to be an idle rumour; their numbers were only four hundred. This falsehood did not dishearten the men of Paisley. "They knew," says the chronicler of their feats, "that the Macgregiours and the devil are to be dealt with after the same way; and that if they be resisted, they will flee." On the following morning the party from Paisley went on their expedition, and arrived at Inversnaid. Here, in order to "arouse those thieves and rebels from their dens," they fired a gun through the roof of a house on the declivity of a mountain; upon which an old woman or two came crawling out, and scrambled up the hill; but no other persons appeared. "Whereupon," adds the narrator,[115] "the Paisley men, under the command of Captain Finlason, assisted by Captain Scot, a half-pay officer, of late a lieutenant of Colonel Kerr's regiment of dragoons, who is indeed an officer, wise, stout, and honest; the Dumbarton men, under the command of David Colquhoun and James Duncanson, of Garshark, magistrates of the burgh, with several of the other companies, to the number of an hundred men in all, with the greatest intrepidity leapt on shore, got up to the top of the mountain, and drew up in order, and stood about an hour, their drums beating all the while: but no enemie appearing, they thereupon went in quest of the boats which the rebels had seized; and having casually lighted on some ropes, anchors, and oars hid among the shrubs, at length they found the boats drawn up a good way on the land, which they hurled down to the loch. Such of them as were not damaged, they carried off with them; and such as were, they sunk or hewed in pieces. And that same night they return'd to Luss, and thence next day, without the loss or hurt of so much as one man, to Dumbarton, whence they had first set out altogether, bringing along with them the whole boats they found in their way on either side the loch, and in creeks of the isles, and moored them under the cannon of the castle. And thus in a short time, and with little expense, the M'Greigours were towed, and a way pointed how the Government might easily keep them in awe."