James’s army now beat a retreat, with no point to make for, as Inverness was in the hands of the enemy. Mar, therefore, advised James, who had not ammunition enough for one day’s fight (thanks to Bolingbroke, said the Jacobites), to take ship at Montrose. If he stayed, the enemy would make their utmost efforts to come up with and capture him. If he departed, the retreating Highlanders would be less hotly pursued. James consulted Marischal, who wished to offer no opinion, alleging ‘his age and want of experience,’ says Keith.[4] Finally, he privately admitted to Mar that ‘he did not think it for the King’s honour, nor for that of the nation, to give up the game without putting it to a tryall.’ Powder enough for one day’s fight could be got at Aberdeen; he hoped to gain recruits as they went North, and, at worst, James, if beaten, could escape from the West coast. ‘Mar seemed to be convinced of the truth of this’ (very like Bobbing John); ‘however, a ship was already provided,’ and James, with Mar, Melfort, and others, eloped; the King characteristically leaving all his money to recompense the peasants who had suffered by the war. James was no coward, he had charged the English lines repeatedly, at the head of the Royal Household, in the battle of Malplaquet, where he was wounded. In his journey from Lorraine to the coast he had run the gauntlet of Stair’s cut-throats. But a Scottish winter, a starveling force, no powder, and Mar’s advice, had taken the heart out of the adventurer. According to Mar, the Earl had orders to sail with the King, ‘who waited on the ship above an hour and a half, but, by what accident we yet know not, they did not come, and there was no waiting longer.’[5] ‘The King and we are in no small pain to know what is become of our friends wee left behind.’ D’Alembert says that the Earl refused to sail. ‘Your Majesty is to protect yourself for your friends. I shall share the sorrows of those who remain true to you in Scotland, I shall gather them, and shall not leave without them.’ If Mar tells truth, the Earl can have made no such speech. A modest man, he remained at his duty without rhetoric.