seized his horse by the bridle, and forced him from the fatal field.*

The remnant of the army, pressed by the victorious enemy, broke into two portions.

One,

*The accounts which have come down to us of Charles's conduct during these closing scenes of the tragedy of Culloden, vary considerably. Walter Scott, (Quarterly Review, No. LXXI.) relates, on the authority of the manuscript memoirs of Lord Elcho, that the latter, when the second line was still entire, rode up to the Prince, and implored him to head a general and desperate charge in person; that, on the Prince's returning a negative, or at least an ambiguous reply, Elcho called him an Italian coward, and a scoundrel, and vowed he would never look upon his face again; an oath, Scott adds, which he religiously kept when in exile, always leaving Paris whenever the Chevalier entered it, and carefully avoiding every place where it was at all likely they might meet. In the official account, however, of Charles's public audience at the French court, after his return to France, Lord Elcho is particularly mentioned as one of the Prince's suite (see Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 567); so that the latter portion of Scott's account is evidently inaccurate. The remainder of Lord Elcho's accusation is at variance not only with the testimony of eye-witnesses, still living at the commencement of the present century (Home, p. 240), but with the whole conduct and character of Charles throughout the course of those memorable campaigns; and, in addition to these reasons for discrediting the testimony of Lord Elcho, we have the personal character of the man. He was violent of temper, and of no very constant fidelity. Within two months after the battle of Culloden, he made overtures for pardon to the British court, "but," says Horace Walpole, "as he has distinguished himself beyond all the Jacobite commanders by brutality, and insults, and cruelty to our prisoners, I think he is likely to remain where he is ;" and so he did. The account given by such a man, after he had quarrelled with Charles, must be received with extreme caution.

as it has just been stated, fell back on Inverness, while the other, preserving some degree of order, but thinned continually by the departure of men hastening singly to their homes, retreated to Ruthven in Badenoch. About one fifth of the Highland army had perished in the battle or during the pursuit, whereas the victors reckoned their loss at only 310 men. Quarter was given to few of the fugitives, and the few prisoners who were spared were, for the most part, only reserved for public execution. The trophies of the Duke of Cumberland's victory were fourteen standards, 2300 muskets, and the whole of the artillery and baggage of the Highland army.

The Prince, on leaving the field of battle, was accompanied by two troops of cavalry, with which he crossed the river Nairn and rode to Fort Felie, about three miles from Culloden. He halted on the southern side of the river, where he dismissed his escort, directing them, in the first instance, to repair to Ruthven. Then, accompanied by Sheridan, O'Sullivan, O'Neill, Hay, and a few others, he repaired to Gortuleg, where Lord Lovat was staying, and whom he now saw for the first and the last time.

He

The old man, throughout the war, had remained faithful to his double-faced policy, with a view to secure his own advantage whatever might be the issue of the struggle. He had, therefore, kept aloof from the Jacobite camp, but had sent the Frasers, under his son's command, to fight for the Stuart cause, and they had not been absent from the sanguinary field of Culloden. He was anxiously awaiting tidings of the issue of the battle, and when these arrived, it became evident to the hoary intriguer that he was caught in his own cunning web, and that his ruin was unavoidable. received the Prince with the utmost respect, kneeling to him and kissing his hand, and procuring for him the assistance of a surgeon to examine the wound in his thigh, which was carefully dressed, after it had been ascertained that the hurt was in no way dangerous; but, when Charles hoped, in his present reverse, to derive consolation from the converse of an experienced politician, to whom all the relations of Scotland were so intimately known, nothing was to be obtained from him but moanings and lamentations, not for the loss of the battle, not for the failure of the cause for which Charles and his Highlanders had so long

and so bravely fought, but for the danger with which the octogenarian Lord Lovat was threatened.

Disgusted by this display of selfishness, the Prince accepted Lady Gortuleg's invitation to take some refreshment, and then lay down to enjoy an hour's repose. On rising, he changed his garments, which were covered with dust and blood, and found Lord Lovat in the same state of mind as at first, trembling at the prospect of a traitor's death, and irresolute whether he should seek safety in flight, or surrender himself to the mercy of the Duke of Cumberland.

Charles consulted with the companions of his flight as to the course which they ought to pursue. It was agreed that there could be no security for him in a place so near his enemies as Gortuleg; and it was, therefore, resolved immediately to set off towards the western coast. At ten o'clock the same evening, the little party mounted their horses again, and at two o'clock in the morning of the 28th of April they passed Fort Augustus, and arrived before day-break at Glengarry's castle of Invergarry on Loch Garry, where the Prince was not recognised by the solitary Highlander who had been left in care of the house. Two salmon,

caught in a neighbouring brook, constituted the only food that the exhausted fugitives could obtain, and their only beverage to this frugal meal was derived from the same stream. Towards nine in the evening, Charles arrived with his companions at the house of a Cameron, but in such a state of exhaustion that he fell asleep in a chair while his servant Burke was unbuttoning his gaiters. On the following morning, they were forced to resume their flight, on hearing that a party of the Campbells were on their way to the house. The fugitives, accompanied by their host, retired to the village of Mewbill, where they remained twenty-four hours in expectation of receiving intelligence from their friends. They then departed in the direction of Oban. Beyond that place no beaten track was to be looked for, and their way led them over mountain streams and amid rocky steeps. The ground was no longer practicable for horses, and these were accordingly left behind,-a small hut on the edge of a wood becoming the only place of concealment for Charles and his little party. Accompanied by only three of his adherents, Charles arrived, on the 1st of May, at the little village of Glenboisdale, in the same district of Moidart, where, ten months