They could neither force the barricades, nor take much effect on the enemy, who were sheltered by the houses. Night came on, and they were obliged to retire, having suffered considerable loss. It was now seen what a bloody reception they would have met with had the bridge and the hollow way been properly manned. As it was, there was the prospect of a desperate conflict. Carpenter, it is true, had now come up, but together their forces, according to the duke of Berwick, did not exceed one thousand men, whilst those of the rebels more than doubled theirs. But, luckily for the royal forces, there was wanting a head in the rebel commander. With all the advantages on his side, he secretly sent colonel 0xburgh to propose a capitulation. Wills at first refused to listen to it, declaring that he could not treat with rebels who had murdered many of the king's subjects; but at length he said, if they would lay down their arms, he would defend them from being cut to pieces by the soldiers till he received further orders from government.
On learning this proposal, the rebel troops were in a fury of rage. The Highlanders demanded to be led by their own officers against the enemy, in order to cut their way through them; but their officers were not so unanimous, and, after a scene of confusion, during which, had Forster appeared, he would have been killed with a hundred wounds, the unfortunate men surrendered. Lord Derwentwater and colonel Macintosh were given up as hostages, and the men laid down their arms. Lords Derwentwater, Widdrington, Nithsdale, Wintoun, Carnwath, Nairn, and Charles Murray, and many members of the ancient northern families of Ord, Beaumont, Thornton, Clavering, Patten, Gascoigne, Standish, Swinburne, and Shafto were amongst the prisoners. When the numbers of the prisoners, however, came to be counted, it was very evident that great numbers had managed to escape or disguise themselves as natives of the town, for they only amounted to one thousand four hundred—scarcely more than the Lancashire men who had but just before joined them. Only seventeen of the rebels had been killed, and seventy of the king's troops, with as many more wounded.
This branch of the rebel force was thus completely removed from the field, and on the same day a far more sanguinary conflict had taken place betwixt the chief commanders on the two sides, Argyll and Mar, at Sheriffmuir. Mar had completely justified the observations of Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to the Sinclair MSS., that, "with a far less force than Mar had at his disposal, Montrose gained eight victories and overran Scotland. With fewer numbers of Highlanders Dundee gained the battle of Killiekrankie; and with about half the troops assembled at Perth, Charles Edward, in 1745, marched as far as Derby, and gained two victories over regular troops. But in 1715, by one of those misfortunes which dogged the house of Stuart since the days of Robert II., they wanted a man of military talent just at a time when they possessed an unusual quality of military means." Mar, in fact, was a most miserable general; he had no single qualification for it—boldness, promptness, or adroitness. He lingered his time away when he should have been acting, and acted without judgment or energy when he did act. Whilst he had been loitering at Perth, Argyll had been continually augmenting his forces, and by the commencement of November had more than doubled them by reinforcements from Ireland. It is indeed strange that both in 1715 and 1745 the Stuarts should have neglected Ireland, a country of like faith with themselves, and burning under the sense of grievous wrongs from England. It would seem as if the disgust with which James II. quitted that country still survived in his descendants; but, if so, it was a most impolitic disgust, for, besides that it deprived them of a powerful aid, it enabled their enemy to bring over large bodies thence against them, which otherwise must have been retained to keep down the Stuart partisans. By the accession of force from Ireland, Argyll had now raised his army to three thousand three hundred men, of which one thousand two hundred were cavalry.
It was the 10th of November when Mar, aware that Argyll was advancing against him, at length marched out of Perth with all his baggage, and provisions for twelve days. He was joined at Auchterarder the next morning by general Gordon, whom he had sent to Argyllshire to muster the western clans. He had been by no means successful, yet, when the two bodies were united, they amounted to ten thousand men, but a very motley crew, Highlanders and Lowlanders, motley in their several garbs, many of them without arms, and most of them very insufficiently armed. Sinclair says, "Though we had more men, the duke had more arms in a condition to fire." On the 12th, when they arrived at Ardoch, Argyll was posted at Dumblane, and he advanced to give them battle.
The wild, uneven ground of Sheriffmuir lay between them, and it was on this spot that Argyll on quitting Stirling had hoped to meet them. He therefore drew up his men on this moorland in battle array, and did not wait long for the coming of the Highland army. They were as eager for the fight as the soldiers of Argyll. As the earl called around him his officers, and asked whether they should fight or retreat—for even then he could talk of a retreat—they interrupted him by impatient cries of "Fight! fight!" The soldiers threw up their caps and bonnets, raised loud hurrahs, and showed every demonstration of longing for the combat.
It was on a Sunday morning, the 13th of November, that the battle of Sheriffmuir was fought. Princes and commanders seem to have a "penchant" for fighting on a Sunday. What numbers of the most sanguinary battles have taken place on a Sunday! and those rulers and governors who are of all men the most severe against the desecration of the Sunday by the people, terming often innocent amusement such desecration, think it no desecration at all to engage on that day in the mutual slaughter of thousands of men made in the image of God.
Argyll commanded the right wing of his army, general Whitham the left, and general Wightman the centre. He calculated much on this open ground for the operations of his calvary. On the other hand, Mar took the right wing of his army, and was thus opposed, not to Argyll, but to Whitham. The Highlanders, though called on to form in a moment, as it were, did so with a rapidity which astonished the enemy. "I never saw," said Wightman, in an official dispatch, "regular troops more exactly drawn up in line of battle, and that in a moment, and their officers behave! with all the gallantry imaginable." They opened fire on Argyll
