‘Col. McDonell.’[59]
An odious tale is told by the ‘Impartial Hand,’ about Barisdale’s conduct to his wife’s young sister. We do not trust the Impartial one where we have not corroboration, and, to his fair prisoner, Lady Sutherland, Barisdale certainly displays a tender gallantry. But she may not have regretted that her Barisdale was occasionally absent. Cumberland was approaching, and, on the eve of Culloden, Lord Cromarty was captured in ‘The Battle of Golspie,’ while dallying over his adieux to ‘his favourite Amazon,’ the Countess of Sutherland, as the Impartial one invidiously declares.
The Countess must have managed her diplomacy adroitly, for the Whig author previously cited says, ‘It is a pity the present Earl of Sutherland should be such a weak man, but his lady behaved very honourably, though her brother (nephew) the Lord Elcho, was engaged in the Rebellion.’[60] The lady’s letter to Prince Charles was not known to our author.
Barisdale, leaving his fair prisoner, marched south, and halted at Beauly, on the night before Culloden. ‘He might easily have reached the field, had he been any way resolute or brave.’ But like the Master of Lovat and Cluny, Barisdale came up too late. The fugitives passed through Inverness, under his eyes, and Barisdale also made off.
He was at the Meeting of the Chiefs at Murlagan, on May 8, when it was determined to rally in a week, and a treaty was made, that all should hold together, in spite of the Prince’s defection.[61] When the week ended, nobody came to the tryst but Lochgarry, who retired at once, Lochiel, and Barisdale, with three or four hundred of their clans. But the Rev. John Cameron, in ‘The Lyon in Mourning’ (i. 88) accuses Barisdale of promising to return next day, as a blind, and of sending instead two companies of infantry in English service, to capture Lochiel. They were recognised by their red crosses, and Lochiel escaped, ‘which was owing to its not being in Barisdale’s power’—to catch him, ‘rather than to want of inclination,’ says Mr. Cameron. Murray of Broughton represents Barisdale as accusing his cousin and enemy, Lochgarry, of treachery, and believes that both were equally guilty, but Lochiel was as incapable of suspecting as of being guilty of treason. In his Letter to the Chiefs, of May 26, he says that Clanranald’s men refuse to leave their own country, that Glengarry’s men have yielded up their arms (induced thereto, we shall see, by Old Glengarry), that Lochgarry promised to return, but did not, and that, ‘trusting to Lochgarry’s information, we had almost been surprized.’ But he never hints at a suspicion of Barisdale.[62]
On June 10, says the ‘Impartial Hand,’ Barisdale and Young Barisdale both surrendered to Ensign Small, in a cave. But Barisdale, it is known, got a protection, on his promise to deliver up Prince Charles. He laid several schemes to this end, and had two companies to seize the Prince at Strathfillan. Sheridan, however, ‘who had a talent for reading men with as great freedom and judgement as others do books,’ warned the Prince, who kept out of Barisdale’s clutches.[63] So says the Impartial Hand.
His story of the protection for Barisdale was true, as witness the following letters from the Cumberland Papers, at Windsor Castle.
From G. Howard to Col. Napier, A.D.C. to D. of C.
‘July 5th....
‘A person passed me here yesterday morning whom I took to be lawful Prey, but, to my great concern, he produced a Pass-port for himself and 4 servants with their arms &c., syned by Sir E. Faulkner: it was dated only the day before yesterday. The person was McDonald of Barisdale, who is so particularly zealous for hanging our officers. I asked him if he had seen H.R.H. (Cumberland). He said no, but that a friend got him his Protection.’