Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 12

History of the Madeods. 19
Caskill, John Macleod, John Macleod, and Donald Macleod.
These four companies were joined by a company of one hundred
men raised in Assynt by Captain Macleod of Geanies, and on
the loth of December they marched towards Elgin, under
command of Norman Macleod of Macleod, to oppose Lewis
Gordon's operations in the Counties of Banff and Aberdeen.
On the 13th of that month, the President writes to Macleod at Elgin
" that Lord Lovat is come into town (Inverness) after abundance
of shillie shallie stuff," and that " he has at last agreed that all
the arms belonging to his people shall be carried into Inverness
by Sunday night." This undertaking of Lovat's, whether, as the
President says, it be "jest or ernest," detained Lord Loudon
from going to the east to support Macleod, but Munro of
Culcairn's and William Mackintosh's companies were sent after
him so as to enable him to redeem engagements entered into
by the Lord President, and those in superior command with the
Duke of Gordon and others in Banffshire. On the same day
President Forbes wrote Macleod another letter, in which he
says — " As zeal for His Majesty's service, and for the support of
our happy Constitution, is the sole motive of your march, with so
many of your kinsmen, to a country so distant from your own,
I presume you will not scruple to take directions from me, who,
though I have no military command or authority, am actuated by
the same principles that direct you." The first object of the
expedition was to be "to deliver the Duke of Gordon's vassals
and tenants and their neighbours in Banffshire from the oppression
of the rebels, in the illegal and treasonable levies of men and
money which they presume by force to make." Four days later,
on the 17th of the same month, the President writes Macleod
again, saying — " The complaints of the City and County of
Aberdeen of the oppression they suffer from the rebels are so
clamorous, and the injury they suffer so violent, that it is no
longer possible to endure them. You are, therefore, without loss
of time, unless some accident insuperable detain you, to march
alongst with Captain Munro of Culcairn and the company under
his command, to Aberdeen, to secure that City and its neigh-
bourhood from the hardships it has already felt, and is further
threatened with." On the same day the Lord President wrote to