Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/202

496 a strictly limited term of service, and a liberal bounty for that period (two pounds sterling for each man), he does not appear to have been successful in adding to his numbers. Nor, with all his earnestness of application, could he prevail on the government to spare him from England, where troops were plentiful, a single man. One regiment of dragoons and two of foot from Ireland was the utmost he could obtain, which, till he should be able to ascertain the intentions of the earl of Mar, were also stationed at Glasgow. While Argyle was thus struggling with difficulties, and completely hampered in all his operations, Mar had greater means than he had genius to employ, and could, without any exertion, keep his opponent in perpetual alarm. He had already, by a stratagem, nearly possessed himself of the castle of Edinburgh, ere the magistrates of that city were aware of his being in arms. A detachment from his army, by a night march, descended upon Burntisland, where a vessel loaded with arms for the earl of Sutherland, had been driven in by stress of weather. This vessel they boarded, carrying off the arms, with as many more as could be found in the town. A still bolder project was about the same time attempted in the north-west, where a numerous party of the Macdonalds, Macleans, and Camerons, under the orders of general Gordon, attempted to surprise the garrison of Inverlochy. They were, however, repulsed, after having made themselves masters of two redoubts and taken twenty men. They then turned south upon Argyleshire for the purpose of raising men, and general Gordon, who had the reputation of an excellent officer, threatened to fall down upon Dumbarton and Glasgow. This was another source of distraction to Argyle, whose small army could not well admit of being divided. Gordon, however, met with little encouragement in the way of recruiting, and after alanning Inverary, where the duke had stationed his brother, lord Hay, dropped quietly into Mar's camp at Perth, where nearly the whole strength of the rebels was now concentrated.

Though Argyle was thus circumscribed in his means, he displayed ceaseless activity and considerable address in the application of them, and the great reputation he had acquired under Marlborough, rendered him, even with his scanty means, formidable to his opponent, who was altogether a novice in the art military. One talent of a great general too his grace possessed in considerable perfection, that of finding out the plans and secret purposes of his adversary, of all whose movements he had generally early and complete intelligence; Mar, on the contrary, could procure no intelligence whatever. He knew that a simultaneous rising was to take place under Thomas Foster of Etherstane, member of parliament for the county of Northumberland, and another in Nithsdale under viscount Kenmure; but how they were succeeding, or to what their attention had been more immediately directed, he was utterly ignorant. To ascertain these points, to stimulate his friends in their progress, and to open up for himself an easier passage to the south, he detached two thousand five hundred of his best troops under the laird of Borlum, the bravest and the most experienced officer perhaps in his whole army. This detachment was to force its way across the Firth below Edinburgh, and through the Lothians by the way of Kelso till it should find Kenmure or Foster upon the English border. This romantic project the old brigadier, as he was called in the army, accomplished with great facility, one boat with forty men being all that in crossing the Firth fell into the hands of the enemy. A few with the earl of Strathmore Mere cut off from the rest, but made their escape into the isle of May, whence in a day or two they found their way back to Perth. The principal part of the expedition, consisting nearly of two thousand men, Sandeil between Tantalon, North Berwick and Aberlady, and for the first night quartered in Haddington. Early the 13th of October, the whole body marched directly for