Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/240

300 was the appearance in Paris of Peter the first, emperor of Russia. Reith made every effort to obtain admission into the service of that potentate, but without effect, he himself supposes on account of his not having employed the proper means. In the following year, 1718, learning that there was an intention on the part of Spain, similar to that which had been entertained by the king of Sweden, viz., to attempt the restoration of king James by invading Scotland—Keith and his brother the earl Marischal set out for Madrid, with the view of offering their services in the proposed expedition. These were readily accepted, and the two brothers, after repeated interviews with cardinal Alberoni, then prime minister of Spain, were furnished with instructions regarding the intended descent, and with means to carry that part of it which was intrusted to them into execution. By previous appointment, Keith and his brother the earl Marischal were met at Havre de Grace, the point at which they had fixed to embark for Scotland, by several of the Scottish leaders in the rising of 1715, who were still lurking about France. All of them having been advised of the undertaking, were furnished with commissions from the king of Spain, to apply equally to the Spanish forces which were to be sent after them, and to those which they should raise in the country.

The co-operation in this enterprise which they were led to expect was the landing in England of the duke of Ormond with an army, which it was proposed should immediately take place. Two frigates, with Spanish troops on board, were also to follow them within a day or two, to land with them in Scotland, and enable them to commence their operations in that kingdom. On the 19th of March, the expatriated chiefs embarked on board a small vessel of about twenty-five tons, and after encountering some stormy weather and running great risk from some English ships of war which they fell in with, they reached the island of Lewis on the 4th of April. They were soon afterwards joined by the two frigates, and a debarkation on the main land was immediately determined upon. In the expectation of being joined by large bodies of Highlanders, they proposed to march forward to Inverness, from which they hoped to drive out the small force by which it was garrisoned.

The whole enterprise, however, hurried on to a disastrous conclusion. The duke of Ormond's fleet was dispersed : the Highlanders refused to embark in the desperate undertaking; a very few only joining the invaders, and these showing little enthusiasm in the cause: and to complete their ruin, they were attacked and defeated by a body of troops which had been despatched to arrest their progress. They were, however, not so completely routed but that they were enabled to retire in partial order to the summit of some high grounds in the vicinity of the scene of action. Here a council of war was held during the night, in which it was resolved that the Spaniards should on the next day surrender themselves prisoners of war, that the Highlanders should disperse, and that the officers should each seek his safety in the best way he could.

Thus Keith found himself placed in exactly the same desperate circumstances in which he was after the rising of 1715,—an outlawed fugitive, without means and without a home. After lurking some months in the Highlands, during the greater part of which, to add to his misfortunes, he was in bad health, he found his way to Peterhead, where he embarked for Holland, whither his brother had gone before him. Being here joined by the latter, they both proceeded to the Hague, and sometime afterwards to Madrid. Here Keith's pecuniary difficulties became as pressing and infinitely more desperate than they were in Paris on his arrival there in 1715. " I was now," he says, "as the French have it, au pie de la lettre sur le pavé. I knew nobody and was known to none, and had not my good fortune brought rear-admiral Cammoek to Madrid, whom I had known