Presently it appeared, from a letter of the Court Trusty, or Secret Service man, Bruce,[121] who attended Pickle in Edinburgh, that he now, by his father’s death, was head of a great clan. Pickle’s father’s death occurred in September 1754. Now, on examination, it appeared that Old Glengarry, and no other Chief, died on September 1, 1754, in Edinburgh, where we find Pickle, with Young Lochgarry, in mid September. Pickle, writes Bruce, the Court Trusty (signing ‘Cromwell’) is adulated by military society in Edinburgh, where he stays for at least a month. He is to be observed, when he goes North, by the Governor of Fort Augustus, near which lie Glengarry’s lands. The Governor (Trapaud) writes unfavourably of the new Glengarry (December 13, 1754), and Pickle writes that he will, if not permitted the use of arms, prevent officers from shooting over his lands. Pickle then is, or affects to be, a young Chief, just come, by his father’s death at Edinburgh, in September, into estates near Fort Augustus. He is also, or pretends to be, the chief of the Macdonnells, for he says (April 1754), ‘there could be no rising in Scotland without the Macdonnells: he is sure that he shall have the _first_ notice of anything of the kind; and he is sure that the Young Pretender would do nothing without him.’ Finally (as stated on p. 209), writing to the Duke of Newcastle (Feb. 19, 1760), he speaks of Pickle in the third person, says that he is ready to raise a Highland regiment (which only a Chief could do), and ends, ‘Direction’ (of reply) ‘To Alexander Mackdonnell, of Glengary, by Foraugustus.’ Before I read that line, I had said to a Highland friend, ‘The traitor is a Macdonald.’ ‘Not Clanranald, I hope,’ he answered, and then Pickle’s last letter gave me the clue to Glengarry. Thus there was, and could be, no ‘prepossession’ on my part. The circumstances all pointed direct to Glengarry, or to a personator of his, and to no one else. Thus it became a ‘working hypothesis’ that Pickle either was, or was personating, Glengarry: a Chief on terms of perfect intimacy with Prince Charles. He was, or affected to be, a Macdonnell, a Chief, with lands near Fort Augustus, to which he succeeded by his father’s death in September 1754, the date of the death of Old Glengarry. Taking Pickle’s identity, natural or feigned, with Young Glengarry, as a working hypothesis, it became necessary to trace the career of that chief. At every stage, in every detail and date, after 1750, whatever was true of Young Glengarry was found to be true of Pickle. Every gleam of light that revealed the long forgotten incidents of Young Glengarry’s career, after 1750, fell also on the sinister features of Pickle. My hypothesis thus ‘colligated’ all the facts. New facts from MSS. came into view after my book was published; my hypothesis colligated these also. Everything fell into its place: everything coincided in the identification of Pickle with Young Glengarry.