The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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With such a force he would be
able to defend that wild country against the whole power of the
kingdom of Scotland. and would also have secured an excellent
base for offensive operations. This seems to have been the wisest
course open to him. Rumbold, who had been trained in an excellent
military school, and who, as an Englishman, might be supposed to
be an impartial umpire between the Scottish factions, did all in
his power to strengthen the Earl's hands. But Hume and Cochrane
were utterly impracticable. Their jealousy of Argyle was, in
truth, stronger than their wish for the success of the
expedition. They saw that, among his own mountains and lakes, and
at the head of an army chiefly composed of his own tribe, he
would be able to bear down their opposition, and to exercise the
full authority of a General. They muttered that the only men who
had the good cause at heart were the Lowlanders, and that the
Campbells took up arms neither for liberty nor for the Church of
God, but for Mac Callum More alone.
Cochrane declared that he would go to Ayrshire if he went by
himself, and with nothing but a pitchfork in his hand. Argyle,
after long resistance, consented, against his better judgment, to
divide his little army. He remained with Rumbold in the
Highlands. Cochrane and Hume were at the head of the force which
sailed to invade the Lowlands.
Ayrshire was Cochrane's object: but the coast of Ayrshire was
guarded by English frigates; and the adventurers were under the
necessity of running up the estuary of the Clyde to Greenock,
then a small fishing village consisting of a single row of
thatched hovels, now a great and flourishing port, of which the
customs amount to more than five times the whole revenue which
the Stuarts derived from the kingdom of Scotland. A party of
militia lay at Greenock: but Cochrane, who wanted provisions, was
determined to land. Hume objected. Cochrane was peremptory, and
ordered an officer, named Elphinstone, to take twenty men in a
boat to the shore. But the wrangling spirit of the leaders had
infected all ranks. Elphinstone answered that he was bound to
obey only reasonable commands, that he considered this command as
unreasonable, and, in short, that he would not go. Major
Fullarton, a brave man, esteemed by all parties, but peculiarly
attached to Argyle, undertook to land with only twelve men, and
did so in spite of a fire from the coast. A slight skirmish
followed. The militia fell back. Cochrane entered Greenock and
procured a supply of meal, but found no disposition to
insurrection among the people.
In fact, the state of public feeling in Scotland was not such as
the exiles, misled by the infatuation common in all ages to
exiles, had supposed it to be. The government was, indeed,
hateful and hated. But the malecontents were divided into parties
which were almost as hostile to one another as to their rulers;
nor was any of those parties eager to join the invaders. Many
thought that the insurrection had no chance of success. The
spirit of many had been effectually broken by long and cruel
oppression. There was, indeed, a class of enthusiasts who were
little in the habit of calculating chances, and whom oppression
had not tamed but maddened. But these men saw little difference
between Argyle and James. Their wrath had been heated to such a
temperature that what everybody else would have called boiling
zeal seemed to them Laodicean lukewarmness. The Earl's past life
had been stained by what they regarded as the vilest apostasy.
The very Highlanders whom he now summoned to extirpate Prelacy he
had a few years before summoned to defend it. And were slaves who
knew nothing and cared nothing about religion, who were ready to
fight for synodical government, for Episcopacy, for Popery, just
as Mac Callum More might be pleased to command, fit allies for
the people of God? The manifesto, indecent and intolerant as was
its tone, was, in the view of these fanatics, a cowardly and
worldly performance. A settlement such as Argyle would have made,
such as was afterwards made by a mightier and happier deliverer,
seemed to them not worth a struggle. They wanted not only freedom
of conscience for themselves, but absolute dominion over the
consciences of others; not only the Presbyterian doctrine,
polity, and worship, but the Covenant in its utmost rigour.
Nothing would content them but that every end for which civil
society exists should be sacrificed to the ascendency of a
theological system. One who believed no form of church government
to be worth a breach of Christian charity, and who recommended
comprehension and toleration, was in their phrase, halting
between Jehovah and Baal. One who condemned such acts as the
murder of Cardinal Beatoun and Archbishop Sharpe fell into the
same sin for which Saul had been rejected from being King over
Israel. All the rules, by which, among civilised and Christian
men, the horrors of war are mitigated, were abominations in the
sight of the Lord. Quarter was to be neither taken nor given. A
Malay running a muck, a mad dog pursued by a crowd, were the
models to be imitated by warriors fighting in just self-defence.
To reasons such as guide the conduct of statesmen and generals
the minds of these zealots were absolutely impervious. That a man
should venture to urge such reasons was sufficient evidence that
he was not one of the faithful. If the divine blessing were
withheld, little would be effected by crafty politicians, by
veteran captains, by cases of arms from Holland, or by regiments
of unregenerate Celts from the mountains of Lorn. If, on the
other hand, the Lord's time were indeed come, he could still, as
of old, cause the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and could save alike by many and by few. The broadswords of
Athol and the bayonets of Claverhouse would be put to rout by
weapons as insignificant as the sling of David or the pitcher of
Gideon.348
Cochrane, having found it impossible to raise the population on
the south of the Clyde, rejoined Argyle, who was in the island of
Bute. The Earl now again proposed to make an attempt upon
Inverary. Again he encountered a pertinacious opposition. The
seamen sided with Hume and Cochrane. The Highlanders were
absolutely at the command of their chieftain. There was reason to
fear that the two parties would come to blows; and the dread of
such a disaster induced the Committee to make some concession.
The castle of Ealan Ghierig, situated at the mouth of Loch
Riddan, was selected to be the chief place of arms. The military
stores were disembarked there. The squadron was moored close to
the walls in a place where it was protected by rocks and shallows
such as, it was thought, no frigate could pass. Outworks were
thrown up. A battery was planted with some small guns taken from
the ships. The command of the fort was most unwisely given to
Elphinstone, who had already proved himself much more disposed to
argue with his commanders than to fight the enemy.
And now, during a few hours, there was some show of vigour.
Rumbold took the castle of Ardkinglass. The Earl skirmished
successfully with Athol's troops, and was about to advance on
Inverary, when alarming news from the ships and factions in the
Committee forced him to turn back. The King's frigates had come
nearer to Ealan Ghierig than had been thought possible. The
Lowland gentlemen positively refused to advance further into the
Highlands. Argyle hastened back to Ealan Ghierig. There he
proposed to make an attack on the frigates. His ships, indeed,
were ill fitted for such an encounter. But they would have been
supported by a flotilla of thirty large fishing boats, each well
manned with armed Highlanders. The Committee, however, refused to
listen to this plan, and effectually counteracted it by raising a
mutiny among the sailors.
All was now confusion and despondency. The provisions had been so
ill managed by the Committee that there was no longer food for
the troops. The Highlanders consequently deserted by hundreds;
and the Earl, brokenhearted by his misfortunes, yielded to the
urgency of those who still pertinaciously insisted that he should
march into the Lowlands.
The little army therefore hastened to the shore of Loch Long,
passed that inlet by night in boats, and landed in
Dumbartonshire. Hither, on the following morning, came news that
the frigates had forced a passage, that all the Earl's ships had
been taken, and that Elphinstone had fled from Ealan Ghierig
without a blow, leaving the castle and stores to the enemy.
All that remained was to invade the Lowlands under every
disadvantage. Argyle resolved to make a bold push for Glasgow.
But, as soon as this resolution was announced, the very men, who
had, up to that moment, been urging him to hasten into the low
country, took fright, argued, remonstrated, and when argument and
remonstrance proved vain, laid a scheme for seizing the boats,
making their own escape, and leaving their General and his
clansmen to conquer or perish unaided. This scheme failed; and
the poltroons who had formed it were compelled to share with
braver men the risks of the last venture.
During the march through the country which lies between Loch Long
and Loch Lomond, the insurgents were constantly infested by
parties of militia. Some skirmishes took place, in which the Earl
had the advantage; but the bands which he repelled, falling back
before him, spread the tidings of his approach, and, soon after
he had crossed the river Leven, he found a strong body of regular
and irregular troops prepared to encounter him.
He was for giving battle. Ayloffe was of the same opinion. Hume,
on the other hand, declared that to fight would be madness. He
saw one regiment in scarlet. More might be behind. To attack such
a force was to rush on certain death The best course was to
remain quiet till night, and then to give the enemy the slip.
A sharp altercation followed, which was with difficulty quieted
by the mediation of Rumbold. It was now evening. The hostile
armies encamped at no great distance from each other. The Earl
ventured to propose a night attack, and was again overruled.
Since it was determined not to fight, nothing was left but to
take the step which Hume had recommended. There was a chance
that, by decamping secretly, and hastening all night across
heaths and morasses, the Earl might gain many miles on the enemy,
and might reach Glasgow without further obstruction. The watch
fires were left burning; and the march began. And now disaster
followed disaster fast. The guides mistook the track
able to defend that wild country against the whole power of the
kingdom of Scotland. and would also have secured an excellent
base for offensive operations. This seems to have been the wisest
course open to him. Rumbold, who had been trained in an excellent
military school, and who, as an Englishman, might be supposed to
be an impartial umpire between the Scottish factions, did all in
his power to strengthen the Earl's hands. But Hume and Cochrane
were utterly impracticable. Their jealousy of Argyle was, in
truth, stronger than their wish for the success of the
expedition. They saw that, among his own mountains and lakes, and
at the head of an army chiefly composed of his own tribe, he
would be able to bear down their opposition, and to exercise the
full authority of a General. They muttered that the only men who
had the good cause at heart were the Lowlanders, and that the
Campbells took up arms neither for liberty nor for the Church of
God, but for Mac Callum More alone.
Cochrane declared that he would go to Ayrshire if he went by
himself, and with nothing but a pitchfork in his hand. Argyle,
after long resistance, consented, against his better judgment, to
divide his little army. He remained with Rumbold in the
Highlands. Cochrane and Hume were at the head of the force which
sailed to invade the Lowlands.
Ayrshire was Cochrane's object: but the coast of Ayrshire was
guarded by English frigates; and the adventurers were under the
necessity of running up the estuary of the Clyde to Greenock,
then a small fishing village consisting of a single row of
thatched hovels, now a great and flourishing port, of which the
customs amount to more than five times the whole revenue which
the Stuarts derived from the kingdom of Scotland. A party of
militia lay at Greenock: but Cochrane, who wanted provisions, was
determined to land. Hume objected. Cochrane was peremptory, and
ordered an officer, named Elphinstone, to take twenty men in a
boat to the shore. But the wrangling spirit of the leaders had
infected all ranks. Elphinstone answered that he was bound to
obey only reasonable commands, that he considered this command as
unreasonable, and, in short, that he would not go. Major
Fullarton, a brave man, esteemed by all parties, but peculiarly
attached to Argyle, undertook to land with only twelve men, and
did so in spite of a fire from the coast. A slight skirmish
followed. The militia fell back. Cochrane entered Greenock and
procured a supply of meal, but found no disposition to
insurrection among the people.
In fact, the state of public feeling in Scotland was not such as
the exiles, misled by the infatuation common in all ages to
exiles, had supposed it to be. The government was, indeed,
hateful and hated. But the malecontents were divided into parties
which were almost as hostile to one another as to their rulers;
nor was any of those parties eager to join the invaders. Many
thought that the insurrection had no chance of success. The
spirit of many had been effectually broken by long and cruel
oppression. There was, indeed, a class of enthusiasts who were
little in the habit of calculating chances, and whom oppression
had not tamed but maddened. But these men saw little difference
between Argyle and James. Their wrath had been heated to such a
temperature that what everybody else would have called boiling
zeal seemed to them Laodicean lukewarmness. The Earl's past life
had been stained by what they regarded as the vilest apostasy.
The very Highlanders whom he now summoned to extirpate Prelacy he
had a few years before summoned to defend it. And were slaves who
knew nothing and cared nothing about religion, who were ready to
fight for synodical government, for Episcopacy, for Popery, just
as Mac Callum More might be pleased to command, fit allies for
the people of God? The manifesto, indecent and intolerant as was
its tone, was, in the view of these fanatics, a cowardly and
worldly performance. A settlement such as Argyle would have made,
such as was afterwards made by a mightier and happier deliverer,
seemed to them not worth a struggle. They wanted not only freedom
of conscience for themselves, but absolute dominion over the
consciences of others; not only the Presbyterian doctrine,
polity, and worship, but the Covenant in its utmost rigour.
Nothing would content them but that every end for which civil
society exists should be sacrificed to the ascendency of a
theological system. One who believed no form of church government
to be worth a breach of Christian charity, and who recommended
comprehension and toleration, was in their phrase, halting
between Jehovah and Baal. One who condemned such acts as the
murder of Cardinal Beatoun and Archbishop Sharpe fell into the
same sin for which Saul had been rejected from being King over
Israel. All the rules, by which, among civilised and Christian
men, the horrors of war are mitigated, were abominations in the
sight of the Lord. Quarter was to be neither taken nor given. A
Malay running a muck, a mad dog pursued by a crowd, were the
models to be imitated by warriors fighting in just self-defence.
To reasons such as guide the conduct of statesmen and generals
the minds of these zealots were absolutely impervious. That a man
should venture to urge such reasons was sufficient evidence that
he was not one of the faithful. If the divine blessing were
withheld, little would be effected by crafty politicians, by
veteran captains, by cases of arms from Holland, or by regiments
of unregenerate Celts from the mountains of Lorn. If, on the
other hand, the Lord's time were indeed come, he could still, as
of old, cause the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and could save alike by many and by few. The broadswords of
Athol and the bayonets of Claverhouse would be put to rout by
weapons as insignificant as the sling of David or the pitcher of
Gideon.348
Cochrane, having found it impossible to raise the population on
the south of the Clyde, rejoined Argyle, who was in the island of
Bute. The Earl now again proposed to make an attempt upon
Inverary. Again he encountered a pertinacious opposition. The
seamen sided with Hume and Cochrane. The Highlanders were
absolutely at the command of their chieftain. There was reason to
fear that the two parties would come to blows; and the dread of
such a disaster induced the Committee to make some concession.
The castle of Ealan Ghierig, situated at the mouth of Loch
Riddan, was selected to be the chief place of arms. The military
stores were disembarked there. The squadron was moored close to
the walls in a place where it was protected by rocks and shallows
such as, it was thought, no frigate could pass. Outworks were
thrown up. A battery was planted with some small guns taken from
the ships. The command of the fort was most unwisely given to
Elphinstone, who had already proved himself much more disposed to
argue with his commanders than to fight the enemy.
And now, during a few hours, there was some show of vigour.
Rumbold took the castle of Ardkinglass. The Earl skirmished
successfully with Athol's troops, and was about to advance on
Inverary, when alarming news from the ships and factions in the
Committee forced him to turn back. The King's frigates had come
nearer to Ealan Ghierig than had been thought possible. The
Lowland gentlemen positively refused to advance further into the
Highlands. Argyle hastened back to Ealan Ghierig. There he
proposed to make an attack on the frigates. His ships, indeed,
were ill fitted for such an encounter. But they would have been
supported by a flotilla of thirty large fishing boats, each well
manned with armed Highlanders. The Committee, however, refused to
listen to this plan, and effectually counteracted it by raising a
mutiny among the sailors.
All was now confusion and despondency. The provisions had been so
ill managed by the Committee that there was no longer food for
the troops. The Highlanders consequently deserted by hundreds;
and the Earl, brokenhearted by his misfortunes, yielded to the
urgency of those who still pertinaciously insisted that he should
march into the Lowlands.
The little army therefore hastened to the shore of Loch Long,
passed that inlet by night in boats, and landed in
Dumbartonshire. Hither, on the following morning, came news that
the frigates had forced a passage, that all the Earl's ships had
been taken, and that Elphinstone had fled from Ealan Ghierig
without a blow, leaving the castle and stores to the enemy.
All that remained was to invade the Lowlands under every
disadvantage. Argyle resolved to make a bold push for Glasgow.
But, as soon as this resolution was announced, the very men, who
had, up to that moment, been urging him to hasten into the low
country, took fright, argued, remonstrated, and when argument and
remonstrance proved vain, laid a scheme for seizing the boats,
making their own escape, and leaving their General and his
clansmen to conquer or perish unaided. This scheme failed; and
the poltroons who had formed it were compelled to share with
braver men the risks of the last venture.
During the march through the country which lies between Loch Long
and Loch Lomond, the insurgents were constantly infested by
parties of militia. Some skirmishes took place, in which the Earl
had the advantage; but the bands which he repelled, falling back
before him, spread the tidings of his approach, and, soon after
he had crossed the river Leven, he found a strong body of regular
and irregular troops prepared to encounter him.
He was for giving battle. Ayloffe was of the same opinion. Hume,
on the other hand, declared that to fight would be madness. He
saw one regiment in scarlet. More might be behind. To attack such
a force was to rush on certain death The best course was to
remain quiet till night, and then to give the enemy the slip.
A sharp altercation followed, which was with difficulty quieted
by the mediation of Rumbold. It was now evening. The hostile
armies encamped at no great distance from each other. The Earl
ventured to propose a night attack, and was again overruled.
Since it was determined not to fight, nothing was left but to
take the step which Hume had recommended. There was a chance
that, by decamping secretly, and hastening all night across
heaths and morasses, the Earl might gain many miles on the enemy,
and might reach Glasgow without further obstruction. The watch
fires were left burning; and the march began. And now disaster
followed disaster fast. The guides mistook the track
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