Robert Forbes

“ Christian, suffering spirit may ever be in all my dear children; praying that they may have the grace to tread the same dangerous steps which have led me to this place, and may also have the courage and constancy to endure to the end and despise human power when it stands oppos'd to duty.
I pray God of his great mercy and goodness that he would be pleased to pour down the choicest of his blessings upon the sacred head of his Majesty, King James the Third, and his royal sons, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York ”

“ For this we have not only the royal promise of the King himself (than which a reasonable people cannot desire a greater security) but we have also the word of a young Prince who is too great and good to stoop to a falsity or to impose upon any people—a Prince blessed with all the qualities which can adorn a throne, and who may challenge his keenest enemies to impute to him any vice which can blacken his character, whom to serve is a duty and a pleasure, and to die for an honour. ”

“ For which glorious and noble ends, Do Thou, O God Almighty! by Thy Holy Spirit, turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, the hearts of parents to their children, of children to their parents, the hearts of priests and kings to their people, of people to their kings and priests, the hearts of all to one another and all together unto Thee, their God, thro' Jesus Christ! ”

“ You must come along with me quickly.' When Kingsburgh came to the door and saw ten or 12 sogers with screwed bayonets waiting to receive him, he did not like that piece of ceremony at all. They had not gone many paces from Sir Alexander's lodgings till they met Lord Albemarle running himself out of breath, foaming at the mouth, and crying out, 'Have ye got the villain? Have ye got the villain?' Kingsburgh mildly answered, 'O why all this hurry? Where is the man that will refuse freedom when it is offered him? ”

“ It does not agree with the Prince's former lenity at the battles of Gladesmuir and Falkirk.
I leave the impartial world to judge of this brave Prince's character from his actions, which would require one of the greatest hands to do justice to it.
O my countrymen! Consider the woeful situation you are in. In short, all that ever your forefathers fought for is gone. You have nothing you can depend upon, burthened with debt, ruined with a standing army. ”

“ I know, my Lord, you feel a sensible pleasure beyond many in the world in conversing with worthies, men of rigid virtue and integrity, and such indeed this man is.
Know then, my Lord, that this will be put into your hands by the renowned Scots Palinurus, Donald MacLeod, tenant at Gualtergill, in the Isle of Sky, that most faithfull and honest steersman of the eight-oar'd boat from the continent to the Isles of Benbicula, South Uist, Lewis, etc., etc., etc., and who had the Prince among his hands for about ten weeks after the battle of Culloden. ”

“ If they would reflect upon the calamities, the massacres, the desolation of Scotland, which presage the destruction of this already more than half-ruined country, surely they would find but little cause to be pleased with their situation—a situation so extremely distant from honour and happiness that it would be uncharitable and misbecoming a dying man to wish even his most inveterate enemies to continue in it, and which I therefore pray God, of his infinite mercy, to deliver all Englishmen from. ”

“ I farther acknowledge and humbly adore the justice of God's holy providence, the sovereign disposer of all things, in permitting the execution of the sentence of death against me, confiding that He of his mercy and goodness, through the blood and mediation of his dear and only Son, will accept of this my suffering in the cause of truth and righteousness, and reward it with the joys of his eternal kingdom. ”

“ The deluded and infatuated vulgar will no doubt brand my death with all the infamy that ignorance and prejudice can suggest. But the thinking few who have not quite forsaken their duty to God and their king, will I am persuaded look upon it as being little inferiour to martyrdom itself, for I am just going to fall a sacrifice to the resentment and revenge of the Elector [23] of Hanover and all those unhappy miscreants who have openly espoused the cause of a foreign German usurper and withdrawn their allegiance from their only rightful, lawful and native sovereign, King James the 3d. ”

“ The poor men's pay and their low prospects are not sufficient to corrupt their natural principles of justice and honesty, which is not the case with their officers, who, incited by their own ambition and false notions of honour, fought more desperately. I asked one of them, who is my prisoner (a gallant man) why he would fight against his lawful prince, and one who was come to rescue his country from a foreign yoke. He said he was a man of honour, and would be true to the Prince, whose bread he ate, and whose commission he bore. ”

“ I say, Down on your knees all England and, after praise to God who gives victory, pray for the young British hero, for had he been at Falkirk these brave Englishmen that are now in their graves had not been lost, his presence doing more than five thousand men; and every man stands an equal chance for his life without partiality ”

“ Captain O'Neil was wont to tell those who visited him in the Castle of Edinburgh that he had been at the same pains as a parent would be with a child to lay down rules to Miss MacDonald for her future behaviour under the misfortune of being a prisoner, and that it gave him infinite pleasure to find that things had happened to her hitherto according to his words, and to hear by all the accounts he could learn that she had sacredly observed the advices he had given her. ”

“ As I have the honour to die a Major in our King's service, I am hopeful, if my dear child deserves it, he will succeed me at least in the same office, and serve his Prince with the same honour, integrity and faithfulness I have all along endeavoured, to which his royal highness is no stranger. ”

“ That the sufferings of this present life are but short and light compar'd with those extreme and endless miseries which we have deserved, and with that exceeding weight of glory which we hope for in the other world, if we be careful to make the best preparations for death and eternity. Whatever hardships and afflictions we suffer for our attachment to truth and righteousness bring us nearer to our everlasting happiness, and how rugged soever the way may [fol. 5.] be, the comfort is that it leads to our Father's house where we shall want nothing that we can wish for. ”

“ British Councils since the Usurper's accession have had foreign interest their constant object, and the power and finances of the imperial crown of Great Britain have been betrayed, prostituted, and squandered for the convenience and support of the meanest Electorate in Germany; and the Elector's conduct has been more destructive and detrimental to our country than all the finesse, treachery and force that the French or any other adversary's council and power could have attempted or effected. Land armies only can sustain and cover dominions on the Continent. ”

“ MacDonald looking Ferguson broad in the face said, 'If Captain Ferguson is to be my judge, then God have mercy upon my soul.' Ferguson asked for what reason she spoke such words. 'Why, Sir,' said she, 'the world belies you if you be not a very cruel, hard-hearted man; and indeed I do not like to come through your hands.' Ferguson had nothing else to say for himself but the common saying, viz., That people should not believe all that the world says. ”

“ If you repent you must make the constitution just reparation; which can only be done by calling in your lawful king, James the Third, who has justice to attempt and wisdom to compleat a thorough reformation in the constitution and to fix it in its pristine happy state ”

“ One day coursing up and down upon Loch Boisdale Donald MacLeod asked the Prince if he were once come to his own what he would do with Sir Alexander MacDonald and the Laird of MacLeod for their behaviour. 'O Donald,' said the Prince, 'what would you have me to do with them? Are they not our own people still, let them do what they will? It is not their fault for what they have done. It is altogether owing to the power that President Forbes had over their judgment in these matters. ”

“ Alexander MacLeod, aid-de-camp, and stayed with him till the indemnity came out, when he left his master and returned to Edinburgh, where he follows his old business.
Ned told me that Donald MacLeod, all the time he was with the Prince, sat at the helm and steered the course, and that they had neither compass, lamp, nor pump in the great storm from the mainland to Benbicula, not knowing, through the darkness and tempest, where they were, or what land they might make; and therefore they behoved to let the boat drive and trust all to Providence, for they could do nothing for themselves. ”

“ When in sight of Stornway the Prince sent the guide to Donald MacLeod to inform him that he and the two captains were at such a place, desiring withal that he would forthwith send them a bottle of brandy and some bread and cheese, for that they stood much in need of a little refreshment. Donald immediately obeyed the summons and came to the Prince, bringing along with him the demanded provisions. He found the Prince and his two attendants upon a muir all wet to the skin, and wearied enough with such a long journey through the worst of roads in the world. ”

“ This reaching the ears of those in power it proved not a little disgusting to them to hear such things as served to form a great and glorious character of the Prince, and therefore Kingsburgh behoved to suffer for narrating some stubborn, ill-manner'd truths, and to feel the effects of being a plain, honest man. Truth, tho' never so glaring, when it runs cross to the partial notions and inclinations of poor frail mortals, grates very hard and becomes a very uneasy and painful thing. ”

“ Prince's and not your country's which raised you, and pays you to serve and defend it against foreigners, who came not now to defend but to enslave it, for that I have always understood to be the true principle of a Whig. Have you not heard how your countrymen have been carried abroad to be insulted and maltreated by those defenders, and to be butchered, fighting in a quarrel in which your country has little or no concern, only to aggrandize Hanover?' To this he made no answer, but looked sullen and hung down his head. The truth is there are few good officers among them. ”

“ The fulness of time is almost at hand, even at the door, when the Almighty I AM, with my Prince under the shadow of his wings, will pour out the vials of his wrath, fury and indignation on that cursed, perjured and abandoned people, on this guilty, perverse, wicked and adulterous generation. ”

“ They had not well left the shore till the wind blew a hard gale, and the sea became so very rough and tempestuous that all on board begged he would return; for the waves were beating over and over them, the men tugging hard at the oars, and Captain MacLeod laving the water out of the little boat. The Prince would by no means hear of returning, and to divert the men from thinking on the danger he sung them a merry Highland song. About nine or ten o'clock the same night they landed at a place in Sky called Nicolson's Rock, near Scorobreck, in Troternish. ”

“ But if Englishmen would seriously consider that those who [31] make the most noise about Popery are remarkably void of any religion at all, and dissolute in their morals; that Atheism, infidelity, profaneness and debauchery are openly avowed and practised even within the walls of that very Court whence they derive all their fancied religious and civil liberties. If they would reflect (when they talk of French influence) that they seek protection from a German Usurper, who is hourly aggrandizing himself and raising his foreign dominions upon the ruines of the deluded people of England. ”

“ Such honest, plain persons as these allow the world to rub on as it pleases, and never once trouble their heads about making observations and remarks upon the occurrences of life as they pass along. If they jog on from day to day they ask no more, and are very much strangers to the exercises of the memory. Besides, honest, plain, rough Ned had never entertained a notion that any journal or account would ever be asked of him, or else perhaps he would have stored his memory with a more plentiful stock, as he had abundance of materials to work upon. ”

“ And I hereby declare I had rather suffer any death the law can inflict. I deem death infinitely preferable to a life of infamy. But the death I suffer for my King gives me vast consolation and honour that I am thought worthy of it. ”

“ What is it but to wear coarse cloaths, to feed on plain and simple fare, to work and take some pains, to sit or goe in a lower place, to have few friends and not one flatterer? And what great harm in this? If I had time to compare it with the many dangers and temptations to which wealth is expos'd,—pray consider that poverty is a state which many have born with great chearfulness. Many wise men have voluntarily embrac'd it. ”

“ May He preserve you all in health, peace, and safety, and, above all, in mutual love to one another. May He pour down upon you His spiritual blessings, and vouchsafe you also such a measure of temporal blessings as He sees most convenient for you. May He of His infinite mercy let you want nothing either for life or for godliness. ”

“ May Almighty God bless all of them both in their temporal and spiritual concerns, and of His infinite goodness reward them for their love and kindness, their attachment and concern for me in the several difficulties I have undergone! May the same God in His due time afford them authoriz'd guides to perform Divine offices amongst them, to administer to them the means of grace and bread of life, that they may be no longer as sheep without a shepherd. ”

“ May God be pleased to bless this land and to open the eyes of the people that they may discern their duty and true interest, and assist in restoring their only natural King to his indisputable and just right! God bless and prosper him, and guide him in all his undertakings! ”