[Sidenote: _FLORA’S SONS._] Flora, it is well known, married Macdonald of Kingsburgh, settled in America, took the royalist side, when the Colonies revolted, returned to Skye, and gave her five sons to the military or naval service of the Georges! When the latest survivor of the five brothers, Lieut.-Col. Macdonald, was presented to George IV., the imaginative king fancied himself a Stuart, of unmixed blood, and said to those around him: ‘This gentleman is the son of a lady to whom _my family_ owe a great obligation.’ And such was the debt of the ‘family’ for Flora’s five sons. [Illustration: Flower] [Illustration: Decorative banner] CHAPTER XI. (1748 to 1750.) [Sidenote: _DEPRECIATION OF THE STUARTS._] [Illustration: Drop-T]he Government at this time began to be embarrassed with the surviving Jacobite prisoners. Many who were destined for the Plantations, and had made their little melancholy preparations for going into a life-long exile and slavery, were set free unconditionally. Others were variously treated. In January, 1748, Æneas Macdonald was brought from Southwark gaol to the Cockpit, where he was examined by the Dukes of Newcastle, Dorset, and Montague, the Earl of Chesterfield, and others of the Privy Council. It is not known what was got from him; but one result of the examination was that his execution, which had been fixed for Friday, the 22nd, was deferred ‘for some days.’ The report was immediately raised in London that the Earl of Traquair would be tried for his life, and Macdonald would be admitted king’s evidence against him. The report was unfounded, for the earl was soon afterwards liberated on bail. Four dukes――Norfolk, Gordon, Hamilton, and Queensborough――were his sureties. Macdonald was also set free. The Government thought they had captured Lord Elcho at Dover; and the prisoner, with three others, was brought to London, where they proved to be four Jacobite _valets de chambre_, who were on their way to join their escaped rebel masters in France. Other small game continued to be brought to town from time to time, particularly deserters from the duke’s army, when in Carlisle, to that of the Chevalier. For such men there was no mercy. Death, or worse than death, was the penalty. The journals give an account of six deserters being whipt in St. James’s Park. ‘One of them refusing to be tied up to the Halberts, in a very obstreperous manner, was tied and drawn up to a tree, and very severely handled for his obstinacy.’