At Perth, on the 19th of September, Captain Crosby, who had deserted from the British army in Flanders, and come to Scotland with the French troops, was hanged, and two deserters were shot. A singular incident happened on this occasion. To carry the sentence against Crosby into execution on the day appointed, the hangman of Perth was secured in the town prison; but having apparently no certainty that he would perform his painful duty, the hangman of Stirling was sent for by the magistrates, who, upon his appearance, liberated the timorous functionary. The hangman immediately fled the place. Captain Crosby was brought to the place of execution on the appointed day, but before the time for throwing him off arrived, the executioner dropt down dead. After remaining a considerable time at the place of execution the guard was returning with Crosby to the prison, when an infamous criminal, who was a prisoner in the jail, offered to hang the captain for a reward of ten guineas and a free pardon. The authorities having acceded to the demand of this ruffian, Crosby was immediately carried back to the place of execution, and suffered with great fortitude.[1289]
The sittings at St. Margaret’s-hill were resumed on the 23d of August, and were continued from time to time for about two months. Bills were found against thirty-two persons, besides Lord Macleod and Secretary Murray; but these last were not brought to trial. Of the thirty-two tried no less than twenty-two were convicted at different times, all of whom received sentence of death on the 15th of November. Of these, eight of the principal were ordered for execution on the 28th of that month. Among these were Sir John Wedderburn, John Hamilton, Andrew Wood, Alexander Leith, and James Bradshaw. Sir John Wedderburn had acted as receiver in the counties of Perth and Angus of the ale and malt arrears raised by the Highland army; Hamilton had been governor of Carlisle; Wood, a youth of two-and-twenty, had distinguished himself as a volunteer in Roy Stewart’s regiment; Leith had served as a captain in the Duke of Perth’s regiment, and though old and infirm, had been remarkable for zeal and activity; and Bradshaw had shown his devotion to the cause of the Stuarts by giving up a lucrative business as a merchant in Manchester, and expending all his wealth to promote it. He entered the Manchester regiment; but thinking that he could be of more use by marching with the Highland army into Scotland than by remaining at Carlisle, he joined Lord Elcho’s corps, and was taken prisoner after the battle of Culloden.
On the morning of the execution two of the prisoners of the name of Farquharson and Watson obtained a reprieve, as also did one Lindsay, just as he was about to step into the sledge. The effect upon this man’s feelings, when his pardon was announced, was such, that his life appeared for a time in danger. The five prisoners were then drawn to the place of execution in two sledges, where their doom was sealed. Bradshaw read a paper, in which he declared that he had joined “the king’s forces” from a principle of duty only, and that he never had reason since to be convinced that he had been mistaken; but that, on the contrary, every day’s experience had strengthened his opinion that what he had done was right and necessary. He stated that he had had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the most ungenerous enemy he believed ever assumed the name of a soldier,—“the pretended duke of Cumberland, and those under his command,” whose inhumanity, he observed, had exceeded every thing he could have imagined, “in a country where the name of a God is allowed of.” He expressed his firm conviction, that the order attributed to Charles to give no quarter was “a malicious, wicked report, raised by the friends of the usurper” to excuse the cruelties committed by his troops in Scotland. After a high eulogium upon the qualifications of the prince, the paper concluded with a prayer for the preservation of “King James the Third, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York.”
Besides the trials at Southwark, other trials took place at Carlisle and York, chiefly of prisoners taken at Culloden. No less than 382 of these unfortunate beings had been brought to Carlisle; but as the trial of such a great number of persons, with a view to capital punishment, might appear extremely harsh, and would be inconvenient, a proposal was made to the common prisoners, who formed the great mass, that, with certain exceptions, only one in every twenty, chosen by lot, should be tried, and that the remainder should be transported. This proposal was acceded to by a considerable number. By this means the number for trial was reduced to 127, who were immediately separated from the others, and with the exception of two—Sir Archibald Primrose and Captain Hay—thrust into one room in the keep of the castle, where their miseries induced many to hatch futile plots for escape.[1290]
The judges adjourned to the 9th of September; and, in the mean time, they repaired to York, where the grand jury found bills against 75 persons confined there. The judges resumed their sittings at Carlisle for the trial of the prisoners there, on the 9th of September, on which, and the two following days, the prisoners, against whom bills had been found, were arraigned. Bills were found against 15 more on the 12th, making a total of 134. Of these, 11 pled guilty when arraigned; 32 entered the same plea when brought to trial; 48 were found guilty, of whom 11 were recommended to mercy, 36 acquitted, 5 remanded to prison till further evidence should be procured, and 1 obtained delay on an allegation of his being a peer. The judges resumed their sittings at York on the 2d of October, and sat till the 7th. Of the 75 persons indicted, 2 pled guilty when arraigned, 52 when brought to trial, and 16 were found guilty, 4 of whom were recommended to mercy. All these received sentence of death. Five only were acquitted.
Of the 91 prisoners under sentence at Carlisle, 30 were ordered for execution; 9 of whom were accordingly executed at Carlisle on the 18th of October.[1291] Six were executed at Brampton on the 21st of the same month, and 7 suffered at Penrith. Seven out of the 30 were reprieved, and 1 died in prison. All those who were executed underwent the usual process of unbowelling.
Among those who suffered at Carlisle on October 18th, were Major Donald Macdonald of Tynedrish—he who, short-sighted, unwittingly allowed himself to be made prisoner after the battle of Falkirk. He was one of the first to join Prince Charles after his landing, and it is supposed that Sir Walter Scott had him in his mind, when he drew the character of Fergus M’Ivor, in Waverley. Another was the brave and chivalrous laird of Kinloch-Moidart, described as a plain honest man, exceedingly cool-headed, and fitted for either the cabinet or the field, but unable to resist the persuasions of his brother Æneas Macdonald, the Paris banker, who accompanied Charles to Scotland—and the fascination which the prince seems to have exercised on those whom he personally addressed. An acquaintance of Macdonald’s visited him when he was confined a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, and asked him how he came to engage in so desperate an undertaking, which never had a probability of success? “I myself was against it,” he replied; “but, Lord man, what could I do when the young lad came to my house?”[1292]
On the 1st of November 10 of the prisoners condemned at York suffered in that city, and on the 8th of the same month, 11 others suffered the same fate. Another prisoner suffered on the 15th November. The work of death closed at Carlisle on the 15th of December by the immolation of 11 more victims.
Out of the 77 persons who thus suffered, it is remarkable that, with the solitary exception of Lord Kilmarnock, they all maintained, to the very last, the justice of the cause for which they suffered. The more enthusiastic among them even openly declared that they would continue to support the claim of the exiled family to the crown if set at liberty.
Notwithstanding this useless waste of human blood, the government did not consider the work of destruction complete till the lives of two individuals, who lay more especially under its ban, were sacrificed, as the last atonement to public justice. These were Charles Ratcliffe and Lord Lovat. The former was a younger brother of the Earl of Derwentwater, who suffered in 1716, and whose title Mr. Ratcliffe had assumed. He had been engaged in the former insurrection, taken at Preston, and condemned, but made his escape out of Newgate; and after passing some years in France and Italy, married the Countess of Newburgh at Paris. He had visited England privately in 1733, and returned again two years thereafter, when he appeared openly in public. Soliciting his pardon without success, he returned to France, where he remained till November, 1745, when he was made prisoner on board a French vessel, on her way to Scotland with supplies for Prince Charles. He was arraigned at the bar of the court of king’s bench on the 21st of November, 1746, upon his former sentence; but he refused either to plead or to acknowledge the authority of the court, on the ground that he was a subject of France, where he had resided thirty years, and honoured with a commission in the service of his most Christian majesty. Being brought to the bar next day, his former sentence being read over to him, he pleaded that he was not the person therein mentioned; but his identity being clearly established, he was ordered to be executed on the 8th of December. His aunt, Lady Petre, did every thing in her power to save him, or at least to procure a respite till his lady should arrive from Paris, but without success. Some demur seems, however, to have existed, as the preparations for his execution were so long delayed, that the carpenters were obliged to work on the scaffold on Sunday the day before the execution, and all the following night.