Languages & literature > Key to the drama

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againft the interceflions of Kymmin, and
many others of the officers, who were for
extending fome degree of clemency : he
argued, that they were a ftubborn, feditious
people •, that there was no confidence to be
put in them; that they would, upon an¬
other occafion, be juft as ready for a revolt
as they had been before; and as the ifland
lay fo remote from the inland, they might
find fubfequent occafions of being trouble-
fome, when difturbances in other parts
ffiould make it inconvenient to fend troops
to fubdue them. From fuch a manner of
reafoning, there was room to conjecture,
that at that period he began to found in his
own mind the bale of his future operations,
and to preclude, by extirpation, thefe un¬
happy people from being any interruption
to him, when he Ihould be in aCtion elfe-
where. He began his feverity, by order¬
ing the head of the dead Macduald to be
cut off upon a public fcaffold ; and, to be
fhort, the whole garrifon were put to death
by one means or other. The body of
young Caithnefs, indeed, he ordered Ihould
be buried, that he might thereby Ihun the
imputation of perfonal revenge: and leav¬
ing a few of his own kinfmen, of the name
of Macdonald, to be matters of the ifland,
with injunctions to them to pick and chufe
from amongft the women thofe who were
moft