partys, made head against the enemy, and fought with that desperat resolution in their shirts, that Sir Thomas was glade to allow them to retreat without attempting to pursue them.

Though the loss on both sides was pretty equall, yet the ill conduct of General Buchan so discouraged the Lowland gentlemen, that not a man of them thought fitt to joyn with him; and even some of his own party, such as M'Donald of Largo and M'Alaster of Loup, finding every thing run cross to their opinions, thought it their safest course to submitt, which they did on the 16th of June thereafter.

Though the Grants generally followed their Chief, yet the Laird of Glenmoristoun, a considerable gentleman of that name, sided with the Highlanders, and with a party of one hundred and fifty men continued with them till the conduct of their Generals took away all hopes of success. The enemy was so enraged against him that they burnt his own seat to the ground, plundered his people, and made such horrible. devastations that the poor gentleman was obliged to offer some proposals of submissions. The councill did thereupon send orders to the forenamed Sir Thomas Livingstoune, commander att Inverness, as he is designed in the said order, to grant him and the Laird of Straglass a safeconduct, in order to a treaty; but discharged him to conclude anything till he acquainted them. However, the government was so anxious to diminish that party, that all their demands were granted; but the particulars doe not appear from the records of the Privy Councill, which are my principall guides in this and the subsequent parts of these Memoirs.

Notwithstanding of the forementioned disaster, the Highland Chiefs dispatched General Canon with a party of six hundred foot and one hundred horse towards the South, which frighted the Ministers of State in a surprizeing manner; for they not onely sent ane express to General M'Kay, then in Ireland, to return home with all hast to suppress the Highlanders, but posted four thousand five hundred of the choise of the West-country militia, with some regiments of horse, in the places most exposed, and ordered all the rest of their disciplined troops towards the North to cover those countrys. General Canon hovered long on the Braes of Perthshire, and falling down suddenly into the

Low-country, he passed the fords of Forth, surprized a party of dragoons commanded by the Lord Cardross, killed some, and chased the rest into the parks of Stirling.

Att the same time, General Buchan, with a party of the Clans, marched towards Aberdeenshire, where, encountering with a strong body of horse and dragoons, commanded by the Master of Forbess and Colonel Jackson, he resolved to attack them, and, what may seem strange, his defeat att Cromdale added to his resolution; for, haveing observed with what boldness and address his men had attacked Livingstoun's dragoons, and stopt them in their career of victory, he found that they were no more a terror to them, and resolved to make use of this opportunity in order to make a second essay of their courage in this kind of engagement. The same reason that encouraged him intimidated the enemy; for, though att first they appeared as if they designed to fight, yet, changeing their minds of a sudden, they wheeled about and gallopt away as fast as whip and spur could drive their horses, and haveing reatched Aberdeen, they allarmed the town with the frightfull cry that the Highlanders were att hand. But Buchan had neither strength nor materials fitt for attacking the town, though no less was expected, and the walls planted with warlick engines as if they had been immediately to be beseiged.

These excursions keept the Government in a continual fright, which was much augmented by the news of three or four hundred horse, all gentlemen of the county of Lennox, their haveing joyned Canon ; who, after he had hovered for some time about Menteith and the countrys adjacent, marched Northward, and joyned General Buchan.

Such was the scituation of King James his affairs in Scotland, when the news of his being defeated att the river of Boyn arrived. This action in a manner determined the fate of that war; and as the conduct of King James his Generals was very weak, so that of King William was bold and successful. The Irish behaved as they ordinarly doe in their own country, that is, they gave way upon the first appearance of the enemy. The 7000 French auxiliarys performed nothing memorable, though they afterwards gave King William some trouble, before

he could reduce that kingdome to a totall submission. In a word, the issue of this famous battle opened King James his eyes, and made him sensible of the errour he had committed in not following the Viscount of Dundee's advice, which was to have come over with his army to Scotland in person, or otherways to have sent over such a number of the Irish as, in conjunction with the clans, would have formed ane army of twenty thousand men, which his Lordship thought sufficient, as affairs were then scituated, to have reduced all Brittain to his obedience. The few that were sent over with Generall Canon, though raw, undisciplined, half-starved, and armless, were not inferior to the clans in courage. They fought att Kilychranky the second or third day after their joyning Dundee's army, defeated ane intear battalion of disciplined troops, and on all occasions thereafter behaved with the same resolution; which shews of what service ane army of them might have been in any part of Brittain.

King William, haveing observed Generall M'Kay's gallantry and conduct at the Boyn, thanked him for his good service after the battle was over; but added, that he was much surprised how he came to show so much valour and conduct there, and so little of either att Kilychranky, where he was shamefully defeated by a handfull of rude undisciplined militia. To which M'Kay answered, that he was sorry his Majesty should have any occasion to suspect his courage; but that, however, he might, by way of justification, adventure to say, that, if that rude undisciplined handfull of militia that fought against him att Killychranky, had been posted upon the banks of the Boyn under the same officers, his Majesty would have found difficulty to have passed the river that day.

It

To give a character of this Generall, whom we shall not have much occasion hereafter to mention, he bears that of being a very generous enemy, a good officer, and very zealous in the service of his master. appears by many of his letters still extant, that he was no scholar, and that he either was, or politically appeared to be, infected with the silly cant and mean notions of Religion that generally prevailed among those of his faction. He railed against King James in terms very unsuitable

to the politeness of a gentleman, and extolled King William for qualitys that debased his character, and diminished his reall worth. He talked of him, always, not as one that had the libertys of Europe att heart, but as if he had assumed the zeal and biggotry of Calvine and Knox, and invaded England, and wrested the scepter from his unfortunate fatherin-law, on purpose to establish Presbitery in Scotland. Now, as most of the gentlemen to whom he wrote were of the Church party, he ought to have made use of arguments more adapted to their tempers and characters. With respect to the different tittles of the two Kings, he mustered up all the fictions that were then politicaly contrived to gull the rabble, as arguments sufficient to make them declare in favours of King William, and to convince them that King James had forfeited his right to the crown. He insisted on his being a Papist himself, his favouring of popery, and his abandoning the Government, and the like, but had not the address to show them upon what principles, religious or politicall, they could, as subjects and Christians, renounce their alledgiance to the one, and transferr it to the other.

But as such matters seem not to have been his talent, he made a better figure in his military character, for, after the death of Dundee, he succeeded in all his enterprizes, and undoubtedly performed very great services to King William; but while he had that Generall to deale with, he was chased from place to place, and was perpetually on the retreat, and though he had ane army equall, and sometimes superior to the enemy, yet he had much adoe to keep up the character of his party.

He was, as I have said, a very generous enemy; and, however he differed in his politicks and principles from the Highlanders, yet he always commended their valour and loyalty to their old master, and justly acknowledged the brave Dundee, their Generall, to be one of the best officers, as well as the most accomplished gentleman of his time.

After his defeat att Killychranky, when he saw his army intearly broken and dispersed, he was in such a consternation that for some moments he remained, as it were, stupid and undetermined what to doe; but being afraid of falling into the enemy's hands, he made off with whip and spur, and never halted untill he arrived at the Laird of Weems his house

in Apnadow, and the next night he came to Drummond Castle. The day following he was joyned by about two hundred of his broken troops, but those in such a miserable plight, and so gashed and deformed with their wounds, that they moved the compassion of their greatest enemys. So great, however, was the fright of these wretches, that they travelled all that night, some of them bound with ropes, or supported by their comerades on their horses, and others trailing their limbs after them, and crying out with the smart of their wounds. In this dolorous state they arrived att Stirling, where they could hardly fancy themselves secure ; and their General often said that he made no doubt but Dundee was either killed or dangerously wounded, since his quarters were not beat up that morning att Drummond.

When he had ane account of his death, by a letter from the Laird of Weems, he said to the bystanders, that he now looked upon his defeat to be of greater consequence, and more beneficial to his master's interest, than the most absolute victory could have been: "For," said he, "the Highlanders will allow none of their own Chiefs to command as General; and they have no other officer that either can conduct them, or that so much as knows how to make proper use of so important a victory." So confirmed was he in this oppinion, that, haveing gott what troops he could together, he marched against Generall Canon, who was much stronger than he, and challenged him to fight in the manner I have related. Soon after the battle of the Boyn, being sent for by the Scots Privy Councill, he returned, and about the end of September thereafter, he marched Northward with ane army of twenty battalions and squadrons, and planted a garrison of two compleat regiments att Inverlochy, under the command of Collonell Sir John Hill, who had been formerly Governour there about the end of Cromwell's Usurpation.

Though the Highlanders had not forces sufficient to oppose so strong a body of troops, yet there was still a party on foot, which gave the Ministers of State some uneasiness. As they affected to appear fond of their new form of Government and King, so they were exceedingly anxious to have both fully established by a peace. They were daily allarmed with the news of some sudden incursion, and of the surprise and defeat of