Vol. 2, page 356. Captain MacDonald said it was most certain that if Keppoch, Lochiel, and young Clanranald had not joined the Prince, he would have been forced to shift for himself in the best manner he could.
Vol. 2, page 359. A night at Dalquhinnie before marching to Dalnacardoch.
June
I then read in the hearing of Captain Alexander MacDonald the conclusion of Captain O'Neille's own subscription, which had been lying by me for some time till I should find leisure to take [fol. 644.] an exact transcript of it.[361] In the forementioned conclusion Captain O'Neille complains of one in Benbecula that had betrayed him even after he had entirely confided in him, but he does not name the person. I asked at Captain MacDonald if he could inform me who that person was. He told me he knew the whole affair well, and that he would give it me faithfully and honestly. He said that Ranald MacDonald of Torulum in Benbecula was the man there meant,[362] and that the whole story had taken its rise altogether from a jealousy in Captain O'Neille. Ranald MacDonald happened unluckily to have an outcast with Captain O'Neille, who, though a very clever fellow, was heartily threshed by a MacDonald, they having had a boxing bout together. This unlucky difference made O'Neille strongly believe, when he happened to be seized, that Ranald MacDonald had actually betrayed him, whereas Ranald refused to betray [fol. 645.] him when a sum of money was offered him for that purpose. Upon this Ranald MacDonald has given his oath of old Clanranald, who questioned him upon the report of his having betrayed O'Neille, and was very hard upon him for it, swearing that he deserved to be shot through the head if he had done any such dishonourable thing.
As to the story of General Campbell and Campbell of Skipness, Captain MacDonald declared to me he did not in the least doubt the truth of that, for this single reason, because all the Campbells, from the head to the foot of them, had discovered a most avaritious, greedy temper in the matter of pillaging and plundering their native country.
29 Dec.
Captain Alexander MacDonald spoke excellent things of Donald MacLeod of Gualtergill in Sky, and saying that he did not know an honester man or a stauncher loyalist.[363] He told [fol. 646.] me that Donald MacLeod's wife is aunt to the present Glenaladale.
Captain MacDonald had all his effects plundered and pillaged. After everything was destroyed or carried off, the party happening to spy a living cat, immediately killed poor harmless puss, and threw it out of the way, lest the poor mother and her children should have eaten the dead cat in their necessity. For Cumberland and his army were exceedingly desirous that the young and old (women and infants not excepted) they did not murder might be starved to death, which was the fate of too many, and their endeavours were fully equal to their desires.
Captain MacDonald and his wife and children wandered through hills and mountains till the act of indemnity appeared, and in the time of their skulking from place to place his poor wife fell with child, which proved to be a daughter, and is still alive. He is a very smart, acute man, remarkably well skilled in [fol. 647.] the Erse, for he can both read and write the Irish language in its original character, a piece of knowledge almost quite lost in the Highlands of Scotland, there being exceedingly few that have any skill at all in that way. For the Captain told me that he did not know another person (Old Clanranald only excepted) that knew anything of the first tongue in its original character; but that the natives of Ireland (particularly in the higher parts of the country) do still retain the knowledge of it. Several of the Captain's acquaintances have informed me that he is by far the best Erse poet in all Scotland, and that he has written many songs in the pure Irish.
Robert Forbes, A.M.