The Austrians, after all, lost the day, and a certain Miles Macdonnell rescued our hero, and had him carried into hospital. Recovering, he returned to Rome, and was welcomed in a flattering manner both by his King, who presented him with a sum of money, and by the young Duke of York. After seeing some service on the Po, young Macdonell obtained leave to go to France and join a detachment which was to aid Prince Charles in Scotland. At Lyons they heard of the Prince’s defeat of Hawley at Falkirk, but at Paris the news was worse, and of all the Jacobite volunteers (who were Irish) John Macdonell alone persevered. He urged that, as the Prince’s affairs went ill, ‘It was ungenerous not to give what aid we were capable of, but I could not prevail on any of them to be of my opinion.’ In fact, it was now plain that France did not mean to lend any solid assistance to the Cause. The Duke of York since Christmas had been waiting at Dunkirk and Boulogne, expecting permission to sail for England with a large force, but delay followed delay. Young Macdonell now went to Boulogne, where he met the Duke, and was introduced by him to the Duc de Fitzjames and to Lally Tollendal. Here the good Colonel’s memory deceives him, for he avers that Lally wished to take him to Pondicherry. Now Lally was deep in the Scottish rising, and did not leave France for India till ten years after 1746.[108] Young Macdonell, in these weeks of hope deferred, lived with the Duke of York at Boulogne, Dunkirk, and St. Omer. Finally, he set sail from Dunkirk with several Irish officers on the very day of Culloden, April 16. Here the Colonel is guilty of an artistic blunder in his narrative. It is plain, from his later statements, that the Duke of York made him the bearer of a letter, and a sum of 1,500_l._ or 2,000_l._ in gold, to Prince Charles. But we do not hear, till later, of the money or the missive. The little company with Macdonell rounded the Orkneys, landed in Loch Broom, and at once heard the fatal news of Culloden. Macdonell’s uncle, Scottus, had fallen with twenty of his men, ‘and nobody knew what was become of the Prince.’ Colonel Macdonell never gives dates, but he must have arrived in Loch Broom between May 8 and May 12, 1746. On May 8, a meeting of chiefs was held at Murlagan, and a tryst appointed at Loch Arkaig, in Lochiel’s country, for May 15.[109] Our hero heard something of this at Loch Broom, and determined to join the rallied clans. He first went to Laggy, at the head of Little Loch Broom, where he found Colin Dearg Mackenzie of Laggy, with several other Mackenzie gentlemen, and sixty of the clan. ‘We thought ourselves as safe [he and his friend, Lynch, an Irish officer,] as in the heart of France.’