of this remarkable victory, than he resolved to reject them, and trust to continued hostilities for the means of obtaining a more advantageous treaty. Montrose, also, whose forces were always reduced after a victory, as the Highlanders were wont to go home to deposit their spoils, could take no other advantage of "the day of Inverlochy," than to carry on, upon a broader scale, and with less interruption, the barbarous system of warfare which political, religious, and feudal hostility had induced him to adopt. Instead of marching towards the capital, where he might have followed up his victory to the utter extinction of the administration of the Estates, he resumed his march along the course of the Spey into the province of Moray, and, issuing an order for all the men above sixteen and below sixty to join his standard, under the pain of military execution, proceeded to burn the houses and destroy the goods upon the estates of Grangehill, Brodie, Cowbin, Innes, Ballendalloch, Foyness, and Pitchash. He plundered also the village of Garmouth and the lands of Burgie, Lethen, and Duffus, and destroyed all the boats and nets upon the Spey. Argyle having thrown up his commission as general of the army, which was given to general Baillie, he was now attached to it only as member of a committee appointed by the parliament to direct its movements, and in this capacity was present at the battle of Kilsyth, August 15th, 1645, the most disastrous of all the six victories of Montrose to the Covenanters, upwards of six thousand men being slain on the field of battle and in the pursuit. This, however, was the last of the exploits of the great marquis. There being no more detachments of militia in the country to oppose to him, general David Leslie, with some regiments of horse, were recalled from the army in England, who surprised and defeated him at Philiphaugh, annihilating his little army, and, according to an ordinance of parliament, hanging up without distinction all the Irish battalions.
In the month of February, 1646, Argyle was sent over to Ireland to bring home the Scottish troops that had been sent to that country to assist in repressing the turbulence of the Catholics. He returned to Edinburgh in the month of May following. In the meantime, Alister Macdonald, the coadjutor of Montrose, had made another tour through his country of Argyle, giving to the sword and the devouring flame whatever had escaped in the former inroads, so that upwards of twelve hundred of the miserable inhabitants, to escape absolute starvation, were compelled to emigrate, under one of their chieftains, Ardinglass, into Menteith, where they attempted to settle themselves upon the lands of the malignant. But scarcely had they made the attempt, when they were attacked by Inchbrackie, with a party of Athol men, and chased beyond the Forth near Stirling, where they were joined by the marquis, who carried them into Lennox, and quartered them upon the lands of lord Napier, till he obtained an act to embody them into a regiment, to be stationed in different parts of the Highlands, and a grant from parliament for a supply of provisions for his castles. So deplorably had his estates been wasted by the inroads of Montrose and Macdonald, that a sum of money was voted him for the support of himself and family, and for paying annual rents to some of the more necessitous creditors upon his estates. A collection was at the same time ordered through all the churches of Scotland, for the relief of his poor people who had been plundered by the Irish. In the month of July, 1646, when the king had surrendered himself to the Scottish army, Argyle went up to Newcastle to wait upon and pay his respects to him. On the 3d of August following, he was sent up to London, along with Loudon, the chancellor, and the earl of Dunfermline, to treat with the parliament of England, concerning a mitigation of the articles they had presented to the king, with some of which he was not at all satisfied. He was
