the fifty-second on the flank of the last charge of the French Guard at Waterloo.  The Highland right broke through Barrel’s regiment, swept over the guns, and died on the bayonets of the second line.  They had thrown down their muskets after one fire, and, says Cumberland, stood “and threw stones for at least a minute or two before their total rout began.”  Probably the fall of Lochiel, who was wounded and carried out of action, determined the flight.  Meanwhile the left, the Macdonalds, menaced on the flank by cavalry, were plied at a hundred yards by grape.  They saw their leaders, the gallant Keppoch and Macdonnell of Scothouse, with many others, fall under the grape-shot:  they saw the right wing broken, and they did not come to the shock.  If we may believe four sworn witnesses in a court of justice (July 24, 1752), whose testimony was accepted as the basis of a judicial decreet (January 10, 1756), {290} Keppoch was wounded while giving his orders to some of his men not to outrun the line in advancing, and was shot dead as a friend was supporting him.  When all retreated they passed the dead body of Keppoch.

The tradition constantly given in various forms that Keppoch charged alone, “deserted by the children of his clan,” is worthless if sworn evidence may be trusted.

As for the unhappy Charles, by the evidence of Sir Robert Strange, who was with him, he had “ridden along the line to the right animating the soldiers,” and “endeavoured to rally the soldiers, who, annoyed by the enemy’s fire, were beginning to quit the field.”  He “was got off the field when the men in general were betaking themselves precipitately to flight; nor was there any possibility of their being rallied.”  Yorke, an English officer, says that the Prince did not leave the field till after the retreat of the second line.

So far the Prince’s conduct was honourable and worthy of his name.  But presently, on the advice of his Irish entourage, Sullivan and Sheridan, who always suggested suspicions, and doubtless not forgetting the great price on his head, he took his own way towards the west coast in place of joining Lord George and the remnant with him at Ruthven in Badenoch.  On April 26 he sailed from Borradale in a boat, and began that course of wanderings and hairbreadth escapes in which only the loyalty of Highland hearts enabled him at last to escape the ships that watched the isles and the troops that netted the hills.

Some years later General Wolfe, then residing at Inverness, reviewed the occurrences, and made up his mind that the battle had been a dangerous risk for Cumberland, while the pursuit (though ruthlessly cruel) was inefficient.