The above acts of grace increased the general goodwill which was entertained towards the royal family. The Prince of Wales showed especial tact in obtaining popular suffrage. When the water-pageant of the Lord Mayor, Sir John Eyles, Bart., passed along the river, the Prince and Princess of Wales, with the little Duke of Cumberland, stood in the river-side gardens of old Somerset House, to see the procession pass. It was not pre-arranged; but when the family group was seen, the state barges pulled in towards the garden-terrace, and there the chief magistrate offered wine to the prince who, taking it, drank to ‘The Prosperity of the City of London.’ Colonel Exelbe, Chief Bailiff of the Weavers, brought up the company’s state barge, as the others were pulling out to the middle stream, and, say the daily chroniclers, ‘in a manly, hearty voice, drank to the health of the Prince, the Princess, and the little Duke.’ The prince delighted the weavers by drinking to them ‘out of the same bottle.’ The autumn brought pleasant news to London, namely, that the disarmament of the Highlands had been successfully accomplished by General Wade. This brings, in connection with London, a well-known personage on the stage. [Sidenote: _ROBERT MACGREGOR CAMPBELL._] Robert Macgregor, having been compelled to drop the prohited surname, had taken that of Campbell, but he was familiarly known as Rob Roy. He was in arms against King George at Sheriff Muir, but he betrayed the Jacobite cause by refusing, at a critical moment, to charge and win a victory for King James. Romance has thrown a halo round this most contemptible rascal. He wrote to Wade, when the disarmament was going on: ‘I was forced to take part with the adherents of the Pretender; for, the country being all in arms, it was neither safe nor indeed possible for me to stand neuter. I should not, however, plead my being forced into this unnatural Rebellion against his Majesty, King George, if I could not at the same time assure your Excellency, that I not only avoided acting offensively against his Majesty’s forces, on all occasions, but, on the contrary, sent his Grace the Duke of Argyle all the intelligence I could, from time to time, of the strength and situation of the rebels, which I hope his Grace will do me the justice to acknowledge.... Had it been in my power as it was in my inclination, I should always have acted for the service of his Majesty King George; and the one reason of my begging the favour of your intercession with his Majesty, for the pardon of my life, is the earnest desire I have to employ it in his service, whose goodness, justice, and humanity are so conspicuous to all mankind.’ This precious letter, signed Robert Campbell, is quoted by Scott (Introduction to ‘Rob Roy,’ edit. 1831), from an authentic narrative, by George Chalmers, of Wade’s proceedings in the Highlands, which narrative is incorporated into the Appendix to