It was fatal to the political prisoners that the rebellion was carried on after the double defeat at Sheriff Muir and Preston. The Chevalier de St. George, otherwise James III., arrived in Scotland as inopportunely as the chief actor in a tragedy, when the curtain is falling. On December 22nd, 1715, he landed at Peterhead. All was lost before he appeared. His progress was made with the saddening conviction that nothing could be recovered. He marched with a loose array from Peterhead to Dundee. From Dundee he went and played ‘king’ for a few days in regal Scone, after having burnt a village or two. On January 9th, he entered Perth. A stand was to be made there, but, on that day three weeks, the anniversary of the execution of his grandfather Charles I., the stand was abandoned. News reached Perth that Argyle was coming down upon them. The Jacobite army dispersed in various directions, but chiefly scattered through the Highland fastnesses. A faithful few accompanied James to Dundee, a fewer still to Montrose. There was then further talk of holding out, but the unhappy prince slipped away from the talkers, went on board the little vessel waiting for him, and on February 9th, 1716, he was quietly dining at Gravelines. Altogether, he was about six weeks in Scotland. It would have been as well for him, and better for his followers, had he been at the Antipodes. London would not then have raved so cruelly as it did against the prisoners of Sheriff Muir and Preston. On February 6th, 1716, when news of the dispersion from Perth had reached London, Lady Cowper went to the play, to see ‘The Cobler of Preston.’ It was ‘the poet’s night.’ The good news, in fact, ‘had reached town the previous day. The good effects of the news, which not only told of the withdrawal of the Jacobites, but that King George’s forces had taken possession of that important city, were manifested in the theatre; for there was not a word that was loyal but what met with the greatest acclamations.’ [Sidenote: _COST OF LIVING IN NEWGATE._] The prisoners claim more notice than the players. Those who were marched to Newgate had the worst of it; but in that worst there were degrees of difference. An Act of Parliament allowed a rent of half-a-crown a week to be levied, for indulgence that would barely save the lodger from lying on hard boards or harder stone. Instead of half-crowns, pounds were exacted. For twenty guineas a prisoner might buy the right of living in the governor’s house. When he had paid the fee, he found he had bought the right of walking all day long in the fetid press yard, and of eating in the pot-house rooms connected with it. The governor argued that his house consisted of every part of Newgate which was not really within the prison. It suited his purpose to call the press yard external; and he derived profit from it, accordingly.