Sir Alexander died in November 1746, when about to visit Cumberland in England. It is to his credit that he did his best to protect the loyal Kingsburgh. But his vacillations were extreme, and if he really helped to corrupt Barisdale, his behaviour is without excuse. ‘Were I to enumerate the villains and villainies this country abounds in I should never have done,’ wrote Cumberland to the Duke of Newcastle. ‘Some allowance must be made for Sir Alexander’s behaviour in the Forty Five,’ says Mr. Fraser Mackintosh. It was not precisely handsome. The epigram on his death, which has variants, ran thus:
If Heaven be glad when sinners cease to sin,
If Hell be glad when traitors enter in,
If Earth be glad when ridded of a knave,
Then all rejoice! Macdonald’s in his grave.
VI
CLUNY’S TREASURE
The bayonets of Cumberland scarcely dealt a deadlier blow at Jacobitism than the spades which, in gentle and unaccustomed hands, buried the treasure of French gold at Loch Arkaig. About this fatal hoard, which set clan against clan, and, literally, brother against brother, something has been elsewhere said. But the unpublished reports given by spies and informers in the Cumberland Papers and the Record Office throw a great deal of unexpected light on the subject.
Our purpose is, first to offer what may be called official statements as to the original amount and hiding places of the treasure. Next we shall examine the stories as to the disposition and diffusion of the money. These will indicate that the charges of ‘embezzlement’ and ‘villainy’ brought by Young Glengarry against men so noted for their loyalty as Dr. Cameron and Cluny Macpherson are false. In our evidence will occur the testimony of informers, whose names, as they were persons of no historical importance, it seems needless to reveal. But their revelations were employed by Government in securing the condemnation and banishment of Lochiel’s brother, Cameron of Fassifern.
On the whole subject of the hoard we have several statements by Murray of Broughton. The least copious is contained in a tract which professes to be written by a friend of Murray; really it is from his own pen.[71]