Outlaws -- Fiction; Rob Roy, 1671-1734 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 1689-1745 -- Fiction
The newspapers observed that his body, after hanging the usual time, was
delivered to his friends to be carried to the Highlands. To this the
recollection of a venerable friend, recently taken from us in the fulness
of years, then a schoolboy at Linlithgow, enables the author to add, that
a much larger body of MacGregors than had cared to advance to Edinburgh
received the corpse at that place with the coronach and other wild
emblems of Highland mourning, and so escorted it to Balquhidder. Thus we
may conclude this long account of Rob Roy and his family with the classic
phrase,
Ite. Conclamatum est.
I have only to add, that I have selected the above from many anecdotes of
Rob Roy which were, and may still be, current among the mountains where
he flourished; but I am far from warranting their exact authenticity.
Clannish partialities were very apt to guide the tongue and pen, as well
as the pistol and claymore, and the features of an anecdote are
wonderfully softened or exaggerated as the story is told by a MacGregor
or a Campbell.
APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.
No. I.--ADVERTISEMENT
FOR THE APPREHENSION OF ROB ROY.
(From the Edinburgh Evening Courant, June 18 to June 21, A.D. 1732. No.
1058.)
“That Robert Campbell, commonly known by the name of Rob Roy MacGregor,
being lately intrusted by several noblemen and gentlemen with
considerable sums for buying cows for them in the Highlands, has
treacherously gone off with the money, to the value of L1000 sterling,
which he carries along with him. All Magistrates and Officers of his
Majesty's forces are intreated to seize upon the said Rob Roy, and the
money which he carries with him, until the persons concerned in the money
be heard against him; and that notice be given, when he is apprehended,
to the keepers of the Exchange Coffee-house at Edinburgh, and the keeper
of the Coffee-house at Glasgow, where the parties concerned will be
advertised, and the seizers shall be very reasonably rewarded for their
pains.”
It is unfortunate that this Hue and Cry, which is afterwards repeated in
the same paper, contains no description of Rob Roy's person, which, of
course, we must suppose to have been pretty generally known. As it is
directed against Rob Roy personally, it would seem to exclude the idea of
the cattle being carried off by his partner, MacDonald, who would
certainly have been mentioned in the advertisement, if the creditors
concerned had supposed him to be in possession of the money.
No. II.--LETTERS
FROM AND TO THE DUKE OF MONTROSE
RESPECTING ROB ROY'S ARREST OF MR. GRAHAME OF KILLEARN.
_The Duke of Montrose to--_*
* It does not appear to whom this letter was addressed. Certainly, from
its style and tenor, It was designed for some person high in rank and
office--perhaps the King's Advocate for the time.
“Glasgow, the 21st November, 1716.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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