Ossian Collection > History of the Highlands and of the Highland clans > Volume 3

CONSTERNATION AT EDINBURGH. 193
Though the field of battle is about twenty-six miles distant from
Edinburgh, the intelligence of Hawley's defeat was known there before
nine o'clock at night, by the arrival of some spectators who had witnessed
the action, and by some of tho dragoons who, impelled by fear, did not
halt till they reached the capital. The English general passed the even-
ing of the battle at Linlithgow, and marched next morning with tlie mass
of his army for Edinburgh, where he arrived about four o'clock in the
afternoon. A prey to disapuointment and vexation, the appearance of
Hawley on the morning after the battle is said by an observer to have
been most wretched, and even worse than that of Cope a few hours after
his " scuffle," when the same person saw him at Fala on his retreat to
Berwick.*
Before the return of Hawley's army, the greatest consternation pre-
vailed among the friends of the government at Edinburgh from the re-
ports of the fugitives the preceding night, who brought accounts of the
total route and dispersion of the army, exaggerated by the relation of
circumstances which had no existence, save in their own terrified im-
aginations ; but the arrival of the greater part of the army served to dis-
sipate their fears in some measure. Since the commencement of the re-
bellion, however, to its final close, never were the apprehensions of the
supporters of the existing government more alarmingly excited than on
the present occasion, when they saw the veteran troops, v> ho had fought
the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, return from Falkirk discomfited
.Majesty's enemies in your rebellious country? And how often have you falsely magni-
fied and increased the power and number of his friends? These things jou had tlie
hardiness to misrepresent to some of the ministers of stale, and generals of the army.
If the government had not relied on the truth of your advices, it had been an easy mat-
ter to liave crushed this insurrection in the bud. If your information had not been un-
luckily believed, that most part of the Highlanders had run home with their booty after
tliebaitleofGladsmuir, and that they who remained had absolutely refused to march into
England, what would have hindered the king to send down a few trocps from England
to .Tssist his forces in Scotland, to have at once dispersed and destroyed them? But )ou,
out of your views or vanity, made him and his ministry believe that you were able to do
it yourselves. And what are the consequences of your fine politics and intelligence?
The rebels have got time to draw to such a head, that the king has been obliged to with-
draw more than ten thousand of his own troops from the assistance of his allies abroad,
and as many auxiliaries from Holland and Hesse, to defend his own person and domin-
iuns at home. As to your diminishing their numbers, and ridiculing their discipline,
you see, and 1 feel the eflrects of it. 1 never saw any troops fiie in platoons more regularly,
make their motions and evolutions quicker, or attack with more bravery and better order
than those Highlanders did at the battle of Falkirk last week. And these are the vei7
men whom you represented as a parcel of raw undisciplined vagabonds. No Jacobite
could have contrived more hurt to the king's faithful friends, or done more service to his
inveterate enemies. Gentlemen, I tell you plainly, these things I am now blaming you
for I shall represent at court, so that it may be put out of your power to abuse it for the
future. I desire no answer, nor will I receive any. If you have any thing to offer in
your defence or justification, do it above, and publish it here. It will not offend me. In
the meantime I will deal with you with that openness and honour which becomes one of
my station and character. I will send to you in writing what 1 have now delivered to
you by word of month, that you may make iuiy use of it that you think proper for your
own advantage and exculpation. — Farewell."
• Culloden Papers, p. 2C7.
III. 2 B