Abounding as the prince’s enterprise did, in many brilliant points, there is, unquestionably, no part of it more deserving of admiration than that which now presents itself, near the end of his short, but very eventful career. At Gladsmuir and at Falkirk, almost the whole of the prince’s energies were directed to a single point, but at Inverness he projected a number of expeditions, attacks, and sieges, and conducted them with an energy and promptitude which astonished the government. The whole force he was able to collect, after his retreat to the north, did not exceed 8,000 men; and, although there was no certainty that the Duke of Cumberland might not advance immediately from Aberdeen, which is only a hundred miles from Inverness, yet he separated his forces, and, while with one detachment he kept General Bland in check, he, almost at the same time, carried on a series of operations with the isolated parts of his army in the distant territories of Athole, Lochaber, and Sutherland.
FOOTNOTES:
[1122] “But the Duke was no common man. He belonged to an age when high command was in a great measure a royal science, which men of inferior rank had scanty opportunities of studying. He was connected with the cluster of German princes, among whom, after the enticing example of the house of Brandenburg, a knowledge of the art of war was deemed a good speculation as a means of enlarging their dominions in the tangled contests created among the German states by every European war. After Frederick himself, perhaps none of these princes would have been so capable of successful appropriations of territory as the young man whose warlike pursuits were thrown into a different channel by his connection with the British throne. Though the subject of a constitutional government, however, he retained the spirit of the German soldier-prince. Military law was the first of all laws; and to military necessity everything must yield. He followed the course which, perhaps, most men brought up in his school would have followed, if in possession of the same power; but in a constitutional country it had the character of brutal severity, and after having, as he deemed it, done his stern duty, he left behind him an execrating country to find that his little nephews ran away and hid themselves, in terror of his notorious cruelty.”[1123]—Burton’s Scotland, (1689–1748), vol. ii. p. 507.
[1123] “The bravery of the Duke of Cumberland,” says the first historian of our day, “was such as distinguished him even among the princes of his brave house. The indifference with which he rode about amidst musket-balls and cannon-balls, was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless maladies—horrible surgical operations—far from unmanning him, did not even discompose him. With courage, he had the virtues which are akin to courage. He spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and upright in all his dealings. But his nature was hard; and what seemed to him justice, was rarely tempered with mercy. He was therefore, during many years, one of the most unpopular men in England. The severity with which he treated the rebels after the battle of Culloden, had gained him the name of ‘the butcher.’ His attempts to introduce into the army of England, then in a most disorderly state, the rigorous discipline of Potsdam, had excited still stronger disgust. Nothing was too bad to be believed of him. Many honest people were so absurd as to fancy that if he were left regent during the minority of his nephews, there would be another smothering in the tower.”—Macaulay’s Essays—Chatham.
[1124] Marchant, p. 328.
[1125] Marchant, p. 329.
[1126] Kirkconnel MS. Johnstone’s Memoirs, p. 167. Among the honourable few were Sir Peter Halket, lieutenant-colonel of Lee’s regiment; Mr. Ross, son of Lord Ross; Captain Lucy Scott; Lieutenants Farquharson and Cumming; and Mr. Home has been justly censured for suppressing in his history this fact, and others equally well known to him.
[1127] These were Lochiel, Keppoch, Clanranald, Ardshiel, Lochgary, Scothouse, and the Master of Lovat.
[1128] No. 39 of Appendix to Home.
[1129] No. 40 of Idem.