[633] For details, see An Account of Dundee’s officers after they went to France in Miscellanea Scotica.
[634] Burton’s Scotland from Revolution, vol. i. p. 153.
[635] Dalrymple’s Memoirs, vol. i. part ii. p. 61.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
A.D. 1691–1702.
BRITISH SOVEREIGN:—William III., 1688–1703.
Negotiations with the Highland chiefs—Massacre of Glencoe—Master of Stair—King William—Subsequent enquiry—State of Highlands during William’s reign—Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat.
During 1690 and 1691 the Jacobites caused the government much trouble and anxiety by their ceaseless plotting to get up an insurrection, in which they were to be assisted by supplies from France. Many men, professedly loyal to King William, gave, from various motives, their secret countenance to these attempts; and the Highlanders especially proved a galling and distracting thorn in the side of the government. As early as 1690, Lord Tarbet, (subsequently Earl of Cromarty,) proposed a scheme for the quieting of the Highlands, which Lord Breadalbane offered to carry into execution; but it was at the time abandoned. In 1691, however, negotiations were again renewed, and, as has been seen, Breadalbane was intrusted with a sum of money to distribute among the chiefs, or rather to buy up the claims which Argyle and other superiors had over their feudal vassals, and which was the real cause of the strife and dissatisfaction existing in the Highlands. The Secretary of State, Sir John Dalrymple, known as the Master of Stair, son of the Earl of Stair, appears latterly to have been at the bottom of the scheme, and was certainly most anxious that it should be successfully and speedily carried out, having at first apparently no thought of resorting to measures of cruel severity.