Another eye-witness gives a still more detailed account.[114] "I have yours of the seventeenth, with the paper inclosed, wherein that gentleman has taken the liberty to insert many falsehoods relative to the late action, a true and impartial account of which I here send you, which is but too modest on our side, and many things omitted that will be afterwards made publick, particularly their murdering Strathmoir, after he had asked quarters, and the treatment they gave to Panmuir and several others, who, I hope, will be living witnesses against them. The enclosed is so full that I have little to say, only that we have not lost a hundred men in the action, and none of note, except Strathmoir, and the Captain of Clan Ronald."
The cruel spirit of party destroyed the generous characteristics of the soldier, during the excitement of the combat: but how can we palliate the conduct of one of the King's generals, Lord Isla, after the fierceness of the encounter was over? The letter referred to discloses particulars which were hushed up, or merely glanced at, in the partial annals of the time.
"So soon as they saw us coming down upon them, they marched off in great haste towards Dumblain, and left several of our people they had taken, among which was Lord Panmuir, who offered to give his parole, not knowing what had passed upon the eighth; but he was told by the person he sent to Lord Isla, that he could not take a parole from a rebel, and they were in such haste that they lost him in a little house, with several others near the field, where we found them when we advanced and brought him along with us to Ardoch, two miles furder, where we stayed all night and next day, until that we heard the enemy were marched off to Stirling. He is now pretty well and in no danger. Earl Loudoun passed him as he lay in the field, without taking any notice of him, and he was wounded there by the dragoons after he had surrendered to them; but I hope there will be one other day of reckoning for these things. My Lord Mar sent off two or three people to take care of Lord Forfar when he heard he was wounded, and one of them waited of him to Stirling. He expressed a good dale of consern that he should have been ingadged against his countrymen, and sent a breslet off his arm to Lord Mar, so that we all wish he may live. A good pairt of our baggage and the provisions we had, were distroyed by our own people who went of from our left. We are now getting provisions and every thing ready as soon as possible; and I am hopefull we will be in a condition in a very few days to pass forth without oposition.
"We have got accounts this day of a victorie obtained by our friends in the south, the particulars of which we long for. I have sent you some copies of the printed account of the action to give our friends.
"So adieu."
Notwithstanding the humane attentions shewn by the Earl to Lord Forfar, that brave and generous nobleman died of his wounds. After lingering more than three weeks, he expired at Stirling on the eighth of December. He was wounded in sixteen different places, but a shot which he received in his knee seems to have been the most fatal injury. The conduct of the Earl appears in strong contrast with that of the Earl of Isla; but we must remember that each party had its own chroniclers. It is, nevertheless, a result of observation, more easily stated than explained, that through the whole of the two contests, both in 1715 and 1745, the generous and somewhat chivalric bearing of the Jacobites was acknowledged; whilst a spirit of cruel persecution marked the conduct of some of the chief officers on the opposite side. The Duke of Argyle indeed, in his own person, presented an exception to this remark, which chiefly applies to those secondary to him in command and influence.
The conduct of Lord Mar, in retreating to Perth after the affair of Sherriff Muir, has been severely censured. But, as Sir Walter Scott has observed, he met with that obloquy which generally follows the leader of an unsuccessful enterprise. According to Lord Mar's own account (and it has been corroborated by others), his retiring to Perth was unavoidable. The Highlanders, brave as they were, had a custom of returning home after a battle; and many of them went off when the engagement was ended. The Earl of Mar was not, therefore, in a condition to pursue the advantage which he had gained, but was forced to await at Perth the arrival of the Chevalier, or of the Duke of Berwick; on the notification of which, the Highlanders would have rallied to his standard. No supplies had been sent; the gentlemen of the army, as well as the men, had been long absent from their homes, and were living at their own expense; and therefore were impatient for leave of absence. To add to the general discouraging aspect of affairs, the fatal result of the English insurrection, under the command of Mr. Forster, was communicated at this time.
At first the result of the battle of Preston was represented to the Jacobites at Perth in a very different light to that in which the defeat of the English Jacobites afterwards appeared. The following is an extract of a letter from Lord Mar, dated the twentieth of November. "This day we hear from good hands that they (the English Jacobites) have had a victory, for which we have had rejoicings, and I hope in God they are in a good way by this time. Let me hear from you often, I beg it of you, and I'll long for the particulars of that affair.
"I am doing all I can to get us again in a condition to march from home. It will not be so soon as I wish, which is no small mortification to me, but our friends; you may depend on it, that it shall be as soon as I can, and no time shall be lost. It is wonderfull that neither the King nor the Duke of Ormond comes, nor that I have not accounts from them. Now that there is so considerable a party appearing in England, I hope they will put it off no longer. I hope all your friends in England are well in particular, but pray let me have an account of it.