THE REBELS RETREAT INTO SCOTLAND.

This state of suspense was of short duration. The young pretender found himself miserably disappointed in his expectations. He had now advanced into the middle of the kingdom, and except a few that joined him at Manchester, not a soul appeared in his behalf; one would have imagined that all the Jacobites of England had been annihilated. The Welch took no step to excite an insurrection in his favour; the French made no attempt towards an invasion; his court was divided into factions; the highland chiefs began to murmur, and their clans to be unruly; he saw himself with a handful of men hemmed in between two considerable armies, in the middle of winter, and in a country disaffected to his cause. He knew he could not proceed to the metropolis without hazarding a battle, and that a defeat would be attended with the inevitable destruction of himself and all his adherents; and he had received information that his friends and officers had assembled a body of forces in the North, superior in number to those by whom he was attended. He called a council at Derby; and proposed to advance towards London: the proposal was supported by lord Nairn with great vehemence; but, after violent disputes, the majority determined that they should retreat to Scotland with all possible expedition. Accordingly, they abandoned Derby on the sixth day of December, early in the morning, and measured back the route by which they had advanced. On the ninth their vanguard arrived at Manchester; on the twelfth they entered Preston, and continued their march northwards. The duke of Cumberland, who was encamped at Meriden, when first apprized of their retreat, detached the horse and dragoons in pursuit of them; while general Wade began his march from Ferry-bridge in Lancashire, with a view of intercepting them in their route; but at Wakefield he understood that they had already reached Wigan; he therefore repaired to his old post at Newcastle, after having detached general Oglethorpe, with his horse and dragoons, to join those who had been sent off from the duke’s army. They pursued with such alacrity, that they overtook the rear of the rebels, with which they skirmished in Lancashire. The militia of Cumberland and Westmoreland were raised and armed by the duke’s order, to harass them in their march. The bridges were broken down, the roads damaged, and the beacons lighted to alarm the country. Nevertheless, they retreated regularly with their small train of artillery. They were overtaken at the village of Clifton, in the neighbourhood of Penrith, by two regiments of dragoons. These alighted, and lined the hedges, in order to harass part of the enemy’s rear-guard, commanded by lord John Murray; who, at the head of the Macphersons, attacked the dragoons sword in hand, and repulsed them with some loss. On the nineteenth day of the month, the highland army reached Carlisle, where the majority of the English in the service of the pretender were left, at their own desire. Charles, having reinforced the garrison of the place, crossed the rivers Eden and Solway into Scotland, having thus accomplished one of the most surprising retreats that ever was performed. But the most remarkable circumstance of this expedition, was the moderation and regularity with which those ferocious people conducted themselves in a country abounding with plunder. No violence was offered; no outrage committed; and they were effectually restrained from the exercise of rapine. Notwithstanding the excessive cold, the hunger, and fatigue to which they must have been exposed, they left behind no sick, and lost a very few stragglers; but retired with deliberation, and carried off their cannon in the face of their enemy. The duke of Cumberland invested Carlisle with his whole army on the twenty-first day of December, and on the thirtieth the garrison surrendered on a sort of capitulation made with the duke of Richmond. The prisoners, amounting to about four hundred, were imprisoned in different gaols in England, and the duke returned to London.

The pretender proceeded by the way of Dumfries to Glasgow, from which last city he exacted severe contributions, on account of its attachment to the government, for whose service it had raised a regiment of nine hundred men under the command of the earl of Home. Having continued several days at Glasgow, he advanced towards Stirling, and was joined by some forces which had been assembled in his absence by lords Lewis Gordon and John Drummond, brothers to the dukes of Gordon and Perth. This last nobleman had arrived from France in November, with a small reinforcement of French and Irish, and a commission as general of these auxiliaries, he fixed his head quarters at Perth, where he was reinforced by the earl of Cromartie and other clans, to the number of two thousand, and he was accommodated with a small train of artillery. They had found means to surprise a sloop of war at Montrose, with the guns of which they fortified that harbour. They had received a considerable sum of money from Spain. They took possession of Dundee, Dumblane, Downcastle, and laid Fife under contribution. The earl of Loudon remained at Inverness, with about two thousand highlanders in the service of his majesty. He convoyed provisions to Fort-Augustus and Fort-William; he secured the person of lord Lovat, who still temporized, and at length this cunning veteran accomplished his escape. The laird of Macleod, and Mr. Monro of Culcairn, being detached from Inverness towards Aberdeenshire, were surprised and routed by lord Lewis Gordon at Inverary; and that interest seemed to preponderate in the north of Scotland. Prince Charles being joined by lord John Drummond, invested the castle of Stirling, in which general Blakeney commanded; but his people were so little used to enterprises of this kind, that they made very little progress in their operations.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760