The character of the chieftain was softened in the young Lochiel. He was intelligent, frank, and conciliating in his manners, and had associated more generally with the world than was usually the case with the chieftains of those days. Among the circles with whom the young Lochiel mingled, Barclay Urie, the well known apologist of the Quakers, was also accustomed to appear. An attachment was thenceforth formed between John Cameron and the daughter of Barclay, and a matrimonial alliance was soon afterwards decided upon between the daughter of that gentleman and the young chieftain.
The choice was considered a singular one on the part of the young man. It was the customary plan to intermarry with some of the neighbouring clans; nor was it permitted for the chieftain to make a choice without having first ascertained how far the clan were agreeable to his wishes. This usage proceeded, in part, from the notion of consanguinity between every member of a clan, even of the lowest degree, to his chieftain, and the affability and courtesy with which the head was in the habit of treating those over whom he ruled. The clans were even known to carry their interference with the affairs of their chief so far as to disapprove of the choice of their abodes, or to select a site for a new residence.[248]
The sway which Sir Ewan Dhu had acquired over his followers was such that he dispensed with the ordinary practice, and, without the consent of the clans, agreed to receive the young Quakeress as his daughter. The marriage was completed, and eventually received the full approbation of the whole clan Cameron.
Meantime, great efforts had been made on the part of the English Government to detach Sir Ewan Dhu from his faith to James the Second. But the monarch who could attempt so hopeless a task as the endeavour to cause a Highlander to break his oath of fidelity, very faintly comprehended the national character, then existing in all its strength and all its weakness,—in its horror of petty crimes and its co-operation of great outrages,—in its small meannesses and lofty generous traits,—in its abhorrence of a broken vow or of treachery to a leader. The temptation offered was indeed considerable. Sir Ewan Dhu was to have a pension of three hundred a-year, to be perpetuated to his son, whom the Government were particularly anxious to entice back to Scotland. The old chieftain was also to be appointed Governor of Fort William.[249] But the emissaries of William the Third could not have chosen a worse period than that in which to treat with the brave and wary Cameron. The massacre of Glencoe was fresh in the remembrance of the people, and the stratagem, the fiendish snares which had been prepared to betray the unsuspecting Macdonalds to their destruction, were also recalled with the deep curses of a wronged and slaughtered people. The game of cards, the night before the massacre, between the villain Campbell, and the two sons of Glencoe,—the proffered and accepted hospitality of the chieftain, whose hand was grasped in seeming friendliness by the man who had resolved to exterminate him and his family, were cherished recollections—cherished by the determined spirit of hate and revenge which contemplated future retribution.
Sir Ewan Dhu therefore rejected these dazzling offers; he neither recalled his son from France, nor accepted the command offered to him, but busied himself in schemes which eventually swayed the destinies of the Camerons.
Not many miles from Achnacarry, the seat of Lochiel, rose, on the border of Loch Oich, the castle of Alaster Dhu, or Dusk Alexander, of Glengarry. The territories of this chieftain were contiguous to those of Lochiel; and his character, which was of acknowledged valour, wisdom, and magnanimity, formed a still stronger bond of union than their relative position. Glengarry was the head of a very powerful clan, called Macdonnells, in contradistinction to the Macdonalds of the Isles, whose claim to superiority they always resisted; declaring, by the voice of their bards and family historians, that the house of Antrim, from whom the Macdonalds of the Isles were descended, owed its origin to the Macdonnells of Glengarry.
The clan Glengarry was now at its height of power under the heroic Alaster Dhu, its chieftain, whose immediate predecessor had risen to be a Lord of Session, at a time when that office brought no little power and influence to its possessors: he had gained both wealth and credit in his high seat; and, upon retiring, had visited Italy, had brought back a taste for architecture to his native country, and the castle of Invergarrie, part of the walls of which remain undemolished, rose as a memento of his architectural taste.
The Lord of Session had cherished sentiments of loyalty for the exiled family; these were transmitted to Alaster Dhu. The gallant Lochiel and the chief of Glengarry were therefore disposed to smother in their feelings of loyalty the feuds which too often raged between clans nearly approximate. They therefore formed a compact to promote, in every way, the interest of the royal exiles; and in this vain attempt at restoration which ensued, the fate of their clansmen was sealed.[250] That of the Camerons is yet to be told; a slight digression respecting their gallant allies may here be excused.
When the feudal system which subsisted between the Highland chieftains and their clansmen was dissolved, it became the plan of many of the landholders to rid themselves of their poor tenantry, and to substitute in their place labourers and farmers from the south of Scotland. The helpless population of the glens and hill-sides were thus sent to wander, poor and ignorant of anything but their own homes, and speaking no language but their mother tongue, and wholly unskilled in any practical wisdom. Some emigrated, but many were pressed into service on board the emigrant ships, although the commanders of those vessels could not, in some instances, prevail upon themselves to tear the Highlanders away from their wives and families.
To remedy this melancholy state of affairs, and to employ the banished mountaineers, it was proposed about the year 1794, to embody some of the sufferers, the Macdonnells of Glengarry in particular, into a Catholic corps, under their young chieftain, Alexander Macdonnell, and employ them in the service of the English Government. This scheme, after many difficulties, was accomplished. At first, it worked well for the relief of the destitute clan; but, in 1802, in spite of their acknowledged good conduct, the Glengarry regiment was disbanded.