In 1754, two years after the anonymous denunciation, we find a repetition of the charge of treachery against Glengarry. On January 25, 1754, Mrs. Cameron, by that time widow of Archibald, sends to Edgar, in Rome, what she has just told Balhaldie about Young Glengarry. Her letter is most amazing. ‘I was telling him [Balhaldie] what character I heard of Young Glengarry in England,’ where she had vainly thrown herself at the feet of George II., praying for her husband’s life. ‘Particularly Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochnell [Mrs. Cameron was a Campbell] told me, and others whom he could trust, that in the year 1748, or 1749, I don’t remember which, as he, Sir Duncan, was going out of the House of Commons, Mr. Henry Pelham, brother to the Duke of Newcastle, and Secretary of State, called on him, and asked if he knew Glengarry? Sir Duncan answered he knew the old man, but not the young. Pelham replied, it was Young Glengarry he spoke of; for that he came to him offering his most faithful and loyal services to the Government in any shape they thought proper, as he came from feeling the folly of any further concern with the ungrateful family of Stuart, to whom he and his family had been too long attached, to the absolute ruin of themselves and country.’
It is difficult to marvel enough at the folly of Pelham in thus giving away a secret of the most mortal moment. Mrs. Cameron did not hear Lochnell’s report till after the mischief was wrought, the great scheme baffled, and her husband traduced, betrayed, and executed. By January 1754, Pickle had done the most of his business, as will appear when we come to study his letters. In these Henry Pelham is always ‘my great friend,’ with him Pickle communicates till Pelham’s death (March 1754), and his letters are marked by the Duke of Newcastle, ‘My Brother’s Papers.’
All this may be called mere circumstantial evidence. The anonymous denouncer may have been prejudiced. Mrs. Cameron’s evidence is not at firsthand. Perhaps other Highland gentlemen spelled ‘who’ as ‘how.’ Leslie was not condemned by his ecclesiastical superiors, but sent back to his mission in Scotland. [164] But Pickle, writing as Pickle, describes himself, we shall see, in terms which apply to Young Glengarry, and to Young Glengarry alone. And, in his last letter (1760), Pickle begs that his letters may be addressed ‘To Alexander Macdonnell of Glengarry by Fort Augustus.’ It has been absurdly alleged that Pickle was James Mohr Macgregor. In 1760, James Mohr had long been dead, and at no time was he addressed as Alexander Macdonnell of Glengarry. Additional evidence of Pickle’s identity will occur in his communications with his English employers. He was not likely to adopt the name of Pickle before the publication of Smollett’s ‘Peregrine Pickle’ in 1751, though he may have earlier played his infamous part as spy, traitor, and informer.
NOTE.
The Family of Glengarry.
Alastair Ruadh Macdonell, alias Pickle, Jeanson, Roderick Random, and so forth, died, as we saw, in 1761. He was succeeded by his nephew Duncan, son of Æneas, accidentally shot. at Falkirk in 1746. Duncan was followed by Alastair, Scott’s friend; it was he who gave Maida to Sir Walter. Alastair, the last Glengarry who held the lands of the House, died in January 1828. Scott devotes a few lines of his journal to the chief (January 21, 1828), who shot a grandson of Flora Macdonald in a duel, and disputed with Clanranald the supremacy of the Macdonalds. Scott says ‘he seems to have lived a century too late, and to exist, in a state of complete law and order, like a Glengarry of old, whose will was law to his Sept. Warm-hearted, generous, friendly, he is beloved by those who knew him . . . To me he is a treasure . . . ’ [165] He married a daughter of Sir William Forbes, a strong claim on Scott’s affection. He left sons who died without offspring; his daughter Helen married Cunninghame of Balgownie, and is represented by her son, J. Alastair Erskine-Cunninghame, Esq., of Balgownie. If Charles, half brother of Alastair Ruadh (Pickle), who died in America, left no offspring, the House of Glengarry is represented by Æneas Ranald Westrop Macdonnell, Esq., of the Scotus branch of Glengarry. According to a letter written to the Old Chevalier in 1751, by Will Henderson in Moidart, young Scotus had extraordinary adventures after Culloden. The letter follows. I published it first in the Illustrated London News.
To the King. From W. Henderson in Moydart.
‘October 5, 1750.
‘Sir,—After making offer to you of my kind compliments, I thought it my indispensable duty to inform you that one Governor Stewart of the Isle of Lemnos on the coast of Ethiopia in ye year 1748 wrot to Scotland a letter for Stewart of Glenbucky concerning Donald McDonell of Scothouse younger, and John Stewart with 20 other prisoners of our countrymen there, to see, if by moyen of ransome they could be relieved. The substance of the Letter, as it came with an Irish Ship this year to Clyde, is as follows:
‘That Donald McDonell of Scothouse, younger, and first cousin german to John McDonell of Glengarry, and with John Stewart of Acharn and other 20 persons mortally wounded in the Battle of Culloden, were by providence preserved, altho without mercy cast aboard of a ship in Cromarty Bay the very night of the Battle, and sailed next morning for Portsmouth, where they were cast again aboard of an Indiaman to be carried, or transported without doom or law to some of the british plantations, but they had the fate to be taken prisoners by a Salle Rover or a Turkish Privatir or Pirat, who, after strangling the captain and crew, keeped the 22 highlanders in their native garb to be admired by the Turks, since they never seed their habit, nor heard their languadgue befor, and as providence would have it, the Turks and Governor Stewart came to see the Rarysho, and being a South country hiland man, that went over on the Darien expedition, and yet extant, being but a very young boy when he went off, seeing his countrymen, spok to them with surprize in their native tong or language, and by comoning but a short time in galick, found in whose’s army they served, and how they suffered by the fate of war and disaster, after which he ordered them ashoar, and mitigated their confinement as far as lay’d in his power, but on them landing, by the Turks’ gelosie [jealousy?] they were deprived of all writting instroments, for fear they sho’d give their friends information of the place they were in, and so it would probably happen them during life: if John Stewart of Acharn had not got his remot cousin Governor Stewart to writt a letter and inclosed one from himself giving particular information of Scothouse, wishing and begging all frinds concerned to procure written orders from the King of France to his Ambassador at Constantinopol for to make all intercession for the relesement of the forsaid Two Gentlemen and other 20 British christians in the King His Majesty’s Name, or to recommend their condition to his holyness to see if by ransome they might be relived. And they’ll always be gratefull to their Deliverurs, to this pious end. I make chuse of you to inform your Master, who’s the capablest person under God to do for them, which will with other infinit titles endear you to your fast friends in Scotland, and especially to your Will Henderson, who lives there 13 years past among the MacDonalds of Clanranald, so I hope you’ll make use of what I have wrot, to the end I intend, and God will give the due reward . . . I remain, etc.’
In fact, the younger Scotus was not taken prisoner at Culloden, but remained in the Highlands, and is mentioned by Murray of Broughton, in his account of his expenditure, and of the Loch Arkaig treasure, published by Robert Chambers as an Appendix to his ‘History of the Rising of 1745.’
CHAPTER VIII
PICKLE AND THE ELIBANK PLOT
The Elibank plot—George II. to be kidnapped—Murray and Young Glengarry—As Pickle, Glengarry betrays the plot—His revelations—Pickle and Lord Elibank—Pickle meets Charles—Charles has been in Berlin—Glengarry writes to James’s secretary—Regrets failure of plot—Speaks of his illness—Laments for Archy Cameron—Hanbury Williams seeks Charles in Silesia—Pickle’s ‘fit of sickness’—His dealings with the Earl Marischal—Meets the Prince at the masked ball—‘A little piqued’—Marischal criticises the plot to kidnap George II.—‘A night attack’—Other schemes—Charles’s poverty—‘The prophet’s clothes’—Mr. Carlyle on Frederick the Great—Alleges his innocence of Jacobite intrigues—Contradicts statesmen—Mr. Carlyle in error—Correspondence of Frederick with Earl Marischal—The Earl’s account of English plotters—Frederick’s advice—Encouragement underhand—Arrest of Archy Cameron—His early history—Plea for clemency—Cameron is hanged—His testimony to Charles’s virtues—His forgiveness of his enemies—Samuel Cameron the spy—His fate—Young Edgar on the hidden treasure—The last of the treasure—A salmo ferox.
The Stuart Papers, we have said, contain no hints as to the Elibank plot of November 1752, unless Goring’s scruples were aroused by it. It was suggested and arranged by Alexander Murray, younger brother of Lord Elibank, whom young Edgar describes as ‘having a very light head; he has drunk deep of the Garron’ (Garonne?). [169] With a set of officers in the French service, aided by Young Glengarry (who had betrayed the scheme) and 400 Highlanders, Murray was to attack St. James’s Palace, and seize the King. If we may believe Young Glengarry (writing to Edgar in Rome), Charles was ‘on the coast,’ but not in London. Pickle’s letters to his English employers show that the design was abandoned, much to his chagrin. As Glengarry, he expresses the same regret in a letter to Edgar. We now offer Pickle’s letters. He is at Boulogne, November 2, 1752.