THE ISLES AND WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 391 



humble." He recommends mercy to the fugitives from 

 Glencoe, then hiding in " caves and remote places," and 

 adds, "there are enough killed for an example and to 

 vindicate public justice." Seaforth, whose Castle of Eilean 

 Donain was in Hill's hands, had come in,* therefore his 

 clansmen were likely to remain quiet. Young Sir Donald 

 Macdonald of Sleat is a "peaceable inclined man," and 

 his relations in Skye being mostly Protestants, no danger 

 is to be apprehended from them. Clanranald " who is one 

 of the prettiest, handsome youths I have seen " had, with 

 all the chief of his friends, taken the oath, "with the 

 greatest frankness imaginable." He had gone to his 

 uncle, Macleod, to get some money to enable him to wait 

 upon the King in person ; and he (Clanranald) would be 

 governed by the King's pleasure, but was anxious so to be 

 disposed of as to " better his education." " It will," adds 

 Hill, " be an act of great charity to breed him ! " "I have 

 sent," says the Colonel, "to McNeil of Bara (a remote 

 island) who I doubt not will come in with the rest, so all 

 the work is now done but the settlement of a civil juris- 

 diction," for which, according to the writer, the people 

 were crying out.t But Colonel Hill's optimism was not 

 justified by events. 



From a fragment of a proclamation by the King in 1692, 

 we find that Sir Donald Macdonald Hill's "peaceable 

 inclined man" Allan Macdonald of Clan Ranald the 

 " pretty handsome youth " Glengarry, Lochiel, Maclean, 

 and Colin Mackenzie, the uncle of Seaforth the latter 

 being in prison were again in open rebellion. Lord 

 Tarbat was now offered an opportunity of putting his pet 

 theory of pacification into practice. He was empowered 

 to offer in the King's name, " such honour under that of 

 earl, and such sums of money not exceeding ^"2,000 

 sterling, to any one chief or tribe of those above men- 



* He had apparently surrendered, and was imprisoned in Edinburgh, but 

 was released in January, on finding caution to appear when called upon, and 

 on condition that he should not go ten miles beyond the walls of Edinburgh, 



t Cal. of State Papers (Nov., idgi-Dec., 1692), p. 153. 



