Progress of Pickle—Charles’s last resource—Cluny called to Paris—The Loch Arkaig hoard—History of Cluny—Breaks his oath to King George—Jacobite theory of such oaths—Anecdote of Cluny in hiding—Charles gives Pickle a gold snuff-box—‘A northern —’—Asks for a pension—Death of Old Glengarry—Pickle becomes chief—The curse of Lochgarry—Pickle writes from Edinburgh—His report—Wants money—Letter from a ‘Court Trusty’—Pickle’s pride—Refused a fowling-piece—English account of Pickle—His arrogance and extortion—Charles’s hopes from France—Macallester the spy—The Prince’s false nose—Pickle still unpaid—His candour—Charles and the Duc de Richelieu—A Scottish deputation—James Dawkins publicly abandons the Prince—Dawkins’s character—The Earl Marischal denounces Charles—He will not listen to Cluny—Dismisses his servants—Sir Horace Mann’s account of them—‘The boy that is lost’—English rumours—Charles declines to lead attack on Minorca—Information from Macallester—Lord Clancarty’s attacks on the Prince—On Lochgarry—Macallester acts as a prison spy—Jesuit conspiracy against Charles.
As the sad star which was born on the Prince’s birth-night waned and paled, the sun of Pickle’s fortunes climbed the zenith, he came into his estates by Old Glengarry’s death in September 1754, while, deprived of the contributions of the Cocoa Tree Club, Charles fell back on his last resource, the poor remains of the Loch Arkaig treasure. On September 4, 1754, being ‘in great straits,’ he summoned Cluny to Paris, bidding him bring over ‘all the effects whatsoever that I left in your hands, also whatever money you can come at.’
Cluny’s history was curious. The Culloden Papers prove that, when Charles landed in Moidart, Cluny had recently taken the oaths to the Hanoverian Government. He corresponded with the Lord President, Duncan Forbes of Culloden, and was as loyal to George II. as possible. But, on August 29, 1745, Lady Cluny informed Culloden that her lord had been captured by the Prince’s men. A month later, however, Cluny had not yet ‘parted with his commission’ in a Highland regiment. [277a] Hopes were still entertained of his deserting the Prince, ‘for if Cluny could have an independent company to guard us from thieves, it’s what I know he desires above all things.’ [277b] Cluny, however, continued faithful to the Jacobite party. Like Lord George Murray, he was a Whig in August, a partisan of the Stuarts in September. They had, these gentlemen, a short way with oaths, thus expressed by one of their own poets:
‘Let not the abjuration
Impose upon our nation,
Restrict our hands, whilst he commands,
Through false imagination:
For oaths which are imposed
Can never be supposed
To bind a man, say what they can
While justice is opposed.’
Acting on these principles, Cluny joined in the march to Derby, and was distinguished in the fight at Clifton. After Culloden he stayed in Scotland, by Charles’s desire, dwelling in his famous Cage on Ben Alder, so well described by Mr. Stevenson in ‘Kidnapped.’ The loyalty of his clan was beyond praise. A gentleman of Clan Vourich, whose grandfather fought at Culloden, gives me the following anecdote.
The soldiers were, one day, hard on Cluny’s tracks, and they seized a clansman, whom they compelled to act as guide. He pretended an innocence bordering on idiotcy, and affected to be specially pleased with the drum, a thing of which he could not even conceive the use. To humour him, they slung the drum over his shoulders. Presently he thumped it violently. Cluny heard the warning and escaped, while the innocence of the crafty gillie was so well feigned, that he was not even punished.
Cluny came over to France in the autumn of 1754, with what amount of treasure he could collect. In later days, a very poor exile, he gave a most eloquent tribute to Charles’s merits. ‘In deliberations he found him ready, and his opinions generally best; in their execution firm, and in secrecy impenetrable; his humanity and consideration show’d itself in strong light, even to his enemies . . . In application and fatigues none could exceed him.’ [278]
While Charles retired in 1755 with Miss Walkinshaw to Basle, where he passed for an English physician in search of health, Pickle was not idle. He had sent in a sheet of notes in April 1754. ‘Colonel Buck was lately in England, he brought Pickle a fine gold stuff-box from the Young Pretender, which Pickle showed me,’ that is, to the official who received his statement. In later years, the family of Glengarry may have been innocently proud of the Prince’s gift. Pickle added that ‘there could be no rising in Scotland without the Macdonnells: he is sure that he shall have the first notice of anything of the kind, and he is sure that the Young Pretender would attempt nothing without him.’ At the French Court Pickle only knew the financier, Paris Montmartell, and d’Argenson (not the Bête, but his brother), through d’Argenson’s mistress, Madame de Pierrecourt. ‘Pickle wishes to be admitted to an audience, and so do I,’ writes an English official, ‘as he grows troublesome, and I don’t care to have any correspondence with him or any other northern —!’
To this report is appended an appeal of Pickle’s. He asks for a regular annuity of 500l., being out of pocket by his ‘chants’—Highland for ‘jaunts.’ Pickle never got the money; so ungrateful are Governments.
On May 11, Pickle congratulated his employers on having made Charles ‘remove his quarters.’ He adds that Charles and Lord Marischal have quarrelled. About this time, after Henry Pelham’s death in March 1754, Pickle favoured his employers with a copy of an English memorial to Charles. It was purely political; the Prince was advised to purchase seats in Parliament for his friends. But in May, Charles had neither friends nor money, and he never cared for the constitutional measures recommended.