[854] The prince thus relates the circumstances attending this affair in a letter to his father, dated from Perth, 10th September, 1745. “There is one thing, and but one, in which I had any difference with my faithful Highlanders. It was about the price upon my kinsman’s head, which, knowing your Majesty’s generous humanity, I am sure, will shock you, as it did me, when I was shown the proclamation, setting a price upon my head. I smiled, and treated it with the disdain I thought it deserved; upon which they flew into a violent rage, and insisted upon my doing the same by him. As this flowed solely from the poor men’s love and concern for me, I did not know how to be angry with them for it, and tried to bring them to temper by representing that it was a mean barbarous principle among princes, and must dishonour them in the eyes of all men of honour; that I did not see how my cousin’s having set me the example, would justify me in imitating that which I blame so much in him. But nothing I could say would pacify them. Some went even so far as to say,—‘Shall we venture our lives for a man who seems so indifferent of his own?’ Thus have I been drawn in to do a thing for which I condemn myself.”—Jacobite Memoirs, p. 32.
[855] Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. pp. 442–484.
[856] Culloden Papers, p. 216.
[857] Culloden Papers, p. 216.
[858] Henderson’s History of the Rebellion, p. 34.
[859] Jacobite Memoirs, p. 25.
[860] Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. pp. 443–485.
[861] Henderson’s History of the Rebellion, p. 36.
[862] Jacobite Memoirs, p. 26.
[863] At Lude Charles “was very cheerful, and took his share in several dances, such as minuets, Highland reels, &c. The first reel the prince called for was ‘This is no mine ain house,’ &c., and a strathspey minuet.”—Jacobite Memoirs, p. 26.