Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/371

 lowlands with 1,700 claymores for the purpose of supporting the prelatical tyranny (, Own Time, ii. 88). His course at the revolution was of a very tortuous character. There is undoubted evidence that he was in constant communication with Dundee, although he was too wary to commit himself openly and irrevocably to the cause of James II. As early as 23 July 1689, or only six days after the battle of Killiecrankie, he seems, however, to have recognised the irretrievable character of the disaster that had befallen that cause in Dundee's death, and was expressing through Sir John Dalrymple his anxiety to serve King William. This was met by Dalrymple with the advice ‘that the best way to show his sincerity was to cause the clans to come in, take the allegiance, and give the first example himself’ (Leven and Melville Papers, p. 256). In the September following he began to act on this advice, and along with other highland noblemen took advantage of the act of indemnity. His adhesion was a matter of prime importance to the government, for a rising in the highlands, unsupported by him, could not be regarded as formidable. The government were well aware that his sincere co-operation in their purposes could be secured only by a powerful appeal to his self-interest. When, therefore, a large sum of money, according to some accounts 20,000l., was placed in his hands in order to bribe the clans to submission, it must have been understood that a considerable proportion of the plunder would fall to his share. At any rate, he had decided objections to enter into details as to how he had disposed of the money, answering, in reply to the inquiry of the Earl of Nottingham, ‘The money is spent, the highlands are quiet, and this is the only way of accounting among friends.’ As early as March 1690 King William mooted to Lord Melville the advisability of gaining Breadalbane, even at a high price, in order to secure the submission of the highlands (ib. p. 421). In accordance with these instructions Breadalbane received from Melville an order to treat with the highlanders on 24 April 1690, but negotiations hung fire over a year, although on 17 Sept. 1690 Breadalbane wrote a letter expressing his anxiety to have the highlands quiet, on the ground that he had been ‘a very great sufferer by the present dissolute condition it is in’ (ib. 530). Even at the conference which he held with the chiefs in June 1691 his proposals were received with much distrust, most of them believing that, if he possessed the money, ‘he would find a way to keep a good part of it to himself’ (ib. 623), but by signing certain ‘Private Articles’ (Papers illustrative of the Condition of the Highlands, p. 22), making the agreement null if an invasion happened from abroad or a rising occurred in other parts of the kingdom, he succeeded in inducing them to suspend hostilities till the following October. Matters having been brought so far, a proclamation was issued on 27 Aug. offering indemnity to all who had been in arms, but requiring them to swear the oath in presence of a civil judge before 1 Jan. 1692, if they would escape the penalties of treason and of military execution (proclamation in Papers illustrative of Condition of the Highlands, pp. 35–7). The proclamation enabled Breadalbane to extort the submission of the chiefs at a smaller pecuniary cost than would otherwise have been possible. By the influence of mingled cajolery, bribes, and threats, their resistance to his proposals was at last overcome, and all of them submitted within the prescribed time, with the exception of MacIan, chief of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, who had private reasons of his own for objecting to any settlement with the government. Until 31 Dec. MacIan manifested no signs of yielding, and when he at last saw the hopelessness of his resolve, and went to tender the oath at Fort William, he found no one there to administer it, the nearest magistrate being the sheriff at Inverary. He set out thither with all haste, and by vehement entreaties, backed up by a letter from Colonel Hill, the governor of Fort William, induced the sheriff to accept his oath. Breadalbane had now an opportunity of reaping exemplary vengeance on the wild robber clan which in its barren fastnesses had for generations subsisted chiefly by depredations on his own and the neighbouring estates. Sir John Dalrymple, master of Stair [q. v.], was equally eager to destroy the band of mountain robbers, and the atrocious scheme contrived was in all probability his suggestion, although Breadalbane must have given advice, while Argyll [see, tenth earl and first duke] also lent it his hearty support. The infamy of the massacre of Glencoe on 13 Feb. 1692 must be shared by all the three noblemen, and if Dalrymple was chiefly responsible, his motives were undoubtedly the purest, while Argyll had had less provocation than Breadalbane. Breadalbane had acted with such circumspection that when in 1695 a commission was issued to inquire into the massacre, no tangible evidence was discovered against him, beyond the deposition that a person professing to be an emissary of his chamberlain, Campbell of Balcadden, had waited on MacIan's sons to obtain