And now, as under the royal order, the secretary gave explicit instructions for the indiscriminate butchery of the whole “damnable race.” The passes were to be guarded to prevent any escape. “In the winter,” he wrote, “they cannot carry their wives, children, and cattle to the mountains. This is the proper season to maul them, in the long dark nights.” A detachment of troops, belonging Argyle’s regiment, under Campbell of Glenlyon, were sent into the glen. They were hospitably received, and were quartered amongst the inhabitants. A niece of Glenlyon’s was married to a son of MacIan’s, and for twelve days there was hunting by day, and feasting, card-playing, and healths-drinking in the long evenings. Glenlyon and a party accepted an invitation to dine with MacIan on the 13th of February, but, as had been previously arranged, at four o’clock of the morning of that day, the work of blood began. The old chief was shot in his bed; his wife was stripped naked, and died next day from terror and exposure. The two sons of MacIan were aroused by the musket shots, the shouts of the murderers, and the screams of the victims; they, with many others, men, women, and children, fled, half-naked, in darkness, snow, and storm, into the less savage wilderness. The falling snow proved fatal to several of the fugitives, but it was the salvation of the others, for it prevented the troops, who were to have guarded the passes, from arriving at the time appointed, to intercept and slay all who had escaped from death in the glen. It was mid-day when these troops, by the several passes entered the glen, and they found no MacDonald alive but an old man of eighty, and him they slew. Every hut was burned, the cattle and horses of the tribe were collected, and driven to the garrison of Fort-William. Thirty-eight victims: Was Secretary Stair satisfied? Not he; he was mortified that his plans for total destruction had failed. “I regret,” he wrote, “that any got away.” It is said that two men—one engaged in the contrivance of the massacre, and the other in its execution— Breadalbane and Glenlyon—did feel the stings of conscience, the heart- gnawings of remorse, and were never the same men afterwards. It was long before the hideous story of Glencoe came to be generally known. On the facts being published, there rose a popular clamour for an inquiry. On the eve of the meeting of the Scottish Parliament, in 1695, it was known to ministers that the war-cry would be “Glencoe.” So in haste they got the King to appoint a Commission. After a searching enquiry, the Commission reported that the slaughter at Glencoe was murder; and that of this murder the letters of the Master of Stair were the sole warrant and cause. As a punishment for his great crime, Stair was _dismissed from office_! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Union of Scotland and England.