Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/394

386 appeared in great confusion: whereupon the duke said, "I fear we dare not touch a hair of Creichton; for ye all know Dundee too well, to doubt whether he will be punctual to his word; and the two gentlemen in his hands are too nearly allied to some here, that their lives should be endangered on this occasion." What his grace said was very true: for, if I remember right, the laird of Blair had married a daughter of a former duke of Hamilton. The issue of the matter was, that under this perplexity, they all cried out, "Let the fellow live a while longer."

Not long after this, happened the battle of Gillicranky (or Killikranky) near the castle of Blair of Atholl; where the forces under the lord Dundee, consisting of no more than seventeen hundred foot (all Highlanders, except three hundred sent him from Ireland, under the command of colonel Cannon, when he expected three thousand, as I have mentioned) and forty-five horse, routed an army of five thousand men, with major general Coy at their head; took fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed a great number, among whom colonel Balfour was one. Coy escaped, and fled that night twenty-five miles endwise, to the castle of Drummond. But