[442] The fact was directly the Reverse—Lord George had used every endeavour to induce the Prince to cross the River, and occupy strong ground which Brigadier Stapleton[656] and Colonel Kerr[657] had examined two days before at his Lordships desire. [Note in the Drummond Castle MS.][658]
[443] Ruthven in Badenoch, on the east side of the Spey, near Kingussie.
[444] Daniel is a little out in his recollection of time. Culloden was fought on 16th April, while he left Scotland on 4th May (see p. 223), only eighteen days after the battle.
[445] This gold was 40,000 louis d’ors. Part of it, ‘Cluny’s Treasure,’ was concealed in Loch Arkaig, and left there for nine years under the care of Cluny Macpherson.
[446] The British ships were the Greyhound, the Baltimore, and the Terror. (S. M., viii. 238.)
[447] William Harrison, a native of Strathbogie, who, when most of his brethren had been taken prisoner or driven from their charges, went to the sheriff of Argyllshire, ‘told him frankly that he was a Catholic priest, but had neither done nor meant harm to anybody, and begged protection. The sheriff was well pleased with his confidence, and gave him a paper signed by himself requiring of everybody to allow him to go about his lawful business unmolested. In consequence of this, Mr. Harrison, in the summers of 1746 and 1747, visited almost all the Catholics in the Highlands, administering the sacraments, and exhorting the people to patience and perseverance in the faith.’ (Bishop Geddes’s MS.)
[448] The ships left Lochnanuagh on May 4th. (L. in M., iii. 383; Scots Mag., viii. 239.)
[449] Son of Thomas Sheridan, a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, D.C.L. (Oxon.) and F.R.S., an Irish Protestant who followed James II. into exile and became his private secretary. His wife (it is said) was a natural daughter of the king. The son, Sir Thomas, who was a Catholic, was engaged in the ’15; appointed tutor to Prince Charles 1724 or ’25, and created a baronet ’26. Attended the Prince at the siege of Gaeta ’34. In April ’44 after the abandonment of the French invasion the Prince asked for him, and his father reluctantly sent Sheridan to France, warning his son to be careful in his dealings with him. Sheridan accompanied the Prince to Scotland and acted as his private secretary throughout the campaign. On arrival in France in ’46 he was summoned to Rome by the Chevalier; accused of deserting the Prince but exhibited his written orders to leave. He died at Rome a few months later, his death being variously attributed to mortification at the Chevalier’s reproaches, or to grief at the Prince’s disasters.
[450] He had accompanied the Marquis d’Eguilles to Scotland as interpreter.
[451] John Hay of Restalrig, near Edinburgh, brother of Thomas Hay, Lord Huntington, who married the sister of John Murray of Broughton (see p. 49). He was an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, admitted 1726; Substitute-Keeper of the Signet 1725-41 and 1742-46; fiscal 1732-34; treasurer 1736-46. He acted as treasurer to the Prince, and when Murray of Broughton fell ill at Inverness in March he succeeded him as Secretary. Lord George Murray attributed much of the disaster of Culloden to his neglect or inefficiency in provisioning the army, a duty which Murray had always performed well. Hay held a colonel’s commission in the Jacobite army. He attached himself to Prince Charles after leaving Scotland, became major-domo of his household when he went to Rome after his father’s death in 1766; created a Jacobite baronet in that year; dismissed in 1768; returned to Scotland 1771; died 1784.