had suffered. He proceeded straight
to Inverness, and placing himself on the west side of the town
despatched a party of troops to prevent any supply of arms or provisions
from approaching the castle by the Firth. Forbes of Culloden lay to the
east, and the Grants, to the number of eight hundred, to the south side
of the town. Sir John Mackenzie finding himself thus invested on all
sides, took advantage of a spring tide that came up to the town and made
the river navigable, to escape with all his troops; and Lord Lovat
immediately gained possession of the citadel. The fame of this
inglorious triumph has, however, been divided between Lovat and Hugh
Rose of Kilravock,[204] whose brother, in pursuing the Jacobite guard to
the Tolbooth, was shot through the body. But whoever really deserved
the laurel, Lord Lovat profited largely by his dishonest exertions in a
cause which he began life by disliking, and ended by abjuring.

On the thirteenth of November Lord Lovat was joined by the Earl of
Sutherland; and, leaving a garrison in Inverness, the two noblemen
marched into the territory of the Earl of Seaforth, where they
intimidated the natives into submission. Lord Lovat also despatched a
friend to Perth, where the main portion of the Jacobite army lay, to
claim the submission of his clansmen, who were led by his rival,
Mackenzie of Fraserdale. They complied with his summons to the number of
four hundred, and Lovat, after entering Murray and Strathspey, and
exacting obedience to the King's troops in these districts, prepared to
attack Lord Seaforth, who was threatening to invest Inverness. But
Duncan Forbes, who was then serving with the army, restrained the ardour
of his neighbour, and hostilities were terminated in the North without
further bloodshed.[205]

Lord Lovat was quickly repaid for his exertions. From George the First
he received three letters of thanks, and an invitation to go to Court;
and in March, 1716, a remission of the sentence of death which had been
passed upon him, received the royal signature. He was appointed governor
of Inverness, with a free company of Highlanders. What, perhaps, still
more gratified his natural thirst for vengeance was the fate of his
rival, the husband of Amelia Lovat, Mackenzie of Fraserdale, who was
attainted of high treason, and whose life-interest in the lands and
barony of Lovat were forfeited and escheated to the Crown. To complete
the good fortune of Lovat, the King was grac