J. Pringle Thomson

“ The Duke's artillery kept still playing, though not a soul upon the field. His army was kept together, all but the horse. The great pursuit was upon the road towards Inverness. Of towards six thousand men, which the Prince's army at this period consisted of, about one thousand were asleep in Culloden parks, who knew nothing of the action till awaked by the noise of the cannon. These in general endeavoured to save themselves by taking the road towards Inverness; and most of them fell a sacrifice to the victors, for this road was in general strewed with dead bodies. ”

“ Is it possible that a man can see his daughter, his grandchildren, his nephews, or cousins, reduced to beggary and starving unnecessarily by a Government, without thinking very ill of it; and where this is the case of a whole nation, I tremble to think what dissatisfactions it will produce against a settlement so necessary for the happiness of Britain.
If all the rebels, with their wives, children, and immediate dependants, could be at once rooted out of the earth, the shock would be astonishing ”

“ The morning was fine, and the day was ushering in apace; it required but little time to deliberate, and finding it impossible to attack the Duke by surprise, it was judged expedient, for the safety of the army, to give up the enterprise, and return to the field of Culloden. Thus were our hopes disappointed. We saw, as it were before us, the glorious prize; but we durst not encounter it, for there is almost a moral certainty that we should have been cut off to a man. The enemy was early in motion, must have seen us at a considerable distance, and received us upon the points of their bayonets. ”

“ Thus that unhappy Prince, entirely a stranger to his own affairs, as much as he had dropt out of another world, or from the clouds, as things stood, was brought in eminent danger of his life, without its being possible that it could have any other effect but that of the certain ruin of his friends, and driving the nail to the head, and riveting the misery of those who had so generously sacrificed all to serve him. ”

“ The revolution in England was brought about by a coalition [5] of whigs and tories; but, in Scotland, by the whigs almost alone. Hence, the Scottish convention, instead of amusing themselves with school disputes about words, which, while they discovered the fine lines of party in England, had embarrassed the English convention, struck their blow without ceremony, and came to a resolution, that King James had, by his evil deeds, forfaulted his right to the crown; a term which, in the language of the law of Scotland, involved in it the exclusion of all his posterity as well as his own. ”

“ The left, when pretty near the enemy, finding themselves outwinged, made a motion to front the artillery, which occasioned a gap in the centre, but marching up briskly, they received one fire of the cannon, which did little hurt, and then receiving a fire from the foot, they gave a loud huzza, returning the fire, upon which Gairdner's dragoons run off, and the Highlanders, throwing away their muskets, attacked the foot with incredible impetuosity, who immediately gave ground. ”

“ It cannot but be remarked, that, when Locheil saw five men approaching under arms, being the Prince, Lochgary, Dr. Cameron, and two servants, taking the five men to be of the army or militia, which lay encamped not above four or five miles from them, and were probably in search of them; as it was in vain to think of flying, Locheil at the time being quite lame, and not in any condition to travel, much less to run away; it was resolved that the enemy, as they judged them to be, should be received with a general discharge of all the arms; in number twelve firelocks and some pistols.... ”

“ The spinning-wheels, both for woollen and linnen, are always going in most houses; and a gentleman of a good estate is not ashamed to wear a suit of cloaths of his lady's and servants' spinning. They make a great deal of linnen all over the Kingdom, not only for their own use, but export it to England, and to the Plantations. In short, the women are all kept employed, from the highest to the lowest of them. ”

“ I was much affected at this sight, and the more when she had occasion to mention her people of Scotland, which she did frequently to the Duke. What are you, poor meanlike Mortal, thought I, who talks in the style of a Soveraign? Nature seems to be inverted when a poor infirm Woman becomes one of the Rulers of the World, but, as Tacitus observes, it is not the first time that Women have governed in Britain, and indeed they have sometimes done this to better purpose than the Men. ”

“ Night coming on—and not sooner could the army begin its march, to prevent the country people from being alarmed, or any intelligence being carried to the enemy,—part of our numbers, weak as we were, was under a necessity of being left on the field, in order to save appearances, and light up fires, as had been done the preceding evening, and to prevent stragglers, if any there were, forming unnecessary conjectures. ”

“ As this was a plain breach of the Union, in so far as it expressly stipulated that there shall be an equality of taxes and premiums on trade, every Scots man was highly enraged at it, for as it was evident that the want of the premiums would effectively stop the exportation of grain, which would thereby become a mere drug, no body could foresee to what height this precedent of taxing Scotland separately from England might afterwards be extended. ”

“ In answer to this, the Scotch pretended, that the natives of Darien were never conquered by the Spaniards, and were by consequence a free people; they said, they had purchased of them leave to possess themselves of that place, and that the Spaniards abandoned the country, because they could not [25] reduce the natives: so the pretension of the first discovery was made void, when they went off from it, not being able to hold it; and then the natives being left to themselves, it was lawful for the Scots to treat with them: it was given out, that there was much gold in the country. ”

“ Instantly the clamour rose, and crowds of people ran about the streets crying out, that it was madness to think of resistance, since the dragoons were fled; and some of them meeting Provost Stuart, as he returned from the West Port (where he had gone to give orders after the retreat of the dragoons) , followed him to the Parliament Square, beseeching him not to persist in defending the town, for if he did they should all be murdered. The Provost reprimanded them; and went to the Goldsmiths' Hall, where the Magistrates and Town Council were assembled, with a good many of the inhabitants. ”

“ But the men here are not so usefully employed as in England: There the production of every county is improved by joint-stocks amongst the inhabitants of the several counties. Iron-works, lead-works, manufactories, and every thing else that may conduce to the common welfare of the nation, are set on foot, and carried on. But here, altho their rivers plentifully abound with salmon for exportation, their coasts with white fish and herrings, more than any other in Europe; yet the gentry, or landed men, never concern themselves about it, as a thing below them ”

“ There was a Captain Porteous, who by his good behaviour in the army had obtained a subaltern's commission, and had afterwards, when on half-pay, been preferred to the command of the City Guard. This man, by his skill in manly exercises, particularly the golf, and by gentlemanly behaviour, was admitted into the company of his superiors, which elated his mind, and added insolence to his native roughness, so that he was much feared and hated by the mob of Edinburgh. ”

“ When the Prince join'd the body of the army a Council of War was held, in which it was debated whether the army should march in a body to Inverness by Aberdeen or take the Highland road, by which the chiefs could, with the greater ease, get such of their men to rejoin them as had gone home with plunder after the battle of Falkirk, which would considerably increase their army. The low-country men were of the former opinion, the Highlanders of the latter. ”

“ But when it was understood in Scotland that the King had disowned the act for the East India company, from which it was expected that great riches should flow into that Kingdom, [22] it is not easy to conceive how great and how general an indignation was spread over the whole kingdom: the Jacobites saw what a game it was like to prove in their hands ”

“ Half way up this street stands St. Giles's Church, the ancient cathedral of this city, in the form of a cross; but since the Reformation it is turned into four convenient churches, by partitions, called the High-Kirk, the Old-Kirk, the Tolbooth-Kirk, and Haddock's Hole. A-top of this church is erected a large open cupola, in the shape of an imperial crown, that is a great ornament to the city, and seen at a great distance. King David erected a copy after this over St. Nicholas's Church in Newcastle, but it does not near come up to it. ”

“ From an excess of zeal which betrayed the cause of it, the Duke of Hamilton demeaned himself to act the part of a clerk; reading, at the ordinary place of proclamation, the act of convention aloud to the mean multitude, who found even their own vanity hurt in the sacrifice which was made to it by the first man in the nation. ”

“ The High-Street of Edinburgh, running by an easy ascent from the Netherbow to the Castle, a good half mile, is doubtless the stateliest street in the world, being broad enough for five coaches to drive up abreast; and the houses on each side are proportionately high to the broadness of the street ”

“ The convention next made offer of the crown to William and Mary: a vote in which the Duke of Queensberry and the Marquis of Athole concurred, although they had refused to be present at the other. They reconciled their conduct by saying, "That, since the throne was declared vacant by the nation, they knew none so worthy to fill it as the Prince and Princess of Orange"—a mixture of sentiment, intended to please both Kings, but which, like most compliments of the kind, pleased neither. ”

“ A meeting of the heritors of the shire of Edinburgh was called, where I presented an address to the House of Commons, which being heartily approved of, was signed and next day sent up by an express to London....
These warm addresses and instructions did not a little startle the Scots members of Parliament, and even the Ministry; and there were likewise many private letters written to them by their friends, assuring them of the highest resentment if they did not perform what was desired and expected of them. ”

“ These demonstrations of joy, amongst people of condition, were chiefly confined to one sex; few gentlemen were to be seen on the streets, or in the windows; and even amongst the inferior people, many shewed their dislike by a stubborn silence. ”

“ At the same time that we began our march Lord John Drummond with most of the horse had gone to reconnoitre the enemy, and made a movement as if he intended to march by the high way through the Tor wood close up to them, and this might occasion what some accounts tell us of General Hawley's perceiving a body of the Highlanders in the Tor wood, took this appearance to be our whole army, and finding they did not advance, allowed his troops to dine in their camp. ”

“ When the Nether Bow port was opened to let out the coach, 800 Highlanders, led by Cameron of Locheil, rushed in and took possession of the city.
It was about five o'clock in the morning when the rebels entered Edinburgh. They immediately sent parties to all the other gates, and to the town guard, who making the soldiers upon duty prisoners, occupied their posts as quietly as one guard relieves another. When the inhabitants of Edinburgh awakened in the morning, they found that the Highlanders were masters of the city. ”