CULLODEN MOOR. NIGHT-SCENE. 47 



finest opportunities for the exercise of clemency ever presented to a victorious 

 commander ;* but the divine attribute of mercy was not a military virtue in the 

 estimation of the leader. The noble maxim to spare the vanquished had no 

 place in his catechism ; he drew no distinction between actual treason and 

 mistaken loyalty ; between intentional guilt and error of judgment ; between 

 the vassal who fought in obedience to his chief, and the mercenary who betrayed 

 his allegiance. His sole aim was to restore peace by forming a solitude ; to 

 establish authority by leaving none to resist. 



The wounded were abandoned during three days to all the horrors of a 

 lingering death, denied assistance, and a prey to all that mental and corporeal 

 sufferings could inflict. The distracted friend or relative who stole forth at 

 midnight to administer relief, ran imminent hazard of being shot as a rebel, 

 and of taking his grave by the side of him for whose sake he had risked his life. 

 Few could elude the vigilance of the sentinels stationed along every avenue 

 leading to the Moor, and of those few who did, still fewer returned. The silence 

 of the night scene was more appalling than the heat of the conflict. As the 

 visitor approached the dismal heath, a thrill of horror rushed through his frame. 

 The mingled sounds of agony and despair struck fitfully upon his ear ; but all 

 modified by the nature of the wounds, or the vigour of mind and constitution 

 possessed by the survivors. One implored lu'm for a drop of water ; one, 

 driven frantic with excessive pain, raved of the prince, and brandished in his 

 hand the fancied trophies of victory. Another, fully alive to the horrors of his 

 situation, invoked the names of his chief and his kindred, urging them to avenge 

 his cause, and then, exhausted by the frantic effort, sank into a death-like 

 torpor. A third spoke not, but pointed to the cornel}' but disfigured coun- 

 tenance of one whose youth bespoke him a younger brother. They lay singly, 

 and in groups, as they had fallen the living unable to extricate themselves 

 from the dead, and the dead retaining in their features that expression which 

 the last agitating passion had left. 



In this situation the wounded were left to perish on the field. Those who 

 survived the third day, were shot by command of the duke of Cumberland, whose 

 officers were charged with the execution of this sanguinary order. The accom- 

 panying plate represents the murderous proceeding. In pursuance of the same 

 order, a barn, in which the maimed and dying, having crawled from the field, 

 lay huddled together, was set fire to, and its miserable inmates consumed in the 



In the town of Inverness, the duke instituted a complete military government treated the magistrates 

 and inhabitants with contempt; and he was afterwards obliged to sue out an act of indemnity from the 

 British parliament for these and other atrocities, of which it is notoriously known he was guilty. Anderson. 



