To this the Captain replied that he had good reason to assure me that that indeed was the matter of fact. 'For,' added he, 'as I was cruizing along with the rest at that time I had an opportunity of knowing how the different informations came about.'

I told him I was exceedingly glad to have his account of the matter to support and confirm Donald Macleod's own representation of it, because that Donald had been reproached by severals for having got drunk;[214] and in his cups for having discovered to some one acquaintance or other the real design for which he had hired the ship, and this acquaintance was said to have blown the whole project. Captain Hay said he did not believe one word of all that, but that the true state [fol. 481.] of the case was above represented, and that the Prince would have been on board with his few attendants that very night when the discovery was made, had he not met with that unexpected disappointment.

Captain Hay asked if I could inform him of the day when the Prince set out from the Isle of Sky to the mainland.[215] I told him it was July 5th, and likewise remarked to him what difficulty I had with Captain Malcolm MacLeod to adjust this matter of a precise date.[216] 'Surely then,' said the Captain, 'we behoved to be very near the Prince in his crossing the ferry to the mainland.' I told him I did not doubt that at all, and then I gave him an account (as exactly as I could) of that narrative given me by Mrs. MacDonald of Kingsburgh, and afterwards confirmed to me by Malcolm MacLeod himself,[217] anent the Prince's desiring Malcolm MacLeod to have no fear, for that the wind would soon change, and make the ships of war, [fol. 482.] then in view upon the coast of Sky, steer a direct contrary course, so that it would not be in their power to come near him at that time. At this Captain Hay, with an asseveration, assured the company that that was literally true; for that when they were sailing along the coast of Sky with a pretty brisk gale, all of a sudden the wind changed upon them and forced them to sail a direct contrary course. He said he remembered nothing better.

Here I remarked that some would be ready to attribute this in the Prince to the second sight or some such uncommon supernatural cause; but that for my own part I believed there were some who could tell a little time before that the wind would blow from this or the other point of the compass, being in the use of making observations in that way. Captain Hay replied that sailors and others who dealt in observations of that kind could exactly enough tell from the [fol. 483.] motion of a cloud, or the like, when the wind would veer about to this or the other quarter; and from what had been said he remarked that the Prince behoved to have skill in that way. I then told the company that Malcolm MacLeod had said that he never knew a man in all his life that had such a firm and steady trust in the providence of God as the Prince was remarkably blessed with.[218]

The conversation happening to turn upon the subject of Rorie MacKenzie's death, it was said that it was certain enough that Rorie MacKenzie had been taken by a party of Cumberland's army for the Prince, and that he had been actually butchered by them; but as to the particular circumstance of the butchery, that was an affair not so easily to be discovered. Here I told the company that particular story given me by Kingsburgh anent the officer's talking to him at Fort Augustus [fol. 484.] about the young Pretender's head.[219] Upon this Captain Hay said that in visiting his friends lately in the south country he had discovered a story well worth the remarking, and the more so because it had come from the Duke of Cumberland's own mouth. The Captain informed the company that he had met with a gentleman in the south who told him that when the Duke of Cumberland was on his way from the north to Berwick he had gone to that town to wait upon him, that accordingly he paid his court to him, and after he had done so, he asked his highness if he had entirely finished the whole affair, and left the country in peace. The Duke answered he had done so. Then the gentleman asked what was become of the Pretender's oldest son? The Duke replied that he had taken care to leave such orders behind him that the Pretender's [fol. 485.] eldest son would never be more heard of. Captain Hay said that as he had this particular narrative from the gentleman's own mouth, it deserved the more credit, for he could depend upon the truth of it; but he did not chuse to name the gentleman.

Captain Hay was pleased to tell the company that when General Campbell came to the Laird of Clanranald's house in search of the Prince (so the Captain named him during the whole conversation) Lady Clanranald happened not to be at home, but that she came home pretty soon after. The General told the lady that he was to dine with her, and then began to interrogate her where she had been? Lady Clanranald answered that she had been visiting a sick child at some distance.[220] The General asking the name of the child, the lady made no stop in giving a name, and said likewise that the child was much better than formerly it had been; and she conversed all along with the General in a very easy, unconcerned way. [fol. 486.] Here the Captain observed that the visiting of the sick child was only a mere pretence the better to cover the real business the lady had been employed about, for afterwards it was discovered that Lady Clanranald at that time had actually been with the Prince.

I could not fail remarking to Captain Hay that Lady Clanranald's acquitting herself so exactly and wisely in the Prince's preservation was something very singular, and the more extraordinary that (as I had been informed) she happens frequently not to be so well in her health, and therefore (one would be apt to imagine) quite unfit to manage a point of so much delicacy and danger. The Captain answered that Lady Clanranald's conduct in that affair, all things considered, was very extraordinary indeed.

After giving several very remarkable instances of the miseries and dangers the Prince had been exposed to in his wanderings, I begged leave to ask at Captain Hay what notions he [fol. 487.] would entertain of those folks in and about Edinburgh (people of no mean sense and discretion in the common affairs of life) who when certain accounts had come of the Prince's arrival in France were pleased to say: 'O these Jacobites are strange bodies, who attribute the preservation of their Prince to the providence of God alone, when Providence could have no hand in it at all, seeing the Duke of Cumberland and his army were not willing to take him, but, on the contrary, avoided the laying hands on him when they might have done it.' At this Captain Hay held up his hands and declared his amazement that any such expression could ever proceed out of the mouth of any person whatsomever, and asked seriously if there were any persons that could have the impudence to talk so? I assured him there were such persons as had actually used the above expressions, or words to the same purpose, and that they could [fol. 488.] be named. He said he was indeed surprised to hear the thing, considering the strict searches that had been made for the person of the Prince, and the many narrow escapes he had made. And, moreover, that it was well known in the army that when any officers happened to bring prisoners into the camp in the north, and after the report being made at the headquarters, the Duke of Cumberland used to be in a very bad humour, and to express himself in these words: 'These officers don't know their duty.'

The whole conversation went easily on, and lasted till between four and five o'clock at night.

There were present who witnessed the above conversation, Richard Seaman, baxter in Leith, John Hay, piriwig maker in Edinburgh, Mrs. Bettie Seaman and Mrs. Ellie Kendal. Mrs. Seaman herself went from the company pretty soon after dinner to look after her business, so that she witnessed but a small part of the conversation. John Hay, piriwig maker, [fol. 489.] declared his being very much pleased with being present at such a long and so particular a conversation upon the dangers and distresses of the Prince, and at the narrating some of the more moving and interesting parts he was so much affected that he shed tears. He frankly owned that he had never heard so much of the matter in all the several companies he had formerly resorted to where this extraordinary and affecting history happened to be the subject of conversation.