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Electric Scotland News
THIS WEEKEND, Saturday Oct. 11th is the date for the Indianapolis Scottish Highland Games and Festival at the Marion Co. Fairgrounds. There will be music and dance entertainment on two stages all day, exciting athletic completions, free kids activities and face painting, story telling, two pipe-bands, numerous food and unique merchandise vendors, the royal court by the Tudor Rose Players, sword fighting demos, women's rugby, and more including Scottish Cows. And, more than a dozen Scottish Clans and Associations. You can also attend free whiskey tasting classes and we will have a beer tent. The event runs from 8:30AM to 9:00PM which will include a Scottish party for all after 6:00 PM. You can also find if you have any Scottish roots. This is a great event for the entire family.
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History of the World
I thought I'd just mention that over the many years I have published to the site I have added many histories of many countries in the world. The reason is simply because doing the history of the Scots Diaspora I've wanted to understand the history of the countries they settled in.
I wanted to try and understand what drove them to settle in these countries and if possible learn of what the Scots might have contributed to them.
This means that I now have a lot of general history which you can use to learn more about whatever country you reside in.
You can get to these histories through our Scots Diaspora section at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/world.htm
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
A century ago, on 2 October 1925, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird successfully transmitted a recognisable moving image of a human face.
From BBC History.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...o-appear-on-tv
NATO and the EU Seek a Convincing Response to Russian Aggression
Russia has continued to provoke NATO and the EU. The drone incursion into Polish airspace earlier this month has Western leaders scrambling for answers. Putin, meanwhile, has made it clear he won't be backing down any time soon.
Read more at:
https://www.spiegel.de/international...3-989a246a8538
Conrad Black: A momentous peace in the Middle East will soon be upon us
And we have Trump to thank for it
Read more at:
https://archive.is/tCnpY
Scientists grow mini human brains to power computers
It may have its roots in science fiction, but a small number of researchers are making real progress trying to create computers out of living cells.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7p1lzvxjro
Munich airport resumes flights after suspected drones force second closure in 24 hours
It was the latest in a series of incidents involving drones that have disrupted aviation in Europe in recent weeks.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge2v4r4gr1o
Senate stalemate sends US shutdown into second week
US Senators have for a fourth time failed to pass spending proposals to reopen the federal government, extending the ongoing shutdown into next week.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce32eegrlpko
Orange Order: There's ignorance over what we're about
When Andrew Murray became Worshipful Grand Master of the Loyal Orange Order in Scotland three years ago, he and his new leadership team had pledged to bring this old institution into the 21st century.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/T9NOV
The conservative case for Sarah Mullally
Anything that hastens the death of the Church of England should be welcomed
Read more at:
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-conserva...arah-mullally/
Scottish households told to prepare for attacks by stocking up on candles by former NATO defence secretary
Lord Robertson was speaking at Wigtown Book Festival, when he warned Britain needed to ‘move away from a peacetime mode’
Read more at:
https://archive.is/mzexu
Brexit trade bonanza unlocks billions of pounds in India
Employers, entrepreneurs and innovators from across the UK are this week aiming to make the most of post-Brexit growth opportunities and break into India’s giant market.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...locks-billions
What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal
After three days of intense indirect negotiations in Egypt, US President Donald Trump says Israel and Hamas have "signed off on the first phase" of the 20-point peace plan he unveiled last week.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgqx7ygq41o
The battle for Scotland's flag: Why the right has adopted the saltire
Something has shifted in Scotland. The saltire, which was long embraced by supporters of Scottish independence, has now been unfurled for a different cause.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyxqknx7jqo
America's top banker sounds warning on US stock market fall
Jamie Dimon, who leads America's largest bank, said he was "far more worried than others" about a serious market correction, which he said could come in the next six months to two years. In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the bank boss also said that the US had become a "less reliable" partner on the world stage
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5ej03p604o
Electric Canadian
Two Centuries of Settlement of the Gaspé Coast by English Speaking People
by David J. McDougall
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...C3%A9Coast.pdf
Canada: A People's History
By Mark Starowicz - a video production (2000)
You can watch this long production at:
https://tinyurl.com/5fsxfca6
Beautés de L'Histoire du Canada
Par D. Dainville (1821) in the French language (pdf)
Thought it was time to add a French language history to the site and you can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...toir00dain.pdf
Rules and Regulations of the Beaver Club
Instituted in 1785 (1819) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...beaverclub.pdf
Sir Arthur William Currie
A biography from Wikipedia (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...hur_Currie.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning the 5th day of October 2025 - A Day of Rest
By The Re. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...-a-day-of-rest
The Beaver Magazine
Added No. 1 Outfit 261 March 1931 (pdf)
You can read this issue at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...rMarch1931.pdf
Electric Scotland
Lays of the Deer Forest
With sketches of olden and modern Deer-Hunting; traits of natural history in the forest; traditions of the clans; miscellaneous notes by John Sobieskie and Charles Edward Stuart in two volumes (1847)
I noted that I'd only got volume 1 on the site so have now added volume 2 in which there is information on the atrocities committed after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 which starts from page 346 of volume 2 and have also made this the story for this week.
You can read these volumes at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...deerforest.htm
John Howie of Lochgoin
His Forebears and his works by D. Hay Fleming (1909) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...oflochgoin.pdf
Rubric Translation Expert Leads Way on Global Digital Front
Edinburgh is often cited as the home of publishing going back centuries given its rich history as a literary and printing centre with a thriving book trade to rival London. An article by Bill Magee.
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/magee/article0040.htm
Warfare Along the Mississippi
The letters of Lieutenant Colonel George E. Currie Edited by Norman E. Clarke, Sr. (1961) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...miss00curr.pdf
The Christian’s Great Interest
By William Guthrie (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00guthuoft.pdf
History of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Gowrie
Preliminary Dissertations by the Rev. James Scott (1818) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...rlofgowrie.pdf
Scottish Society of Louisville
Added their October 2025 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
The Hill of Good-Bye
The story of a solitary white woman's life in central Africa by Jessie Monteath Currie (1920) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00currrich.pdf
Grow Your Own Vegetables
A Practical Handbook for Allotment Holders and those wishing to Grow Vegetables in Small Gardens by Stanley C. Johnson, D.Sc., F.R.E.S. (1918) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...00johnrich.pdf
True and Genuine Account of Murdoch Currie
Taken from his own mouth at the place of Execution in Shorthand being a Pious Exhortation to people of ranks to take Warning by his Untimely end. He was Executed at Dumbarton on the 14th day of June, 1754 (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...hapbook638.pdf
Donald Campbell's Loyalty
By Sara C. Palmer (1921) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/kids/st...llsl00palm.pdf
Story
I have taken some of the content under the section of volume 2 of The Lays of the Deer Forest entitled "Enormities of 1746" to create this story. They are taken from pages 346 to 363.
Immediately upon the occupation of the Highlands by the English army, the country was placed under a merciless martial-law, and even the most defenceless glens subjected to every species of rapine and outrage. Of the preceding enormities which had attended the victory of Culloden, it would be too long to give a detailed account; but a few instances will be sufficient to exhibit the inhuman disposition of the conquerors at their entrance into the country.
“Riding over the field, attended by some of his officers, the Dulce of Cumberland observed a young wounded Highlander resting upon his elbow, and gazing at the party. The Duke asked the wounded man to whom he belonged, and received for answer—‘To the Prince.’ He instantly called to an officer to ‘shoot that insolent scoundrel.’ The officer, Major (afterwards the celebrated General) Wolf, declined the task; and, with the same result, the Duke commanded several others to pistol the wounded man; then seeing a common soldier, he asked him if he had a charge in his piece, the man answering in the affirmative, he commanded him to do the required duty, which was immediately performed. The youth thus slain was the younger Fraser of Inverallachie, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Master of Lovat’s regiment.”—When the soldiers entered Inverness, “a sick gentleman of the Prince’s army, named James Aberdeen, lay in the house of one Widow Davidson, and, being at the height of a fever, was unable to escape. This feet becoming known to some of the soldiers, they immediately rushed into the sick chamber, and cut the throat of the unfortunate man where he lay.”—Two low-country men, flying from the field of battle without arms, were followed by a Cumberland volunteer on horseback. Having gained the town, they entered the well-house for concealment, but being observed by the pursuer, he gave his horse to a girl on the street, and following them into the house, notwithstanding the cries of the defenceless men for quarter, cut them down. Upon the day after the battle, it being reported that a considerable number of the wounded “rebels” were still in life, the Duke of Cumberland ordered out a party “to put them out of pain." About seventy wounded wretches were gathered among the heaps of slain, and carried to an eminence, where, being conveniently arranged, they were despatched by discharges of musquetry.
Upon the ensuing day it was understood that some others of the wounded had found shelter in the neighbouring houses. Parties were sent in search of them. Many were accordingly dragged forth, and all, except a very few, coolly murdered. In one instance the hut was set on fire and burned, under a guard, by whom any attempting to escape were immediately bayoneted. Thirty-two corpses were found among the ashes. Among them were Colonel O*Reily, an old Irish officer seventy years of age, attached to Lord Ogilvie’s corps; two Rattrays, father and son, of the same regiment; Menzies of Scien, and Stewart of Kynechan. Among those butchered on the field were Mercer of Aldie and his son, a boy. At the house of Culloden nineteen wounded officers had been carried into the court, where the steward, at much risk to himself, had administered to them some comforts. They were discovered by the English troops, who immediately caused them to be carried out in carts to a park wall, where, being drawn up, they were told to prepare for instant death. Such as were able threw themselves on their knees, when a volley of musquetry put an end to the lives of almost all the vintimo and to finish those who survived, the soldiers were ordered to club their pieces, and beat out their brains. It might be asserted that these savage barbarities were excited by the first fury of the battle, but such was not true ; they were indisputably executed upon the succeeding day, and were continued systematically upon the occupation of the country.
“In the month of May the Duke of Cumberland advanced with his army into the Highlands, as far as Fort-Augustus, where he encamped, and sent off detachments on all sides to hunt down the fugitives, and lay waste the country with fire and sword. The castles of Invergarrie and Lochiel were plundered and burned; every hut, house, and habitation, met with the same fate without distinction; all the cattle and provisions 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 barren heaths. 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 in the compass of fifty miles; all was ruin, silence, and desolation.”
The accuracy of these declarations has been questioned by those who wish to extenuate the barbarity of the conquerors, but the most impartial examination has only added to the horrors of the conviction. “The cruelties,” says Chambers, “were such, that if not perfectly well authenticated, we could scarcely believe to have been practised less than a century ago. Not only were the mansions of the chiefs Lochiel, Glengarrie, Cluny, Keppoch, Kinlochmoidart, Glengyle, Ardshiel, and many others, plundered and burnt, but those of many inferior gentlemen, and even the huts of the common people, were in like manner destroyed. The cattle, sheep, and provisions of all kinds, were carried off to Fort-Augustus. In many instances the women and children were stripped naked and left exposed; in some the females were subjected to even more horrible treatment. A great number of men, unarmed and inoffensive including some aged beggars, were shot in the fields, and on the mountain side, rather in the spirit of wantonness than for any definite object. Many hapless people perished of cold and hunger amongst the hills; others followed in abject herds their departing cattle, and at Fort-Augustus begged, for the support of a wretched existence, to get the offal, or even to be allowed to lick up the blood of those which were killed for the use of the army. Before the 10th of June the task of desolation was complete throughout all the western parts of Inverness-shire; and the curse which had been denounced upon Scotland by the religious enthusiasts of the preceding century was at length so entirely fulfilled in this remote region, that it would have l>een literally possible to travel for days through the depopulated glens without seeing a chimney smoke, or hearing a cock crow.”—“General Hawley was one of the most remorseless of all the commanding officers, as if he thought that no extent of cruelty was a sufficient compensation for his loss of honour at Falkirk. The names of Lieutenant-Colonel Howard, Captain Caroline Scott, and Major Lockhart, are also to be handed down to everlasting execration, as early submission; but as he ordered their persons to execution, and their houses to the flames, replied to their plea for mercy, that though they were to show him a protection from Heaven, it should not prevent him from doing his duty! —Under the command of such barbarians, it will not be surprising that their “duties” were often attended by circumstances of inhuman brutality and wanton destruction. When the party destined for the demolition of Invergarrie reached that castle, it was a dark tempestuous night, and the lady and her children had long retired to rest. They were not permitted to remain until the morning ; but, alarmed out of their beds, were driven, half-naked, to the hill, where they took refuge in a cotter’s house, from whence they beheld the light of the flames rising from the chambers which were so lately their own.’ Before the morning the noble castle erected by Lord MacDonnel and Arros, one of the most remarkable of its period in the Highlands, was consumed to the naked walls, and such was the vindictive spirit of the soldiers, that they placed barrels of gunpowder at the foot of two large walnut-trees in the garden, one of which still survives to exhibit the scarred rent of the explosion. Similar, but more extensive and wanton spoliation, was committed at Auchnacarrie, the residence of Lochiel, where the gardens, nearly a mile in length,3 were rooted up and destroyed. It is among the evidences of the barbarizing and desolating effects, produced by the ravages of the period, that these efforts of industry have never since been restored ; and that the mansions of Glengarrie, Lovat, and various other noble estates, have never yet been replaced by any suitable edifices. These are not the revengeful recollections of party animosity, but grains of sand among the mam of historical facts, which ought continually to be remembered for the vindication of the Highlanders, from those scandals of idleness and non-improvement advanced by the ignorant and the hostile against a conquered, long-oppressed, and still neglected people. Like the mortally diseased, who fear to call in a physician lest he should awaken them to a terrible conviction, there are few who have the courage to lift the black veil which has fallen upon the last century, and contemplate the fatal causes and effects, in which we have never repaired the consequences of two unsuccessful insurrections, and of which the denial is still more humiliating than the confession, as it is more disgraceful to be incompetent than overcome. But those who read the history of their own country, as they read that of others, know that she has been conquered, retarded, and deprived, from the days of the Darien intervention, the removal of her parliament, and the dissolution of her chancery ; and that, in 1746, not only the Highlanders, but the whole nation, suffered a shock, a diminution of the political vital principle, which has left s national paralysis at the present day. “Not content,” says Chambers, “with laying waste the country of the active insurgents, the troops extended their ravages over peaceful districts to the very gates of the capital, and for some time Scotland might be said to have been treated, throughout its whole bounds, as a conquered country, subject to the domination of military law.”—“No form of trial was adopted with the insurgents, even within a few miles of the seat of the Court of Sessionappeal to the neighbouring justices for warrants when about to plunder their houses.”
These outrages became at length so flagrant, that the Lord President Forbes, one of the most zealous supporters; of the government, remonstrated with the Duke of Cumberland against the atrocities of his troops, who “everywhere outraged the laws.”—“Laws!” exclaimed the Prince.—“What laws? I will make a brigade give laws and in Inverness he stigmatized the judge as that “old woman who talked to him of humanity.” Notwithstanding the unbounded license enjoyed under a commander-in-chief who thus sanctioned their excesses, the soldiers became dejected by the solitude and desolation caused by their own devastations ; and, to “divert their melancholy,” the Duke and his officers frequently indulged them with races, and gave money for the stakes, which were sometimes run for by horses without bridle or saddle, and ridden by naked women.2 The animals, which furnished these courses, were those driven in from the plunder of the country, and which amounted to such numbers that most of the soldiers possessed more than one; and though the camp became a cattle-market, which was attended by drovers from Yorkshire and Galloway, it was so glutted with numbers that a pony was bought for eighteenpence, and considered as extravagantly dear at half-a-crown. Notwithstanding, however, this low price, “the vast quantities of cattle, oxen, horses, sheep, and goats,” was so great, that some of the men became enriched by their plunder ; and out of the public sales, of which the profits were divided among the troops, the whole army received a great amount, which was distributed in the following shares:—Privates, 15s.; corporals, L.1; sergeants, L.l, 10s.; subalterns, L1, 18s.; captains, L.11, 5s. This fund, however, was derived from all kinds of plunder, including the cellars and libraries of the superior houses, as at Castle Downie, the seat of Lord Lovat, which furnished one thousand bottles-of wine, and the value of fourteen hundred pounds in books.
A recent historian has discountenanced the relation of these enormities ; and a contemporary, who has stigmatized Sir William Wallace as a barbarous robber, and vindicated the offended majesty of Edward I., may perhaps find apologies for the banditti of the Duke of Cumberland; but, as observed by Klose and Chambers, the atrocities of 1746 “were maintained by authentic and historic details, vouched by bishops, clergymen, ministers, elders, and gentlemen of rank and character, whose signatures were attached to their evidence.” Frightful confirmation is still given by the attesting voice of tradition, descending in only one or two degrees from those who suffered, and witnessed in the lone green heap or solitary stone which still commemorates the deeds of blood. These were not the individual outrages of peculiar ruffians; they were the authorised executions of an exterminating system, deliberately organized for the destruction of the Jacobite clans. The project originated in the government of William III.; and if it did not emanate from Lord Stair, it was fostered and advanced by that minister. The massacre of Glencoe was the first essay of the design; the execration of the world checked its progress: but its development was only suspended for a favourable opportqnity—which arrived in 1746.—As early as 1691, it was declared by Lord Stair that—“tAe Highlanders were to be destroyed as wild savages”—“that their utter destruction” was a meritorious action, and that “an attempt to bring it about by a legal trial would only serve to put them upon their guard." The vindictive determination of this design, and the uncompromising means recognised for its execution, were avowed without reserve by the minister in the instructions which prompted the massacre of Glencoe.—“The winter”—said he, in an official letter,—“The winter is the only season in which we are sure that the Highlanders cannot escape us, nor carry their wives, bairns, and cattle, to the mountains,” for “human constitution cannot endure then to be long out of houses. This is the proper season to maul them in the cold long nights.” The fatal success of this inhuman counsel was proved amidst the snows and frosts upon the “ night” of Glencoe, and the design of a general military execution was never laid aside. In 1725, it was discovered by King James and some of his principal adherents, that there existed in the reigning government a plot for the “utter extirpation” of the Jacobite clans; and in 1746, the Lord President Forbes proposed a renewal of the same exterminating which “If all the rebels”— said he in a letter to Sir Robert Walpole, “with their wives, children, and dependants, could be rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonishing, but time would commit it to oblivion.” The principle of this counsel was carried into execution by the army of occupation under the Duke of Cumberland, and if the mild nights of summer left more for the bayonet and the torch, than the winter of Glencoe, they fulfilled that “duty” with unrelenting persecution. Pursuant to the system of “extirpation,” every license was given for the slaughter of the Highlanders. In the first rigour of the proscription against their national dress, the troops had received orders to kill upon the spot all whom they met dressed in the Highland garb.”—Like the old statute which permitted the English soldier “to kill and cut off the head” of any Irishman, whom he supposed to have been engaged in treasonable practices, and had “none in his company dressed in English clothes,”—this inhuman authority was a sanction for every murder; the soldier, incited by any malignant passion, had only to assert the sumptuary penalty against its object, and kill him under its protection. But there were instances when the attacks were wanton and unexcited; and the idle men, especially those who were good marksmen, went out singly or in parties to “stalk” the Highlanders like deer, and shoot at such as they saw in the national dress—which at that time were all whom they met, for it was long after the proscription that few only were able to change their costume. The pursuit of the proscribed families and outlaws added continual aggravations to the spirit of wanton cruelty, and was followed by the soldiers as a species of hill-sport which they called “rebel-hunting”. In one of these sanguinary attacks, the Prince and his attendants, in making their way from Strath-Cluanie to Glenmoressan, were in imminent danger, and witnessed the massacre of the fugitives upon the mountain above them, from whence they heard the shots of the musquets, hs “the soldiers were chasing and murdering the poor people” upon the summit of the hill.—Of the work which passed about those reports, an example may be found in a single murder which happened in the wilds of Croidart. A party of soldiers, commanded by an officer, sent in pursuit of Charles Edward, came to the hut of a lonely cotter, and desired refreshment from his wife, while he was absent in pursuit of deer. The woman gave them all the milk which she possessed; but her infant, alarmed at the sight of the red coats and the glitter of the musquets, wept vociferously, and would not be pacified.—“Curse that child!”— exclaimed the officer;—“if he lives, he will only grow up to be a rebel like his father"—and the sergeant drawing his sword, impaled the infant against the wall, and cast his little bleeding body at the feet of his mother.—Frightful and wanton as this atrocity may appear, it was attended by other circumstances too revolting to be repeated, and the infamy of this action was aggravated by another arising out of the cowardice of the officer.—He was remarkable by riding a white horse, and fearing that this distinction should render him conspicuous in any pursuit to avenge the murder, he mounted in his place a Highland prisoner whom he was conveying to Fort-Augustus. As he had anticipated, he was followed by the father of the child, who, taking a short track through the hill, met the party at a narrow pass, where, singling out the rider of the white horse, he shot him dead. Discovering his error, however, he reloaded his gun, and, judging the destination of the party for Fort-Augustus, followed and watched them during the night, and, on the succeeding day, intercepted them at another “beallach.” The officer, who now believed himself beyond danger, had resumed his seat, and the Highlander, having identified the object of his vengeance, took a stalker’s aim, pulled the trigger with a firm hand, and, as the smoke of the gun blew off, the white horse was standing with an empty saddle in the midst of the dismayed party.
Much has recently been said concerning the destruction of the Arabs smoked to death in Africa; but a similar tragedy, attended by circumstances of much greater horror, was peqietrated by the English soldiers in Strath-Conan. A party of fugitives—including not only a few armed carnachs, but women, children, and grey-headed men—having been discovered in the desolate wilds at the head of that glen, they were so closely pursued, that they were driven to take refuge within the recesses of a rocky den, similar to that which served for the retreat of Charles Edward in Glen-Strath-Farar. Having discovered their concealment, and being unable to attack them, the soldiers collected a quantity of heath, bracken, and dry wood, and, setting it on fire at the mouth of the rock, all within perished—the women, children, and old men, suffocated in their retreat, and tlie “carnachs,” half exhausted and blinded by the smoke and flames, cut down and bayoneted as they endeavoured to force their way out of the den.
An act of barbarity still more wanton and cruel was committed in Glen-Urchard, and under the authority of an individual whose elevated rank greatly added to the enormity. Several fugitives, among whom were some of the wounded from Culloden, having collected in that glen, took shelter in a bam near Balmacan, where they remained for more than a fortnight unnoticed. At length, however, their retreat having been denounced, the hut was surrounded by a party of troops, the doors closed with fixed bayonets, and, fire being set to the roof, all within were massacred at the outlets, or perished in the flaming ruins. One man only, named Mac Lean, escaped the fate of his companions, from having been absent during the attack. Hearing the shots about the barn, he made his escape into the woods, and, thinking it safer to trust to their shelter than to cross the country, he remained in this concealment for nearly a month, when, one morning at daybreak, having been abroad to obtain food, he was observed by some soldiers as he was re-entering his covert. Seeing his Highland dress, they immediately fired and wounded him severely in the thigh; but, having a stick, he succeeded in escaping into the thicket, and it is probable that he was not pursued, for, so great was the abhorrence of the soldiers to climbing the hills, that, to avoid this fatigue, they often proceeded without examining whether those at whom they shot were dead or alive? Even the graves in which the unhappy fugitives concealed their dead could not shelter them from outrage and spoliation. When a party of the troops wen* “ plundering the islet of Loch-Arcaig, they observed some new-raised earth, and, imagining that they should find either money or arms, dug up the heap, but found only a man’s corpse with a good Holland shirt on, which made them believe it to be Lochiel; but it was the corpse of Cameron, brother to Allan Cameron of Calart, and, rather than have no plunder, they took the shirt, and left the corpse lying on the ground.”8 Before the old population was broken by emigration, many of these solitary graves were still known in the glens. Some of these covered the bodies of strangers who were shot in passing through the country, whose names, and homes, and friends, were never known by those among whom they fell, and whose own never knew tlieir fate, nor where their remains rested. In a sequestered crook of Glen-Strath-F&rar, on a little green near the bank of the river, though now almost sunk to the surrounding level, there is a slight undulation in the turf, which still marks one of these solitary graves. In this nameless cell lies one of those itinerant merchants who still travel into the glens with little stores of trinkets and drapery. On his way up the valley he was met by two dragoons returning to Castle Downie, by whom he was murdered, and left, pillaged and stripped, upon the spot where he is buried, at the margin of the old country track which then descended near the river. The murdered man was an entire stranger, and it was thought by some that he was a proscribed gentleman from the lowlands, who had adopted the disguise of a pedlar as a pretext for travelling through the country, and to a distance where he was less likely to be recognised.
It was not only in the solitudes, where violence had no witnesses, that crimes were committed with impunity. In the city of Inverness, atrocious outrages were perpetrated unrestrained, and after the disorder of the capture had subsided. One night, after all appearance of insurrection was at an end, as a party of soldiers, who had been sent out to burn and pillage the Aird, was returning along the river, they observed a still lonely light in the window of a small house which stood by the water. They entered, and in a dim and solitary chamber found a wounded man lying u|x>n a bed, by the side of which sat his daughter, who watched him while he slept. Awakened by the rudeness of the intruders, he raised his head, and, seeing the blood-stained bandage by which it was bound, the soldiers tore it from his brow, and, discovering the deep wound which it concealed, with blasphemous imprecations, and regardless of the weeping girl who clung to their knees, plunged their weapons in the already dying man. While the last throes were yet trembling in his body, they seized the distracted child with the hands reddened in her father’s blood. Her shrieks were unheard, or heard only by those who dared not come to her assistance. The only inmate in the house was one old woman, who, unnoticed in the tumult, escaped by a small window which opened upon the river. In her descent she fell into the stream, but, the water being shallow, she regained the bank, and fled to a distant house. None dared to go to the resistance of the soldiers; but in the morning the woman returned. The cottage was still and deserted, the door half open,—and, when she entered, she found the murdered man lying extended on the bed, his hand clenched on his breast with the motion of the last death-stroke, and, on the ground beside the pallet, the pale, dishevelled, lifeless form of his daughter, her dress rent in tatters, and her cold cheeks and stiffened hands marked with the stains of her father’s blood.
During the reign of terror, darkened by these crimes, so great was the overawing dread of the conqueror, and so abject the prostration of the conquered, that, excepting the feeble voice of the Lord President, no remonstrance was offered by the civil power, or any plea for mercy advanced by the ministers of the church; but martial law was supported by legal persecution, and even a political excommunication fulminated from the pulpits. In all the churches there was read a paper, forbidding, upon severe penalties, all persons from giving any food to a rebel; and the General Assembly passed an order, that all clergymen should recite from their desks a proclamation for the arrest or surrender of any suspected persons within their parishes. In Ireland and the Isle of Man rewards were offered for the apprehension of fugitives who might land upon their coasts; and the ministers at foreign courts had the insolence to demand, not only that refugees should be dismissed from their do* minions, but delivered up to the British Government.
Such were the measures of conquest extended over the kingdom of Scotland, and which, in vindictive vengeance, exceeded almost every record of modern war. “It is not in my power,” said a contemporary and acting witness, “to dwell upon a continual series of massacres with such shocking circumstances, as make human nature start back at the bare thought of them. There is hardly an act of violence to be found in the histories of the most barbarous nations, but may be matched by the Duke of Cumberland’s visit into the Highlands: all the horrid cruelties that sometimes attend a long-disputed field of battle, or a town taken by storm, in the first moments of the soldiers' fury, were committed wantonly and in cold blood.”
A hundred years have now drawn their veil over this dark period; another race has succeeded to those who suffered; new manners and new interests have arisen upon the old ; and it is a demonstration of the moral as well as political conquest achieved by the Duke of Cumberland, that the public mind-has undergone such a change, that in the metropolis of the north, the scene and focus of so many horrors, upon the centenary anniversary of the battle of Culloden, the event was celebrated by a public dinner. In these “mort ualia,” converted to the modern spirit of gastronomic commemoration, the guests ate, drank, and sang to the memory of their massacred ancestors, and passing a resolution to signalize the scene of their slaughter by a monument, proposed its inauguration by a Ball — “that the ladies might have an opportunity of sharing the celebration,” by dancing to the memory of the fathers, brothers, and husbands of their families, murdered and burned around the scene of their convocation. The victorious soldiers ate on the field of battle, and, after the massacre of the wounded, “amused themselves by splashing and dabbling each other with the blood;” but they forebore the pagan orgies of dancing over the dead: it remained for the nineteenth dentury to invite the ladies of Inverness to dance amidst the ashes and upon the graves of their ancestors.
The above can of course be read at the link at the top of our Electric Scotland section
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair
THIS WEEKEND, Saturday Oct. 11th is the date for the Indianapolis Scottish Highland Games and Festival at the Marion Co. Fairgrounds. There will be music and dance entertainment on two stages all day, exciting athletic completions, free kids activities and face painting, story telling, two pipe-bands, numerous food and unique merchandise vendors, the royal court by the Tudor Rose Players, sword fighting demos, women's rugby, and more including Scottish Cows. And, more than a dozen Scottish Clans and Associations. You can also attend free whiskey tasting classes and we will have a beer tent. The event runs from 8:30AM to 9:00PM which will include a Scottish party for all after 6:00 PM. You can also find if you have any Scottish roots. This is a great event for the entire family.
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History of the World
I thought I'd just mention that over the many years I have published to the site I have added many histories of many countries in the world. The reason is simply because doing the history of the Scots Diaspora I've wanted to understand the history of the countries they settled in.
I wanted to try and understand what drove them to settle in these countries and if possible learn of what the Scots might have contributed to them.
This means that I now have a lot of general history which you can use to learn more about whatever country you reside in.
You can get to these histories through our Scots Diaspora section at:
https://electricscotland.com/history/world.htm
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
A century ago, on 2 October 1925, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird successfully transmitted a recognisable moving image of a human face.
From BBC History.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...o-appear-on-tv
NATO and the EU Seek a Convincing Response to Russian Aggression
Russia has continued to provoke NATO and the EU. The drone incursion into Polish airspace earlier this month has Western leaders scrambling for answers. Putin, meanwhile, has made it clear he won't be backing down any time soon.
Read more at:
https://www.spiegel.de/international...3-989a246a8538
Conrad Black: A momentous peace in the Middle East will soon be upon us
And we have Trump to thank for it
Read more at:
https://archive.is/tCnpY
Scientists grow mini human brains to power computers
It may have its roots in science fiction, but a small number of researchers are making real progress trying to create computers out of living cells.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7p1lzvxjro
Munich airport resumes flights after suspected drones force second closure in 24 hours
It was the latest in a series of incidents involving drones that have disrupted aviation in Europe in recent weeks.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge2v4r4gr1o
Senate stalemate sends US shutdown into second week
US Senators have for a fourth time failed to pass spending proposals to reopen the federal government, extending the ongoing shutdown into next week.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce32eegrlpko
Orange Order: There's ignorance over what we're about
When Andrew Murray became Worshipful Grand Master of the Loyal Orange Order in Scotland three years ago, he and his new leadership team had pledged to bring this old institution into the 21st century.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/T9NOV
The conservative case for Sarah Mullally
Anything that hastens the death of the Church of England should be welcomed
Read more at:
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-conserva...arah-mullally/
Scottish households told to prepare for attacks by stocking up on candles by former NATO defence secretary
Lord Robertson was speaking at Wigtown Book Festival, when he warned Britain needed to ‘move away from a peacetime mode’
Read more at:
https://archive.is/mzexu
Brexit trade bonanza unlocks billions of pounds in India
Employers, entrepreneurs and innovators from across the UK are this week aiming to make the most of post-Brexit growth opportunities and break into India’s giant market.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...locks-billions
What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal
After three days of intense indirect negotiations in Egypt, US President Donald Trump says Israel and Hamas have "signed off on the first phase" of the 20-point peace plan he unveiled last week.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgqx7ygq41o
The battle for Scotland's flag: Why the right has adopted the saltire
Something has shifted in Scotland. The saltire, which was long embraced by supporters of Scottish independence, has now been unfurled for a different cause.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyxqknx7jqo
America's top banker sounds warning on US stock market fall
Jamie Dimon, who leads America's largest bank, said he was "far more worried than others" about a serious market correction, which he said could come in the next six months to two years. In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the bank boss also said that the US had become a "less reliable" partner on the world stage
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5ej03p604o
Electric Canadian
Two Centuries of Settlement of the Gaspé Coast by English Speaking People
by David J. McDougall
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...C3%A9Coast.pdf
Canada: A People's History
By Mark Starowicz - a video production (2000)
You can watch this long production at:
https://tinyurl.com/5fsxfca6
Beautés de L'Histoire du Canada
Par D. Dainville (1821) in the French language (pdf)
Thought it was time to add a French language history to the site and you can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...toir00dain.pdf
Rules and Regulations of the Beaver Club
Instituted in 1785 (1819) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...beaverclub.pdf
Sir Arthur William Currie
A biography from Wikipedia (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...hur_Currie.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning the 5th day of October 2025 - A Day of Rest
By The Re. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...-a-day-of-rest
The Beaver Magazine
Added No. 1 Outfit 261 March 1931 (pdf)
You can read this issue at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...rMarch1931.pdf
Electric Scotland
Lays of the Deer Forest
With sketches of olden and modern Deer-Hunting; traits of natural history in the forest; traditions of the clans; miscellaneous notes by John Sobieskie and Charles Edward Stuart in two volumes (1847)
I noted that I'd only got volume 1 on the site so have now added volume 2 in which there is information on the atrocities committed after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 which starts from page 346 of volume 2 and have also made this the story for this week.
You can read these volumes at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...deerforest.htm
John Howie of Lochgoin
His Forebears and his works by D. Hay Fleming (1909) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...oflochgoin.pdf
Rubric Translation Expert Leads Way on Global Digital Front
Edinburgh is often cited as the home of publishing going back centuries given its rich history as a literary and printing centre with a thriving book trade to rival London. An article by Bill Magee.
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/magee/article0040.htm
Warfare Along the Mississippi
The letters of Lieutenant Colonel George E. Currie Edited by Norman E. Clarke, Sr. (1961) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...miss00curr.pdf
The Christian’s Great Interest
By William Guthrie (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00guthuoft.pdf
History of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Gowrie
Preliminary Dissertations by the Rev. James Scott (1818) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...rlofgowrie.pdf
Scottish Society of Louisville
Added their October 2025 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
The Hill of Good-Bye
The story of a solitary white woman's life in central Africa by Jessie Monteath Currie (1920) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00currrich.pdf
Grow Your Own Vegetables
A Practical Handbook for Allotment Holders and those wishing to Grow Vegetables in Small Gardens by Stanley C. Johnson, D.Sc., F.R.E.S. (1918) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...00johnrich.pdf
True and Genuine Account of Murdoch Currie
Taken from his own mouth at the place of Execution in Shorthand being a Pious Exhortation to people of ranks to take Warning by his Untimely end. He was Executed at Dumbarton on the 14th day of June, 1754 (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...hapbook638.pdf
Donald Campbell's Loyalty
By Sara C. Palmer (1921) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/kids/st...llsl00palm.pdf
Story
I have taken some of the content under the section of volume 2 of The Lays of the Deer Forest entitled "Enormities of 1746" to create this story. They are taken from pages 346 to 363.
Immediately upon the occupation of the Highlands by the English army, the country was placed under a merciless martial-law, and even the most defenceless glens subjected to every species of rapine and outrage. Of the preceding enormities which had attended the victory of Culloden, it would be too long to give a detailed account; but a few instances will be sufficient to exhibit the inhuman disposition of the conquerors at their entrance into the country.
“Riding over the field, attended by some of his officers, the Dulce of Cumberland observed a young wounded Highlander resting upon his elbow, and gazing at the party. The Duke asked the wounded man to whom he belonged, and received for answer—‘To the Prince.’ He instantly called to an officer to ‘shoot that insolent scoundrel.’ The officer, Major (afterwards the celebrated General) Wolf, declined the task; and, with the same result, the Duke commanded several others to pistol the wounded man; then seeing a common soldier, he asked him if he had a charge in his piece, the man answering in the affirmative, he commanded him to do the required duty, which was immediately performed. The youth thus slain was the younger Fraser of Inverallachie, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Master of Lovat’s regiment.”—When the soldiers entered Inverness, “a sick gentleman of the Prince’s army, named James Aberdeen, lay in the house of one Widow Davidson, and, being at the height of a fever, was unable to escape. This feet becoming known to some of the soldiers, they immediately rushed into the sick chamber, and cut the throat of the unfortunate man where he lay.”—Two low-country men, flying from the field of battle without arms, were followed by a Cumberland volunteer on horseback. Having gained the town, they entered the well-house for concealment, but being observed by the pursuer, he gave his horse to a girl on the street, and following them into the house, notwithstanding the cries of the defenceless men for quarter, cut them down. Upon the day after the battle, it being reported that a considerable number of the wounded “rebels” were still in life, the Duke of Cumberland ordered out a party “to put them out of pain." About seventy wounded wretches were gathered among the heaps of slain, and carried to an eminence, where, being conveniently arranged, they were despatched by discharges of musquetry.
Upon the ensuing day it was understood that some others of the wounded had found shelter in the neighbouring houses. Parties were sent in search of them. Many were accordingly dragged forth, and all, except a very few, coolly murdered. In one instance the hut was set on fire and burned, under a guard, by whom any attempting to escape were immediately bayoneted. Thirty-two corpses were found among the ashes. Among them were Colonel O*Reily, an old Irish officer seventy years of age, attached to Lord Ogilvie’s corps; two Rattrays, father and son, of the same regiment; Menzies of Scien, and Stewart of Kynechan. Among those butchered on the field were Mercer of Aldie and his son, a boy. At the house of Culloden nineteen wounded officers had been carried into the court, where the steward, at much risk to himself, had administered to them some comforts. They were discovered by the English troops, who immediately caused them to be carried out in carts to a park wall, where, being drawn up, they were told to prepare for instant death. Such as were able threw themselves on their knees, when a volley of musquetry put an end to the lives of almost all the vintimo and to finish those who survived, the soldiers were ordered to club their pieces, and beat out their brains. It might be asserted that these savage barbarities were excited by the first fury of the battle, but such was not true ; they were indisputably executed upon the succeeding day, and were continued systematically upon the occupation of the country.
“In the month of May the Duke of Cumberland advanced with his army into the Highlands, as far as Fort-Augustus, where he encamped, and sent off detachments on all sides to hunt down the fugitives, and lay waste the country with fire and sword. The castles of Invergarrie and Lochiel were plundered and burned; every hut, house, and habitation, met with the same fate without distinction; all the cattle and provisions 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 barren heaths. 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 in the compass of fifty miles; all was ruin, silence, and desolation.”
The accuracy of these declarations has been questioned by those who wish to extenuate the barbarity of the conquerors, but the most impartial examination has only added to the horrors of the conviction. “The cruelties,” says Chambers, “were such, that if not perfectly well authenticated, we could scarcely believe to have been practised less than a century ago. Not only were the mansions of the chiefs Lochiel, Glengarrie, Cluny, Keppoch, Kinlochmoidart, Glengyle, Ardshiel, and many others, plundered and burnt, but those of many inferior gentlemen, and even the huts of the common people, were in like manner destroyed. The cattle, sheep, and provisions of all kinds, were carried off to Fort-Augustus. In many instances the women and children were stripped naked and left exposed; in some the females were subjected to even more horrible treatment. A great number of men, unarmed and inoffensive including some aged beggars, were shot in the fields, and on the mountain side, rather in the spirit of wantonness than for any definite object. Many hapless people perished of cold and hunger amongst the hills; others followed in abject herds their departing cattle, and at Fort-Augustus begged, for the support of a wretched existence, to get the offal, or even to be allowed to lick up the blood of those which were killed for the use of the army. Before the 10th of June the task of desolation was complete throughout all the western parts of Inverness-shire; and the curse which had been denounced upon Scotland by the religious enthusiasts of the preceding century was at length so entirely fulfilled in this remote region, that it would have l>een literally possible to travel for days through the depopulated glens without seeing a chimney smoke, or hearing a cock crow.”—“General Hawley was one of the most remorseless of all the commanding officers, as if he thought that no extent of cruelty was a sufficient compensation for his loss of honour at Falkirk. The names of Lieutenant-Colonel Howard, Captain Caroline Scott, and Major Lockhart, are also to be handed down to everlasting execration, as early submission; but as he ordered their persons to execution, and their houses to the flames, replied to their plea for mercy, that though they were to show him a protection from Heaven, it should not prevent him from doing his duty! —Under the command of such barbarians, it will not be surprising that their “duties” were often attended by circumstances of inhuman brutality and wanton destruction. When the party destined for the demolition of Invergarrie reached that castle, it was a dark tempestuous night, and the lady and her children had long retired to rest. They were not permitted to remain until the morning ; but, alarmed out of their beds, were driven, half-naked, to the hill, where they took refuge in a cotter’s house, from whence they beheld the light of the flames rising from the chambers which were so lately their own.’ Before the morning the noble castle erected by Lord MacDonnel and Arros, one of the most remarkable of its period in the Highlands, was consumed to the naked walls, and such was the vindictive spirit of the soldiers, that they placed barrels of gunpowder at the foot of two large walnut-trees in the garden, one of which still survives to exhibit the scarred rent of the explosion. Similar, but more extensive and wanton spoliation, was committed at Auchnacarrie, the residence of Lochiel, where the gardens, nearly a mile in length,3 were rooted up and destroyed. It is among the evidences of the barbarizing and desolating effects, produced by the ravages of the period, that these efforts of industry have never since been restored ; and that the mansions of Glengarrie, Lovat, and various other noble estates, have never yet been replaced by any suitable edifices. These are not the revengeful recollections of party animosity, but grains of sand among the mam of historical facts, which ought continually to be remembered for the vindication of the Highlanders, from those scandals of idleness and non-improvement advanced by the ignorant and the hostile against a conquered, long-oppressed, and still neglected people. Like the mortally diseased, who fear to call in a physician lest he should awaken them to a terrible conviction, there are few who have the courage to lift the black veil which has fallen upon the last century, and contemplate the fatal causes and effects, in which we have never repaired the consequences of two unsuccessful insurrections, and of which the denial is still more humiliating than the confession, as it is more disgraceful to be incompetent than overcome. But those who read the history of their own country, as they read that of others, know that she has been conquered, retarded, and deprived, from the days of the Darien intervention, the removal of her parliament, and the dissolution of her chancery ; and that, in 1746, not only the Highlanders, but the whole nation, suffered a shock, a diminution of the political vital principle, which has left s national paralysis at the present day. “Not content,” says Chambers, “with laying waste the country of the active insurgents, the troops extended their ravages over peaceful districts to the very gates of the capital, and for some time Scotland might be said to have been treated, throughout its whole bounds, as a conquered country, subject to the domination of military law.”—“No form of trial was adopted with the insurgents, even within a few miles of the seat of the Court of Sessionappeal to the neighbouring justices for warrants when about to plunder their houses.”
These outrages became at length so flagrant, that the Lord President Forbes, one of the most zealous supporters; of the government, remonstrated with the Duke of Cumberland against the atrocities of his troops, who “everywhere outraged the laws.”—“Laws!” exclaimed the Prince.—“What laws? I will make a brigade give laws and in Inverness he stigmatized the judge as that “old woman who talked to him of humanity.” Notwithstanding the unbounded license enjoyed under a commander-in-chief who thus sanctioned their excesses, the soldiers became dejected by the solitude and desolation caused by their own devastations ; and, to “divert their melancholy,” the Duke and his officers frequently indulged them with races, and gave money for the stakes, which were sometimes run for by horses without bridle or saddle, and ridden by naked women.2 The animals, which furnished these courses, were those driven in from the plunder of the country, and which amounted to such numbers that most of the soldiers possessed more than one; and though the camp became a cattle-market, which was attended by drovers from Yorkshire and Galloway, it was so glutted with numbers that a pony was bought for eighteenpence, and considered as extravagantly dear at half-a-crown. Notwithstanding, however, this low price, “the vast quantities of cattle, oxen, horses, sheep, and goats,” was so great, that some of the men became enriched by their plunder ; and out of the public sales, of which the profits were divided among the troops, the whole army received a great amount, which was distributed in the following shares:—Privates, 15s.; corporals, L.1; sergeants, L.l, 10s.; subalterns, L1, 18s.; captains, L.11, 5s. This fund, however, was derived from all kinds of plunder, including the cellars and libraries of the superior houses, as at Castle Downie, the seat of Lord Lovat, which furnished one thousand bottles-of wine, and the value of fourteen hundred pounds in books.
A recent historian has discountenanced the relation of these enormities ; and a contemporary, who has stigmatized Sir William Wallace as a barbarous robber, and vindicated the offended majesty of Edward I., may perhaps find apologies for the banditti of the Duke of Cumberland; but, as observed by Klose and Chambers, the atrocities of 1746 “were maintained by authentic and historic details, vouched by bishops, clergymen, ministers, elders, and gentlemen of rank and character, whose signatures were attached to their evidence.” Frightful confirmation is still given by the attesting voice of tradition, descending in only one or two degrees from those who suffered, and witnessed in the lone green heap or solitary stone which still commemorates the deeds of blood. These were not the individual outrages of peculiar ruffians; they were the authorised executions of an exterminating system, deliberately organized for the destruction of the Jacobite clans. The project originated in the government of William III.; and if it did not emanate from Lord Stair, it was fostered and advanced by that minister. The massacre of Glencoe was the first essay of the design; the execration of the world checked its progress: but its development was only suspended for a favourable opportqnity—which arrived in 1746.—As early as 1691, it was declared by Lord Stair that—“tAe Highlanders were to be destroyed as wild savages”—“that their utter destruction” was a meritorious action, and that “an attempt to bring it about by a legal trial would only serve to put them upon their guard." The vindictive determination of this design, and the uncompromising means recognised for its execution, were avowed without reserve by the minister in the instructions which prompted the massacre of Glencoe.—“The winter”—said he, in an official letter,—“The winter is the only season in which we are sure that the Highlanders cannot escape us, nor carry their wives, bairns, and cattle, to the mountains,” for “human constitution cannot endure then to be long out of houses. This is the proper season to maul them in the cold long nights.” The fatal success of this inhuman counsel was proved amidst the snows and frosts upon the “ night” of Glencoe, and the design of a general military execution was never laid aside. In 1725, it was discovered by King James and some of his principal adherents, that there existed in the reigning government a plot for the “utter extirpation” of the Jacobite clans; and in 1746, the Lord President Forbes proposed a renewal of the same exterminating which “If all the rebels”— said he in a letter to Sir Robert Walpole, “with their wives, children, and dependants, could be rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonishing, but time would commit it to oblivion.” The principle of this counsel was carried into execution by the army of occupation under the Duke of Cumberland, and if the mild nights of summer left more for the bayonet and the torch, than the winter of Glencoe, they fulfilled that “duty” with unrelenting persecution. Pursuant to the system of “extirpation,” every license was given for the slaughter of the Highlanders. In the first rigour of the proscription against their national dress, the troops had received orders to kill upon the spot all whom they met dressed in the Highland garb.”—Like the old statute which permitted the English soldier “to kill and cut off the head” of any Irishman, whom he supposed to have been engaged in treasonable practices, and had “none in his company dressed in English clothes,”—this inhuman authority was a sanction for every murder; the soldier, incited by any malignant passion, had only to assert the sumptuary penalty against its object, and kill him under its protection. But there were instances when the attacks were wanton and unexcited; and the idle men, especially those who were good marksmen, went out singly or in parties to “stalk” the Highlanders like deer, and shoot at such as they saw in the national dress—which at that time were all whom they met, for it was long after the proscription that few only were able to change their costume. The pursuit of the proscribed families and outlaws added continual aggravations to the spirit of wanton cruelty, and was followed by the soldiers as a species of hill-sport which they called “rebel-hunting”. In one of these sanguinary attacks, the Prince and his attendants, in making their way from Strath-Cluanie to Glenmoressan, were in imminent danger, and witnessed the massacre of the fugitives upon the mountain above them, from whence they heard the shots of the musquets, hs “the soldiers were chasing and murdering the poor people” upon the summit of the hill.—Of the work which passed about those reports, an example may be found in a single murder which happened in the wilds of Croidart. A party of soldiers, commanded by an officer, sent in pursuit of Charles Edward, came to the hut of a lonely cotter, and desired refreshment from his wife, while he was absent in pursuit of deer. The woman gave them all the milk which she possessed; but her infant, alarmed at the sight of the red coats and the glitter of the musquets, wept vociferously, and would not be pacified.—“Curse that child!”— exclaimed the officer;—“if he lives, he will only grow up to be a rebel like his father"—and the sergeant drawing his sword, impaled the infant against the wall, and cast his little bleeding body at the feet of his mother.—Frightful and wanton as this atrocity may appear, it was attended by other circumstances too revolting to be repeated, and the infamy of this action was aggravated by another arising out of the cowardice of the officer.—He was remarkable by riding a white horse, and fearing that this distinction should render him conspicuous in any pursuit to avenge the murder, he mounted in his place a Highland prisoner whom he was conveying to Fort-Augustus. As he had anticipated, he was followed by the father of the child, who, taking a short track through the hill, met the party at a narrow pass, where, singling out the rider of the white horse, he shot him dead. Discovering his error, however, he reloaded his gun, and, judging the destination of the party for Fort-Augustus, followed and watched them during the night, and, on the succeeding day, intercepted them at another “beallach.” The officer, who now believed himself beyond danger, had resumed his seat, and the Highlander, having identified the object of his vengeance, took a stalker’s aim, pulled the trigger with a firm hand, and, as the smoke of the gun blew off, the white horse was standing with an empty saddle in the midst of the dismayed party.
Much has recently been said concerning the destruction of the Arabs smoked to death in Africa; but a similar tragedy, attended by circumstances of much greater horror, was peqietrated by the English soldiers in Strath-Conan. A party of fugitives—including not only a few armed carnachs, but women, children, and grey-headed men—having been discovered in the desolate wilds at the head of that glen, they were so closely pursued, that they were driven to take refuge within the recesses of a rocky den, similar to that which served for the retreat of Charles Edward in Glen-Strath-Farar. Having discovered their concealment, and being unable to attack them, the soldiers collected a quantity of heath, bracken, and dry wood, and, setting it on fire at the mouth of the rock, all within perished—the women, children, and old men, suffocated in their retreat, and tlie “carnachs,” half exhausted and blinded by the smoke and flames, cut down and bayoneted as they endeavoured to force their way out of the den.
An act of barbarity still more wanton and cruel was committed in Glen-Urchard, and under the authority of an individual whose elevated rank greatly added to the enormity. Several fugitives, among whom were some of the wounded from Culloden, having collected in that glen, took shelter in a bam near Balmacan, where they remained for more than a fortnight unnoticed. At length, however, their retreat having been denounced, the hut was surrounded by a party of troops, the doors closed with fixed bayonets, and, fire being set to the roof, all within were massacred at the outlets, or perished in the flaming ruins. One man only, named Mac Lean, escaped the fate of his companions, from having been absent during the attack. Hearing the shots about the barn, he made his escape into the woods, and, thinking it safer to trust to their shelter than to cross the country, he remained in this concealment for nearly a month, when, one morning at daybreak, having been abroad to obtain food, he was observed by some soldiers as he was re-entering his covert. Seeing his Highland dress, they immediately fired and wounded him severely in the thigh; but, having a stick, he succeeded in escaping into the thicket, and it is probable that he was not pursued, for, so great was the abhorrence of the soldiers to climbing the hills, that, to avoid this fatigue, they often proceeded without examining whether those at whom they shot were dead or alive? Even the graves in which the unhappy fugitives concealed their dead could not shelter them from outrage and spoliation. When a party of the troops wen* “ plundering the islet of Loch-Arcaig, they observed some new-raised earth, and, imagining that they should find either money or arms, dug up the heap, but found only a man’s corpse with a good Holland shirt on, which made them believe it to be Lochiel; but it was the corpse of Cameron, brother to Allan Cameron of Calart, and, rather than have no plunder, they took the shirt, and left the corpse lying on the ground.”8 Before the old population was broken by emigration, many of these solitary graves were still known in the glens. Some of these covered the bodies of strangers who were shot in passing through the country, whose names, and homes, and friends, were never known by those among whom they fell, and whose own never knew tlieir fate, nor where their remains rested. In a sequestered crook of Glen-Strath-F&rar, on a little green near the bank of the river, though now almost sunk to the surrounding level, there is a slight undulation in the turf, which still marks one of these solitary graves. In this nameless cell lies one of those itinerant merchants who still travel into the glens with little stores of trinkets and drapery. On his way up the valley he was met by two dragoons returning to Castle Downie, by whom he was murdered, and left, pillaged and stripped, upon the spot where he is buried, at the margin of the old country track which then descended near the river. The murdered man was an entire stranger, and it was thought by some that he was a proscribed gentleman from the lowlands, who had adopted the disguise of a pedlar as a pretext for travelling through the country, and to a distance where he was less likely to be recognised.
It was not only in the solitudes, where violence had no witnesses, that crimes were committed with impunity. In the city of Inverness, atrocious outrages were perpetrated unrestrained, and after the disorder of the capture had subsided. One night, after all appearance of insurrection was at an end, as a party of soldiers, who had been sent out to burn and pillage the Aird, was returning along the river, they observed a still lonely light in the window of a small house which stood by the water. They entered, and in a dim and solitary chamber found a wounded man lying u|x>n a bed, by the side of which sat his daughter, who watched him while he slept. Awakened by the rudeness of the intruders, he raised his head, and, seeing the blood-stained bandage by which it was bound, the soldiers tore it from his brow, and, discovering the deep wound which it concealed, with blasphemous imprecations, and regardless of the weeping girl who clung to their knees, plunged their weapons in the already dying man. While the last throes were yet trembling in his body, they seized the distracted child with the hands reddened in her father’s blood. Her shrieks were unheard, or heard only by those who dared not come to her assistance. The only inmate in the house was one old woman, who, unnoticed in the tumult, escaped by a small window which opened upon the river. In her descent she fell into the stream, but, the water being shallow, she regained the bank, and fled to a distant house. None dared to go to the resistance of the soldiers; but in the morning the woman returned. The cottage was still and deserted, the door half open,—and, when she entered, she found the murdered man lying extended on the bed, his hand clenched on his breast with the motion of the last death-stroke, and, on the ground beside the pallet, the pale, dishevelled, lifeless form of his daughter, her dress rent in tatters, and her cold cheeks and stiffened hands marked with the stains of her father’s blood.
During the reign of terror, darkened by these crimes, so great was the overawing dread of the conqueror, and so abject the prostration of the conquered, that, excepting the feeble voice of the Lord President, no remonstrance was offered by the civil power, or any plea for mercy advanced by the ministers of the church; but martial law was supported by legal persecution, and even a political excommunication fulminated from the pulpits. In all the churches there was read a paper, forbidding, upon severe penalties, all persons from giving any food to a rebel; and the General Assembly passed an order, that all clergymen should recite from their desks a proclamation for the arrest or surrender of any suspected persons within their parishes. In Ireland and the Isle of Man rewards were offered for the apprehension of fugitives who might land upon their coasts; and the ministers at foreign courts had the insolence to demand, not only that refugees should be dismissed from their do* minions, but delivered up to the British Government.
Such were the measures of conquest extended over the kingdom of Scotland, and which, in vindictive vengeance, exceeded almost every record of modern war. “It is not in my power,” said a contemporary and acting witness, “to dwell upon a continual series of massacres with such shocking circumstances, as make human nature start back at the bare thought of them. There is hardly an act of violence to be found in the histories of the most barbarous nations, but may be matched by the Duke of Cumberland’s visit into the Highlands: all the horrid cruelties that sometimes attend a long-disputed field of battle, or a town taken by storm, in the first moments of the soldiers' fury, were committed wantonly and in cold blood.”
A hundred years have now drawn their veil over this dark period; another race has succeeded to those who suffered; new manners and new interests have arisen upon the old ; and it is a demonstration of the moral as well as political conquest achieved by the Duke of Cumberland, that the public mind-has undergone such a change, that in the metropolis of the north, the scene and focus of so many horrors, upon the centenary anniversary of the battle of Culloden, the event was celebrated by a public dinner. In these “mort ualia,” converted to the modern spirit of gastronomic commemoration, the guests ate, drank, and sang to the memory of their massacred ancestors, and passing a resolution to signalize the scene of their slaughter by a monument, proposed its inauguration by a Ball — “that the ladies might have an opportunity of sharing the celebration,” by dancing to the memory of the fathers, brothers, and husbands of their families, murdered and burned around the scene of their convocation. The victorious soldiers ate on the field of battle, and, after the massacre of the wounded, “amused themselves by splashing and dabbling each other with the blood;” but they forebore the pagan orgies of dancing over the dead: it remained for the nineteenth dentury to invite the ladies of Inverness to dance amidst the ashes and upon the graves of their ancestors.
The above can of course be read at the link at the top of our Electric Scotland section
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair