the Paisley
men and those of Dumbarton, and several of the other companies, to the
number of an hundred men, with the greatest intrepidity leapt on shore,
got up to the top of the mountains, and stood a considerable time,
beating their drums all the while; but no enemy appearing, they went in
quest of their boats, which the rebels had seized, and having casually
lighted on some ropes and oars hid among the shrubs, at length they found
the boats drawn up a good way on the land, which they hurled down to the
loch. Such of them as were not damaged they carried off with them, and
such as were, they sank and hewed to pieces. That same night they
returned to Luss, and thence next day to Dumbarton, from whence they had
at first set out, bringing along with them the whole boats they found in
their way on either side of the loch, and in the creeks of the isles, and
mooring them under the cannon of the castle. During this expedition, the
pinnaces discharging their patararoes, and the men their small-arms, made
such a thundering noise, through the multiplied rebounding echoes of the
vast mountains on both sides of the loch, that the MacGregors were cowed
and frighted away to the rest of the rebels who were encamped at Strath
Fillan."--_Rae's History of the Rebellion,_ 4to, p. 287.

Note D.--Author's Expedition against the MacLarens.

The Author is uncertain whether it is worth while to mention, that he had
a personal opportunity of observing, even in his own time, that the
king's writ did not pass quite current in the Brass of Balquhidder. There
were very considerable debts due by Stewart of Appin (chiefly to the
author's family), which were likely to be lost to the creditors, if they
could not be made available out of this same farm of Invernenty, the
scene of the murder done upon MacLaren.

His family, consisting of several strapping deer-stalkers, still
possessed the farm, by virtue of a long lease, for a trifling rent. There
was no chance of any one buying it with such an encumbrance, and a
transaction was entered into by the MacLarens, who, being desirous to
emigrate to America, agreed to sell their lease to the creditors for
L500, and to remove at the next term of Whitsunday. But whether they
repented their bargain, or desired to make a better, or whether from a
mere point of honour, the MacLarens declared they would not permit a
summons of removal to be executed against them, which was necessary for
the legal comple