At Moffat, this column halted; and divine service was performed in different parts of the town, all the men attending. "Our people," remarks Lord George, "were very regular that way; and I remember, at Derby, the day we halted, as a battle was soon expected, many of our officers and people took the sacrament."[159]
On the twenty-fifth of December, Lord George arrived at Glasgow, having passed through the towns of Hamilton and Douglas, and here, on the following day, Charles Edward also arrived, with the other column. Lord Elcho, who had conducted the cavalry through Dumfries, preceded the two great divisions. It was resolved to give the army some days' rest after the excessive fatigue which the men had uncomplainingly sustained. The spirits of Charles Edward were now recruited, and his example contributed not a little to the alacrity and energy of his force. Small, indeed, did it appear, when he reviewed it on Glasgow-green, and found how little he had suffered during his expedition into England. Hitherto Charles had carefully concealed his weakness; but now, hoping in a few days to double his army, he was not unwilling to show with what a handful of men he had penetrated into England, and conducted an enterprise, bold in its conception, and admirable in its performance.
At Glasgow, the melancholy fate of the brave garrison in Carlisle became known to the Jacobite army. Two days after the Prince had left, the Duke of Cumberland invested it, and began to batter that part of the wall which is towards the Irish gate. The governor of the Castle, Mr. Hamilton, determined to capitulate even before a breach had been made in the walls; and his proposal was vainly resisted by the brave Francis Townley and others, who were resolved to defend themselves to the last extremity. "They were in the right."[160] They might have held out for several days, and perhaps obtained better terms; but the governor persisted in surrendering to the clemency of King George, promised by his inhuman and dishonourable son. Assurances of intercession were given by the Duke of Cumberland, and the garrison of three hundred men surrendered. On the Duke's return to London, it was decided by the British government that he was not bound to observe a capitulation with rebels. The brave, and confiding prisoners perished, twelve of the officers by the common hangman, at Kennington; others, at Carlisle—many died in prison. Their fate reflected strongly upon the conduct of Charles Edward; but the general character of that young Prince, his hatred of blood, his love of his adherents, prove that it was not indifference to their safety which actuated him in the sacrifice of the garrison of Carlisle. He was possessed with an infatuation, believing that he should one day, and that day not distant, re-enter England; he was surrounded by favourites, who all encouraged his predilections, and fostered the hereditary self-will of his ill-starred race. The blood of Townley, and of his brave fellow-sufferers, rests not as a stain on the memory of Lord George Murray; and the Prince alone must bear the odium of that needless sacrifice to a visionary future. "We must draw a veil," says the Chevalier Johnstone, "over this piece of cruelty, being altogether unable either to discover the motive for leaving this three hundred men at Carlisle, or to find an excuse for it."[161]
On arriving at Glasgow, the Prince sent a gentleman to Perth to procure a particular account of the state of affairs in that part of the country; and on finding that his forces were so widely scattered that a considerable time must elapse before they could reassemble, he gave up the hope of returning to England, and determined upon the sieges of Edinburgh and Stirling. On the fourth of January he marched from Glasgow to Bannockburn, where he took up his quarters; and Lord George Murray, with the clans, occupied Falkirk. Before the twelfth of the same month, General Hawley, who had now formed a considerable army in Edinburgh, resolved upon raising the siege of Stirling, before which the trenches were opened.
Lord George Murray was, however, resolved to make a strong effort to prevent this scheme of General Hawley's from taking effect. Hearing that there was a provision made of bread and forage at Linlithgow for General Hawley's troops, he resolved to surprise the town and to carry off the provisions. He set out at four o'clock in the morning; was joined by Lord Elcho and Lord Pitsligo, with their several bodies of horse, and before sunrise Linlithgow was invested. The Jacobites were disturbed, however, in their quarters by a party of General Hawley's dragoons; and a report which prevailed that another body of horse and foot were also approaching, induced Lord George to return to Falkirk. On the following day he returned to Stirling; and the clans were quartered in the adjacent villages. The reinforcements which had been so long expected from the north were now near at hand; so that they could scarcely fail to arrive before an engagement began. The clans were augmented in number, and what was almost of equal importance, they had regained confidence and health on returning to their native land. All were in high spirits at the prospect of an engagement.
The Prince employed the fifteenth day of the month in choosing a field of battle; on the sixteenth he reviewed the army. The plan of the engagement was drawn out by Lord George Murray, according to his usual practice. The army of the insurgents amounted to nine thousand men. On that evening he learned that General Hawley had encamped on the plain between that town and the river Carron: upon which a council was called, and it was resolved the next day to attack the enemy.
The sympathies of the modern reader can scarcely fail to be enlisted in the cause of the Jacobites, who appear henceforth in the character of the valiant defenders of their hills and homes, their hereditary monarchy, their national honour and rights. Whatever an Englishman may have felt on beholding the incursions of a Highland force in his own country, the sentiment is altered into one of respect and of compassion when he views the scene of the contest changed, and sees the hopeless struggle fought on Scottish ground.
Never were two parties more strongly contrasted than the Hanoverians and the Jacobites. The very expressions which each party used towards the other, as well as their conduct in the strife, are characteristic of the coarse insolence of possession, and the gallant contest for restoration. Nothing could present a more revolting contrast than that between the individuals who headed the armies of Government, and the unfortunate Prince Charles and his brave adherents. In opposition to his generosity and forbearance stood the remorseless vengeance of the Duke of Cumberland. In comparison with the lofty, honest, fearless Lord George Murray, was the low instrument of Cumberland, the detestable Hawley. One blushes to write his name an English word. Succeeding General Wade, whose feeble powers had become nearly extinct in the decline of age, General Hawley was the beloved officer, the congenial associate of the young and royal commander-in-chief, who even at his early age could select a man without love to man, or reverence to God, for his General. These two were kindred spirits, worthy of an union in the task of breaking the noblest hearts, and crushing and enslaving the finest people that ever blessed a land of sublime beauty. Perhaps, if one may venture to make so strong an assertion, the General was more odious than his patron. It is, indeed, no easy point to decide towards which of these two notorious, for I will not call them distinguished men, the disgust of all good minds must be excited in the greater degree. In contempt for their fellow men, in suspicion and distrust, they were alike. In the directions for Hawley's funeral, he wrote in his will: "The priest, I conclude, will have his fee: let the puppy take it. I have written all this with my own hand; and this I did because I hate priests of all professions, and have the worst opinion of all members of the law."
To this low and ignorant contempt for the members of two learned professions, Hawley added an utter disregard of every tie of honour; he was wholly unconscious of the slightest emotion of humanity; he revelled in the terrors of power. The citizens beheld, with disgust, gibbets erected on his arrival there, to hang up any rebels who might fall into his hands: the very soldiers detested the General who had executioners to attend the army. The generous nature of Englishmen turned against the man, who, as it has been well remarked, "deserved not the name of soldier." They gave him the nick-name of the "Chief Justice;" and hated him as a man unworthy to cope with brave and honourable foes.
General Hawley had all the contempt, fashionable in those days, for Highland valour. "Give me but two regiments of horse," he said, "and I will soon ride over the whole Highland army." He quickly, however, learned his mistake; his contempt was, therefore, changed into a fiendish abhorrence, exhibited in the most horrible forms of unmitigated revenge.