Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/57

 a shot struck from his hand a bone which he was in the act of picking. "They are in earnest now!" he cried, and drew up his men to receive the enemy, who came on at full charge. They were a portion of the royal household troops, the picked and best-disciplined soldiers of France, mounted upon heavy and powerful horses, and armed with cuirasses that were buckled close to the saddle, so that the point of a bayonet could not easily find entrance within their steel panoply. Sir Andrew, who knew that it was useless to abide such an avalanche of man and horse, ordered his soldiers not to fire until they saw the whites of their enemy's eyes, to take aim only at their horses, and open their ranks as soon as a charge was made upon them. This skilful manœuvre succeeded as he had foreseen—the French horses were brought down in heaps, their riders easily bayonetted, and the far-famed household troops were driven back with heavy loss. After the battle, George II. observed, "Well, Sir Andrew, I hear that your regiment was broken; that you let the French cavalry in upon you." "Yes, please your Majesty," replied the gallant humourist, "but they didna gang back again."

The most important military service, however, in which Sir Andrew Agnew was engaged, was the defence of Blair Castle against the troops of the Pretender, during the insurrection of 1745–6. On the arrival of the Duke of Cumberland in Perth, to take the command of the royalist army, he found it necessary to occupy and garrison Blair Castle, the seat of the Duke of Athol, then absent, for the purpose of suppressing the disaffected of the district, and cutting off the communications of the rebels by the great roads between the southern and northern parts of the country. For this service Sir Andrew was selected, and despatched thither with a detachment of three hundred soldiers. Not only was no siege expected, but the place was ill fitted to sustain one; for it was scantily supplied with provisions, and had no artillery or military stores, while the soldiers had only nineteen rounds of ammunition per man. Of all this the rebels seem to have been apprised, and, accordingly, on the morning of the 17th of March (1746), Lord George Murray, lieutenant-general of the Pretender, Lord Nairne, Macpherson of Clunie, and other Jacobite leaders, resolved to recover the castle, and open their communications. They came, therefore, in great force, captured the detached parties that were without the castle, and suddenly appeared before the fort itself, while such a visit was neither expected nor desired. Most commanders in such a situation as that of Sir Andrew would have abandoned the fort as untenable; but he had not thus learned his military lessons under the great Marlborough: he resolved to defend it to the last, notwithstanding its impoverished condition, and thus give time for the collection of those forces by which the insurrection was soon after extinguished at Culloden. He therefore issued strict orders to his garrison, now reduced to 270 men, to save their ammunition with the utmost care; and, as there were no provisions in the castle but some bread and cheese, he commanded these to be dealt out in small daily rations.

As the obtaining of Blair Castle was of the utmost importance to the rebels, Lord George Murray, their ablest commander, commenced the siege in due form. He began by a summons to surrender; and knowing the old knight's fiery temper, he wrote to him to this effect, not upon decent foolscap, but a piece of shabby grey paper. But who was to enter the lion's den, and beard him with such a missive? No Highlander could be found to undertake the task, so that it was intrusted to a comely young servant maid of Blair Inn,