amine the real difficulties of an attempt, in the middle of the eight eenth century, for the restoration of the Stuarts. In entering upon such an examination, we demur to the conclusion of one excellent historian, who expresses his belief, that if, after the battle of Preston Charles could have pushed on with two or three thousand men, "he might have reached the capital with but little opposition, and succeeded in at least a temporary restoration." He says "the spirit of the people in no degree responded to the efforts of the government; they remained cold lookers-on, not indeed apparently favouring the rebellion, but as little disposed to strive against it." † The popular feeling is described as, first apathy, and then terror. In our view, the public spirit of the people of England, in the crisis of 1745, is not to be estimated by the alarm of timid ministers, or the indifference of fashionable triflers. Pelham was not so apprehensive of the strength or zeal of the enemy, as fearful of the inability or languidness of friends. Some politicians went further. England, Fox thought, would be for the first comer-the English and Dutch battalions from Flanders, or the French and Spaniards. Horace Walpole was alternating between selfish fears and affected nonchalance. On the 6th of September he looks upon Scotland as gone. On the 13th he does not despair, yet expects nothing but bad. apprehensions are not nearly so strong as they were. when the news of Preston battle has arrived, he has so trained himself to expect this ruin, that he sees it approach without any emotion. This is the ordinary mode in which the exclusive world looks at great public events that affect a nation. On the 4th of October the smart letter-writer discovers that there is a community, who are not about to be conquered by "banditti," as he had termed the Highlanders. "A wonderful spirit is arisen in all counties, and among all sorts of people." The merchants of London, he says, have undertaken to support public credit; noblemen are raising regiments; the archbishop of York has set an example that would rouse the most indifferent. He then, as was his wont, shuts up his hopes and his fears in matter for a laugh. "As an instance of more spirit and wit than there is in all Scotland," he quotes an address "To all jolly Butchers,-My bold hearts, the Papists eat no meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, nor during Lent." ‡ Mahon, vol. iii. p. 368 On the 20th his NOTE ON THE HIGHLAND COSTUME. 517 NOTE ON THE HIGHLAND COSTUME. Charles Edward adopted the Highland costume as one of the means of acquiring the affection of the mountaineers. In this costume we do not recognize the picturesque garb which is usually associated with the person of the Highlander; the garb which. Scottish gentlemen delight to wear on their high festivals, and which the household-god of the snuffshop once made fami iar to the eyes of the Londoners. Prince Charles Edward is painted as wearing the truis, the breeches and stockings in one piece, or hose pantaloon; and not as wearing the kilt or philibeg, with the knee and part of the leg uncovered. Without entering into any examination of the disputed question of the high antiquity of the reputed Highland costume, it may be satisfactory to show what the ordinary costume really was, as described by a traveller in Scotland at a period between the Rebellions of 1715 and 4745: "The Highland dress consists of a bonnet made of thrum without a brim, a short coat, a waistcoat longer by five on six inches, short stockings, and brogues or pumps without heels. By the way, they cut holes in their brogues, though new made, to let out the water when they have far to go and rivers to pass; and this they do to preserve their feet from galling, "Few besides gentlemen wear the trowse [truis], that is, the breeches and stockings all of one piece and drawn on together; over this habit they wear a plaid, which is usually three yards long and two breaths wide, and the whole garb is made of chequered tartan or plaiding; this, with the sword and pistol, is called a full dress, and to a well-propor tioned man with any tolerable air, it makes an agreeable figure; but this you have seen in London, and it is chiefly their mode of dressing when they are in the Lowlands, or when they make a neighbouring visit, or go anywhere on horseback; but when those among them who travel on foot, and have not attendants to carry them over the water, they vary it with the quelt [kilt], which is a manner I am about to describe. "The common habit of the ordinary Highlanders is far from being acceptable to the eye; with them a small part of the plaid, which is not so large as the former, is set in folds and girt round the waist to make of it a short petticoat that reaches half-way down the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulders, and then fastened before, below the neck, often with a fork, and sometimes with a bodkin, or sharpened piece of stick, so that they inake pretty near the appearance of the poor women in London when they bring their gowns over their heads to shelter them from the rain. In this way of wearing the plaid, they have sometimes nothing else to cover them, and are often barefoot; but some I have seen shod with a kind of pumps made out of a raw cow-hide with the hair turned outward, which being ill-made, the wearer's feet looked something like those of a roughfooted hen or pigeon: these are called quarrants, and are not only offensive to the sight but intolerable to the smell of those who are near them. The stocking rises no higher than the thick of the calf, and from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the leg is a naked space, which being exposed to all weathers, becomes tanned and freckled. This dress is called the quelt." The kilt,-as a part of the dress separate from the plaid, "set in folds and girt round the waist, to make of it a short petticoat that reaches half-way down the thigh,"--is held to have been an innovation occurring between the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. It is ascribed to the genius of an army tailor attached to the troops of General Wade, who saw the inconvenience of the old cumbrous arrangement. Thus the Highland costume, “in its more complete shape, has every appearance of being essentially modern." The dif • "Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his friend in London," 1754, vol. ii. p. 183. These letters, written from 1720 to 1702, by an engineer of the name of Burt, are com monly quoted as "Burt's Letters," ↑ Burton, vol. ii. p. 382. ference of colours in the Tartan, as distinguishing various clans, is also held to be of com paratively modern origin. "Various reasons," says the author of the "Letters," are given both for and against the Highland dress. It is urged against it, that it distinguishes the natives as a body of people distinct and separate from the rest of the subjects of Great Britain, and thereby is one cause of their narrow adherence among themselves to the exclusion of all the rest of the kingdom; but the part of the habit chiefly objected to is the plaid (or mantle), which, they say, is calculated for the encouragement of an idle life in lying about upon the heath in the day-time, instead of following some lawful employment; that it serves to cover them in the night when they lie in wait among the mountains to commit their robberies and other depredations, and is composed of such colours as altogether in the mass so nearly resemble the heath on which they lie, that it is hardly to be distinguished from it till one is so near them as to be within their power, if they have any evil intention. "On the other hand it is alleged; the dress is most convenient to those who, with no ill design, are obliged to travel from one part to another upon their lawful occasions, viz.: That they would not be so free to skip over the rocks and bogs with breeches, as they are in the short petticoat. That it would be greatly incommodious, to those who are frequently to wade through waters, to wear breeches, which must be taken off upon every such occurrence, or would not only gall the wearer, but render it very unhealthful and dangerous to their limbs to be constantly wet in that part of the body, especially in winter-time, when they might be frozen. And with respect to the plaid, in particular, the distance between one place of shelter and another are often too great to be reached before night comes on, and being intercepted by sudden floods, or hindered by other impediments, they are frequently obliged to lie all night in the hills, in which case they must perish were it not for the covering they carry with them." The preceding is an intelligible description, which may enable us to form a truer conception of the Highland army than we may derive from romances or melodramas. In the Act of Parliament of 1747, by which, "the clothes commonly called Highland clothes," are forbidden to be worn except by officers and soldiers; these clothes are described as "the plaid, philibeg or little kilt, trouze, shoulder-belts ; " and it is enacted, "that no tartan or parti-coloured plaid should be used for great coats or upper coats." In the "Humphrey Clinker" of Smollett, which embodies his remarks on his native country in 1766, we may trace the operation of this statute, which had for its object the amalgamation of Highlanders and Lowlanders: "It must be observed that the poor Highlanders are now seen to disadvantage. They have been not only disarmed by Act of Parliament, but also deprived of their ancient garb, which was both graceful and convenient; and, what is a greater hardship still, they are compelled to wear breeches-a restraint which they cannot bear with any degree of patience; indeed, the majority wear them, not in their proper place, but on poles or long staves over their shoulders; they are even debarred the use of their striped stuff, called Tartan, which was their own manufacture, prized by them above all the velvet, brocades, and tissues of Europe and Asia. The now lounge along in loose great coats of coarse russet, equally mean and cumbersome, and betray manifest marks of dejection. Certain it is, the government could not have taken a more effectual method to break their national spirit." These "breeches" were certainly not the "trouze" of the Highland gentlemen. "The 'breeks' attempted to be forced upon the nether limbs of the brawny Highlanders were the Lowland and English knee-breeches of George the Second's reign, with all the buttons and buckles thereunto belonging." The author of the interesting Letters which we have quoted gives an example to show that the whole people were "fond and tenacious of their Highland clothing" before the eventful period which was to produce such changes in this matter, as well as in greater affairs: "Being, in a wet season, upon one of my peregrinations, accompanied by a Highland gentleman, who was one of the clan through which I was passing, I observed the women to be in great anger with him about something that I did not understand. At length, I asked him wherein he had offended them? Upon this question he laughed, and told me his great coat was the cause of their wrath, and that their reproach was, that he could not be contented with the garb of his ancestors, but was degenerated into a Lowlander, and condescended to follow their unmanly fashions."+ • Planche. "British Costume," p. 435. Burt's "Letters," vol. ii p. 191. MEETING OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 519 CHAPTER XXVIII. Meeting of the British Parliament.-New regiments to be raised by Peers.-Divided counsels in the Cabinet and in Parliament.-The insurgent army crosses the Border. -Siege of Carlisle.-State of Public Intelligence.-The continued march into Eng. land.-Manchester recruits.-Roman Catholic families in Manchester.-The rebel army reaches Derby.-The duke of Cumberland's army close at hand. The retreat of the rebels resolved upon.-Public feeling in London. The roulace.-The commercial and moneyed classes.-Suspicions attached to Scotsmen in London.-Andrew Drummond, the banker.-Proceedings against Popish priests. THE king returned from Hanover on the 31st of August. The Parliament was summoned to meet on the 17th of October. On the 9th of October, "Charles, Prince of Wales, Regent of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland," issued his proclamation from his palace of Holyrood House, warning all his subjects, peers or commoners, to pay no obedience to this summons of the Elector of Hanover, and threatening that if any peers or commoners of Scotland should presume to sit or vote in such Parliament, they should be proceeded against as rebels and traitors. Nevertheless, in spite of this doughty manifesto, the Parliament did meet at Westminster on the 17th of October, although some few Scottish peers did keep away. The king expressed his surprise that any of his Protestant subjects should have been concerned in this rebellion; for throughout the whole course of his reign he had made the laws of the land the rule of his government and the preservation of the constitution in church and state, and the rights of his people, the main end and aim of all his actions. Whatever had been the defects of the government of the two Georges, the laws of the land had not been violated; the constitution under which they reigned had been upheld. The freedom of speech which was heard in both Houses, at this crisis of danger, is the best proof that no arbitrary power had deadened the old spirit which ejected the Stuarts; that the corruption, by which sir Robert Walpole had believed that the intrigues of the Jacobites could only be effectually resisted, had not created a Parliament of slaves and sycophants. In the Lords the earl of Westmoreland proclaimed that "the people suspect that both Houses are under a corrupt dependency upon the Crown."* In the Commons, major Selwyn denounced the system of continually interposing in continental affairs: 66 We have been doing little else for above twenty years, than pulling down with one hand, and setting up again with the other; so that a drum was never to beat in Germany, but we, knight-errant like, thought we must have recourse to arms."† The Opposition in the House of Commons, even at this time of public alarm, supported an amendment to the address as boldly conceived as in the previous days of domestic security: "In order to the firmer establishment of his majesty's throne on the solid and truly glorious basis of his people's affections, it shall be our zealous and speedy care to frame such bills as, if passed into laws, may prove most effectual for securing to his majesty's faithful subjects the perpetual enjoyment of their undoubted right to be freely and fairly represented in Parliament, frequently chosen, and exempted from undue influence of any kind." Lyttelton and Pitt, who had bearded Walpole in the height of his power, and had exercised all their oratory to drive Carteret from office, now spoke against the amendment. Pitt was indeed looking for place, from which the personal dislike of the king alone excluded him; but it was something far nobler than courtly subserviency which prompted him at this juncture to postpone every other consideration to the great question of the defence of his country; for he knew that the stability of the throne was undoubtedly the firmest foundation for the liberties of the people. In his speech on this occasion Pitt said that he had always been a friend to everything that could reasonably be offered to secure the independence of Parliament; that, because he was a real friend to every regulation that might appear likely to be ef fectual for preventing, the fatal effects of corruption, he would never propose or advise the introduction of any such regulation into the House but at a proper season. Was this a proper season? "Whilst the nation is engaged in a most dangerous and expensive foreign, war, a rebellion breaks out at home. Those rebels have already gained a victory over the king's troops, which has made them almost wholly masters of one part of the United Kingdom. We are under daily apprehensions, both of an irruption, and a foreign invasion, being made upon the other; and that invasion would, certainly, be attended with an insurrection. In such circumstances, shall we amuse ourselves with contriving methods to prevent the effects of corruption? Shall we spend our time in projects for guarding our liberties against corruption, when they are in such immediate danger of being trampled under foot by "Parliamentary History," vol. xiii. col. 1324. ↑ Ibid., 1335. Ibid., 1342. |