According to this statement, said to be produced as Cluny’s, Dr. Cameron did not receive 6,000l. for himself. The money went to the support of the exiled family of Lochiel, who had died in 1748. The large claims made by Cluny rest, as before, on the word of Young Glengarry.
In May 1753, Fassifern himself, then a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, was examined. He declined to give any evidence against anybody on any charge. He admitted that in 1749 he received 4,000l. from Evan Cameron of Drumsallie, now dead, for Lochiel’s family. He asked no questions, but deposited it with Mr. Macfarlane, W.S., who lent it out to Wedderburn of Gosford, in Fassifern’s name. Fassifern acted as a near relation for his exiled nephew, Lochiel’s son.
Thus the money which Dr. Cameron is said to have seized, was used for the support of Charles’s best friends, the family of his most renowned adherent. So vanishes the charge that Dr. Cameron speculated with the money.[87]
As to Cluny’s retention of money, the same difficulty occurs as in the case of Dr. Cameron. He arrived in France a destitute exile, when, by Charles’s command, he ceased to skulk in the caves of Ben Alder, and crossed to join the Prince in 1754. There is no trace of the value of an estate in his possession, though Charles, in ordinary gratitude, owed him much more than he is said to have claimed. Thus it is certain that Archibald Cameron did not help himself to the Prince’s money; while the story about Cluny is inconsistent both with his honourable poverty and with figures, for these accounts make no allowance for 6,000 louis, certainly conveyed to Charles by Major Kennedy. The whole scandal rests merely on the word of Young Glengarry.[88]
VII
THE TROUBLES OF THE CAMERONS
This affair of the treasure caused endless calamities, especially involving Cameron of Glenevis, a place within two or three miles of Fort William. The relationship of this family to the head of the clan, Lochiel, stands thus: Archibald Cameron of Dungallon, who died in 1719, was the husband of Isabel Cameron of Lochiel. By her he left two sons and three daughters, of whom Jean married Dr. Archibald Cameron of Lochiel, the last Jacobite martyr; while Mary married Alexander Cameron of Glen Nevis.[89] Glenevis, or Glen Nevis, was not out in the Rising of 1745, but he was imprisoned in 1746, and released in 1747.[90]
The house of the Camerons of Glenevis, according to Mr. Mackenzie’s ‘History of the Camerons,’ was of very ancient standing. It was ‘generally at feud with Lochiel, and this feeling of antagonism came down even to modern times. Indeed, it has been maintained that the Glenevis family were originally not Camerons at all, but Macdonalds, who settled there under the Macdonalds of the Isles, before the Camerons had any hold on the district.’ They are also spoken of as Macsorlies. However this genealogical point may be settled, there was no love lost between Glenevis and Young Glengarry.
The Glenevis family, though not overtly engaged for the Cause, suffered from the brutalities of the victors. In spite of Glenevis’s abstinence from the Rising, his family was persecuted. Mrs. Archibald Cameron communicated to Bishop Forbes a lamentable story of how her sister, Glenevis’s wife, was stripped by Cumberland’s men, under Caroline Scott, and only permitted to keep a single petticoat. Her little son’s gold buttons and gold lace were cut off his coat, and the child was wounded by the knife.[91] This story, which has contemporary evidence from the lips of Lady Glenevis’s sister, Mrs. Archibald Cameron, has received the usual picturesque embroidery of Highland tradition. Dr. Stewart (‘Nether Lochaber’) got the tale from some ladies named Macdonald, in this fashion: the infuriated soldiery, finding none of the plate and jewels which Lady Glenevis had buried, observed a bulky object under her plaid. Slashing with swords at the plaid, to discover the supposed treasure, they wounded the lady’s baby, a child of a few months old. Mrs. Cameron’s less romantic version, if either, is correct.[92] The brothers of Glenevis were Allan, who fell at Culloden—felix opportunitate mortis; Angus of Dunan or Downan, in Rannoch; and that unhappy Samuel, called Crookshanks, whom Dr. Cameron, before his execution, denounced as ‘the basest of spies.’ He was in French service, but was drummed out, after Dr. Cameron’s death.