Before Æneas Macdonald met Glengarry in December, and earlier in the winter of 1749, Young Glengarry and Archy Cameron went North, and helped themselves to the Treasure of Cluny, the gold of Loch Arkaig.[132] On January 16, 1750, Glengarry reported his journey to Edgar, and accused Archibald Cameron of taking 6,000 louis d’or, and damping all hearts in the Highlands.[133] Cameron, on his side, appears to have accused Glengarry of obtaining the money by forging a letter from James. James, writing to Charles about Cameron’s charge, leaves a blank for the name (March 17, 1750). But Æneas Macdonald supplies the name of Young Glengarry (October 12, 1751).
That Young Glengarry was concerned in the looting of the treasure in winter, 1749, is certain from his own admission to Charles, corroborated by the confession of Cameron of Glenevis to Colonel Crawfurd, in October 1751. In that confession appears the earliest charge of treachery against Glengarry, who, Cameron vows, must have betrayed him (p. 153). At about the same time (November 30, 1751, February 14, 1752) Holker (of Ogilvie’s French Scots Regiment) and Blair anonymously warned young Edgar against Glengarry. He is a friend of Leslie, ‘an arrant rogue,’ and is ‘known to be in great intimacy with Murray’—of Broughton, the traitor, an acquaintance which is proved by Murray’s own ‘Memorials,’ already cited. Even if we discount Mrs. Cameron’s story, with those of Archy Cameron and Glenevis, as Camerons were at feud with Macdonnells, we have no reason to suspect hostile animus in Young Edgar, Blair and Holker.[134] They remark (February 14, 1752) that ‘Mr. Macdonald of Glengarrie says that he is charged with the affaires of his Majesty,’ in London.
Now, what was, in 1751 the real situation of Young Glengarry? He had left Rome in September 1750. In January 1751 he was in Paris, and wrote to Edgar, asking for money. He was confined to bed by a severe cold.[135] At an uncertain date, probably April 1751, he was residing publicly in London, for he thence announced to Charles his approaching marriage ‘with a lady of a very Honourable and loyall familie in England,’ after which he will repay his share of the Loch Arkaig gold. On this head he has satisfied James. He discloses the embezzlements of Cluny![136] On July 15, 1751, he wrote from London to James, and to Edgar, with political and loyal observations. Yet, in 1751, Glenevis believed, for very good reasons, that Glengarry was already an informer. If the suspicions of Glenevis were correct, Glengarry was an informer in 1751, the date assigned by Pickle to the beginning of his own service is about 1750.
Thus, in 1751, Glengarry was tolerated in London by the English Government, though still professing loyalty to James. As late as October 1754 he had not ‘qualified’ or taken the oaths. He must, therefore, have made his peace with England—otherwise! He had resigned his French commission. Moreover, while his accomplices in the Loch Arkaig affair, the Camerons, were arrested, Glengarry, the ‘unqualified,’ was allowed to go about London, and travel to France and Scotland, though the English Ministry knew that he was at least as guilty as Glenevis and Downan.
The inferences are obvious. Government had a motive for sparing Glengarry. Again, quite apart from the Pickle letters, Glengarry is assuredly betraying one or the other party. To James he poses as an active conspirator. To the English Government he poses as, at least, ‘one peaceable subject,’ for they allow him to live, and love, in London, and to go where he pleases. He was in Edinburgh in April, 1752, and dined with Bishop Forbes. Later, he seems to have gone to Lochaber, which Government knew, from an Informer.
We now come to the Elibank Plot, to kidnap the Royal Family. It flickered from November 1752 to summer, 1753. Glengarry, writing from Arras on April 5, 1753, gives Edgar, James’s secretary, a veiled account of the affair. ‘The day was fixt,’ on, or for, November 10, 1752, but the English shuffled, and did not act. ‘The concert in Novr. was,’ says Glengarry, ‘that I was to remain in London, as I had above four hundred Brave Highlanders ready at my call, and, after matters had broke out there to sett off directly for Scotland, as no raising would be made amongst the Clans without my presence.’[137] He then alludes to ‘my leate illness at Paris,’ which has left him ‘still very weake’—a phrase used at the same time by Pickle.
Now the Pickle letters begin on November 2, 1752, and Pickle speaks of himself, to his English employers, in precisely the same terms as Glengarry uses about himself when writing to Edgar. Pickle says that, among his Jacobite friends, he explains his supplies of English money as remittances from ‘Baron Kenady.’ Now, in Lord Advocate Craigie’s letters of 1745,[138] we read ‘in most things Young Glengarry is advised and directed by Baron Kennedy,’ a Baron of the Scottish Exchequer. Thus, if Pickle is Glengarry, he would naturally represent his chief adviser, Baron Kennedy, as the source of his supplies. He announces (Boulogne, November 2, 1752) ‘you’l soon hear of a hurly burly,’ and he must make a long journey, first to Paris, then South, as he writes on November 4 to Henry Pelham.[139] The hurly burly is the Elibank Plot. ‘I will see my friend’ (Henry Pelham) ‘or that can happen.’ To Pelham he says, ‘I will lay before you in person all I can learn.’ Pelham knew Pickle personally, and could not be deceived as to his identity, as to his being a Chief, as he represented himself. In December 1752 Pickle, in London, informed against Archibald Cameron and Lochgarry, whom Charles had sent to Scotland, also against Fassifern and Glenevegh (Glenevis) as agents for Charles with the Southern Jacobites. Pickle has seen Charles, and, in town, Lord Elibank, who ‘surprised me to the greatest degree by telling me that all was put off for some time.’ He has promised Charles ‘to write nothing to Rome,’ which Glengarry actually did, in April 1753. In later letters to his English employers, Pickle speaks much of a severe illness, at Paris, which ‘nearly tripped up his hiells,’ and left him, like Glengarry at the same date, ‘very weake.’ He had caught a cold, with a relapse at the masked ball of the Lundi Gras, where he met the Prince. ‘They now believe Pickle could have a number of Highlanders even in London to follow him.’ Nothing can be transacted in the Highlands without his knowledge, as his Clan must begin the play.’[140] The scheme is a night attack on the Palace of St. James’s. Pickle has often discussed it with his friend, the Earl Marischal, Frederick’s ambassador to the French Court.[141]
Here, then, are the following points shared in common by Pickle and Glengarry. (1.) Both in November 1752 are engaged in a deep Jacobite Plot. (2.) Both are expected to lead a force of Highlanders, ‘even in London.’ (3.) No rising can take place among the Clans without each of them. (4.) Both are in correspondence with Rome. (5.) Both suffer from a severe illness at the same time, and are left very ‘weake’. (6.) Both are friends of Baron Kennedy. (7.) Both frequently visit the Earl Marischal in Paris.
That Glengarry visited the Earl in 1753 I cannot prove by independent evidence. But I can show, by independent evidence, that he, as well as (by his own statement) Pickle, did so at an approximate date. Glengarry had known the Earl since 1744. Here is another spy’s undated testimony (1752-1754) to Glengarry’s familiarity with the Earl Marischal in Paris, about this date, when Pickle haunts the old exile.[142]
‘Macdonald of Glengarry, goes by the first of these names, lives at a Baigneur’s in the Rue Guenegaud, and keeps one Servant out of Livery, and two in Livery. When he first came to Paris he kept a Carosse de Remise by the month, but now only hires one occasionally to make his visits, which are chiefly to