Historical memoirs of Rob Roy and the Clan Macgregor

2 20 MEMOIR OF ROB ROY.
poverty ; and he cannot be denied the meed of
respect for his bravery, which never was exerted
against the unfortunate.
Rob Roy left several children ; but our limits
will only admit a short notice of those who
became obnoxious to the state, and whose des-
tiny was considered peculiarly severe. Though
they had, in the life of their father, too forcible
an example of misguided abilities, and pursued
a course of outrageous practices, yet we must
deplore their fate as melancholy instances of
that feeble and apparently partial justice
which marked the party principles of those
times, and led the elder to die in want in a
foreign land, and the younger to close his life
on the scaffold.
For some time prior to the death of their
father, the elder sons had not only pursued the
same compulsory levying of black-mail, but were
also accused of serious and terrible acts of violence
on the properties of the lieges. The more per-
fectly to secure their rapine, and conduct their
schemes of mischief, they associated themselves
with a band of daring outlaws, and took posses-
sion of an old peninsulated castle at the eastern
extremity of the lake of Balquhidder, as a
place of resort. But though the sons of Rob