erfectly tranquil, except that there
was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical questions. The Dutch
ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government.
They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier
had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had
been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet long and seven
feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen. But it is not hinted in
any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any extraordinary
occurrence in the Highlands. Reports that some of the Macdonalds had
been slain did indeed, in about three weeks, travel through Edinburgh up
to London. But these reports were vague and contradictory; and the very
worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth. The Whig
version of the story was that the old robber Mac Ian had laid an
ambuscade for the soldiers, that he had been caught in his own snare,
and that he and some of his clan had fallen sword in hand. The Jacobite
version, written at Edinburgh on the twenty-third of March, appeared in
the Paris Gazette of the seventh of April. Glenlyon, it was said, had
been sent with a detachment from Argyle's regiment, under cover of
darkness, to surprise the inhabitants of Glencoe, and had killed
thirty-six men and boys and four women. [235] In this there was nothing
very strange or shocking. A night attack on a gang of freebooters
occupying a strong natural fortress may be a perfectly legitimate
military operation; and, in the obscurity and confusion of such an
attack, the most humane man may be so unfortunate as to shoot a woman
or a child. The circumstances which give a peculiar character to the
slaughter of Glencoe, the breach of faith, the breach of hospitality,
the twelve days of feigned friendship and conviviality, of morning
calls, of social meals, of healthdrinking, of cardplaying, were not
mentioned by the Edinburgh correspondent of the Paris Gazette; and we
may therefore confidently infer that those circumstances were as yet
unknown even to inquisitive and busy malecontents residing in the
Scottish capital within a hundred miles of the spot where the deed had
been done. In the south of the island the matter produced, as far as
can now be judged, scarcely any sensation. To the Londoner of those days
Appin was what Caffraria or Borneo is to us. He was not more moved by
hearing that some Highland thieves had been surprised and killed than