that month, the Earl of Mar, in company with General Hamilton and
Colonel Hay, had embarked at Gravesend, on the Thames, all in disguise
and under assumed names. To keep their secret the better, they had taken
passage on a coal sloop, agreeing to work their way like common seamen;
and in this humble guise they continued until Newcastle was reached,
where a vessel in which they could proceed with more comfort was
engaged. From this craft they landed at the small port of Elie, on the
coast of Fife, a country then well filled with Jacobites, or adherents
to the cause of the Stuart princes. Such were the mysterious
preliminary steps towards the hunting-party in the forest of Braemar.

In truth, the hunt was little more than a pretence. While the clansmen
were out forming the tinchel, the lords were assembled in secret
convocation, in which the Earl of Mar eloquently counselled resistance
to the rule of King George, and the taking of arms in the cause of James
Francis Edward, son of the exiled James II., and, as he argued, the only
true heir to the English throne. He told them that he had been promised
abundant aid in men and money from France, and assured them that a
rising in Scotland would be followed by a general insurrection in
England against the Hanoverian dynasty. He is said to have shown letters
from the Stuart prince, the Chevalier de St. George, as he was called,
making the earl his lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of the
armies of Scotland.

How many red deer were killed on this occasion no one can say. The noble
guests of Mar had other things to think of than singling out fat bucks.
None of them opposed the earl in his arguments, and in the end it was
agreed that all should return home, raise what forces they could by the
3d of September, and meet again on that day at Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire,
where it would be settled how they were to take the field.

Thus ended that celebrated hunt of Braemar, which was destined to bring
tears and blood to many a household in Scotland, through loyal devotion
to a prince who was not worth the sacrifice, and at the bidding of an
earl who was considered by many as too versatile in disposition to be
fully trusted. An anecdote is given in evidence of this opinion. The
castle of Braemar was, as a result of the hunt, so overflowing with
guests, that many of the gentlemen of secondary importance could not be
accommodated with beds, but were forced to spend the night around