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 could ill spare them, for it was quite possible that our own island might be invaded. Unfortunately, we could hire, with our abundant British guineas, Dutch and German troops to fight our battles for us. I cannot imagine a worse plan than this for any country, but it remained a regular British habit down to our grandfathers’ days; and it still further increased the unwillingness of our own people to serve in their own army.

Walpole was dreadfully badgered in Parliament over the badness of this plan, and over many other things; not so much by the few remaining Tory members as by those Whigs who were not actually in office, but wanted to get into office. And when they did come in, they had no better plans to propose. Walpole resigned in 1742, and his successor, Carteret, a far greater man than Walpole, was badgered almost worse, until he too resigned in 1744. Meanwhile King George himself had led British troops to a great victory at Dettingen in Germany, and his second son, the Duke of Cumberland, led them to a defeat almost as glorious at Fontenoy in Flanders, 1745. The French King had been seriously thinking of an invasion of Britain on behalf of the exiled King James Ill. But the French were justly afraid of risking their ships against the British Navy; and so Prince Charles Edward, son of James III, resolved to strike for himself even without French help. He landed, with seven followers only, in the Western Highlands of Scotland in the summer of 1745.

He called upon the well-known loyalty of the Highlanders to his family; they answered him as only Highlanders can. Without guns or cavalry, five or six thousand of these men made themselves masters of all