‘I likewise declare, on the word of a dying man, that the last time I had the honour to see H.R.H. Charles, Prince of Wales, he told me from his own mouth, and bid me assure his friends from him, that he was a member of the Church of England.’
Who was this Samuel Cameron, who stained by treachery the glorious name of Lochiel’s own clan? On this point the following letter, written after Archy’s death, casts some light. We have already seen that Samuel Cameron was accused of being in communication with Murray of Broughton, as also was Young Glengarry. Young Edgar, in French service, writes thus to his uncle, James’s secretary, from Lille:
‘Samuel Cameron, whom Archy mentions in the end of his speech, is the same that Blair and Holker wrote to me about when at Rome, the end of 1751. He has been a constant correspondent of John Murray’s, and all along suspected of being a spy. Cameron’s remarks leave it without a doubt.’ Samuel, Edgar adds, is now a half-pay lieutenant in French service, at Dunkirk. Lord Ogilvie and Lochiel mean to secure him, but Lord Lewis Drummond does not think the evidence sufficient. From ‘The Scots Magazine’ of September 1753, we learn that a court-martial of Scottish officers was held on Samuel at Lille, and, in April 1754, we are told that, after seven months’ detention, he was expelled from France, and was condemned to be shot if he returned. His sentence was read to him on board a ship at Calais, and we meet him no more. Dr. Cameron was buried in a vault of the Savoy Chapel, and, in 1846, her present Majesty, with her well-known sympathy for the brave men who died in the cause of her cousins, permitted a descendant of the Doctor to erect a monument to his memory. This was destroyed in a fire on July 7, 1864, but now a window in stained glass commemorates ‘a brave man, a Christian, and a gentleman.’
The one stain on Cameron’s memory, thrown, as on Cluny’s, by Young Glengarry, may be reckoned as effaced. Whatever really occurred as to the Loch Arkaig treasure, it did not destroy the Prince’s confidence in the last man who laid down his life for the White Rose.
Before Archy Cameron’s death, young Edgar had written thus from Lille to old Edgar in Rome:
‘May 2, 1753.
‘We have no account of Cameron except by the Gazete. It is thought that all the others who have been apprehended either had of the Prince’s money in their hands, or that the Government expects they can make some discoverys about it; I wish with all my heart the Gov. had got it in the beginning, for it has given the greatest stroke to the cause that can be imagined, it has divided the different clans more than ever, and even those of the same clan and family; so that they are ready to destroy and betray one another. Altho I have not altered my opinion about Mr. M— [Murray] yet as he may on an occasion be of great use to the cause with the Londoners—I thought it not amiss to write him a line to let him know the regard you had for him, for as I know him to be vastly vain and full of himself I thought this might be a spur to his zeale.’
So practically closes the fatal history of the Loch Arkaig treasure. Cluny later bore back to France, it seems, the slender remains of the 40,000 louis d’or. But this accursed gold had set clan against clan, kinsman against kinsman, had stained honourable names, and, probably, had helped to convert Glengarry into Pickle.
The Highlanders yet remember the Prince’s treasure. A few years ago, a Highland clergyman tells me, he was trolling with a long line in Loch Arkaig. He hooked something heavy, which came slowly to hand, with no resistance but that of weight. ‘You have caught one of the Prince’s money bags,’ said the boatman, when suddenly the reel shrieked, and a large salmo ferox sped out into the loch. My friend landed him; he weighed fifteen pounds, and that is the latest news of Prince Charles’s gold!
CHAPTER IX
DE PROFUNDIS
Charles fears for his own safety—Earl Marischal’s advice—Letter from Goring—Charles’s danger—Charles at Coblentz—His changes of abode—Information from Pickle—Charles as a friar—Pickle sends to England Lochgarry’s memorial—Scottish advice to Charles—List of loyal clans—Pickle on Frederick—On English adherents—‘They drink very hard’—Pickle declines to admit arms—Frederick receives Jemmy Dawkins—His threats against England—Albemarle on Dawkins—Dawkins an archæologist—Explores Palmyra—Charles at feud with Miss Walkinshaw—Goring’s Illness—A mark to be put on Charles’s daughter—Charles’s objets d’art—Sells his pistols.