illiam had, in all probability, never heard the Glencoe men
mentioned except as banditti. He knew that they had not come in by the
prescribed day. That they had come in after that day he did not know. If
he paid any attention to the matter, he must have thought that so fair
an opportunity of putting an end to the devastations and depredations
from which a quiet and industrious population had suffered so much ought
not to be lost.

An order was laid before him for signature. He signed it, but, if Burnet
may be trusted, did not read it. Whoever has seen anything of public
business knows that princes and ministers daily sign, and indeed
must sign, documents which they have not read; and of all documents
a document relating to a small tribe of mountaineers, living in a
wilderness not set down in any map, was least likely to interest a
Sovereign whose mind was full of schemes on which the fate of Europe
might depend. [229] But, even on the supposition that he read the order
to which he affixed his name, there seems to be no reason for blaming
him. That order, directed to the Commander of the Forces in Scotland,
runs thus: "As for Mac Ian of Glencoe and that tribe, if they can be
well distinguished from the other Highlanders, it will be proper, for
the vindication of public justice, to extirpate that set of thieves."
These words naturally bear a sense perfectly innocent, and would, but
for the horrible event which followed, have been universally understood
in that sense. It is undoubtedly one of the first duties of every
government to extirpate gangs of thieves. This does not mean that every
thief ought to be treacherously assassinated in his sleep, or even that
every thief ought to be publicly executed after a fair trial, but
that every gang, as a gang, ought to be completely broken up, and that
whatever severity is indispensably necessary for that end ought to be
used. If William had read and weighed the words which were submitted
to him by his Secretary, he would probably have understood them to
mean that Glencoe was to be occupied by troops, that resistance, if
resistance were attempted, was to be put down with a strong hand, that
severe punishment was to be inflicted on those leading members of the
clan who could be proved to have been guilty of great crimes, that some
active young freebooters, who were more used to handle the broad sword
than the plough, and who did not seem likely to settle down into quiet
labourers, w