of High Commission, the laws which instituted the Sacramental
Test, were passed without the smallest difficulty; but they did
not prevent James the Second from reestablishing the Court of High
Commission, and from filling the Privy Council, the public offices, the
courts of justice, and the municipal corporations with persons who had
never taken the Test. Nothing could be more natural than that a King
should not think it worth while to withhold his assent from a statute
with which he could dispense whenever he thought fit.

The situation of William was very different. He could not, like those
who had ruled before him, pass an Act in the spring and violate it
in the summer. He had, by assenting to the Bill of Rights, solemnly
renounced the dispensing power; and he was restrained, by prudence as
well as by conscience and honour, from breaking the compact under which
he held his crown. A law might be personally offensive to him; it might
appear to him to be pernicious to his people; but, as soon as he had
passed it, it was, in his eyes, a sacred thing. He had therefore a
motive, which preceding Kings had not, for pausing before he passed such
a law. They gave their word readily, because they had no scruple about
breaking it. He gave his word slowly, because he never failed to keep
it.

But his situation, though it differed widely from that of the princes of
the House of Stuart, was not precisely that of the princes of the House
of Brunswick. A prince of the House of Brunswick is guided, as to the
use of every royal prerogative, by the advice of a responsible ministry;
and this ministry must be taken from the party which predominates in the
two Houses, or, at least, in the Lower House. It is hardly possible to
conceive circumstances in which a Sovereign so situated can refuse
to assent to a bill which has been approved by both branches of the
legislature. Such a refusal would necessarily imply one of two things,
that the Sovereign acted in opposition to the advice of the ministry, or
that the ministry was at issue, on a question of vital importance, with
a majority both of the Commons and of the Lords. On either supposition
the country would be in a most critical state, in a state which, if
long continued, must end in a revolution. But in the earlier part of
the reign of William there was no ministry. The heads of the executive
departments had not been appointed exclusively from either party.
Some were zealous Whigs, others zealous Tories. The most enlightened
statesmen did not hold it to be unconstitutional that the King should
exercise his highest prerogatives on the most important occasions
without any other guidance than that of his own judgment. His refusal,
therefore, to assent to a bill which had passed both Houses indicated,
not, as a similar refusal would now indicate, that the whole machinery
of government was in a state of fearful disorder, but merely that there
was a difference of opinion between him and the two other branches
of the legislature as to the expediency of a particular law. Such a
difference of opinion might exist, and, as we shall hereafter see,
actually did exist, at a time when he was, not merely on friendly, but
on most affectionate terms with the Estates of the Realm.

The circumstances under which he used his Veto for the first time have
never yet been correctly stated. A well meant but unskilful attempt
had been made to complete a reform which the Bill of Rights had left
imperfect. That great law had deprived the Crown of the power of
arbitrarily removing the judges, but had not made them entirely
independent. They were remunerated partly by fees and partly by
salaries. Over the fees the King had no control; but the salaries he had
full power to reduce or to withhold. That William had ever abused this
power was not pretended; but it was undoubtedly a power which no prince
ought to possess; and this was the sense of both Houses. A bill was
therefore brought in by which a salary of a thousand a year was strictly
secured to each of the twelve judges. Thus far all was well. But
unfortunately the salaries were made a charge on the hereditary revenue.
No such proposition would now be entertained by the House of Commons,
without the royal consent previously signified by a Privy Councillor.
But this wholesome rule had not then been established; and William could
defend the proprietary rights of the Crown only by putting his negative
on the bill. At the time there was, as far as can now be ascertained, no
outcry. Even the Jacobite libellers were almost silent. It was not till
the provisions of the bill had been forgotten, and till nothing but its
title was remembered, that William was accused of having been influenced
by a wish to keep the judges in a state of dependence. [201]

The Houses broke up; and the King prepared to set out for the Continent.
Before his departure he made some changes in his household and in
several departments of the government; changes, however, which did not
indicate a very decided preference for either of the great political
parties. Rochester was sworn of the Council. It is probable that he
had earned this mark of royal favour by taking the Queen's side in the
unhappy dispute between her and her sister. Pembroke took charge of the
Privy Seal, and was succeeded at the Board of Admiralty by Charles Lord
Cornwallis, a moderate Tory; Lowther accepted a seat at the same board,
and was succeeded at the Treasury by Sir Edward Seymour. Many Tory
country gentlemen, who had looked on Seymour as their leader in the war
against placemen and Dutchmen, were moved to indignation by learning
that he had become a courtier. They remembered that he had voted for
a Regency, that he had taken the oaths with no good grace, that he had
spoken with little respect of the Sovereign whom he was now ready to
serve for the sake of emoluments hardly worthy of the acceptance of a
man of his wealth and parliamentary interest. It was strange that the
haughtiest of human beings should be the meanest, that one who seethed
to reverence nothing on earth but himself should abase himself for the
sake of quarter day. About such reflections he troubled himself very
little. He found, however, that there was one disagreeable circumstance
connected with his new office. At the Board of Treasury he must sit
below the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The First Lord, Godolphin, was a
peer of the realm; and his right to precedence, according to the rules
of the heralds, could not be questioned. But every body knew who was the
first of English commoners. What was Richard Hampden that he should
take the place of a Seymour, of the head of the Seymours? With much
difficulty, the dispute was compromised. Many concessions were made
to Sir Edward's punctilious pride. He was sworn of the Council. He
was appointed one of the Cabinet. The King took him by the hand and
presented him to the Queen. "I bring you," said William, "a gentleman
who will in my absence be a valuable friend. " In this way Sir Edward was
so much soothed and flattered that he ceased to insist on his right
to thrust himself between the First Lord and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer.

In the same Commission of Treasury in which the name of Seymour
appeared, appeared also the name of a much younger politician, who had
during the late session raised himself to high distinction in the House
of Commons, Charles Montague. This appointment gave great satisfaction
to the Whigs, in whose esteem Montague now stood higher than their
veteran chiefs Sacheverell and Littleton, and was indeed second to
Somers alone.

Sidney delivered up the seals which he had held during more than a year,
and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Some months elapsed before
the place which he had quitted was filled up; and during this interval
the whole business which had ordinarily been divided between two
Secretaries of State was transacted by Nottingham. [202]

While these arrangements were in progress, events had taken place in a
distant part of the island which were not, till after the lapse of
many months, known in the best informed circles of London, but which
gradually obtained a fearful notoriety, and which, after the lapse of
more than a hundred and sixty years, are never mentioned without horror.

Soon after the Estates of Scotland had separated in the autumn of 1690,
a change was made in the administration of that kingdom. William was
not satisfied with the way in which he had been represented in the
Parliament House. He thought that the rabbled curates had been hardly
treated. He had very reluctantly suffered the law which abolished
patronage to be touched with his sceptre. But what especially displeased
him was that the Acts which established a new ecclesiastical polity had
not been accompanied by an Act granting liberty of conscience to those
who were attached to the old ecclesiastical polity. He had directed his
Commissioner Melville to obtain for the Episcopalians of Scotland an
indulgence similar to that which Dissenters enjoyed in England. [203]
But the Presbyterian preachers were loud and vehement against lenity
to Amalekites. Melville, with useful talents, and perhaps with fair
intentions, had neither large views nor an intrepid spirit. He shrank
from uttering a word so hateful to the theological demagogues of his
country as Toleration. By obsequiously humouring their prejudices he
quelled the clamour which was rising at Edinburgh; but the effect of his
timid caution was that a far more formidable clamour soon rose in
the south of the island against the bigotry of the schismatics who
domineered in the north, and against the pusillanimity of the government
which had not dared to withstand that bigotry. On this subject the High
Churchman and the Low Churchman were of one mind, or rather the Low
Churchman was the more angry of the two. A man like South, who had
during many years been predicting that, if ever the Puritans ceased to
be oppressed, they would become oppressors, was at heart not ill pleased
to see his prophecy fulfilled. But in a man like Burnet, the great
object of whose life had been to mitigate the animosity which the
ministers of the Anglican Church felt towards the Presbyterians, the
intolerant conduct of the Presbyterians could awaken no feeling but
indignation, shame and grief. There was, therefore, at the English Court
nobody to speak a good word for Melville. It was impossible that in
such circumstances he should remain at the head of the Scottish
administration. He was, however, gently let down from his high position.
He continued during more than a year to be Secretary of State; but
another Secretary was appointed, who was to reside near the King, and to
have the chief direction of affairs. The new Prime Minister for Scotland
was the able, eloquent and accomplished Sir John Dalrymple. His father,
the Lord President of the Court of Session, had lately been raised to
the peerage by the title of Viscount Stair; and Sir John Dalrymple was
consequently, according to the ancient usage of Scotland, designated
as the Master of Stair. In a few months Melville resigned his
secretaryship, and accepted an office of some dignity and emolument, but
of no political importance. [204]

The Lowlands of Scotland were, during the year which followed the
parliamentary session of 1690, as quiet as they had ever been within the
memory of man; but the state of the Highlands caused much anxiety to the
government. The civil war in that wild region, after it had ceased to
flame, had continued during some time to smoulder. At length, early in
the year 1691, the rebel chiefs informed the Court of Saint Germains
that, pressed as they were on every side, they could hold out no longer
without succour from France. James had sent them a small quantity of
meal, brandy and tobacco, and had frankly told them that he could do
nothing more. Money was so scarce among them that six hundred pounds
sterling would have been a most acceptable addition to their funds,
but even such a sum he was unable to spare. He could scarcely, in such
circumstances, expect them to defend his cause against a government
which had a regular army and a large revenue. He therefore informed them
that he should not take it ill of them if they made their peace with
the new dynasty, provided always that they were prepared to rise in
insurrection as soon as he should call on them to do so. [205]

Meanwhile it had been determined at Kensington, in spite of the
opposition of the Master of Stair, to try the plan which Tarbet had
recommended two years before, and which, if it had been tried when
he recommended it, would probably have prevented much bloodshed and
confusion. It was resolved that twelve or fifteen thousand pounds should
be laid out in quieting the Highlands. This was a mass of treasure which
to an inhabitant of Appin or Lochaber seemed almost fabulous, and which
indeed bore a greater proportion to the income of Keppoch or Glengarry
than fifteen hundred thousand pounds bore to the income of Lord Bedford
or Lord Devonshire. The sum was ample; but the King was not fortunate in
the choice of an agent. [206]

John Earl of Breadalbane, the head of a younger branch of the great
House of Campbell, ranked high among the petty princes of the mountains.
He could bring seventeen hundred claymores into the field; and, ten
years before the Revolution, he had actually marched into the Lowlands
with this great force for the purpose of supporting the prelatical
tyranny. [207] In those days he had affected zeal for monarchy and
episcopacy; but in truth he cared for no government and no religion.
He seems to have united two different sets of vices, the growth of
two different regions, and of two different stages in the progress of
society. In his castle among the hills he had learned the barbarian
pride and ferocity of a Highland chief. In the Council Chamber at
Edinburgh he had contracted the deep taint of treachery and corruption.
After the Revolution he had, like too many of his fellow nobles, joined
and betrayed every party in turn, had sworn fealty to William and Mary,
and had plotted against them. To trace all the turns and doublings of
his course, during the year 1689 and the earlier part of 1690, would
be wearisome. [208] That course became somewhat less tortuous when the
battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the Jacobites. It now seemed
probable that the Earl would be a loyal subject of their Majesties, till
some great disaster should befall them. Nobody who knew him could trust
him; but few Scottish statesmen could then be trusted; and yet Scottish
statesmen must be employed. His position and connections marked him out
as a man who might, if he would, do much towards the work of quieting
the Highlands; and his interest seemed to be a guarantee for his zeal.
He had, as he declared with every appearance of truth, strong personal
reasons for wishing to see tranquillity restored. His domains were so
situated that, while the civil war lasted, his vassals could not tend
their herds or sow their oats in peace. His lands were daily ravaged;
his cattle were daily driven away; one of his houses had been burned
down. It was probable, therefore, that he would do his best to put an
end to hostilities. [209]

He was accordingly commissioned to treat with the Jacobite chiefs, and
was entrusted with the money which was to be distributed among them. He
invited them to a conference at his residence in Glenorchy. They came;
but the treaty went on very slowly. Every head of a tribe asked for a
larger share of the English gold than was to be obtained. Breadalbane
was suspected of intending to cheat both the clans and the King. The
dispute between the rebels and the government was complicated with
another dispute still more embarrassing. The Camerons and Macdonalds
were really at war, not with William, but with Mac Callum More; and
no arrangement to which Mac Callum More was not a party could really
produce tranquillity. A grave question therefore arose, whether
the money entrusted to Breadalbane should be paid directly to the
discontented chiefs, or should be employed to satisfy the claims
which Argyle had upon them. The shrewdness of Lochiel and the arrogant
pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussions. But
no Celtic potentate was so impracticable as Macdonald of Glencoe, known
among the mountains by the hereditary appellation of Mac Ian. [210]

Mac Ian dwelt in the mouth of a ravine situated not far from the
southern shore of Lochleven, an arm of the sea which deeply indents the
western coast of Scotland, and separates Argyleshire from Invernesshire.
Near his house were two or three small hamlets inhabited by his tribe.
The whole population which he governed was not supposed to exceed two
hundred souls. In the neighbourhood of the little cluster of villages
was some copsewood and some pasture land; but a little further up the
defile no sign of population or of fruitfulness was to be seen. In the
Gaelic tongue Glencoe signifies the Glen of Weeping; and in truth that
pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes,
the very Valley of the Shadow of Death. Mists and storms brood over it
through the greater part of the finest summer; and even on those rare
days when the sun is bright, and when there is no cloud in the sky, the
impression made by the landscape is sad and awful. The path lies along
a stream which issues from the most sullen and gloomy of mountain pools.
Huge precipices of naked stone frown on both sides. Even in July the
streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts near the summits.
All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin mark the headlong paths of
the torrents. Mile after mile the traveller looks in vain for the smoke
of one hut, for one human form wrapped in plaid, and listens in vain for
the bark of a shepherd's dog or the bleat of a lamb. Mile after mile the
only sound that indicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from
some stormbeaten pinnacle of rock. The progress of civilisation, which
has turned so many wastes into fields yellow with harvests or gay with
apple blossoms, has only made Glencoe more desolate. All the science
and industry of a peaceful age can extract nothing valuable from that
wilderness; but, in an age of violence and rapine, the wilderness itself
was valued on account of the shelter which it afforded to the plunderer
and his plunder. Nothing could be more natural than that the clan to
which this rugged desert belonged should have been noted for predatory
habits. For, among the Highlanders generally, to rob was thought at
least as honourable an employment as to cultivate the soil; and, of
all the Highlanders, The Macdonalds of Glencoe had the least productive
soil, and the most convenient and secure den of robbers. Successive
governments had tried to punish this wild race; but no large force
had ever been employed for that purpose; and a small force was easily
resisted or eluded by men familiar with every recess and every outlet of
the natural fortress in which they had been born and bred. The people of
Glencoe would probably have been less troublesome neighbours if they
had lived among their own kindred. But they were an outpost of the
Clan Donald, separated from every other branch of their own family, and
almost surrounded by the domains of the hostile race of Diarmid. [211]
They were impelled by hereditary enmity, as well as by want, to live
at the expense of the tribe of Campbell. Breadalbane's property had
suffered greatly from their depredations; and he was not of a temper to
forgive such injuries. When, therefore, the Chief of Glencoe made his
appearance at the congress in Glenorchy, he was ungraciously received.
The Earl, who ordinarily bore himself with the solemn dignity of a
Castilian grandee, forgot, in his resentment, his wonted gravity, forgot
his public character, forgot the laws of hospitality, and, with angry
reproaches and menaces, demanded reparation for the herds which had
been driven from his lands by Mac Ian's followers. Mac Ian was seriously
apprehensive of some personal outrage, and was glad to get safe back to
his own glen. [212] His pride had been wounded; and the promptings of
interest concurred with those of pride. As the head of a people who
lived by pillage, he had strong reasons for wishing that the country
might continue to be in a perturbed state. He had little chance of
receiving one guinea of the money which was to be distributed among
the malecontents. For his share of that money would scarcely meet
Breadalbane's demands for compensation; and there could be little
doubt that, whoever might be unpaid, Breadalbane would take care to
pay himself. Mac Ian therefore did his best to dissuade his allies from
accepting terms from which he could himself expect no benefit; and his
influence was not small. His own vassals, indeed, were few in number;
but he came of the best blood of the Highlands; he had kept up a close
connection with his more powerful kinsmen; nor did they like him
the less because he was a robber; for he never robbed them; and that
robbery, merely as robbery, was a wicked and disgraceful act, had never
entered into the mind of any Celtic chief. Mac Ian was therefore held in
high esteem by the confederates. His age was venerable; his aspect was
majestic; and he possessed in large measure those intellectual qualities
which, in rude societies, give men an ascendency over their fellows.
Breadalbane found himself, at every step of the negotiation, thwarted
by the arts of his old enemy, and abhorred the name of Glencoe more and
more every day. [213]

But the government did not trust solely to Breadalbane's diplomatic
skill. The authorities at Edinburgh put forth a proclamation exhorting
the clans to submit to King William and Queen Mary, and offering pardon
to every rebel who, on or before the thirty-first of December 1691,
should swear to live peaceably under the government of their Majesties.
It was announced that those who should hold out after that day would be
treated as enemies and traitors. [214] Warlike preparations were made,
which showed that the threat was meant in earnest. The Highlanders were
alarmed, and, though the pecuniary terms had not been satisfactorily
settled, thought it prudent to give the pledge which was demanded of
them. No chief, indeed, was willing to set the example of submission.
Glengarry blustered, and pretended to fortify his house. [215] "I will
not," said Lochiel, "break the ice. That is a point of honour with me.
But my tacksmen and people may use their freedom. " [216] His tacksmen
and people understood him, and repaired by hundreds to the Sheriff to
take the oaths. The Macdonalds of Sleat, Clanronald, Keppoch, and
even Glengarry, imitated the Camerons; and the chiefs, after trying to
outstay each other as long as they durst, imitated their vassals.

The thirty-first of December arrived; and still the Macdonalds of
Glencoe had not come in. The punctilious pride of Mac Ian was doubtless
gratified by the thought that he had continued to defy the government
after the boastful Glengarry, the ferocious Keppoch, the magnanimous
Lochiel had yielded: but he bought his gratification dear.

At length, on the thirty-first of December, he repaired to Fort William,
accompanied by his principal vassals, and offered to take the oaths. To
his dismay he found that there was in the fort no person competent to
administer them. Colonel Hill, the Governor, was not a magistrate;
nor was there any magistrate nearer than Inverary. Mac Ian, now fully
sensible of the folly of which he had been guilty in postponing to the
very last moment an act on which his life and his estate depended, set
off for Inverary in great distress. He carried with him a letter from
Hill to the Sheriff of Argyleshire, Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglass, a
respectable gentleman, who, in the late reign, had suffered severely for
his Whig principles. In this letter the Colonel expressed a goodnatured
hope that, even out of season, a lost sheep, and so fine a lost sheep,
would be gladly received. Mac Ian made all the haste in his power, and
did not stop even at his own house, though it lay nigh to the road. But
at that time a journey through Argyleshire in the depth of winter was
necessarily slow. The old man's progress up steep mountains and along
boggy valleys was obstructed by snow storms; and it was not till
the sixth of January that he presented himself before the Sheriff at
Inverary. The Sheriff hesitated. His power, he said, was limited by the
terms of the proclamation, and he did not see how he could swear a
rebel who had not submitted within the prescribed time. Mac Ian begged
earnestly and with tears that he might be sworn. His people, he said,
would follow his example. If any of them proved refractory, he would
himself send the recusant to prison, or ship him off for Islanders. His
entreaties and Hill's letter overcame Sir Colin's scruples. The oath
was administered; and a certificate was transmitted to the Council at
Edinburgh, setting forth the special circumstances which had induced the
Sheriff to do what he knew not to be strictly regular. [217]

The news that Mac Ian had not submitted within the prescribed time was
received with cruel joy by three powerful Scotchmen who were then at the
English Court. Breadalbane had gone up to London at Christmas in order
to give an account of his stewardship. There he met his kinsman Argyle.
Argyle was, in personal qualities, one of the most insignificant of
the long line of nobles who have borne that great name. He was the
descendant of eminent men, and the parent of eminent men. He was the
grandson of one of the ablest of Scottish politicians; the son of one of
the bravest and most truehearted of Scottish patriots; the father of one
Mac Callum More renowned as a warrior and as an orator, as the model of
every courtly grace, and as the judicious patron of arts and letters,
and of another Mac Callum More distinguished by talents for business and
command, and by skill in the exact sciences. Both of such an ancestry
and of such a progeny Argyle was unworthy. He had even been guilty
of the crime, common enough among Scottish politicians, but in him
singularly disgraceful, of tampering with the agents of James while
professing loyalty to William. Still Argyle had the importance
inseparable from high rank, vast domains, extensive feudal rights,
and almost boundless patriarchal authority. To him, as to his cousin
Breadalbane, the intelligence that the tribe of Glencoe was out of the
protection of the law was most gratifying; and the Master of Stair more
than sympathized with them both.

The feeling of Argyle and Breadalbane is perfectly intelligible.
They were the heads of a great clan; and they had an opportunity of
destroying a neighbouring clan with which they were at deadly feud.
Breadalbane had received peculiar provocation. His estate had been
repeatedly devastated; and he had just been thwarted in a negotiation
of high moment.
Unhappily there was scarcely any excess of ferocity
for which a precedent could not be found in Celtic tradition. Among all
warlike barbarians revenge is esteemed the most sacred of duties and the
most exquisite of pleasures; and so it had long been esteemed among the
Highlanders. The history of the clans abounds with frightful tales,
some perhaps fabulous or exaggerated, some certainly true, of vindictive
massacres and assassinations. The Macdonalds of Glengarry, for example,
having been affronted by the people of Culloden, surrounded Culloden
church on a Sunday, shut the doors, and burned the whole congregation
alive. While the flames were raging, the hereditary musician of the
murderers mocked the shrieks of the perishing crowd with the notes of
his bagpipe. [218] A band of Macgregors, having cut off the head of an
enemy, laid it, the mouth filled with bread and cheese, on his sister's
table, and had the satisfaction of seeing her go mad with horror at the
sight. They then carried the ghastly trophy in triumph to their chief.
The whole clan met under the roof of an ancient church. Every one in
turn laid his hand on the dead man's scalp, and vowed to defend the
slayers. [219] The inhabitants of Eigg seized some Macleods, bound them
hand and foot, and turned them adrift in a boat to be swallowed up by
the waves or to perish of hunger. The Macleods retaliated by driving the
population of Eigg into a cavern, lighting a fire at the entrance, and
suffocating the whole race, men, women and children. [220] It is much
less strange that the two great Earls of the house of Campbell, animated
by the passions of Highland chieftains, should have planned a Highland
revenge, than that they should have found an accomplice, and something
more than an accomplice, in the Master of Stair.

The Master of Stair was one of the first men of his time, a jurist, a
statesman, a fine scholar, an eloquent orator. His polished manners and
lively conversation were the delight of aristocratical societies; and
none who met him in such societies would have thought it possible that
he could bear the chief part in any atrocious crime. His political
principles were lax, yet not more lax than those of most Scotch
politicians of that age. Cruelty had never been imputed to him. Those
who most disliked him did him the justice to own that, where his schemes
of policy were not concerned, he was a very goodnatured man. [221] There
is not the slightest reason to believe that he gained a single pound
Scots by the act which has covered his name with infamy. He had no
personal reason to wish the Glencoe men ill. There had been no feud
between them and his family. His property lay in a district where their
tartan was never seen. Yet he hated them with a hatred as fierce and
implacable as if they had laid waste his fields, burned his mansion,
murdered his child in the cradle.

To what cause are we to ascribe so strange an antipathy? This question
perplexed the Master's contemporaries; and any answer which may now be
offered ought to be offered with diffidence. [222] The most probable
conjecture is that he was actuated by an inordinate, an unscrupulous, a
remorseless zeal for what seemed to him to be the interest of the state.
This explanation may startle those who have not considered how large a
proportion of the blackest crimes recorded in history is to be ascribed
to ill regulated public spirit. We daily see men do for their party, for
their sect, for their country, for their favourite schemes of political
and social reform, what they would not do to enrich or to avenge
themselves. At a temptation directly addressed to our private cupidity
or to our private animosity, whatever virtue we have takes the alarm.
But, virtue itself may contribute to the fall of him who imagines that
it is in his power, by violating some general rule of morality, to
confer an important benefit on a church, on a commonwealth, on mankind.
He silences the remonstrances of conscience, and hardens his heart
against the most touching spectacles of misery, by repeating to himself
that his intentions are pure, that his objects are noble, that he is
doing a little evil for the sake of a great good. By degrees he comes
altogether to forget the turpitude of the means in the excellence of the
end, and at length perpetrates without one internal twinge acts which
would shock a buccaneer. There is no reason to believe that Dominic
would, for the best archbishopric in christendom, have incited
ferocious marauders to plunder and slaughter a peaceful and industrious
population, that Everard Digby would for a dukedom have blown a large
assembly of people into the air, or that Robespierre would have murdered
for hire one of the thousands whom he murdered from philanthropy.

The Master of Stair seems to have proposed to himself a truly great and
good end, the pacification and civilisation of the Highlands. He was, by
the acknowledgment of those who most hated him, a man of large views. He
justly thought it monstrous that a third part of Scotland should be in
a state scarcely less savage than New Guinea, that letters of fire
and sword should, through a third part of Scotland, be, century after
century, a species of legal process, and that no attempt should be made
to apply a radical remedy to such evils. The independence affected by a
crowd of petty sovereigns, the contumacious resistance which they were
in the habit of offering to the authority of the Crown and of the Court
of Session, their wars, their robberies, their fireraisings, their
practice of exacting black mail from people more peaceable and more
useful than themselves, naturally excited the disgust and indignation of
an enlightened and politic gownsman, who was, both by the constitution
of his mind and by the habits of his profession, a lover of law
and order. His object was no less than a complete dissolution and
reconstruction of society in the Highlands, such a dissolution and
reconstruction as, two generations later, followed the battle of
Culloden. In his view the clans, as they existed, were the plagues of
the kingdom; and of all the clans, the worst was that which inhabited
Glencoe. He had, it is said, been particularly struck by a frightful
instance of the lawlessness and ferocity of those marauders. One of
them, who had been concerned in some act of violence or rapine, had
given information against his companions. He had been bound to a tree
and murdered. The old chief had given the first stab; and scores
of dirks had then been plunged into the wretch's body. [223] By the
mountaineers such an act was probably regarded as a legitimate exercise
of patriarchal jurisdiction. To the Master of Stair it seemed that
people among whom such things were done and were approved ought to be
treated like a pack of wolves, snared by any device, and slaughtered
without mercy. He was well read in history, and doubtless knew how great
rulers had, in his own and other countries, dealt with such banditti.
He doubtless knew with what energy and what severity James the Fifth had
put down the mosstroopers of the border, how the chief of Henderland had
been hung over the gate of the castle in which he had prepared a banquet
for the King; how John Armstrong and his thirty-six horsemen, when they
came forth to welcome their sovereign, had scarcely been allowed time
to say a single prayer before they were all tied up and turned off. Nor
probably was the Secretary ignorant of the means by which Sixtus the
Fifth had cleared the ecclesiastical state of outlaws. The eulogists
of that great pontiff tell us that there was one formidable gang which
could not be dislodged from a stronghold among the Apennines. Beasts of
burden were therefore loaded with poisoned food and wine, and sent by a
road which ran close to the fastness. The robbers sallied forth, seized
the prey, feasted and died; and the pious old Pope exulted greatly when
he heard that the corpses of thirty ruffians, who had been the terror
of many peaceful villages, had been found lying among the mules and
packages. The plans of the Master of Stair were conceived in the spirit
of James and of Sixtus; and the rebellion of the mountaineers furnished
what seemed to be an excellent opportunity for carrying those plans
into effect. Mere rebellion, indeed, he could have easily pardoned. On
Jacobites, as Jacobites, he never showed any inclination to bear hard.
He hated the Highlanders, not as enemies of this or that dynasty, but as
enemies of law, of industry and of trade. In his private correspondence
he applied to them the short and terrible form of words in which the
implacable Roman pronounced the doom of Carthage. His project was no
less than this, that the whole hill country from sea to sea, and the
neighbouring islands, should be wasted with fire and sword, that the
Camerons, the Macleans, and all the branches of the race of Macdonald,
should be rooted out. He therefore looked with no friendly eye on
schemes of reconciliation, and, while others were hoping that a little
money would set everything right, hinted very intelligibly his opinion
that whatever money was to be laid out on the clans would be best laid
out in the form of bullets and bayonets. To the last moment he continued
to flatter himself that the rebels would be obstinate, and would thus
furnish him with a plea for accomplishing that great social revolution
on which his heart was set. [224] The letter is still extant in which
he directed the commander of the forces in Scotland how to act if the
Jacobite chiefs should not come in before the end of December. There is
something strangely terrible in the calmness and conciseness with which
the instructions are given. "Your troops will destroy entirely the
country of Lochaber, Lochiel's lands, Keppoch's, Glengarry's and
Glencoe's. Your power shall be large enough. I hope the soldiers will
not trouble the government with prisoners. " [225]

This despatch had scarcely been sent off when news arrived in London
that the rebel chiefs, after holding out long, had at last appeared
before the Sheriffs and taken the oaths. Lochiel, the most eminent man
among them, had not only declared that he would live and die a true
subject to King William, but had announced his intention of visiting
England, in the hope of being permitted to kiss His Majesty's hand. In
London it was announced exultingly that every clan, without exception,
had submitted in time; and the announcement was generally thought most
satisfactory. [226] But the Master of Stair was bitterly disappointed.
The Highlands were then to continue to be what they had been, the shame
and curse of Scotland. A golden opportunity of subjecting them to the
law had been suffered to escape, and might never return. If only the
Macdonalds would have stood out, nay, if an example could but have been
made of the two worst Macdonalds, Keppoch and Glencoe, it would have
been something. But it seemed that even Keppoch and Glencoe, marauders
who in any well governed country would have been hanged thirty years
before, were safe. [227] While the Master was brooding over thoughts
like these, Argyle brought him some comfort. The report that Mac Ian had
taken the oaths within the prescribed time was erroneous. The Secretary
was consoled. One clan, then, was at the mercy of the government, and
that clan the most lawless of all. One great act of justice, nay of
charity, might be performed. One terrible and memorable example might be
given. [228]

Yet there was a difficulty. Mac Ian had taken the oaths. He had taken
them, indeed, too late to be entitled to plead the letter of the royal
promise; but the fact that he had taken them was one which evidently
ought not to have been concealed from those who were to decide his fate.
By a dark intrigue, of which the history is but imperfectly known, but
which was, in all probability, directed by the Master of Stair, the
evidence of Mac Ian's tardy submission was suppressed. The certificate
which the Sheriff of Argyleshire had transmitted to the Council at
Edinburgh, was never laid before the board, but was privately submitted
to some persons high in office, and particularly to Lord President
Stair, the father of the Secretary. These persons pronounced the
certificate irregular, and, indeed, absolutely null; and it was
cancelled.

Meanwhile the Master of Stair was forming, in concert with Breadalbane
and Argyle, a plan for the destruction of the people of Glencoe. It was
necessary to take the King's pleasure, not, indeed, as to the details
of what was to be done, but as to the question whether Mac Ian and his
people should or should not be treated as rebels out of the pale of
the ordinary law. The Master of Stair found no difficulty in the royal
closet. William had, in all probability, never heard the Glencoe men
mentioned except as banditti. He knew that they had not come in by the
prescribed day. That they had come in after that day he did not know. If
he paid any attention to the matter, he must have thought that so fair
an opportunity of putting an end to the devastations and depredations
from which a quiet and industrious population had suffered so much ought
not to be lost.

An order was laid before him for signature. He signed it, but, if Burnet
may be trusted, did not read it. Whoever has seen anything of public
business knows that princes and ministers daily sign, and indeed
must sign, documents which they have not read; and of all documents
a document relating to a small tribe of mountaineers, living in a
wilderness not set down in any map, was least likely to interest a
Sovereign whose mind was full of schemes on which the fate of Europe
might depend. [229] But, even on the supposition that he read the order
to which he affixed his name, there seems to be no reason for blaming
him. That order, directed to the Commander of the Forces in Scotland,
runs thus: "As for Mac Ian of Glencoe and that tribe, if they can be
well distinguished from the other Highlanders, it will be proper, for
the vindication of public justice, to extirpate that set of thieves. "
These words naturally bear a sense perfectly innocent, and would, but
for the horrible event which followed, have been universally understood
in that sense. It is undoubtedly one of the first duties of every
government to extirpate gangs of thieves. This does not mean that every
thief ought to be treacherously assassinated in his sleep, or even that
every thief ought to be publicly executed after a fair trial, but
that every gang, as a gang, ought to be completely broken up, and that
whatever severity is indispensably necessary for that end ought to be
used. If William had read and weighed the words which were submitted
to him by his Secretary, he would probably have understood them to
mean that Glencoe was to be occupied by troops, that resistance, if
resistance were attempted, was to be put down with a strong hand, that
severe punishment was to be inflicted on those leading members of the
clan who could be proved to have been guilty of great crimes, that some
active young freebooters, who were more used to handle the broad sword
than the plough, and who did not seem likely to settle down into quiet
labourers, were to be sent to the army in the Low Countries, that others
were to be transported to the American plantations, and that those
Macdonalds who were suffered to remain in their native valley were to be
disarmed and required to give hostages for good behaviour. A plan very
nearly resembling this had, we know, actually been the subject of much
discussion in the political circles of Edinburgh. [230] There can be
little doubt that William would have deserved well of his people if he
had, in this manner, extirpated not only the tribe of Mac Ian, but every
Highland tribe whose calling was to steal cattle and burn houses.

The extirpation planned by the Master of Stair was of a different kind.
His design was to butcher the whole race of thieves, the whole damnable
race. Such was the language in which his hatred vented itself. He
studied the geography of the wild country which surrounded Glencoe, and
made his arrangements with infernal skill. If possible, the blow must
be quick, and crushing, and altogether unexpected. But if Mac Ian should
apprehend danger and should attempt to take refuge in the territories of
his neighbours, he must find every road barred. The pass of Rannoch must
be secured. The Laird of Weems, who was powerful in Strath Tay, must
be told that, if he harbours the outlaws, he does so at his peril.
Breadalbane promised to cut off the retreat of the fugitives on one
side, Mac Callum More on another. It was fortunate, the Secretary wrote,
that it was winter. This was the time to maul the wretches. The nights
were so long, the mountain tops so cold and stormy, that even the
hardiest men could not long bear exposure to the open air without a roof
or a spark of fire. That the women and the children could find shelter
in the desert was quite impossible. While he wrote thus, no thought that
he was committing a great wickedness crossed his mind. He was happy in
the approbation of his own conscience. Duty, justice, nay charity and
mercy, were the names under which he disguised his cruelty; nor is it by
any means improbable that the disguise imposed upon himself. [231]

Hill, who commanded the forces assembled at Fort William, was not
entrusted with the execution of the design. He seems to have been a
humane man; he was much distressed when he learned that the government
was determined on severity; and it was probably thought that his heart
might fail him in the most critical moment. He was directed to put a
strong detachment under the orders of his second in command, Lieutenant
Colonel Hamilton. To Hamilton a significant hint was conveyed that he
had now an excellent opportunity of establishing his character in the
estimation of those who were at the head of affairs. Of the troops
entrusted to him a large proportion were Campbells, and belonged to a
regiment lately raised by Argyle, and called by Argyle's name, It was
probably thought that, on such an occasion, humanity might prove
too strong for the mere habit of military obedience, and that little
reliance could be placed on hearts which had not been ulcerated by a
feud such as had long raged between the people of Mac Ian and the people
of Mac Callum More.

Had Hamilton marched openly against the Glencoe men and put them to the
edge of the sword, the act would probably not have wanted apologists,
and most certainly would not have wanted precedents. But the Master of
Stair had strongly recommended a different mode of proceeding. If the
least alarm were given, the nest of robbers would be found empty; and
to hunt them down in so wild a region would, even with all the help that
Breadalbane and Argyle could give, be a long and difficult business.
"Better," he wrote, "not meddle with them than meddle to no purpose.
When the thing is resolved, let it be secret and sudden. " [232] He was
obeyed; and it was determined that the Glencoe men should perish, not
by military execution, but by the most dastardly and perfidious form of
assassination.

On the first of February a hundred and twenty soldiers of Argyle's
regiment, commanded by a captain named Campbell and a lieutenant named
Lindsay, marched to Glencoe. Captain Campbell was commonly called in
Scotland Glenlyon, from the pass in which his property lay. He had every
qualification for the service on which he was employed, an unblushing
forehead, a smooth lying tongue, and a heart of adamant. He was also one
of the few Campbells who were likely to be trusted and welcomed by the
Macdonalds; for his niece was married to Alexander, the second son of
Mac Ian.

The sight of the red coats approaching caused some anxiety among the
population of the valley. John, the eldest son of the Chief, came,
accompanied by twenty clansmen, to meet the strangers, and asked what
this visit meant. Lieutenant Lindsay answered that the soldiers came as
friends, and wanted nothing but quarters. They were kindly received, and
were lodged under the thatched roofs of the little community. Glenlyon
and several of his men were taken into the house of a tacksman who was
named, from the cluster of cabins over which he exercised authority,
Inverriggen. Lindsay was accommodated nearer to the abode of the old
chief. Auchintriater, one of the principal men of the clan, who governed
the small hamlet of Auchnaion, found room there for a party commanded by
a serjeant named Barbour. Provisions were liberally supplied. There was
no want of beef, which had probably fattened in distant pastures; nor
was any payment demanded; for in hospitality, as in thievery, the Gaelic
marauders rivalled the Bedouins. During twelve days the soldiers lived
familiarly with the people of the glen. Old Mac Ian, who had before felt
many misgivings as to the relation in which he stood to the government,
seems to have been pleased with the visit. The officers passed much of
their time with him and his family. The long evenings were cheerfully
spent by the peat fire with the help of some packs of cards which had
found their way to that remote corner of the world, and of some French
brandy which was probably part of James's farewell gift to his Highland
supporters. Glenlyon appeared to be warmly attached to his niece and her
husband Alexander. Every day he came to their house to take his morning
draught. Meanwhile he observed with minute attention all the avenues by
which, when the signal for the slaughter should be given, the Macdonalds
might attempt to escape to the hills; and he reported the result of his
observations to Hamilton.

Hamilton fixed five o'clock in the morning of the thirteenth of February
for the deed. He hoped that, before that time, he should reach Glencoe
with four hundred men, and should have stopped all the earths in which
the old fox and his two cubs,-so Mac Ian and his sons were nicknamed
by the murderers,--could take refuge. But, at five precisely, whether
Hamilton had arrived or not, Glenlyon was to fall on, and to slay every
Macdonald under seventy.

The night was rough. Hamilton and his troops made slow progress, and
were long after their time. While they were contending with the wind and
snow, Glenlyon was supping and playing at cards with those whom he
meant to butcher before daybreak. He and Lieutenant Lindsay had engaged
themselves to dine with the old Chief on the morrow.

Late in the evening a vague suspicion that some evil was intended
crossed the mind of the Chief's eldest son. The soldiers were evidently
in a restless state; and some of them uttered strange cries. Two men,
it is said, were overheard whispering. "I do not like this job;" one of
them muttered, "I should be glad to fight the Macdonalds. But to kill
men in their beds--" "We must do as we are bid," answered another voice.
"If there is any thing wrong, our officers must answer for it. " John
Macdonald was so uneasy that, soon after midnight, he went to Glenlyon's
quarters. Glenlyon and his men were all up, and seemed to be getting
their arms ready for action. John, much alarmed, asked what these
preparations meant. Glenlyon was profuse of friendly assurances. "Some
of Glengarry's people have been harrying the country. We are getting
ready to march against them. You are quite safe. Do you think that, if
you were in any danger, I should not have given a hint to your brother
Sandy and his wife? " John's suspicions were quieted. He returned to his
house, and lay down to rest.

It was five in the morning. Hamilton and his men were still some miles
off; and the avenues which they were to have secured were open. But the
orders which Glenlyon had received were precise; and he began to execute
them at the little village where he was himself quartered. His host
Inverriggen and nine other Macdonalds were dragged out of their beds,
bound hand and foot, and murdered. A boy twelve years old clung round
the Captain's legs, and begged hard for life. He would do any thing;
he would go any where; he would follow Glenlyon round the world. Even
Glenlyon, it is said, showed signs of relenting; but a ruffian named
Drummond shot the child dead.

At Auchnaion the tacksman Auchintriater was up early that morning, and
was sitting with eight of his family round the fire, when a volley
of musketry laid him and seven of his companions dead or dying on the
floor. His brother, who alone had escaped unhurt, called to Serjeant
Barbour, who commanded the slayers, and asked as a favour to be allowed
to die in the open air. "Well," said the Serjeant, "I will do you that
favour for the sake of your meat which I have eaten. " The mountaineer,
bold, athletic, and favoured by the darkness, came forth, rushed on the
soldiers who were about to level their pieces at him, flung his plaid
over their faces, and was gone in a moment.

Meanwhile Lindsay had knocked at the door of the old Chief and had asked
for admission in friendly language. The door was opened. Mac Ian,
while putting on his clothes and calling to his servants to bring some
refreshment for his visitors, was shot through the head. Two of his
attendants were slain with him. His wife was already up and dressed in
such finery as the princesses of the rude Highland glens were accustomed
to wear. The assassins pulled off her clothes and trinkets. The rings
were not easily taken from her fingers but a soldier tore them away with
his teeth. She died on the following day.

The statesman, to whom chiefly this great crime is to be ascribed, had
planned it with consummate ability: but the execution was complete in
nothing but in guilt and infamy. A succession of blunders saved three
fourths of the Glencoe men from the fate of their chief. All the moral
qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and
Glenlyon possessed in perfection. But neither seems to have had much
professional skill; Hamilton had arranged his plan without making
allowance for bad weather, and this in a country and at a season when
the weather was very likely to be bad. The consequence was that the fox
earths, as he called them, were not stopped in time. Glenlyon and his
men committed the error of despatching their hosts with firearms instead
of using the cold steel. The peal and flash of gun after gun gave
notice, from three different parts of the valley at once; that murder
was doing. From fifty cottages the half naked peasantry fled under cover
of the night to the recesses of their pathless glen. Even the sons of
Mac Ian, who had been especially marked out for destruction, contrived
to escape. They were roused from sleep by faithful servants. John,
who, by the death of his father, had become the patriarch of the tribe,
quitted his dwelling just as twenty soldiers with fixed bayonets marched
up to it.