=53. Dundee's Revolt.=--When the Convention first met, each party, _Whigs_ and _Jacobites_ alike, had dreaded an outbreak on the part of the other. In the cellars of the city were hidden large numbers of _Covenanters_, who had been brought up from the West to overawe the _Jacobites_, while the _Duke of Gordon_ held the Castle for James, and he could, if he had so chosen, have turned the guns upon the city. But the Jacobites, finding themselves in the minority, determined to leave _Edinburgh_, and to hold a rival _Convention_ at _Stirling_; while it was agreed that the _Marquess of Athole_ should bring a body of his Highlanders to protect them. But this plan was so ill concerted that _Claverhouse_, now _Viscount_ _Dundee_, left hastily before the others were ready, an alarm was given, and they were all secured. Dundee withdrew to his own house in the _Highlands_, and stayed there quietly for some time. But a few months later certain letters written to him by James fell into the hands of the Government, and an order was sent out for his arrest. Thus roused to action, he summoned the clans for _King James_. Many of them joined him, more from hatred of Argyle than from love for James. _General Mackay_, who had come North with three regiments, was sent against him; but he was not used to the _Highland_ way of fighting, and wasted some weeks in running about after an enemy who always kept out of his way. Dundee had no regular troops, but, as Montrose had done before him, he showed what good soldiers the Celts can make with a good leader. As both Dundee and Montrose were Lowlanders, they could not excite the jealousy of the chiefs, and were all the better fitted for the supreme command of a Celtic army. Each clan in such an army formed a regiment bound together by a tie of common brotherhood, and all bound to live or die for the colonel their chief; and so long as the clans could be kept from quarrelling all went well. Dundee wrote to James, who was now in Ireland, for help; but he only sent three hundred miserably-equipped foot, under an officer named _Canon_. The hopes of the Whigs were placed in _Argyle_ and the western _Covenanters_, but neither of these did all that was expected of them. _Argyle_ could not, because his country had been so lately wasted; and the _Covenanters_ would not, because the more part of them thought it a sin to fight for a King who had not signed the Covenant. Some of them however thought otherwise, and of these a regiment was raised, and placed under the command of the Earl of Angus. This regiment was called the Cameronians.