A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

LANDING OF THE IRISH IN THE WEST. 33.J
tou house, but passed the night in an obscure cottage, and in tne daj;
time wandered alone among the iieigiibouring mountains, ruminating
over the strange peculiarity of his situation, and waiting the return of
his fellow-travellers, whom he had dispatched to collect intelligence on
the state of the kingdom. These messengers came back to him after
some days' absence, bringing with them the most cheerless accounts
of the situation of the country, and of the persecutions which the royal-
ists suffered at the hands of the covenanters. Among other distressing
pieces of intelligence they communicated to Montrose the premature
and unsuccessful attempt of the marquis of Huntly in favour of the royal
cause, and of his retreat to Strathnaver to avoid the fury of his enemies.
These accounts greatly affected IMontrose, who was grieved to find that
the Gordons, who were stern royalisti, should be exposed, by the aban-
donment of their chief, to the revenge of their enemies ;
but he consoled
himself with the reflection, that as soon as he should be enabled to unfurl
the royal standard the tide of fortune would turn.
While cogitating on the course he should pursue in this conjuncture,
a report reached him from some shepherds on the hills, that a body of
Irish troops had landed in the ^\'est, and .was advancing through
the Highlands. Montrose at once concluded that these were the
auxiliaries whom the earl of Antrim had undertaken to send him four
months before, and such they proved to be. This force, which amounted
to fifteen hundred men, was under the command of Alexander Macdonald,
son of a gentleman of lona, named Coll Mac -Gillespie Macdonald,
who had been greatly persecuted by tlie Earl of Argyle. [Macdonald
had arrived early in July, sixteen hundred and fort3'-four, among the
Hebrides, and had landed and taken the castles of Meigray and Kinloch
Alan. He had then disembarked his forces in Knoydart, where ho
expected to be joined by the marquis of Huntly and the earl of Seafortli.
As he advanced into the interior he dispatched the fiery cross for the
purpose of summoning the clans to his standard ;
but, althougli the cross
was carried through a large extent of country, even to Aberdeen,* he
was only joined at first by the Clan-Donald, under the captain of Clan-
Ronald, and the laird of Glengary. The marquis of Argyle collected an
army to oppose the progress of Macdonald ; and to cut off his retreat to
Ireland, he sent some ships of war to Loch Eishord, where Macdonald's
fleet lay, which captured or destroyed them. This loss, while it frus-
trated an intention JIacdonald entertained of returning to Ireland, in
consequence of the disappointment he had met with in not being joined
by the clans, stimulated him to farther exertions in continuing his
march, in the hope of meeting Montrose.
As Macdonald was perfectly ignorant of Montrose's movements, and
tliought it likely that he might be still at Carlisle, waiting till he should
hear of Macdonald's arrival, he sent letters to him by the hands of a conti-
' Spalcli.i!
2 V