ent of deep
gratification to learn that the Assembly of South Carolina had given
Stuart a vote of thanks for his "courage, good conduct and long
perseverance at Fort Loudon," with a testimonial of fifteen hundred
pounds currency, and earnestly recommended him to the royal governor for
a position of honor and profit in the service of the province; the
office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the South having been
created, Stuart's appointment thereto by the Crown was received with the
liveliest public satisfaction, it being a position that he was
pronounced in every way qualified to fill.[16] For some years this
satisfaction continued, failing only when, in the growing differences
between the colonists and Great Britain, Stuart, wholly devoted to the
royal cause, conceived himself under obligations to carry out the
instructions which the British War Department sent to him and the four
royal governors of the southern provinces to use every endeavor to
continue the Indians in their adherence to the British standard as
allies against all its enemies; even concocting a plan with General
Gage, Governor Tonyn, Lord William Campbell, and other royalists,--which
plan happily failed,--to land a British army on the western coast of
Florida, whence, joined by tories and Indians, the united force should
fall upon the western frontiers of Carolina at the moment of attack on
the eastern coast by a British fleet, in the hope that the province thus
surrounded would be obliged to sue the royal government for peace.

Hamish had had some opportunity at Fort Loudon to observe the tenacity
with which Stuart at all hazards adhered to his "instructions and the
interest of the government," but in this crisis it ceased to appear in
the guise of duty. In such a time it seemed to Hamish an independent,
enlightened judgment partook of the values of a pious patriotism. A
permanent breach in their friendship was made when Stuart wrote to
Hamish to call his attention to the fact that the MacDonalds of
Kingsburgh and the MacLeods and other leal Scotch hearts in the southern
provinces were fighting under the royal banner. Hamish replied
succinctly that "on whatever side the MacLeods fought, with whatever
result, be sure the thing would be well done." As if to illustrate the
fact, he himself some time afterward set forth with the "mountain men"
to march against the royalists under Ferguson, and was among the victors
in the battle of King's Mountain