The adventures of Rob Roy

by James Grant

After the close of the whole insurrection, when the leaders of it were in their bloody graves or in hopeless exile, seeking in foreign camps and fields their bread at the point of the sword, the old rancorous sentiment against the Clan Alpine was still found to exist; for in the subsequent Act of Indemnity a free pardon was granted to all Jacobites, "excepting persons of the name of MacGregor, mentioned in an Act, made in Scotland in the first year of King Charles I., intituled 'Anent the Clan Gregor,' whatever name he or they may have, or do assume;" and hence especially among the proscribed appeared the now dreaded name of "Robert Campbell, alias MacGregor, commonly called Robert Roy."

This insulting mode of designating him, as if he had been a common thief in the "Hue and Cry," embittered yet more the soul of MacGregor; though he had been so long outlawed, and subjected to every severity and danger, this new act made little difference circumstantially to Rob, and doubtless he despised it. But the erection of a government fortress and barrack on his own lands of Inversnaid, for the direct purpose of overawing and subjugating his clan, and to lay him and it more completely at the mercy of the Whigs and Montrose, was more than he could suffer with patience.

His house of Auchinchisallan, in which he had resided in Breadalbane, had been wantonly burned, and his wife and children were once more driven to the caves and rocks for shelter; his cattle and crops were seized by a party of troops specially sent for those purposes by General Charles Lord Cadogan, an officer who had served as a brigadier under Marlborough, who had been taken prisoner at the siege of Messina, in 1706, and who was made Master-General of the Ordnance in 1722.

On MacGregor's lands he exercised great severity; and now, separated from his wife and children, the unfortunate Rob Roy, attended by his faithful henchman and foster-brother, Callam MacAleister, lurked in the mountains, and chiefly in the cavern near Loch Lomond, which still bears his name, and from whence he could see the flames of rapine and destruction, as the country was swept by fire and sword; and there he schemed out many a futile plan of vengeance on his oppressors.

Amid all this his heart bled for his children, who were growing up to desperate lives and wayward fortunes, the end of which he could not foresee. One thing, however, his own sense predicted: that the life of war and hazard he now lead could not last for ever, and that the erection of forts in the Highlands, and the entrance of war ships into the great salt lochs by which they were intersected, might ultimately curb the power of the Jacobite clans, especially when the overwhelming strength of the Campbells, the Grants, and other Whig clans, was united to that of the Lowland invader; and ultimately—but not in Rob's time—this prediction of his soul came true.

And yet it was for his children, and the patrimony which had been rent from them, that he maintained a hopeless struggle with their oppressors. It has been well observed by a modern writer, "that the motives to exertion furnished by the possession of children are as powerful as ever moved heart or hand. The secret of many a struggle in life's battle may be found at home. The man who has children dependent upon him will and must struggle manfully against the most adverse circumstances. The thought that the joy of their innocent young lives depends upon his courage, his perseverance, his energy—this thought will enable him to work wonders, and achieve what will appear impossibilities to the man who has only his own selfish needs and his own selfish ambition to urge him on." And so, when poor MacGregor thought of the future of his boys, his otherwise unflinching heart was rent in twain.

Meanwhile, the erection of the government fortress at Inversnaid proceeded rapidly, though he did all in his power to retard it; and he had the mortification to see the stones of his own dwelling-house and of the cottages of his tenantry used in construction of the barrack and bastions.

A builder named Naysmith, from Edinburgh, contracted to build this fort of Inversnaid; but his operations were frequently and roughly interrupted.

It was commenced during the winter season, and he and his workmen lodged in huts near the edifice.

One night, when the snow was falling heavily in great and feathery flakes, they were roused by some travellers noisily demanding shelter. On the door being opened, a number of fierce-looking MacGregors, with their plaids and bonnets coated with snow, rushed in, menaced the poor workmen with drawn swords, and reviled them bitterly.