It may be easily conceived what agony she would suffer, lest, by overdoing her part, she should increase suspicion, and in fact lead to a discovery. The ruse was fortunately successful. On the search through the house being given over, Lord Pitsligo was hastily taken from his confined situation, and again replaced in bed; and, as soon as he was able to speak, his accustomed kindness of heart made him say to his servant--'James, go and see that these poor fellows get some breakfast and a drink of warm ale, for this is a cold morning; they are only doing their duty, and cannot bear me any ill-will.' When the family were felicitating each other on his escape, he pleasantly observed--'A poor prize, had they obtained it--an old dying man!'" This was the last attempt made on the part of government to seize on the persons of any of the surviving insurgents. Three years before, Dr. Archibald Cameron, a brother of Locheill, having clandestinely revisited Scotland, was arrested, tried, and executed for high treason at Tyburn. The government was generally blamed for this act of severity, which was considered rather to have been dictated by revenge than required for the public safety. It is, however, probable that they might have had secret information of certain negotiations which were still conducted in the Highlands by the agents of the Stuart family, and that they considered it necessary, by one terrible example, to overawe the insurrectionary spirit. This I believe to have been the real motive of an execution which otherwise could not have been palliated: and, in the case of Lord Pitsligo, it is quite possible that the zeal of a partisan may have led him to take a step which would not have been approved of by the ministry. After the lapse of so many years, and after so many scenes of judicial bloodshed, the nation would have turned in disgust from the spectacle of an old man, whose private life was not only blameless, but exemplary, dragged to the scaffold, and forced to lay down his head in expiation of a doubtful crime: and this view derives corroboration from the fact that, shortly afterwards, Lord Pitsligo was tacitly permitted to return to the society of his friends, without further notice or persecution.