These instructions having come to the knowledge of Hamilton, hastened his determination to arrest Balcarras and Dundee. Balcarras was seized at his country seat, carried to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the common jail, from which he was afterwards transferred to the castle after its surrender; but Dundee, who had received notice of the approach of the party, retired from his house at Dudhope and took refuge in the mountains.
The favourable reception which James had met with in Ireland, and the discovery which the adherents of William in Scotland had made of his intention to land an army in Scotland, joined to the fact that the great body of the Highlanders, and almost the whole of the episcopal party in the north, were hostile to the recent change in the government, could not fail to excite alarm in the minds of the partizans of the new dynasty. The brilliant achievements of Montrose had shown how inadequate the peaceful inhabitants of the south, though impelled by the spirit of religious fanaticism, were to contend with the brave and hardy mountaineers of the north; and as Dundee, as they were aware, was desirous of emulating his great predecessor, and was engaged in an active correspondence with the Highland chiefs, they must necessarily have looked forward to a long and bloody, and perhaps a doubtful contest.
As Dundee possessed the confidence of the Highland clans,[557] and as he looked chiefly to them for support in his attempt to restore the exiled monarch, Viscount Tarbat, one of the ablest politicians of the period, proposed a plan for detaching the chiefs from the cause of James, some of whom he averred were not so inimical to William nor so attached to James, as was supposed; but who, jealous of the power of Argyle, were justly apprehensive that if, as appearances indicated, that nobleman acquired an ascendency in the national councils, he would make use of his power to oppress them, and would obtain a revocation of the grants of certain lands which belonged to his family, and which had been forfeited in the reign of Charles II. Besides these reasons, there was another which was supposed to influence others in their determination to restore the fallen dynasty, and thereby crush the rising power of Argyle, viz. that they were greatly in arrears to him as their superior. Tarbat, therefore, suggested to General Mackay, that an attempt should be made, in the first place to obtain the submission of these last by making them an offer to discharge Argyle’s claims against their lands, which he computed would amount to £5,000 sterling, and that a separate offer should be made to the chief of the Macleans to make good a transaction which had been in part entered upon between him and the late earl for adjusting their differences. This plan was approved of by the English government, but the affair is said to have been marred by the appointment of Campbell of Cawdor as negotiator, who was personally obnoxious to the chiefs. Mackay attempted to open a correspondence with Cameron of Lochiel on the subject, but could obtain no answer, and Macdonell of Glengary, to whom he also made a communication, heartily despising the bribe, advised the general, in return, to imitate the conduct of General Monk, by restoring James.[558]
Dundee crossed the Dee, and entered the Duke of Gordon’s country, the inhabitants of which were friendly to the cause of James, and where he was joined by about 50 horse under the Earl of Dunfermline, who, as has been stated, was sent north by the Duke of Gordon to raise his vassals in support of his royal master. Whilst Dundee was occupied in raising forces in this district, Mackay was despatched from Edinburgh with a considerable body of troops in pursuit. Mackay appointed the town of Dundee as the rendezvous for his troops, being the best station he could select for keeping the adjoining country, which was disaffected to the new government, in awe, and whence he could send parties to the north to watch the motions of Dundee. On arriving at Dundee, Mackay, leaving a part of his troops there under the command of Lieutenant-colonel Livingston, proceeded north with a body of about 500 men, consisting chiefly of dragoons, in quest of the viscount. At Brechin he received intelligence that Dundee, ignorant of course of Mackay’s movements, was on his return to his seat of Glenogilvie in the braes of Angus, that he had already passed the Cairn-a-mount, and that he was expected to pass the night at Fettercairn, only a few miles north from Brechin. The viscount, however, having been apprized of Mackay’s movements, recrossed the Dee.
As soon as Mackay was informed of this retrograde movement, he resolved to pursue Dundee, and, if possible, to overtake him before he should have time to collect any considerable body of forces. With a small but select body of horse and foot, therefore, he crossed the Dee at Kincardine, in the expectation of being joined in the course of his march by some country gentlemen who had given him assurances of support before leaving Edinburgh. In this expectation, however, he was sadly disappointed, for, with the exception of the Master of Forbes, who met him after he had crossed the Dee, with a party of 40 gentlemen of his name on horseback and a body of between 500 and 600 men on foot, chiefly raw peasantry, not one of them showed any inclination to join him. The fact was, that, with few exceptions, the people residing to the north of the Tay, were either indifferent to the course of events, or were opposed upon principle to any change in the hereditary succession to the crown, which many of them considered an infraction of the Divine law, and which they believed no misconduct on the part of the king could justify. No man knew these things better than Dundee, who calculated that by means of this feeling he would soon be able to arouse the war-like north against the more peaceful south. But valuable as such a body of auxiliaries as that brought by the Master of Forbes may be supposed to have been under these circumstances, Mackay, who had been accustomed to the finest troops in Europe, considered that they would be of no service to him, as, according to his own account, they were “ill armed,” and appeared “little like the work” for which they were intended. He therefore declined the services of the Forbeses in the meantime, and after thanking the master for having brought them together, he ordered him to dismiss them to their homes, with instructions that they should re-assemble whenever a necessity occurred for defending their own country against the inroads of Dundee.
Having received intelligence of Dundee’s route through Strathdon towards Strathbogie, Mackay continued his march in that direction through Aberdeenshire and Moray. On arriving at Strathbogie, he was informed that Dundee had crossed the Spey with about 150 horse without opposition, although Mackay had given particular instruction to the laird of Grant, while in Edinburgh, to occupy all the fords of that river. Mackay also learned, on the following day, by a letter sent to him by the magistrates of Elgin, which had been addressed to them by Dundee, that the viscount was at Inverness, that he had been there joined by Macdonald of Keppoch at the head of 1,000 Highlanders, and that he intended to make Elgin his head-quarters preparatory to an attack upon Mackay. The accession of the Macdonalds was of immense importance to Dundee, and was as seasonable as unexpected. A deadly feud had for some time existed between Macdonald and Mackintosh, arising out of certain claims by the former upon the lands of the latter; and to such a pitch of armed violence did Keppoch carry his pretensions, that James II. felt himself called upon to interfere, by issuing a commission of fire and sword against him as a rebel. Keppoch, taking advantage of the unsettled state of the government, renewed his claims against Mackintosh; and having defeated the Mackintoshes in battle, he had advanced to Inverness, the inhabitants of which had supported the Mackintoshes against him, and was threatening to wreak his vengeance upon them if they did not purchase forbearance by paying him a large pecuniary fine. It was at this critical moment that Dundee arrived, who, anxious at once to secure the aid of Keppoch and the friendship of the citizens of Inverness, who had only a few days before proclaimed the Prince of Orange, interposed between them and their exasperated foe, and satisfied the latter’s supposed claims by collecting the amount of his demands by subscription among the inhabitants.[559]
The news of the junction of the Keppoch Highlanders with Dundee, and of their intention to march to the south, was exceedingly disconcerting to Mackay, who had advanced into a hostile country with a handful of troops quite incapable of resisting the powerful force now opposed to them. The obvious and apparently most prudential course which presented itself, was, on the approach of the enemy, to make a sure and as slow a retreat as possible, and to bring up the forces which he had left behind him; but Mackay, rightly judging that a retreat, besides giving Dundee the command of a large tract of country favourable to his views, might create an impression that his adversary was much stronger than he really was, resolved not only to stand firm, but even to cross the Spey, and take possession of Elgin before Dundee should arrive there. Accordingly, after despatching a courier to bring up his reserves from Brechin without delay, he crossed the Spey and advanced upon Elgin, with his dragoons at a hard trot, followed by 200 veteran foot, who were so desirous of coming to action that they kept up with the horse the whole way from the river to the town. From Elgin, Mackay despatched messengers to some of the principal Whig proprietors in Moray, Ross, and Sutherland, desiring them to prepare themselves for joining him as soon as they should receive his orders.
Mackay lay a few days at Elgin in expectation of Dundee’s advance; but as the latter did not appear, Mackay, who had just received a reinforcement of horse from Brechin, left Elgin and took the road to Inverness. When he reached Forres, he ascertained that Dundee had left Inverness, and had crossed the heights of Badenoch on his way to Athole. It is said that Dundee intended to have advanced upon Elgin, and to have engaged Mackay, but he was counteracted in his design by the refusal of a party of Camerons, who were under Keppoch, to march without the consent of their chief, their real motive apparently being that they were desirous of securing what booty they had taken. Mackay continued his march to Inverness, where he was joined by 500 of the Mackays, Grants, and Rosses. From Inverness, he despatched couriers to the adherents of the new government in the north to join him; and at the same time sent an express to Colonel Balfour at Edinburgh, to despatch Colonel Ramsay north with a select body of 600 men to be drawn from the Dutch regiments. To effect as speedy a junction with him as possible, Mackay directed that Ramsay should march through Athole and Badenoch. These transactions, Burton[560] thinks happened probably about the beginning of May.
Dundee, on the other hand, was no less busy in his preparations for the ensuing campaign. He never ceased to carry on an active correspondence with many of the Highland chieftains whose confidence he possessed; and on his march through Badenoch he received the most gratifying assurances of support from the gentlemen of that country, with the exception of Mackintosh, who had taken offence at Dundee. Having fixed upon Lochaber as the most central and convenient district for mustering his forces, Dundee appointed the friends of King James to assemble there on the 18th of May, and in the meantime he descended into Athole, with a body of 150 horse, where he met with a cordial reception from Stewart of Ballechan, factor or steward to the Marquis of Athole, and from the other vassals of the marquis. Whether Stewart and the other gentlemen of the district, in taking this decided part, acted from a private understanding with their chief, who still remained at Edinburgh, where he had given in an equivocal adherence to the government, or whether they were yet ignorant of the course he meant to follow, are questions which, for want of information, do not admit of solution. The omission on the part of the marquis to send instructions to Stewart to raise a body of 400 Athole Highlanders, to oppose the passage of Dundee through his bounds to the south, should he attempt it, to which effect he had pledged himself to Mackay, before the latter left Edinburgh for the north, raises a suspicion that the gentlemen of Athole acted agreeably to the understood wishes of their chief.[561]
Being informed that the lairds of Blair and Pollock were lying in Perth with a troop of horse, which they had raised for the service of the government, Dundee determined to surprise them, and accordingly left Athole, and proceeded with celerity during the night towards Perth, which he entered unawares early next morning, and seized both these gentlemen and two other officers in their beds, carrying them off prisoners. He also took away 30 horses, and a sum of 9,000 merks of the public revenue which he found in the office of the collector. Leaving Perth, Dundee ranged through Angus, augmenting his cavalry, and after an ineffectual attempt to surprise Lord Rollo, who was raising a troop of horse, he appeared before the town of Dundee, then guarded by two troops of Livingston’s dragoons. Their commander, unwilling to encounter Dundee, shut himself up in the town, and the viscount, after spending two nights at Dudhope, his country seat, returned to the Highlands, to meet his friends at the appointed place of rendezvous.