Maitland Club > Miscellany of the Maitland Club > Volume 3, Parts 1 and 2

458 BURNING OF AUCHTERARDER, 171C.
went to Abruthven which is but hard by, and not only burnt the Barn
which Meinzies had spared, but all the other Houses and Corns belong-
ing to that Gentleman. They likewise burnt the House and Corns
of Kirkland.
Archibald Smith a farmer under Abruthven, seeing them going to
burn his House and Corns, begs of Capt s Stewart and Murray for God's
sake, to save but one stack to support his bestial or stock of cattle
during the storm. This being refus'd, he entreated them to kill or drive
away his horse and cattle, for he cou'd not bear to see them starve. To
this they gave him no answer, but set fire to his House and Corns
and so left him, with forty or fifty Horse and Cattle and nothing to
maintain them, sow his ground, or keep his Family from starving. It is
visible this was done because he was that Gentleman's tenant, for they
burnt no houses thereabout belonging to any other body, and were going
on burning more of his, when they got a false alarm, that the King's
Army was approaching, and so they went with great precipitation to-
wards Dalrioch a large Farm belonging to M r Haldane of Gleneaglies,
which lyes two miles to the eastward nearer Perth.
There was burnt in this Parish 142 houses, these not included which
were set on fire but partly sav'd, and all theire Corns, so that there was
nothing left them to preserve theire Cattle, and sow theire Grounds,
and besides the starving condition to which the people of all ages were
reduced by the frights, cold and fatigue they endur'd, many dyed soon
after, and severall lost the use of theire limbs.
The Jacobites alledge that what they did in burning was in theire own
defence, and done without distinction of Friend or Foe. But the con-
trary is very evident, for Clanranald own'd he had orders to spare M rs
Paterson's house, whom wee mentioned before.
It is true Clanranald burnt some Jacobites houses in Ochterarder, he
and his men being strangers, and not knowing to make distinctions, yet
even at that time he spared the houses belonging to John Dick, Charles