Highlanders, but in vain. There was mutual distrust. The chiefs were willing to come to terms, but they suspected that Breadalbane meant to deceive them and to keep a portion of the cash in his own Sporran. He, on the other hand--ill-doers being usually ill-dreaders--thought that they were playing a double game. More than a year passed in fruitless negotiations, and the autumn of 1691 saw the matter unsettled. At last Lord Stair and the other advisers of the King resolved to try the effect of threats as well as bribes; and in August they issued a proclamation promising an indemnity to every rebel who should swear the oath of allegiance in the presence of a Civil Magistrate before the 1st January 1692, and threatening with dire penalties, letters of fire and sword, as they were called, all who delayed beyond that day. The proclamation was drawn up by Stair in conjunction with Breadalbane. He had wished to form a Highland Regiment in favour of Government, and to get, if possible, all the Highland chiefs to transfer their allegiance from King James to the New Dynasty. This he found very difficult. The chiefs were fond enough of the money, but fonder at heart of the Stewarts. Many of them, including the Macdonalds stood out for more favourable terms. The negotiations were broken off, and the fatal proclamation was issued. Stair's letters show to a certainty that he and King William's Government cherished the hope that the chiefs would not submit at all, or at least that they would hold on beyond the prescribed time. Like Hyder Ali, as described by Burke, he had determined, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to make the broad Highlands a monument of his vengeance. The great object, let it be remembered, of the Government was to get the troops employed in the Highlands disengaged and free for service in other places. To serve this purpose they were willing to pay a certain sum, but if this proved ineffectual they were still more willing to inflict summary punishment on the principal offenders. Hence Stair had collected troops at Inverlochy, had resolved to take advantage of the winter when the passes would be probably stopped with snow, and when the Highlanders, not expecting the attack, would be likely to fall an easy prey. And thus, not like an injured and infuriated Hyder Ali, but like a tiger on the edge of his jungle, did this inhuman lawyer lie eagerly biding his time. Hear his own language illustrating a character whom Macaulay elaborately defends. "If the rest are willing, as crows do, to pull down Glengarry's nest so as the King be not hindered from drawing four regiments from Scotland, in that case the destroying him and his clan will be to the full as acceptable as his coming in." What a fiend in the form of one pretending to worship equity and distribute justice!