In his desperation, Montrose resolved to attempt the capture of Rob in person, and applied to the Privy Council for authority to raise a body of horse and foot militia among his own dependants, supposing probably that they would be better suited to a warfare among the mountains than the troops of the line.
It is said that the duke had such a dread of the greater or more active enmity of Rob Roy that, singularly enough, "his name was intentionally omitted, and the act was expressed in general terms, as being one to repress sorners, robbers, and broken men—to raise the hue-and-cry after them, to recover goods stolen by them, and to seize their persons."
In consequence of the state of society which then existed in the Highlands, where the people dwelt in tribes or communities and in sequestered glens, which were separated by great mountain ridges, by pathless forests, while deep defiles or narrow passes formed the only access to the country, sudden raids and onslaughts, if vigorously conducted, could be easily made, with great peril, however, and with certain subsequent vengeance.
The two bodies of horse and foot now mustered and armed by Montrose were composed of men entirely devoted to him, and more or less antagonistic to the MacGregors, at whose hands they had all suffered severely. They wore the duke's livery—blue coats faced with red, with trews of the Grahame tartan, and each wore in his bonnet a laurel leaf. There was not a man among them but had something to revenge, in the shape of a farm burned, a kinsman slain, or a herd carried off; so the measures now put in force against him compelled Rob Roy to be more than ever wary, for although hitherto most fortunate in all his achievements and escapes, he could not hope to be always so.
Selecting a time when many of the MacGregors were absent at distant fairs, on a dusky evening in the November of 1717, it was resolved to beat up Rob's quarters.
Assisted by a few of the horse grenadiers of MacDougal (now a lieutenant-colonel), the duke's militia, led by a gentleman named Colonel Grahame, a brave and determined fellow, who had served under Charles XII. in his war with Russia, passed rapidly and unseen through the pass of Aberfoyle, and about midnight reached the house and clachan of Portnellan, at the head of Loch Katrine.
There was no moon, and all was dark and still; not even a dog barked, when the house, which was thatched with heather, was completely surrounded on all sides by men with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed. The dragoons were led by the only unwilling member of the expedition—Willie Gemmil, now a sergeant.
The cottages wherein MacAleister, Greumoch, and others dwelt, adjoined the house of Rob, and formed a kind of small square, in the centre of which was a patch of ground, cultivated as a kitchen garden, and common to the whole community.
These cottages were built as such edifices are still constructed in the Highlands. The smoothed face of a rock made the floor; several large boulders of black whin formed the corners of the gables, and a few courses of turf plastered with clay made up the walls. On the rough pine cabers of the roof lay the thatch, composed of fern with its root ends outwards, and tied with ropes of twisted heather.
As these humble edifices burned like a heap of straw, Colonel Grahame said,—