still clinging to King James on the one hand, and a necessity for King William's pay on the other, a great number of officers actually seem to have fought for the one sovereign with their right hand, and for the other with their left. It was a situation of the utmost distraction and difficulty, and one which assuredly could not fail to have a demoralizing effect upon the minds of many individuals. The readers of general history are aware of the great degree to which this slipperiness of allegiance characterized King William's servants of all kinds; but perhaps he is not acquainted with any instance more striking than what is afforded by the conduct of Sir Thomas Livingston's regiment. The following narrative of its intrigues is compiled partly from the Life of Crichton, who, as Captain, was an active agent in them, and partly from the manuscript Memoirs of General Mackay.

The reader has already seen that General Douglas, (brother of the Duke of Queensberry), who commanded the Scottish army on its march to England in October 1688, turned without scruple to the service of the Prince of Orange, so soon as it became evident that he would be successful in his enterprise. This man, it appears from Crichton's report, was still a secret, though uncertain intriguant in favour of King James. When Crichton was in Edinburgh with the regiment, immediately before the meeting of the Convention, he went to pay his respects to the Earl of Dunmore, a Tory, who had formerly been his commander. The Earl invited him to come to a tavern, where he would dine with General Douglas, Lord Kilsyth, and Captain Murray, a host of officers whom

he was pleased to term " all his ain lads." Crichton naturally objected to General Douglas, who had shown so much alacrity in deserting to King William. But Dunmore reassured him by saying, that he would pawn his life for the honour of the suspected individual. "Lord Dundee," said the Earl, "assured me that Douglas had given him his faith and honour to be with him in five days, if he were once marched to the hills to declare for King James.' Crichton having then agreed to go to the tavern, this set of traitorous conspirators met to dine together, and hold high converse regarding their prospects of doing service to their

late master.

66

It happened, just as dinner was done, that news of King James's arrival in Ireland was communicated to them; upon which General Douglas, taking a beer-glass, and looking round him, said, Gentlemen, we have all eat of his bread; here is his health. He drank upon his knees, and all the rest of the company did the same. Then filling another bumper, he drank damnation to all who would ever draw a sword against him. This very man, instead of fulfilling the promise he had made to Dundee, or abstaining from drawing a sword against his late master, almost immediately after went to Ireland as Lieutenant-General to King William, and distinguished himself to an extraordinary degree by the severity of his conduct against the Catholic partisans of King James.

Crichton soon after went with the regiment to Dundee, where, on the very first night of his arrival, according to a plan concerted with Lord Kilsyth, he got privately into Dudhope Castle, and assured Lady Dundee that the regiment should

be at her Lord's service whenever he might be pleased to require it. Her Ladyship found means next day to convey this intelligence to Lord Dundee, who speedily sent a note back to Crichton, by a ragged Highland boy, informing him that, whenever he received his expected supplies from Ireland, so as to begin the war in good earnest, he would expect to be joined by his old regiment.

This assurance from his former officers was of the greatest service to Dundee in his design of raising the Highland clans, because it enabled him to overcome a great deal of the scruples which they had to engage against an army containing horse. He took care, every time he received any communication from his lady on the subject, or from the officers themselves, to make it well known to the chieftains; and he also endeavoured to make it appear, that he was only induced to permit them to remain with the enemy, by the hope of their being able eventually to deliver up the whole army to him at the time they delivered up themselves. There really was an intention to that effect entertained by the treacherous dragoons; and it would have been in all probability carried into successful execution, but for an accidental circumstance.

Only two days after the two troops of horse had joined Mackay's camp, a pair of deserters came over from Dundee's leaguer, and, being introduced to the presence of the General, confounded him with a disclosure of the design entertained against him. Mackay was at first so much surprised, that he hesitated to believe what the men told him. He charged them with being spies sent over to learn the condition of his camp, and he

E

took care to threaten them with the fate proper to such officials, in case of his discovering that they were so. They met his threats with great firmness of demeanour, and expressed the utmost willingness to remain in confinement till such time as he should discover the truth of what they averred. They said that they had been sent by the Lairds of Blair and Pollock, the two gentlemen who had been taken by Dundee at Perth, and who, ever since then, had been hurried along with him through all his rapid and difficult marches. Their mission arose from a wish on the part of these gentlemen, that their Majesties' General should not engage the enemy with an army, the one half of which would be sure to betray the other. They then informed Mackay that Lieutenant-Colonel Livingstone, and Captains Murray, Livingstone, and Crichton, were the chief persons concerned in the plot, though, from what they had overheard in Dundee's counsels, very few of that regiment, excepting the Colonel, the Major, and Captain Balfour, were free of it.

Mackay still hesitated to believe a statement which looked so like a trick to deprive him of the services of a valuable regiment; and he esteemed it his duty to put his informants into confinement at the Laird of Grant's house of Belcastle, that their evidence might there endure a sort of probation. In the meantime, he consulted with Sir Thomas Livingstone, the Colonel of the regiment, as to what should be done with it under such singular circumstances. Sir Thomas, as the reader has already seen, was himself a friend of King James; in all probability, though not impeached by the deserters, he was also concerned in the de

sign of delivering up the regiment to Dundee. If he was so, he must have been a man of singular firmness of nerve; for he alone was present with the General when they were giving their evidence ; and it is to be supposed, that he could scarcely help being agitated at a recital that ran so nigh to implicate him in the most dreadful of all crimes incident to his profession. When Mackay asked his opinion of the evidence of the deserters, he said he did not believe that the private men were generally concerned in any plot; but he must certainly say, that he began to have his suspicions of the officers just mentioned. Of late, and especially since the junction of the two troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Livingstone, he had observed them frequently in private conference among themselves; and the subject of their deliberations, he was almost sure, could not be such as to bear the light, because, whenever he approached them, they invariably parted in a sort of confusion, or made an awkward attempt to change the conversation. It was finally resolved by Mackay that he should take no notice for the present of the suspected plot, but only remain upon his guard against it. And he at the same time determined to continue for some time longer in his camp, as every day spent in his present position injured Dundee by preventing him from receiving accessions of horse from the Gordon territory, while it benefitted himself by allowing time for the junction of his detachments from Angus.

He was soon, however, disturbed in this tranquil resolution. John Forbes, brother to the Laird of Culloden, and Captain of a regiment which the Laird of Grant was about to levy for King Wil