Feminine Courage and Resource.
The plan adopted, and successfully carried out, for the escape of the Pretender from Benbecula to Skye was this: Our heroine, having expressed a strong desire to visit her mother, then living in Skye, procured a passport for herself and two servants from her stepfather, Captain Hugh Macdonald, who, though in command of a body of the King's militia on Benbecula, shared the general compassion for the beaten Prince, and the general desire that he might escape with his life. One of these servants was Neil Macdonald, a faithful, intelligent, and pretty well educated youth, who had spent several years in Paris, and, therefore, spoke French fluently, and who, after the adventures with which we are here concerned, followed the Pretender to France, and became the father of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, one of Napoleon's great generals. The other, ostensibly an awkward and overgrown Irish girl, was in reality Prince Charles himself. With the principal member of the party thus disguised, and armed with the passport for use in case of need, these three, with a picked boat crew of six, set out on a dark night when the rain was falling in torrents, and, after an exceedingly tempestuous and perilous voyage, arrived safely in Skye, where the coolness, courage and resourcefulness of Flora Macdonald baffled the King's officers, overcame all difficulties, and eventually accomplished the desired end of getting the Pretender to the mainland, whence, after three months more of severe hardships, he got aboard of a French vessel, and so reached the continent. That he was utterly unworthy of the great service rendered him, is clearly shown by the fact, that though he lived for more than forty-two years after he parted with her on the beach of Portree, he never acknowledged, by letter or otherwise, the dangers to which she exposed herself in order to save his life. At his death his body was appropriately laid in St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome with the rest of his Romish kindred.
Flora Macdonald as Prisoner.
Flora Macdonald's part in the escape of the young Pretender could not long be concealed. As soon as it became known she was arrested, and taken on board one of the King's vessels, and by General Campbell sent to Dunstaffnage Castle, on Loch Etive, his note to the governor of the castle referring to her as "a very pretty young rebel." After ten days of imprisonment there, she was taken to Leith, the port of Edinburgh, and placed on board the Bridgewater, where she was detained for nearly three months, being lionized the while by the aristocracy and professional men of the Scottish metropolis in a way that would have turned a weaker head. An Episcopal clergyman of the place wrote of her as follows:
"Although she was easy and cheerful, yet she had a certain mixture of gravity in all her behavior, which became her situation exceedingly well, and set her off to great advantage. She is of a low stature, of a fair complexion, and well enough shaped. One would not discern by her conversation that she had spent all her former days in the Highlands, for she talks English easily, and not at all through the Erse tone. She has a sweet voice, and sings well; and no lady, Edinburgh-bred, can acquit herself better at the tea-table, than what she did when in Leith Roads. Her wise conduct, in one of the most perplexing scenes that can happen in life—her fortitude and good sense—are memorable instances of the strength of a female mind, even in those years that are tender and inexperienced."
In November, 1746, the Bridgewater sailed, with our heroine and others, to London, where they were to stand trial on charges of treason. Her popularity, however, was so great, and public sentiment so strongly opposed to the infliction of any stern penalty upon a young and attractive woman for the performance of a self-sacrificing act of humanity, that, after a short confinement in the gloomy Tower of London, whose walls have enclosed so many heavy hearts in the course of the centuries, she was turned over to friends, who became responsible to the government for her appearance when demanded, and, after remaining a state prisoner in this mitigated manner for some twelve months, she was set at liberty, under the Act of Indemnity of 1747. The first use she made of her freedom was to solicit as a special favor that her fellow-prisoners from the Isles should be given the same liberty as herself, and the request was granted, one of those thus released being her future father-in-law, Macdonald of Kingsburgh.
Her Marriage.
Some three years after her return to her native islands, she was married, in 1750, to Allan Macdonald. Boswell, in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, thus describes the man to whom our heroine yielded her heart and hand:
"He was completely the figure of a gallant Highlander, exhibiting the graceful mien and manly looks which our popular Scotch song has justly attributed to that character. He had his tartan plaid thrown around him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade, a brown short coat, a tartan waistcoat with gold buttons, a bluish philibeg, and tartan hose. He had jet-black hair, tied behind, and was a large, stately man, with a steady, sensible countenance."
She Entertains Dr. Johnson and Boswell.