before the Earl of Stair found the affair so much forgotten, that he ventured to assume the place in Parliament to which his rank entitled him; and he died in 1707, on the very day when the treaty of Union was signed, not without suspicion of suicide.

Of the direct agents in the massacre, Hamilton absconded, and afterwards joined King William's army in Flanders, where Glenlyon, and the officers and soldiers connected with the murder, were then serving. The King, availing himself of the option left to him in the address of the Scottish Parliament, did not order them home for trial; nor does it appear that any of them were dismissed the service, or punished for their crime, otherwise than by the general hatred of the age in which they lived, and the universal execration of posterity.1

["Among the Highlanders, the belief that the punishment of the cruelty, oppression, or misconduct of an individual descended as a curse on his children, to the third and fourth generation, was not confined to the common people. All ranks were influenced by it, that if the curse did not fall upon the first or second generation, it would inevitably descend upon the succeeding. The late Colonel Campbell of Glenlyon retained this belief through a course of thirty years' intercourse with the world, as an officer of the 42d regiment, and of marines. He was grandson of the Laird of Glenlyon, who commanded the military at the massacre of Glencoe. At Havannah, in 1771, he was ordered to superintend the execution of the sentence of a courtmartial on a soldier of marines, condemned to be shot. prieve was sent, but the whole ceremony of the execution was to proceed until the criminal was upon his knees, with a cap over his eyes, prepared to receive the volley. It was then he was to be informed of his pardon. No person was to be told previously,

A re

Although it is here a little misplaced, I cannot refrain from telling you an anecdote connected with the preceding events, which befell so late as the year 1745-6, during the romantic attempt of Charles Edward, grandson of James II., to regain the throne of his fathers. He marched through the Lowlands, at the head of an army consisting of the Highland clans, and obtained for a time considerable advantages. Amongst other Highlanders, the descendant of the murdered MacIan of Glencoe joined his standard with a hundred and fifty men. The route of the Highland army brought them near to a beautiful seat built by the Earl of Stair, so often mentioned in the preceding narrative, and the principal mansion of his family. An alarm arose in the councils of Prince Charles, lest the MacDonalds of Glencoe should seize this opportunity of marking their recollection of the injustice

and Colonel Campbell was directed not to inform even the firing party, who were warned that the signal to fire would be the waving of a white handkerchief by the commanding officer. When all was prepared, and the clergyman had left the prisoner on his knees, in momentary expectation of his fate, and the firing party were looking with intense attention for the signal, Colonel Campbell put his hand into his pocket for the reprieve, and in pulling out the packet, the white handkerchief accompanied it, and catching the eyes of the party, they fired, and the unfortunate priwas shot dead. The paper dropped through Colonel Campbell's fingers, and clapping his hand to his forehead he exclaimed, The curse of God and of Glencoe is here; I am an unfortunate ruined man,'—and soon afterwards retired from the service." MAJOR-GENERAL STEWART'S (of Garth) Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland, and Military details of the High. land Regiments, 2d Edit. vol. i. pp. 105, 106.]

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done to their ancestors, by burning or plundering the house of the descendant of their persecutor ; and, as such an act of violence might have done the Prince great prejudice in the eyes of the people of the Lowlands, it was agreed that a guard should be posted to protect the house of Lord Stair.

MacDonald of Glencoe heard the resolution, and deemed his honour and that of his clan concerned. He demanded an audience of Charles Edward, and admitting the propriety of placing a guard on a house so obnoxious to the feelings of the Highland army, and to those of his own clan in particular, he demanded, as a matter of right rather than favour, that the protecting guard should be supplied by the MacDonalds of Glencoe. If this request were not granted, he announced his purpose to return home with his people, and prosecute the enterprise no further. "The MacDonalds of Glencoe," he said, "would be dishonoured by remaining in a service where others than their own men were employed to restrain them, under whatsoever circumstances of provocation, within the line of their military duty." The royal Adventurer granted the request of the high-spirited chieftain, and the MacDonalds of Glencoe guarded from the slightest injury the house of the cruel and crafty statesman who had devised and directed the massacre of their ancestors. Considering how natural the thirst of vengeance becomes to men in a primitive state of society, and how closely it was interwoven with the character of the Scottish Highlander, Glencoe's

conduct on this occasion is a noble instance of a high and heroic preference of duty to the gratification of revenge.

We must now turn from this terrible story to one, which, though it does not seize on the imagination with the same force in the narrative, yet embraces a far wider and more extensive field of death and disaster.

CHAPTER LIX.

The Darien Scheme-Death of William, and Accession of Queen Anne.

[1692-1701.]

HUMAN character, whether national or individual, presents often to our calm consideration the strangest inconsistencies; but there are few more striking than that which the Scots exhibit in their private conduct, contrasted with their views when united together for any general or national purpose. In his own personal affairs the Scotsman is remarked as cautious, frugal, and prudent, in an extreme degree, not generally aiming at enjoyment or relaxation till he has realized the means of indulgence, and studiously avoiding those temptations of pleasure, to which men of other countries most readily give way. But when a number of the natives of Scotland associate for any speculative project, it would seem that their natural caution becomes thawed and dissolved by the union of their joint hopes, and that their imaginations are liable in a peculiar degree to be heated and influenced by any splendid prospect held out to them. They appear, in particular, to lose the power of calculating and adapting their means to the end which they desire to accomplish, and are readily induced to aim at