The dragoons had, as on the day before, taken flight, in spite of the efforts of the brave and pious Colonel Gardener, slain soon afterward himself, as he was encouraging the resistance of a little platoon of troops. The infantry held its ground well, but every effort of the highlanders was now concentrated against it. The axes of Lochabar felled heads and lopped limbs. Before this savage valor the English soldiers at length gave way. James MacGregor, son of the celebrated Rob Roy, himself pierced with five wounds, shouted to his companions, "I am not dead, my men; I look to you to do your duty." Everywhere the chiefs were in the fray, at the head of their men. {201} "Do you think that our men are fit to resist the regular troops?" the prince had asked of MacDonald of Keppoch, who had served long in France "I know nothing about it," replied the highlander; "it is long since our clans have been defeated; but what I know well is that the chieftains will be in front, and that the soldiers will not leave them long alone." The attack and the victory only lasted for some moments. General Cope followed his dragoons and brought the news of his defeat to Berwick. "You are the first general who has ever himself announced his own defeat," said Lord Mark Kerr, ironically to him. The fugitives had not been pursued: the highlanders were absorbed in the division of spoils. The prince had carefully protected the wounded. "If I had gained the victory over foreigners, my joy would be complete," he wrote on the morrow to the king his father, "but the idea that it is over the English has mingled in it more bitterness than I thought possible. I learn that six thousand Dutch troops have arrived, and that ten battalions of English have been sent. I wish that they were all Dutch, so that I should not have the sorrow of shedding English blood. I hope I shall soon oblige the elector to send the rest, which at all events will be a service done to England, by making her renounce a foreign war, which is ruinous to her. Unhappily the victory brings embarrassments. I am charged with taking care of my friends and of my enemies; those who ought to bury the dead, as if that did not concern them. My highlanders consider themselves above doing it, and the peasants have withdrawn. I am equally much embarrassed on account of my wounded prisoners. If I make a hospital of a church, people will cry out against this great profanation, and will repeat what I said in my proclamation, by which I was pledged not to violate any propriety. Let come what may, I am resolved not to leave the poor wounded fellows in the street. If I cannot do better, I shall convert the palace into a hospital, and give it to them." {202}