then removed to a very romantic habitation, made for him by Cluny, two miles farther into Benalder, called the Cage, which was a great curiosity, and can scarcely be described to perfection. It was situated in the face of a very rough, high and rocky mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. The habitation called the Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within a small thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees laid down, in order to level a floor for the habitation; and, as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with the other; and these trees, in the of joists or planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath and birchtwigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round, or rather of an oval shape, and the whole thatched and covered over with fog.

way

fabric hung, as it were, by a large

This whole

tree, which

reclined from the one end, all along the roof to the other, and which gave it the name of the

Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones, at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the face of the rock, which was so much of the same colour, that one could discover no difference in the clearest day. The Cage was no larger than to contain six or seven persons, four of whom were frequently employed playing at cards, one idle looking on, one baking, and another firing bread and cooking."

In this singular retreat, Charles remained in comparative comfort till the 24th of September, when he received intelligence from Glenaladale, that two French frigates, the Conti, of 20 guns, and the Heureux, of 30 guns, under the command of Colonel Warren, of Dillon's regiment, had put into Lochnanuagh, having been sent by the French government for the purpose of facilitating the escape of the Prince and his friends. Charles took immediate measures to communicate this good news to as many of his adherents as lay concealed in that part of the country, and of whose hiding-places he was informed. He set off without loss of time, but, as he only travelled by

night, he reached Borodale, near Lochnanuagh, only on the 30th, and embarked, on the following day, with Lochiel, Barisdale, Lochgary, Colonel Roy Stuart, and about a hundred more of his late followers.

The crew of the French vessels, during the sixteen days that they had been searching about the coast, to obtain some news of the Prince, had taken three English soldiers belonging to the different parties that were hunting through every corner of the country, in the hope of earning the promised reward set upon his life. Charles, however, true to the character he had maintained throughout the whole momentous struggle, had no sooner set foot on the deck of the Heureux, than, as a first favour, he requested that these three prisoners might be set on shore. The request, it may easily be guessed, was immediately complied with. In the hands of Cluny he left a paper, in which he acknowledged the fidelity and attachment displayed to him by that chief and his clan, in his endeavours to maintain those rights which the Elector of Hanover had usurped. Charles deplores, in this document, the sufferings and losses endured by his friends for his sake, and promises, should God

extend to him the power, to recompense and indemnify them by every means within his reach.

Though now under the protection of the French flag, Charles could hardly be said to have escaped all danger of falling into the hands of his enemies. The English fleet, off the coast of Scotland, had, indeed, been dispersed by a storm, a circumstance to which alone it had been owing that the two French vessels had been able to make so long a stay at Lochnanuagh, and the Heureux was now running before a fair wind, along the Irish coast, on her way to France; but the sea was swarming with British cruizers, and it seemed scarcely probable to avoid falling in with some of them. The frigate that bore him, however, deserved her name, and, favoured by foggy weather, reached France in safety. A contrary wind prevented her from making Brest, but one French port was as good for her purpose as another, and, on the 10th of October, 1746, a year ever memorable in the annals of the house of Stuart, Charles landed, with his friends, at Roscof, near Morlaix, in Bretagne.

CHAPTER XXVI.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PRINCE'S EXPEDITION
TO SCOTLAND.

BEFORE We accompany to the luxurious court of Louis XV. the Prince whom we have so recently seen, condemned to every species of privation, and rejoicing over his escape from hunger in the Cage of Latternilichk, it may not be superfluous to devote a few moments to a calm consideration of his fate during the terrible months that preceded his embarkation for France. No narrative could be made to embrace a full detail of all his sufferings during that period, but enough has reached us to place his character in a strong light, too much to allow his biographer to pass over in silence a multitude of calumnies of which Charles subsequently became the object, and to which his conduct during his wanderings