PRINCE CHARLES AND THE LONG ISLAND. 439 



I landers, which had been raised for the service of the 

 , Government, were barren of result, although they per- 

 formed some useful police work. The Earl of Loudoun 

 was in supreme command of these companies, but his 

 experience of them was heartbreaking. According to the 

 Duke of Cumberland, he did everything in his power for 

 the good of the service, but " he was put at the head of a 

 i raw militia, of the greatest part of which he dared trust 

 neither the courage or affections." Certainly their affections 

 were not engaged in the service of King George ; but their 

 courage would have proved equal to that of their Jacobite 

 neighbours, had their chiefs donned the white, instead of 

 I the black cockade. If, as in some instances was true, they 

 had in the past been unwilling to rise for the Stuarts, they 

 were now doubly disinclined to fight for the House of 

 Hanover. In both cases, they were simply the puppets 

 of their chiefs and the tacksmen. 



Macleod of Harris, with a considerable body of his clans- 



; men ; two companies of Macdonalds under Captain James 



I Macdonald of Airds and Trotternish ; and Captain John 



1 Macdonald of Kirkibost, North Uist, formed the insular 



| contingent of the 2,000 men under Lord Loudoun, who were 



I posted at Inverness when Prince Charles arrived in the 



i North. Macleod had already met a rebuff at the hands of 



, Lord Lewis Gordon, who routed his men at Inverurie ; and 



another humiliation was in store for him. He commanded 



the advance guard of the 1,500 men, whom Loudoun led from 



Inverness for the purpose of surprising and capturing the 



! Prince at Moy Hall. The incidents of that ludicrous scare 



known as the Rout of Moy when a blacksmith with five 



or six men put an army to flight* furnish an illustration 



of the unwillingness of Loudoun's Highlanders to fight 



against their feliow-countrymen. A further illustration is 



provided by the hasty evacuation of Inverness by Loudoun, 



on the approach of the Jacobites ; for he was afraid to trust 



* Macleod's famous piper, Donald Ban MacCrimmon, was the only man 

 tilled. His well known lament " Cha till mi tuilleculh " (we return no more) 

 was composed when the Macleods were setting out from Dunvegan Castle. 



