This night’s voyage was like to cost them dire; for they were not long at sea when there came on such a terrible roaring of thunder, preceed’d by such dreadfull flashes of lightning, accompanied with a prodigious poure of rain, so that the whole elements seemed to rebel against them, and threatened to send them every moment to eternity; the wind, which continued to blow fair the whole night, coming about to the north, quite contrary to their course, about twelve o’clock at night, made them despair of continuing their intended voyage any further, and so [they] prepared for death, as being sure to be shattered upon the rocks of the nearest shore. Amidst all these dangers he appeared intrepide, and offered his service to Donald MacDonald and Donald MacLeod, seeing they were the only two that was of any service in the boat, whilst all the rest was oblidged to give it up, stiffened and benumbed with cold. They continued in that agony the whole night, ’till about break of day, when Rory MacDonald, who stood at the helm all the time, discerning Benbicula in south-west, where he knew to be one of the best harbours on that coast, and the wind blowing astern of them, he piloted them into the harbour of Roshiness, within five long miles of Clanranald’s house, which being Sunday, and the 29th of Aprile.[464] They were no sooner landed but they were seen by a herd of Clanranald’s who stayed in the place always to take care of his master’s cattle, and seeing a number of men finely clad, and fully armed, supposing them to be an enemy, he immediately made off, with a nimble pair of heels, and carried the news of what he had seen to his master, as he was at dinner with Mr. John MacAuley,[465] Neil MacDonald,[466] and several other gentlemen. Clanranald, moved by this unexpected surprise, before he resolved upon any thing, sent Donald MacDonald to know the certainty of what the herd had told him. Master MacAulay, who was parish minister in the country, to satisfie his own curiosity sent one of his auditors to learn what they were, from whence they came, and where they were bound for. This fellow, pretending to have been sent thither by Clanranald, upon a report of a boat’s being land’d there, and to examine what they were, learned it was the prince who designed to make for the Lewis in order to make his escape, who came back and told the minister the same. The minister judging that he could not meet with a better opportunity to show his zeal and affection for the government, despatched a courier that same day away to the Herris, with a letter to his father, who was minister there,[467] charging him to write immediately upon receipt of his letter, to Mr. Colin MacKenzie, established minister at Stornoway,[468] informing him of the same, and ordering him to settle all measures with Seaforth’s factor there to apprehend the prince at his first landing.