Keppoch song

SUPPLEMENT. 217
probability, Angus would have been sent
with them, had he not been pretty far ad-
vanced in life, and so unfit for slavery and
servitude. This was a mode of punish
ment particularly galling to the free and
martial spirit of a Highlander, and seem-
ingly, in imitation of the Roman practice.
It was likewise an old English practice, and
had been known there until " within a few
years after the Tudors." It had also no
doubt been known in Scotland, but was
its revival consistent with modern refine-
ment? If they had taken up arms to pil-
lage the properties of their opponents, this
mode of thievish punishment would have
been very proper; but they had rose from
motives of sympathy and commisseration,
for the fallen state of their ancient sove-
reign, now an exile, and depending on the
charity of foreign princes, and so buried
their own injuries in a sense of his misfor-
tunes, and had the king been in the same
situation, they, past all doubt, would have
done the same for him. This attachment
to an old sovereign has been shown of late
by the Tyrolese, the Highlanders of the