mpossible not to admire the desperate courage of the young aspirant
setting out thus lightly to conquer a kingdom with only a handful of
men at his back and hardly a handful of money in his pocket. Judging,
too, by the course of events and the near approach which the prince
made to success, it is impossible not to accord him considerable praise
for that instinct which makes the great soldier and the great
statesman, the instinct which counsels when to dare. The very ships in
which he was sailing he had got hold of, not only without the
connivance, but without the knowledge, of the French Government. They
were obtained through two English residents at Nantes. On August 2d
the _Boutelle_ anchored off the Hebrides alone. The _Elizabeth_ had
fallen in with an English vessel, the _Lion_, and had been so severely
handled that she was obliged to return to Brest to refit, carrying with
her all the arms and ammunition on which Prince Charles had relied for
the furtherance of his expedition. So here was the claimant to the
crown, friendless and alone, trying his best to derive encouragement
from the augury which Tullibardine grandiloquently discerned in the
flight of a royal eagle around the vessel. Eagle or no eagle, augury
or no augury, the opening of the campaign was gloomy in the extreme.
The first clansmen whose aid the prince solicited were indifferent,
reluctant, and obstinate in their indifference and reluctance.
Macdonald of Boisdale first, and Clanranald of that ilk afterwards,
assured the prince, with little ceremony, that without aid, and
substantial aid, from a foreign Power, in the shape of arms and
fighting-men, no clansman would bare claymore in his behalf. But the
eloquence and the determination of the young prince won over Clanranald
and the Macdonalds of {205} Kinloch-Moidart; Charles disembarked and
took up his headquarters at Borrodaile farm in Inverness-shire. A kind
of legendary fame attaches to the little handful of men who formed his
immediate following. [Sidenote: 1745--The Seven Men of Moidart] The
Seven Men of Moidart are as familiar in Scottish Jacobite legend as the
Seven Champions of Christendom are to childhood. Tullibardine; Sir
Thomas Sheridan, the prince's tutor; Francis Strickland, an English
gentleman; Sir John Macdonald, an officer in the service of Spain;
Kelly, a non-juring clergyman; Buchanan, the messenger, and Aeneas
Macdonald, the banker, made up the mystic tale. Among these S