These directions were reiterated, and were also repeated by the pen of
Lady Emilia Murray, to whom her lord sent immediate accounts of all that
occurred. This spirited and indefatigable help-meet resided generally at
Tullibardine. "These," she writes, "were his words, 'I entreat, for
God's sake, that the Duke of Atholl send off the men here immediately,
or they will be too late for arms, targets, tents, &c.; nay, for our
march, which begins on Thursday." All this haste and impetuosity was
meekly but decidedly resisted by the slow Marquis of Tullibardine. He
thus writes in reply to one of his brother's most urgent entreaties:
"About ten o'clock in the afternoon I received your express, dated the
fourth, four o'clock, afternoon, and am very much concerned to find that
it is morally impossible for me, or any of the men in these parts, to be
up with you against Thursday night, the day you say it is resolved, in a
Council of War, to march southward. Did any of us endeavour to make too
much haste to join the Prince, I am afraid we should be like a good milk
cow, that gives a great pail of milk, and after, kicks it down with her
foot. Forgive the comparison."[62]
Other apprehensions also increased the desire of Lord George to begin
his march. "I am desired to let you know," he writes to the Marquis of
Tullibardine, "that there is one Kimber, an anabaptist, who came from
London with a design to assassinate the Prince; he is about twenty-seven
years old, black hair, of a middling stature, and talks fluently and
bluntly about his travels in the West Indies." This man, it was
suspected, afterwards changed his name to Geffreys. He was supposed to
have even been received by the Marquis of Tullibardine at his table, and
to have obtained a pass from him; but nothing more was disclosed, as far
as the correspondence informs us, touching this attempt.
Lord George continued in a fever of vexation and anxiety at the delay of
his brother, upon whose arrival at the camp, the march to England was to
begin. Public affairs in England favoured, as he justly thought, the
most decisive measures. "Everything," he writes to his brother, "is in
great confusion in England, particularly in London, where credite is at
a stand. The greatest banquiers have stopt payment; all would go to our
wish, if we could but march instantly. If you delay longer," Lord George
adds, "it will be the utter ruine of the cause. You should wait for
nobody but your own men." The arrival of supplies from France, of arms
and ammunition, though they were represented as being very inferior in
quantity to what had been expected, gave encouragement to the hopes of
the sanguine; and re-assured in some degree, even the anxious mind of
Lord George Murray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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