CAPTAIN DANIEL’S PROGRESS WITH PRINCE CHARLES
This narrative, written by an English officer, who served in Lord Balmerino’s regiment, is occasionally referred to by modern historians of the Jacobite period, but has never been printed. Two manuscripts are known to exist. One, which belongs to an English gentleman, was shown to me by the late Mr. Andrew Lang. It is evidently contemporary, or nearly so, but the spelling is so eccentric that it is exceedingly difficult to read. The second manuscript is preserved at Drummond Castle, and is a certificated copy of the original, but it is written with modern spelling. Both were put at my disposal, but as there was nothing to show that the older version was Daniel’s holograph—indeed the evidence was against it—I preferred to use the Drummond Castle copy. The matter in both was practically identical. Of the writer nothing is known beyond what he tells of himself. Apparently he came from the Fylde country of Lancashire, the district between the Lune and the Ribble, and he was brought up in Jacobite principles.
The narrative is particularly interesting as giving the adventures of an English Jacobite. Daniel, stimulated by the call of conscience, had determined to embrace the cause. He had the good fortune to meet the Duke of Perth when the Prince’s army was near Preston on the march to Derby. The Duke invited him to join, offering him his friendship and patronage. Daniel accepted the offer, and he continued with the army until the end, when he escaped to France in the same ship as the Duke of Perth, whose death he witnessed on the voyage from Arisaig to France in the following May.
On joining, Daniel was attached to the first troop of Life Guards, of which Lord Elcho was colonel, but on the retreat from Derby he was transferred to the second troop of the same regiment, which was commanded by the Hon. Arthur Elphinstone, who about three weeks later succeeded his brother as sixth Lord Balmerino. Daniel conceived a great affection and admiration for his colonel, yet in his laudatory account he mentions a painful characteristic of the times. A gentleman, and a scholar who could recite pages from the Classics, Lord Balmerino was of a noble personage and had the courage of a lion. Moreover he never failed in his military duties. His ‘sole and predominant passion’ was for hard drinking. But for this weakness, ‘he would have shone with the same lustre in the army as he afterwards did on the scaffold.’
In the narrative there is no affectation of impartiality. Daniel is constantly comparing the iniquities of his enemies with the virtues of his friends. There is a curious incident mentioned by him when referring to the death of Sir Robert Munro of Foulis at the battle of Falkirk. He says (page 198), ‘among the slain were ... Sir Robert Munro, who was heard much to blaspheme during the engagement, and as a punishment for which, his tongue was miraculously cut asunder by a sword that struck him directly across the mouth.’ This is rather a startling statement concerning the end of one whom Dr. Doddridge has depicted as a type of the Christian soldier.[75] There seems, however, no necessity to doubt the truth of Daniel’s statement as representing the talk of the Highland camp; for it must be remembered that Sir Robert had served for many years with the army in Flanders whose strong language was proverbial. With the Highlanders on the other hand, profanity was not a common failing, and they may have been shocked at expletives which to an old campaigner were but unmeaning commonplaces of military expression.
Doddridge gives a certain amount of confirmation to Daniel’s story. He tells that when Sir Robert’s body was found the day after the battle, his face was so cut and mangled that it was hardly recognisable.
Daniel on joining the Jacobite army had been befriended by the Duke of Perth, and naturally he heartily disapproved of Lord George Murray. His dislike and distrust are shown frequently in his narrative. He tells, too, how his chief, Lord Balmerino, quarrelled with Lord George; how the hardships the cavalry endured in the campaign nearly drove the men to mutiny, the blame being thrown on the general. Such unreasoning accusations must have made Lord George’s life, hard as it was, more difficult than it would have been had officers and men been really disciplined.
There is another charge which Daniel makes against Lord George Murray—a charge which raised much controversy amongst the Jacobites—namely, the responsibility for fighting the battle of Culloden.
Daniel says: ‘Contrary to the Prince’s inclination, Lord George Murray insisted on standing and fighting that day. The Prince, notwithstanding his great inclination to avoid fighting, was at last obliged to give way to the importunity of Lord George Murray, who even used terms very cutting in case of refusal.’ This attempt to fix the responsibility on Lord George is contrary to impartial evidence, as may be seen by careful examination of contemporary documents.[76] Lord George was against fighting, his scheme being to retire to the mountains, very much as proposed by the Marquis D’Eguilles. The Prince surely must have known this, yet we find that while hiding in South Uist he told Neil Maceachain that ‘he blamed always my Lord George as being the only instrument in loseing the battle, and altho’ that he, the morning before the action, used all his rhetorick, and eloquence against fighting, yet my Lord George outreasoned him, till at last he yielded for fear to raise a dissension among the army, all which he attributed to his infidelity, roguery, and treachery.’ One can only surmise that in his anger against Lord George Murray, the Prince’s recollection of what had actually happened had become confused, and, surrounded by flatterers even in his flight, he had brought himself to lay the responsibility on his Lieutenant-General.
The controversy, which long raged among the Jacobites, may be set at rest once and for all from the report of the Marquis D’Eguilles to Louis XV. D’Eguilles was the accredited envoy of the King of France to the itinerant Court of Prince Charles Edward. On his return to France after a year’s confinement as a prisoner of war, he wrote an official report of his mission to the French king. It is a State document, preserved in the archives of the French Government, but apparently it has never been examined by any British historian. From the text of that document, an extract from which is here given, it will be seen that on the Prince, and the Prince alone, lay the responsibility of fighting the battle of Culloden.
French Envoy’s Official Report to Louis XV. on the Battle of Culloden
Le prince, qui se croyait invincible, parce qu’il n’avait pas encore été vaincu, défié par des ennemis qu’il méprisait trop, voyant à leur tête le fils du concurrent de son père, fier et haut comme il l’était, mal conseillé, peut-être trahi, oubliant en ce moment tout autre projet, ne put se résoudre à lui refuser un seul jour le combat. Je lui demandai un quart d’heure d’audience en particulier. Là, je me jetai en vain à ses pieds; je lui représentai en vain qu’il lui manquait encore la moitié de son armée, que la plupart de ceux qui étaient revenus n’avaient plus de boucliers, espèce d’armes défensives, sans les quelles ils ne sauraient combattre avec avantage; qu’ils étaient tous épuisés de fatigue, par une longue course faite la nuit précédente; que depuis deux jours plusieurs n’avaient pas mangé, faute de pain; qu’il fallait se réduire à défendre Inverness; qu’il serait même encore plus prudent de l’abandonner et de mettre entre les ennemis et nous la rivière, auprès de laquelle cette ville est batie; qu’au pis-aller nous entrerions dans les montagnes voisines; que c’était là qu’il serait véritablement invincible; que nous y resterions les maîtres de la partie de la côte où devait arriver le secours d’armes et d’argent que nous attendions; que dès que nous l’aurions reçu, nous marcherions vers l’Angleterre par cette même côte, ainsi qu’il avait été convenu; que plus les ennemis se seraient avancés vers nous, et plus il leur serait difficile en rebroussant chemin, d’arriver à Londres avant nous; que c’était la prise de cette grande ville qui devait faire son unique objet; que les succès qu’il pourrait avoir ailleurs n’auraient jamais rien de décisif, tandis que tout allait être perdu sans ressource dans une heure, s’il venait à être battu.
Enfin, le trouvant inébranlable dans la résolution prise de combattre à quelque prix que ce fût, je fis céder mon penchant à mon devoir. Je le quittai pour la première fois, je me retirai en hâte à Inverness, pour y brûler tous mes papiers, et y songer aux moyens de conserver à votre Majesté la partie de ses troupes qui ne périrait dans l’action.
Je vis avant la fin du jour le spectacle le plus frappant de la faiblesse humaine: le prince fut vaincu en un instant. Jamais déroute plus entière que la sienne.
TRANSLATION
The Prince who believed himself invincible because he had not yet been beaten, defied by enemies whom he thoroughly despised, seeing at their head the son of the rival of his father; proud and haughty as he was, badly advised, perhaps betrayed, forgetting at this moment every other object, could not bring himself to decline battle even for a single day. I requested a quarter of an hour’s private audience. There I threw myself in vain at his feet. In vain I represented to him that he was still without half his army; that the great part of those who had returned had no longer targets—a kind of defensive armour without which they were unable to fight with advantage; that they were all worn out with fatigue by a long march made on the previous night, and for two days many of them had not eaten at all for want of bread; that it was necessary to fall back to defend Inverness; that it would be even more prudent to abandon that town, and to place between the enemy and ourselves the river near which this town is built; that if the worst came to the worst, we might betake ourselves to the neighbouring mountains—there it was that he would be truly invincible; there we would remain masters of that part of the coast, at which supplies of arms and of money ought to be arriving, and as soon as these reached us, we should march towards England by that same coast as had already been arranged; that the more the enemy should advance towards us, the greater would be their difficulty to retrace their steps so as to get to London before us; the capture of that great city should be made his one object, for successes that he might achieve elsewhere would have no decisive value, while, in a single hour, all would be lost without hope of recovery if he should chance to be beaten.
In the end, finding him immovable in the resolve he had taken to fight at any cost, I made my desire yield to my duty. I left him for the first time. I retired in haste to Inverness, there to burn all my papers, and there to think over the means of preserving for your Majesty that portion of the [French] troops which might survive the action. I saw before the end of the day, the most striking spectacle of human weakness—the Prince was vanquished in an instant; never was a defeat more complete than his.