Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/174

520 over the water to the north, or allowing him to come over to the south; it being understood that no molestation was to be given to either till fairly clear of the water, or till he declared himself ready to fight. Baillie made a reply, which it had been well for his own reputation and for his country, that he had at all times continued to act upon. He would look, he said, to his own business, and did not require other men to teach him to fight. Both armies then resumed their march, and respectively arrived at Dunkeld and Perth nearly at the same time.

Finding that he could not pass Baillie without a battle, and being informed by his scouts that he had left Perth and gone to the pass of Stirling; Montrose, as an interim employment, that would help to pass the time, and encourage his followers by the abundance of spoil it would afford, determined on a visit to Dundee,—a place that was strenuous for the covenant, and which had haughtily refused to admit him after the battle of Tippermuir. Sending off his baggage, and the less efficient of his men to Brechin, on the 3d day of April he led a hundred and fifty horse, with six hundred picked musketeers against that city; and continuing his march all night, arrived before it by ten o'clock on the forenoon of the 4th. Montrose immediately gave the place up to military execution; and, perhaps, for a kind of salvo to his credit, retired to the top of Dundee Law, leaving the command to lord Gordon and Alister M'Coll. The attack was made at three different places simultaneously, and all of them in a few minutes were successful. The town was set on fire in various places. The most revolting scenes of outrage and rapine followed. The abundance of spoil, however, of the most alluring description, happily diverted the robbers from indulging in butchery; and, ere they were aware, Baillie and Hurry were both at their heels. Had Montrose been in the town, the whole had been surprised and cut off in the midst of their revel; but from his post on. the hill, he was apprized of the approach of the enemy just in time to recall his men, the greater part of them being so drunk that it was with difficulty they could be brought forth at the one extremity of the town as Baillie and Hurry entered at the other. Placing the weakest and most inebriated in the front, while he himself with the horse and the best of the musketeers brought up the rear, Montrose marched directly to Arbroath; and from want of unity of plan and of spirit in the two commanders opposed to him, brought off the whole with but a trifling loss. He reached Arbroath, seventeen miles east of Dundee, long before day. Here, however, he could not rest without exposing himself and his army to certain destruction; and anxious to regain the mountains, where alone he judged himself safe from his pursuers, he wheeled about in a north-westerly direction, right athwart- the county of Forfar, and, before morning, crossed the south Esk at Cariston castle, where he was only three miles from the Grampians. The march, which in the two nights and a day this army had performed, could not be much short of seventy miles, and they must now have been in great want of rest. Baillie, who had taken post for the night at Forfar, intending in the morning to fall down upon Montrose at Arbroath, where he calculated upon his halting, no sooner learned the manner in which he had eluded him, than, determined to overtake him, he marched from Forfar with such haste that his horse were in sight of Montrose ere that general was apprized that he was pursued. His men were in such a profound sleep, that it was not without difficulty they were awakened; but they were no sooner so than they fled into the recesses of Glenesk, and Baillie abandoned the pursuit. The part of Montrose's troops that had been with the baggage sent to Brechin, had also by this time taken refuge among the Grampians, and in the course of next day joined their companions.