ved; whilst he had the good fortune to escape that responsibility
which fell to the lot of his rival, Lord George Murray. The influence
which that nobleman had acquired over the council of war had enabled him
far to eclipse the Duke of Perth in importance; but it was the fate of
Lord George Murray to pay a heavy penalty for that distinction.

But not only did the amiable and high-minded Duke of Perth calmly
surrender to one, who was esteemed a better leader than himself, the
post of honour; but he endeavoured to reconcile to the indignity put
upon them the fierce spirit of the Macdonalds, who were obliged to cede
their accustomed place on the right to the Atholl men. "If," said the
Duke, "you fight with your usual bravery, you will make the left wing a
right wing; in which case I shall ever afterwards assume the honourable
surname of Macdonald."[259] The Duke's standard was borne, on this
occasion, by the Laird of Comrie, whose descendant still shows the
claymore which his ancestors brandished; whilst the Duke exclaimed
aloud, "Claymore!"[260] Happy would it have been for Charles, had a
similar spirit purified the motives of all those on whom he was fated to
depend!

The battle was soon ended! Half-an-hour of slaughter and despair
terminated the final struggle of the Stuarts for the throne of Britain!
During that fearful though brief[261] space, one thousand of the
Jacobites were killed; no quarter being given on either side. Exhausted
by fatigue and want of food, the brave Highlanders fell thick as autumn
leaves upon the blood-stained moor, near Culloden House. About two
hundred only on the King's side perished in the encounter. During the
whole battle, taking into account the previous cannonading, the
Jacobites lost, as the prisoners afterwards stated, four thousand men.
But it was not until after the fury of the fight ceased, that the true
horrors of war really began. These may be said to consist, not in the
ardour of a strife in which the passions, madly engaged, have no check,
nor stay; but in the cold, vindictive, brutal, and remorseless
after-deeds, which stamp for ever the miseries of a conflict upon the
broken hearts of the survivors.

"Exceeding few," says Mr. Maxwell, "were made prisoners in the field of
battle, which was such a scene of horror and inhumanity as is rarely to
be met with among civilized nations. Every circumstance concurs to
heighten the enormity of the cruelties exercised on this occasion;