The first step he took towards joining the Rebels (though it was not so construed at the time) was declining to accept of a Commission for his son Lord McLeod[300] to be Captain of one of the independent companies, offered him by the Lord President. He pretended for so doing a disobligement, being refused by the President the nomination of the Subalterns of said companie. After this he was observed to associate with Lord Lovat, and in the meantime Lord McLeod, his eldest son, repaired to the Highlands of Lochbroom and Cogach, where his Lordship has a considerable estate, vassalage, and superiority, being Heritable Sherriff. Lord McLeod raised the men there; but it was yet pretended this rising was for the defence of his house and person, as Lord Lovat had raised his people and kept them about him under the same pretext. Soon after the Battle of Preston, McDonald of Barisdale[301] came to this country and was with my Lord openly at his house at Newtarbet, which gave the first rise to any suspicion about the Earl, especially as there was such preparation, as the making of Highland clothes, providing of Arms, and ammunition: but to cover this, it was pretended his Lordship intended a journey to Edinburgh, and must have a strong guard. However early in November he openly declared himself, and went from his house at Newtarbet to West Ross, where a part of his estate lies, and was joined by his son Lord McLeod, with twixt two and three hundred of his men, taken from Lochbroom and Cogach and off his Estate in West Ross, having got none to follow him from his estate about Newtarbet which is in East Ross, but about ten men who were his menial servants and a young gentleman Roderick McCulloch of Glastalich,[302] one of his vassals, and whose family and friends had no connection with Jacobitism, and whom it is generally allowed the Earl decoyed into the Rebellion. He then marched to the Lord Lovat’s house, where he was joined by the master of Lovat, with 300 Frasers and both went to Perth.