MASSACRE OF GLENCO. 85 



quarters, nine men, including his kind-hearted entertainer, were bound hand 

 and foot, and then shot ; and a boy, twelve years old, who clung to his knees for 

 mercy, was stabbed. Of those who escaped to the mountains, most perished 

 in the snow ; but, had the detachment from Ballahulish arrived in time to block 

 up the avenues, as was expected, not an individual would have been left alive. 

 A storm having come on, Duncanson was unable to march from his quarters, 

 and to this circumstance the few that survived that dreadful morning owed their 

 preservation. The same day, every house and hamlet in the glen was destroyed; 

 and the whole of the cattle and other property belonging to the Macdonalds 

 carried off. Such of the women as had not been massacred, nor died of terror, 

 were reserved for a more dismal fate. Driven from their beds, or hunted down 

 by these bloodhounds, and exposed without clothes or shelter in the midst of 

 a snowy waste, six miles from any human habitation, they were found in 

 general either starved to death, or expiring with their children under the frozen 

 rocks and brushwood. 



Many traditions of this massacre are still preserved by the present generation, 

 who refer to the judgments which have since been visited upon the descendants 

 of those who were actively employed in this tragedy. They carefully note, that, 

 while the posterity of the unfortunate gentleman who suffered, is still entire, 

 and his estate preserved in direct male succession to his descendants, the case 

 is very different with the family, posterity, and estates, of the laird of Glenlyon, 

 and of those who were the principals, promoters, and actors, in this infamous 

 transaction. A parliamentary commission was afterwards appointed, by order 

 of government, for the thorough investigation of the affair; but this measure 

 had only the effect of placing it in a still more revolting light. The king 

 endeavoured to lighten the odium which attached itself so strongly to himself, 

 by pleading oversight and hurry in subscribing the royal mandates an excuse 

 which only aggravated the crime. That he was the dupe of his ministers, and 

 had listened with too much credulity to their exaggerated statements respecting 

 the rebellious clans, is certain ;* but as neither these wicked counsellors, nor 

 the actual perpetrators of the measure, were either reprimanded or punished, 

 the imputation of guilt was strengthened almost to certainty, and it has left an 

 indelible stigma on his reign. It forms a most humiliating contrast to the noble 

 line of conduct pursued by the same monarch towards the persecuted Waldenses 

 of Piedmont. It would be difficult to point out any two features more opposite, 



* The earl of Braidalbane, who was Glenco's private enemy, devoted him to destruction. He repre- 

 sented him at court as an incorrigible rebel, a ruffian inured to bloodshed and rapine, who would never be 

 obedient to the laws of his country, nor live peaceably under any sovereign. Smollett. 



VOL. 11. Z 



