On November 16, 1752, James, by aid of his daughter (Mr. Stevenson’s Catriona), escaped from the Castle disguised as a cobbler. [232a] It has often been said that the Government connived at James’s escape. If so, they acted rather meanly in sentencing ‘two lieutenants’ of his guard ‘to be broke, the sergeant reduced to a private man, and the porter to be whipped.’ [232b]
The adventures of James after his escape are narrated by a writer in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’ for December 1817. This writer was probably a Macgregor, and possessed some of James’s familiar epistles. Overcoming a fond desire to see once more his native hills and his dear ones (fourteen in all), James, on leaving Edinburgh Castle, bent his course towards the Border. In a dark night, on a Cumberland moor, he met the famed Billy Marshall, the gipsy. Mr. Marshall, apologising for the poverty of his temporary abode, remarked that he would be better housed ‘when some ill-will which he had got in Galloway for setting fire to a stackyard would blow over.’ Three days later Billy despatched James in a fishing boat from Whitehaven, whence he reached the Isle of Man. He then made for Ireland, and my next information about James occurs in a letter of Balhaldie, dated August 10, 1753, to the King over the Water. [232c] Balhaldie’s letter to Rome, partly in cypher, runs thus, and is creditable to James’s invention:
‘James Drummond Macgregor, Rob Roy’s son, came here some days agoe, and informed me that, having made his escape from Scotland by Ireland, he was addressed to some namesakes of his there, who acquainted him that the clan Macgregor were very numerous in that country, under different names, the greatest bodies of them living together in little towns and villages opposite to the Scottish coast.’ They had left Scotland some one hundred and fifty years before, when their clan was proscribed. James ‘never saw men more zealously loyal and clanish, better looked, or seemingly more intrepid and hardy. . . . No Macgregors in the Scotch highlands are more willing or ready to joyn their clan in your Majesty’s service than they were, and for that end to transport 3,000 of their name and followers to the coast of Argileshyre.’ They will only require twenty-four hours ‘to transport themselves in whirries of their own, even in face of the enemy’s fleet, of which they are not affrayed.’
The King, in answer (September 11, 1753), expressed a tempered pleasure in Mr. Macgregor’s information, which, he said, might interest the Prince. On September 6, 1753, Lord Strathallan, writing to Edgar from Boulogne, vouches only for James’s courage. ‘As to anything else, I would be sorry to answer for him, as he had but an indifferent character as to real honesty.’ On September 20, James Mohr, in Paris, wrote to the Prince, anxious to know where he was, and to communicate important news from Ireland. Probably James got no reply, for on October 18, 1753, Lord Holdernesse wrote from Whitehall to Lord Albemarle, English ambassador in Paris, a letter marked ‘Very secret,’ acknowledging a note of Lord Albemarle’s. Mr. Macgregor had visited Lord Albemarle on October 8th and 10th, with offers of information. Lord Holdernesse, therefore, sends a safe-conduct for Macgregor’s return. [234] We now give Macgregor’s letter of October 12, 1733, to Lord Albemarle, setting forth his sad case and honourably patriotic designs:
MS. Add. 32,733.
‘Paris: October 12, 1753. Mr. James Drummond.
‘My Lord,—Tho’ I have not the Honour to be much acquainted with Your Lordship, I presume to give you the trouble of this to acquaint your lordship that by a false Information I was taken prisoner in Scotland in November 1751 and by the speat [spite] that a certain Faction in Dundas, Scotland, had at me, was trayd by the Justiciary Court at Edinburgh, when I had brought plenty of exculpation which might free any person whatever of what was alledged against me, yet such a Jurie as at Dundas was given me, thought proper to give in a special verdict, finding some parts of the Layable [libel] proven, and in other parts found it not proven. It was thought by my friends that I would undergo the Sentence of Banishment, which made me make my escape from Edinburgh Castle in Novr. 1752, and since was forced to come to France for my safety. I always had in my vew if possable to be concerned in Government’s service, [235] and, for that purpose, thought it necessar ever since I came to France to be as much as possable in company with the Pretender’s friends, so far as now I think I can be one useful Subject to my King and Country, upon giving me proper Incouragement.
‘In the first place I think its in my power to bring Allan Breack Stewart, the suposd murdrer of Colin Campbell of Glenouir, late factor of the forfet Estate of Ardsheal, to England and to deliver him in safe custody so as he may be brought to justice, and in that event, I think the delivering of the said murderer merits the getting of a Remission from his Majesty the King, especially as I was not guilty of any acts of treason since the Year 1746, and providing your lordship procures my Remission upon delivering the said murderer, I hereby promise to discover a very grand plott on footing against the Government, which is more effectually carried on than any ever since the Family of Stewart was put off the Throne of Britain, and besides to do all the services that lays in my power to the Government.
‘Only with this provision, that I shall be received into the Government’s Service, and that I shall have such reward as my Service shall meritt, I am willing, if your lordship shall think it agreeable, to go to England privily and carry the murderer [Allan Breck] alongest with me, and deliver him at Dover to the Military, and after waite on such of the King’s friends as your lordship shall appoint. If your lordship think this agreeable, I should wish General Campbell would be one of those present as he knows me and my family, and besides that, I think to have some Credit with the General, which I cannot expect with those whom I never had the Honour to know. Either the General or Lieutt. Colln. John Crawford of Poulteney’s Regiment would be very agreeable to me, as I know both of these would trust me much, and at the same time, I could be more free to them than to any others there. Your lordship may depend [on] the motive that induces me to make this Offer at present to you, in the Government’s name, is both honourable and just, [236] so that I hope no other constructions will be put on it, and for your lordship’s further satisfaction, I say nothing in this letter, but what I am determined to perform, and as much more as in my power layes with that, and that all I have said is Trueth, and I shall answer to God.
‘Jas. Drummond.’
James was sent over to England, and we now offer the results of his examination in London, on November 6, 1753. The following document deals with the earlier part of Mr. Macgregor’s appalling revelations, and describes his own conduct on landing in France, after a tour in the Isle of Man and Ireland, in December 1752. That he communicated his Irish mare’s nest to Charles, as he says he did, is very improbable. Like Sir Francis Clavering, as described by the Chevalier Strong, James Mohr ‘would rather he than not.’ However, he certainly gave a version of his legend to the Old Chevalier in Rome.
Extract of the Examination of Mr. James Drummond.
‘That about the 8th. of May following (vizt. May 1753) He (Mr. D.) did set out for France, and arrived at Boulogne on the 16th. where He met with Lord Strathalane, and as He (Mr. D.) was asking after the Young Pretender, His Lordship told Him that He had seen a letter from Him (the Young Pretender) lately to Sir James Harrington, at which time he (the Young Pretender), was lodged at an Abbé’s House, about a League and Half from Lisle, whereupon He (Mr. D.) communicated to his Lordship, in the presence of Capt. Wm. Drummond, and Mr. Charles Boyde, the Commission, with which He was charged. That thereupon His Lordship undertook to wait upon the Young Pretender with the Irish Proposal, and advised Him (Mr. D.) to go and stay at Bergue, till He (Lord Strathalane) came to Him there. That on the 20th. June following, His Lordship wrote Him (Mr. D.) a Letter (which is hereunto annexed) to this effect—“That he (Lord Strathalane) had laid Mr. Savage’s Proposal before the Young Pretender, who desired, that he, (Mr. D.) would repair to Paris, and that He had sent Him (Mr. D.) a Bill upon Mr. Waters (the Banker) to pay His charges. [238] That He (Mr. D.) did accordingly go to Paris, and that upon His arrival there, He first waited upon Mr. Gordon, Principal of the Scot’s College, but that nothing particular passed there. (N.B. There is not one word, in any of Mr. Drummond’s papers, of His [the Prince’s] intending to go to Berlin.) (Official Note.)’
Nobody, of course, can believe a word that James Mohr ever said, but his disclosures, in the following full report of his examination, could only have been made by a person pretty deep in Jacobite plans. For example, Balhaldie, chief of the Macgregors, did really live at Bièvre, as James Mohr says. There was in Edinburgh at this time a certain John Macfarlane, w.s., whose pretty wife, in 1716, shot dead an English captain, nobody ever knew why. She fled to the Swintons of Swinton, who concealed her in their house. One day Sir Walter Scott’s aunt Margaret, then a child of eight, residing at Swinton, stayed at home when the family went to church. Peeping into a forbidden parlour she saw there a lovely lady, who fondled her, bade her speak only to her mother, and vanished while the little girl looked out of the window. This appearance was Mrs. Macfarlane, who shot Captain Cayley, and was now lying perdue at Swinton.
Now, in 1753 the pretty lady’s husband, Mr. Macfarlane, was agent in Scotland for Balhaldie. To him Balhaldie wrote frequently on business, sent him also a ‘most curious toy,’ a tortoise-shell snuff-box, containing, in a secret receptacle, a portrait of King James VIII. Letters of his, in April 1753, show that James Mohr was so far right; Balhaldie was living at Bièvre, in a glen three leagues from Paris, and was amusing himself by the peaceful art of making loyal snuff-boxes in tortoise-shell. [239]
As to Bièvre, then, James Mohr was right. He may or may not have lied in the following paper, when he says that the Prince was coming over, with Lord Marischal, to the Balhaldie faction of Jacobites, who were more in touch with the French Court than his own associates. Mr. Trant, of whom James Mohr speaks, was really with the Prince, as Pickle also asserts, and as the Stuart Papers prove. Probably he was akin to Olive Trant, a pretty intriguer of 1715, mentioned by Bolingbroke in his famous letter to Wyndham. As to Ireland, James Mohr really did take it on his way to France, though his promises in the name of ‘the People of Fingal’ are Irish moonshine. Were arms, as James Mohr says, lodged in Clanranald’s country, Moidart? Pickle refused to let them be landed in Knoydart, his own country, and thought nothing of the kind could be done without his knowledge. James Mohr may really have had news of arms landed at the House of Tough on the Forth, near Stirling, where they would be very convenient. Pickle, I conceive, was not trusted by Clanranald, and Cameron he had traduced. If James Mohr by accident speaks the truth in the following Information, more was done by Lochgarry and Cameron than Pickle wotted of during the autumn of 1752 and the spring of 1753. The arms may have been those ordered by Charles in 1750.