earlier one brought to the Convention by Crane.  Dundee had not seen this despatch; and it is possible that he described it rather as his own good sense urged him to believe it must have been, than as it really was.  The letters to himself, which he summarises for Murray’s benefit, must have been those acknowledged in the postscript to Melfort of June 28th.  It is, as we shall presently see, certain that about this time James was induced to assume, as he had before assumed when it was too late, the virtue of toleration.  How much of these promises Dundee really believed, it is impossible to say.  The history of our own time has shown, and is every day showing, that neither wisdom nor experience will always avail to prevent a man from believing that which it is his interest to believe.

[94] Memoirs of Balcarres and of Lochiel.

[95] I have given the modern style of these regiments as they were before the last freak of the War Office.  What they may be now, I do not know; nor is the knowledge important, for the style I have used will probably be most familiar to my readers.  “My Uncle Toby,” it will be remembered, was of Leven’s regiment.  There exists a letter from Schomberg to Lord Leven, especially commending to the latter’s care a gentleman of the name of Le Fevre.  See the “Leven and Melville Papers.”

[96] Mackay says in his Memoirs that he left Edinburgh with two troops of horse, and four of dragoons.  It is certain that only the former were engaged at Killiecrankie.  But the general’s narrative is throughout extremely confused, and sometimes barely intelligible.  Perhaps the larger force was that he had counted on having; or the four troops of dragoons may have been those he ordered to follow from Stirling.

Alexander Hamilton, who commanded the artillery in the Covenanter’s army with which Leslie and Montrose made the famous passage of the Tyne in 1640.  From Burton’s description of them they can hardly have been very dangerous, at least to the enemy.  “They seem to have been made of tin for the bore, with a coating of leather, all secured by tight cordage.  A horse could carry two of them, and it was their merit to stand a few discharges before they came to pieces.”  “History of Scotland,” vi. 302.

[97] It is said that one of Dundee’s arguments against attacking in the pass was, that it did not become brave soldiers to engage a foe at disadvantage, an argument which I should imagine Dundee was much too sensible a man to employ to Highlanders.  Had his force been sufficient for him to close up the mouth of the pass after the Lowlanders had entered, it is hard to imagine he would have lost the chance of catching Mackay in such a trap.  But his force was too small to divide:  while the nature of the ground would of course have told as much against those who made as against those who met a charge, besides inevitably offending the jealous point of honour which forbad one clan to take precedence of another.  It may be, too, that Dundee was not very well served by his scouts.  Mackay certainly seems to have got well on his way through the pass before the other knew that he had entered it.  See the “Life of Mackay,” and the “Rebellions in Scotland.”