About the early years of Alastair Ruadh Macdonnell of Glengarry it is unnecessary to write at great length. Born apparently about 1725, for he was not of age in the beginning of 1745, Young Glengarry had one brother of the full blood, Æneas, accidentally shot at Falkirk in 1746. He had also a sister, Isobel. Before 1728 his mother died. Wodrow says that she was imprisoned by her husband on an islet, and died of hunger (1727). Young Glengarry now received a stepmother, a daughter of Gordon of Glenbucket. He does not seem to have been attached to this lady, who bore two sons to Old Glengarry. According to Murray of Broughton, Young Glengarry ‘was most barbarously used by his father and mother-in-law’ (p. 441). Alastair, at all events, was sent to France as early as 1738, where he was not likely to learn English orthography. His own, though pretty consistent in its blunders, is of the kind which Captain Burt found prevailing in the Highlands.
Alastair’s boyhood was probably unluxurious. Burt tells the following curious anecdote on this head. After 1715, the Castle of Invergarry, which had been adorned by the father of the Glengarry of Shirramuir, was gutted by the English soldiery. It was refurnished and made inhabitable by the agent of a Liverpool Company, who smelted iron in the district. Glengarry, meanwhile, ‘inhabited a miserable hut of turf, as he does to this day’ (1735?). To this manager, a Quaker, a number of gentlemen of the clan paid a visit. After receiving them hospitably, the Quaker observed that they would always be welcome in ‘my house.’
‘God d—n you, Sir, your house! I thought it had been Glengarry’s house.’ They then assaulted the Quaker, who was rescued by his workmen.[123] Alastair was better lodged in France, where, in 1743, he got a Company in the Royal Scots. In 1744 he was with Pickle’s friend, the exiled Earl Marischal, at Dunkirk, meaning to start with the futile French expedition from Gravelines.
How that expedition was ‘muddled away’ we have told in the essay on the Earl Marischal. At this time the Earl in France, and Murray of Broughton in Scotland, gravely distrusted James’s agents in France, Sempil and Balhaldie. Now Balhaldie was a connection of Lochiel, and was aware that Murray held him in suspicion. He, therefore, after the collapse of the expedition of 1744, sent over to Lochiel Young Glengarry, ‘freighted with heavy complaints’ against Murray. Lochiel next, in the spring of 1745, brought Murray and Young Glengarry together. The young Chief told Murray that Balhaldie accused him of bidding the Prince come to Scotland, with or without French assistance, and ‘seat himself on the throne, and leave the King at Rome’ (which was precisely what James desired and Charles repudiated).[124] Glengarry was therefore to warn the party against Murray. Murray told Glengarry the real facts—namely, that Balhaldie was too imaginative, and Glengarry seemed quite satisfied. Indeed, he produced a letter to the same effect as regards Balhaldie from Æneas Macdonald, the banker, and, later, the informer.
Glengarry and Murray presently met at that strange tavern gathering in Edinburgh, where, out of the company, Traquair, Lovat, Glengarry, Murray, Macleod, and Lochiel, Lochiel alone preserved his honour. Glengarry then went to the Highlands with letters for Sir Alexander Macdonald of Sleat and other gentlemen. In January 1745 Glengarry had induced his father secretly to dispone to him his lands, an action which became a serious trouble to him later. In May 1745 Murray sent him with despatches to the Prince in France, and with reasons why Charles should not come unless accompanied by a French force. Late in 1745 Young Glengarry was taken at sea, and lodged in the Tower.
Charles, meanwhile, was loyal enough to his imprisoned adherent. On November 4, 1746, Charles wrote to d’Argenson, ‘there are three prisoners in London, sir, in whom I take a warm interest. These are Sir Hector Maclean, Glengarry, and my secretary, Mr. Murray of Broughton. All three hold French commissions, the first was born at Calais.... I implore you, sir, to take every means to secure their exchange, and will regard it as a personal obligation.’
These gentlemen, however, were not naturalised French subjects, like Nicholas Wogan, who, after fighting when a boy at Preston in 1715, and after losing an arm at Fontenoy, took part in the campaign of 1745, and later saw Cumberland’s back at Laffeldt fight. Nicholas may have been exchanged, in 1746, as a French prisoner; for Murray and Glengarry this plea was unavailing. The Prince, however, did his best for both men, and ill they rewarded him.[125]
Glengarry told Bishop Forbes the same story in 1752. He was the bearer of a letter from the Chiefs, imploring the Prince not to come over without arms, money, and auxiliary forces.[126] But he could not find Charles, who was incognito, ‘lurking for a spring.’ Towards the end of 1745 Alastair was captured, as we saw, while conveying a piquet of the Royal Scots to join the Prince. He pined in the Tower, he says, for twenty-two months, and was then released. His fortunes were frowning. His father lay in Edinburgh Castle, a written information having been laid against him by a number of the gentlemen of his clan who had been out in the Rising. His lands and cattle had been destroyed and driven away by the English soldiery. Men squatted on what farm they chose, and could only pay rent enough to ‘subsist’ his father. The French Government made demands on him for money advanced to him while in the Tower, and stopped his pay. His grant from the Scots Fund (1,800 livres) was inadequate. The Prince could not procure for him a regiment. In these gloomy circumstances Alastair took a step which nobody can blame in itself. He attempted to reconcile himself to the English Government. The following letter is from a friend sincerely anxious for his success:—[127]